Playing partners too busy? :( Take out the bank alt!

So, sometime back I chose mage for a bank alt so I wouldn't be tempted to play it. Only now, my mains' companion is away, my uncle too, and my son too busy. I've limited myself to playing solo only when a toon has rest xp.

So my bank alt gets to play after all. But which spec? Darn, I can't find my source now... who was it that laid out the playing style for the different specs? Whatever, Arcane sounded simplest (dullest?) to play. While I'm tempted by the mage pet of Frost, my uncle is playing Fire and I feel like something different. As it happens, simple suits me well for a 9th toon, so Arcane it is. Now HOW to spec it? I've begun by choosing which seems most useful, but then I'm only level 15.

In future, I might look to advice from:

• Cherisa D Hays: World of Warcraft Arcane, Frost & Fire Mage Talent Trees & Glyphs
• Jason Zimmerman: Arcane Mage Spec for Patch 4.0.1
• Christian Belt: WoW Cataclysm Beta: Mage talents and specializations / Arcane Brilliance: Getting your mage up and running in 4.0.1

Pondering Primary Paladin

Moontulip (59), Aman'thul

What do you do when you can't sleep?

Munch through a movie? Attack an assignment? Conquer countless Kakuro?

Why not Patch your Paladin? I'd have been way more alliterative if only I'd gone protection. And with Dungeon Finder levelling appears to be more popular through dungeons than questing. But this first pally of mine harvests skins and ore so she needs to be out so I quest and harvest at the same time to prevent monotony from either.

I didn't look very far but three of the top results I glanced at shared the same recommendation for build, so I began along that line with the points I have so far at 59... Then I discovered Caer Morrighan's action plan and I'll be considering the allocation suggested there.

My next challenge (at some point, though the game may change all over again before I get around to it) is to rediscover how to play pally, what attacks and controls to use.

For rotation I could start with advice from Dan Wolfe at Gameolosophy:

Aoe:

CS-Judge-Holy Wrath-DS-Conc now you can wait until your holy power is at 3 for more powerful divine storms.

Single Target:

CS-Judge-TV-Exorcism on proc once again you can wait until you have 3 holy power for max Templar’s Verdict hits.

Is that significantly different from Caer Morrighan? I don't know, I've finally begun to tire, so before I lose that I'm going to try again to sleep... Caer's plan [update 14 November...after some playtime... Caer's plan changed]. Ignoring for now the comments on Zealotry and Avenging Wrath that I just don't have to worry about for several more levels:

Single target

* Crusader Strike (CS) - Filler - CS - Filler + Use Templar’s Verdict (TV) whenever its
a) free or b) you have 3 Holy Power (HP) overriding the normal rotation.
Filler Priority: Hammer of Wrath > Exorcism with Art of War only > Judgement > Holy Wrath > Consecration

Multiple targets

* As above with Divine Storm replacing TV

Oh dear, before I play I'll also need to re-gear... Caer tells me "Agility is now bad." :( Apparently I need to look to:

Cap hit and expertise. After this, ... Strength. And Haste/crit.

Unholy ?fun with WoW 4.0.1 patch Death Knight

Missing dancing tonight after a cold hit my chest so that breathing hurts... I decided to spend the pre-sleep evening choosing a talent build for my death knight. While exploring the advice out there I had to battle my aversion to the whole persona of a death knight.

The talent tree summaries only helped by [probably] eliminating Blood, because I'm not really comfortable with a tanking role. Still left Frost and Unholy. I would avoid Unholy because it just sounds icky, but I felt I needed a more thoughtful reason.

Guide4wow helped me out by identifying, in their opinion, Unholy as the faster levelling build... and I'm still levelling.

I still needed advice with a rotation. Many months ago when I last played the dk, I never did gain any certainty over which spells/attacks to use. In this I've taken initial advice from Vraagar's lens: Unholy Death Knight DPS Guide and Death Knight Builds.

For my own future reference because who knows when I'll actually play this toon, and by then I'll have lost the links to the above advisers, and will have forgotten what their abbreviations mean, the plan is:

For solo targets/victims (check in Unholy Presence):

1. (I won't always start with this, but then 1 is never in my typical rotation) Neither adviser mentioned Death Grip but I have it at 1 on my action bar just because it was there before and I think I had a good reason for it, but I'm open to advice against that.
2. "Diseases Up" apparently means attack with Icy Touch (for the disease Frost Fever) ...
3. ...and Plague Strike (for disease Blood Plague)
4. Dark Transformation [?if] Active
5. Scourge Strike (U F) [I guess that means it needs an Unholy and a Frost Rune although the game says just an Unholy]
6. Festering Strike (B F) [needs Blood & Frost Rune]
7. Death Coil on Sudden Doom proc [Sudden Doom is an unholy talent, maxed at 15% chance to occur from auto attacks - making Death Coil not cost runic power]
   
8. Mr 12 uses Obliterate after diseases, but he is a Frost Death Knight.
9. Mr 12 doesn't advise using Rune Strike 

AoE Rotation (switch to Frost Presence)

• Mouse click Horn of Winter [ DKB advised this at end of rotation, but as it lasts 2 minutes I don't really understand why not to start as strong as possible]

1. No Death Grip in this case
2. Diseases ...
3. ...up and spread to everything with 
• Pestilence
4. Dark Transformation [?if] Active
• Death and Decay
5. Scourge Strike
• Blood Boil
6. Festering Strike if BB and FF runes up.
7. Death Coil on Sudden Doom proc

All that other fun stuff I have no idea - use the anti-magic, anti-spellcaster stuff if fighting a spellcaster I guess, but when to use Blood Strike or Death Strike, or Gargoyle - {shrugs}