Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Professions Galore

Powerleveling a profession is a pretty mind numbing tedious process.

Some professions are nice in that you can click the "create all" button and just let 'er rip on autopilot through the levels. First Aid is nice in this regard.

Others, like enchanting, just suck for powerleveling. If you're a silly goose and just enchanting the same item over and over, rather than using the new and beautiful Vellums that will allow you to actually retain those enchants for actual use at some point, you have to click the enchant button, click the piece of armor you want to enchant, and then click yes on the confirmation dialogue box. Uggy.

One thing that all professional powerleveling have in common is the need for copious amounts of materials.

This past weekend was chock full 'o professions.

Inscription. Enchanting. Blacksmithing.

As with just about everything in life, I invite my own pain.

I've got my Miner (and thus, my smelter who can turn ores into bars) on one account.

I've been mailing all my ores and stones over to a toon on another account.

And I've got my new Blacksmith on the same account as the Miner.

Combine this with a burned out laptop, and as such only one computer in action, and you've got my Alt-Tab keys just absolutely being abused all weekend, trading mats back and forth, back and forth between the toons. Logging in, trading, smelting, trading back, logging out, logging back in on other toon, trading back, crafting for 5 blacksmith skill points. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Would be made easier by the use of a guild bank, but I'm a jackass and have all my tabs totally filled up, and so this is not a viable option.

When mats get low, get back on the Miner, fly out to Arathi or Un'goro or Silithus or Blasted Lands or the one that's south of Searing Gorge and has lots of Thorium, run a few laps around the zone, mail the mats. And repeat the process over and over.

And then to take a break, go hop over to the Enchanter and enchant, re-enchant, re-re-enchant, to keep the levels moving on that one. Until you get to the transition to a new type of runed rod. Then you've got to jump back to the Blacksmith to keep that skill moving up until you can craft the proper rod.

See the real problem is that I'm going the frugal route here. I'm refusing to pay for any external mats here. I'm hovering right around the Mini-Van down payment, and I won't succumb to the extortion that's going on on the AH right now.

The end result is just plain mind numbing. But fun. I'm finally getting close to realizing my age-old vision of wanting a self-sufficient family of professional toons.

The Inscriptor is up to the point where she is milling Outlands herbs, w00t.

The Blacksmith still needs to craft a bunch of Thorium gear, and I used up all my Thorium. Went out to farm some more. Became hugely frustrated by the Necropolis invasion, because its attracting lots of farmers to zones that would otherwise be barren. Tanaris, Blasted Lands and the one south of Searing Gorge (morgan's vigil flight path) are all nearly useless to me for Thorium right now. I'm still on an anti-Ungoro kick, so Silithus was the place, and it was doing rather nicely. A commenter on this blog, mandm413, recently recommended Winterspring for Thorium, so I think I'm gonna try that one out, even though it'll require me to do a little work to get the Timbermaw to let me use their tunnel.

The Enchanter is stuck in a little deadzone that requires more Greater Nether Essence, which I've only got a couple left. AH prices are insane for GNE, so Ima have to look up what dungeons drop gear that DE's to Nether Essence and give it a couple of farming runs.

And to make sure that all this professional progress is emotionally fulfilling, I've got to keep reminding myself that I'll be revisiting the low level areas again when I hit up Jewelcrafting, Alchemy, and Engineering.

I've got issues.

2 comments:

Rusty said...

I'm right there with ya. I'm leveling another hunter just for Enchanting.

Once that's done, I'll only have Blacksmithing that's not covered, and since I only like playing Priest and Hunters, I can't see any real reason to level it.

Dax

Rusty said...

doh! Make that "Priests"....