Come Get Da Voodoo

Since this is going to be a post about World of Warcraft, I’ll spare those of you uninterested in such overt geekery the rambling thoughts that follow. Just pretend I’m reviewing The Hurt Locker or something.

I have an idea for a troll character. She began her life as one of the Gurubashi, but a raid on her tribal village left her orphaned and a slave at the hands of cruel masters, likely the Bloodsail Buccaneers. Under the thankless and brutal conditions of life at sea, treated like a pet at the best of times and a nuisance at the worst, her blood boiled with seething hatred and a thirst for revenge. A terrible storm in the South Seas threw her overboard, and she washed up on the shores of Zandalar. Taken in by the trolls of the island, her only thought was to grow strong enough to leave and visit bloody vengeance against those who had stolen her family and childhood. Rather than promoting her bloodlust, the Zandalari helped her understand that her feelings were being fueled by the influence of Hakkar, the Soulflayer, and if she wished to remain sane, she needed to turn away from them. After a long struggle, she distanced herself from the maddening desires, and found comfort in the guidance of the Loa and the ancient troll ways of alchemy and voodoo. When she was of age, King Rastakhan told her to leave with the Darkspear delegation that came to the next meeting in Zuldazar. Arriving in Durotar, she resolved to rise above the circumstances of her childhood, moving through her current state of being into something closer to an ideal troll, as exemplified by the Zandalari and the legends she learned during her time among them. And if she should happen to come across the Bloodsail Buccaneers in her travels, so much the better.

I definitely see her as a troll witch doctor. Her name, Mambo, is the Haitian Creole word for a Voodoo priestess. And if you look up ‘witch doctor’ on Wikipedia, there’s more than one mention of shamanism. This puts me in an interesting dilemma: both priest and shaman are viable classes for Mambo, given her story, and I want her to be a healer. But which class do I choose?

I’ve played a priest into the 30s before. While I enjoy their heals, especially the effectiveness of dropping single-target heals on the tank in a tight spot, their leveling reminds me of playing an affliction warlock. This isn’t to say that it isn’t fun, I just need to consider the fact that I also have my warlock whom I’d like to level at some point, considering what a blast he is to role-play. I could try leveling him in a different spec, or Mambo could level as Holy or Discipline. The priest class does have two different healing specs to offer, and one thing I want to do in a group is have versatility. Even my main, a hunter, brings advantages to the table other than shooting the guns to make the mobs fall down, in the form of engineering-based defibrillation and a growing menu of culinary choices.

The shaman seems to have a slight edge in terms of versatility. The specialization options are melee DPS, ranged DPS or healing. Shaman heals differ from priest heals in that none of them are instant-cast, but they also bring a lot of buffs to the table, and there’s also the fact that a shaman is likely to be less fragile than a priest or druid. I also don’t have a melee class at the moment, and it’ll be a while before I can transfer my old-school Grunt-titled undead warrior. Finally, a lot of people are saying shamans will be more popular with the changes coming in the new patch, but that’s information mostly from the WoW forums, where shaman players like to cry about how unwanted they are.

I’ve been trying to decide on Mambo’s class for a while now. And I still haven’t settled on one or the other. I’m willing to entertain opinions…