This past weekend I had the great fortune to run a couple dungeons with the Strawberries on my blood elf priest Srirajah. It was a lot of fun running with my friends again and somewhat surreal that I was doing it on a class I hadn’t played before with them. We’re all relearning how to play a bit as Blizzard keeps changing spell powers, threat generation, and so on, but we got it all sorted and had a great time!
Taking Srirajah into the Shadowlands felt surreal to begin with because I leveled her rather fast thanks to the help of the Strawberries, and because I got to skip all of Battle for Azeroth on her. I basically took her from Draenor to the brief Death’s Rising event, and then started her in Shadowlands last week. I’m doing threads of fate on her so I could immediately pick her Covenant and bounce around to the different areas for leveling.
I originally aligned Srirajah with the Necrolords because I like their aesthetic but after playing for a few days with their priest Covenant abilities, I found them underwhelming. So I switched to Kyrian and I’m really enjoying their Covenant abilities and the amount of healing and damage Boon of the Ascended generates. Plus, having an adorable owl steward at my beck and call is rather handy and sweet.
Playing a new class with the Strawberries isn’t necessarily new for me, but aside from the Headless Horseman dungeon event, I haven’t done it in a while. For the Nya raid I started on my hunter Sriset, then switched to my demon hunter Srilari, and then finally settled on my warlock Salxi (who I renamed Srixi for the Nya runs, but who is now Salxi again). But for Shadowlands dungeons and raids, I’m planning on playing Srirajah and learning heals.
As I’m not quite ready to jump into healing with the Strawberries, I wasn’t sure if I should even do dungeons with them this weekend, but I was encouraged by members of the group and as we had our awesome healer Alla going along, I wouldn’t have to heal. Srirajah was only level 55 at that point and non-healing priests have to play shadow spec for dps, which annoys me because prefer discipline when I’m solo questing or questing with friends. Discipline is a nice balanced spec of damage and healing and I really think priests should be able to play it as dps in dungeons, but my opinion means very little in the World of Warcraft.
Fortunately, I’ve played shadow spec on my nightborne priest Trehvos for years and on my void elf priest Zarivia for a bit before switching to disc on her too, so I know what I’m doing for the most part. I wish I could be as versatile in dungeons as I am questing in disc spec but I think I contributed pretty well and I had fun, which is the most important part with the Strawberries.
Although I’ve done a few other Shadowlands dungeons with the Strawberries since the expansion released, they were on my hunter Sriset. I love Sriset but I got used to Srirajah and her heals and damage and she’s who I plan on maining Horde side this expansion. Alliance side I’ll be maining Zarivia, who I’m taking through the timeline instead of Threads of Fate so I can experience it from the blue side.
I have a long way to go as far as learning heals goes, but I enjoyed playing shadow priest with the Strawberries and flexing Srirajah’s magical muscles. It was cool being in the dungeon with friends from different Covenants because we could all benefit from cool abilities depending on the dungeon. I imagine Covenants and their abilities will be reworked and modified as time passes, but it adds a fun new dimension to playing with a group and helps all of us reflect a bit more personality in our characters.
I suppose the most surreal part of Srirajah in Shadowlands is that I’m playing her in the Strawberry group, which not long ago I feared would go poof once this new expasion came out. But I’m happy that I was proven wrong and that our Warcraft family has endured through N’Zoth and grown stronger and closer with each passing day. Questing, dungeons, and eventually raiding together are definitely our jam! Pun intended. đŸ˜‰
Srinity 