For the first time in my illustrious WoW career, I now have two max level toons.
Yay, me!
A Druid, planning on being a tank in alt-PvE runs and an occasional healer in Battlegrounds.
On to the quickies...
) Crafting and Enchanting: With aspirations of tanking comes the responsibility of gearing. So I did a little homework, bought up a king's ransom of leatherworking materials, gems, and enchanting materials, found my crafters, and have a nice shiny toon who might just be able to squeak through a heroic or two to begin the gearing process.
) Inscription FTW: This girl gets to skip over the Hodir's grind for shoulder enchant. Although from what I can tell, now that the initial surge is long gone, Dundernifflem is way more tolerable than when Amava ground through.
) Bring forth the Dual-Specs: I've got no problem forking over the cash to swap between tanking and healing, but I do have a problem re-assigning my talent points, changing my action bars, glyphs, and whatever. I'm slightly looking forward to dual-spec for my Hunter to switch between glass-cannon-dps-pet mode and full-blown-tank-pet mode. But for the druid, dual-spec will be a many splendored thing.
) Her First Heroic: Of course, being in a guild with some outstanding tanks, my little girl had to DPS her way through her first heroic, which was pretty pathetic given that (A) she's spec'ed and geared for dodge, stamina, and threat, and (B) I suck royal sausage at melee DPS. You want me to stand where?
) Her First Loot: And also of course, the first three sweet sweet leather drops are....healer items. So she's got a headstart on her healing set, which'll come in handy at some point, I'm sure.
) The best way to replace an item is to enchant it: Perhaps the shortest lived Mongoose enchant ever. That first heroic run also yielded a decent tanking pole, which Bears learned how to equip with patch 3.0.8. Now if I can only find the weapons trainer who does polearms.
) Swift Flight Form FT-mutha-f'ing-W: Its not even funny how imba swift flight form is. Instant cast? Loot quest items or herbs from the ground without breaking form? And most importantly at this here home of the frivolous entertainment, able to click instance summoning portals with a glowing beak? Just fantastic, I highly recommend it.
) And finally: Pretty interesting to have a max-level toon who technically has very little aspiration. No particular achievements (especially since she already has Jenkins from a fun-run following Amava and friends through Something-RBS back while leveling), no stress to max out cooking or fishing, no real gearing up pressure beyond the basics to tank or heal heroics. Nice to have a toon that's here pretty much to fart around and have fun with, while leaving the srrs biznis to Amava.
Showing posts with label alts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alts. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
The Rebirth of CC
One of the toons that I do the daily cooking quest on is my level 69 Shaman.
She lives in Dalaran, really only leaving the city to pick carrots, or to occasionally follow Amava around and skin mass quantities of rhinos.
But the other day, I have no idea why I was looking, but I noticed that she had been given a refund of her talent points. Must have been some patch or other mixed shammies up enough to warrant a refund.
So I figured...why not throw the points into the Resto tree and see what this healing nonsense is all aboot.
Have you tried to get a run together for a normal mode dungeon lately? Not a whole lot of demand for that as it would turn out.
But, there were a few players in Amava's guild who wanted to go, and a brief visit to LFM channel found the rest.
Best part...tank was a level 69 Death Knight....
Who admitted he was high as a kite.
Meh. Whatever, we were just trying to have a fun run, no pressure. That's the beauty of finishing raid content very efficiently. If you've carved the time out of your schedule, but finish raid early, you can fart around with Smoke Dog the DK Tank.
(A) The hunter with us was confusing the hell out of me because I kept thinking his pet was my pet. /tap [forehead] Oh, right, I'm a shammy.
(B) What on earth do you want me to do now? I've got totems, I've got shields, I've got weapon enchants, I've got some spells or something.
Luckily, one of the guildies knows a bit about shamans, and the other knows lots about healing, and they're both extremely patient, which was just outstanding.
However, Smoke Dog's tanking ability was not outstanding.
I suppose we could blame the healer for the early trash wipes, since he's total noob and still wearing attack power belt and boots.
But we love the healer, so we're gonna look elsewhere and see what we can do with our motley crew.
Tank McTankerton was a bit squishy. And was pulling everything in sight. Ok, stop that!
And we've got a mage who's just itching to show off his cute Turtle Polymorph.
And somebody playing his Hunter alt, champing at the bit to try some chain trapping.
Lets Doo Eet! Sheep the moon, trap the square, I'll try to heal stuff, gogogogogoggogo!
It really was pretty cool again. The alt-Hunter did a great job trapping. Sheepy was spot on with his job. Despite having a kiddy pool for mana, the healer was sorta keeping people alive. Smoke Dog was showing signs of his mind altered state, but whatever, it was fun. And I dinged 70 while turning in the quest for the guy's head, so that didn't hurt the fun-factor at all.
We were relying upon the ancient art of crowd control, and every pull that we survived was actually a sense of accomplishment.
She lives in Dalaran, really only leaving the city to pick carrots, or to occasionally follow Amava around and skin mass quantities of rhinos.
But the other day, I have no idea why I was looking, but I noticed that she had been given a refund of her talent points. Must have been some patch or other mixed shammies up enough to warrant a refund.
So I figured...why not throw the points into the Resto tree and see what this healing nonsense is all aboot.
LFG normal mode UK
Have you tried to get a run together for a normal mode dungeon lately? Not a whole lot of demand for that as it would turn out.
But, there were a few players in Amava's guild who wanted to go, and a brief visit to LFM channel found the rest.
Best part...tank was a level 69 Death Knight....
Who admitted he was high as a kite.
Meh. Whatever, we were just trying to have a fun run, no pressure. That's the beauty of finishing raid content very efficiently. If you've carved the time out of your schedule, but finish raid early, you can fart around with Smoke Dog the DK Tank.
Where's my pet, and what the hell do I do now?
(A) The hunter with us was confusing the hell out of me because I kept thinking his pet was my pet. /tap [forehead] Oh, right, I'm a shammy.
(B) What on earth do you want me to do now? I've got totems, I've got shields, I've got weapon enchants, I've got some spells or something.
Luckily, one of the guildies knows a bit about shamans, and the other knows lots about healing, and they're both extremely patient, which was just outstanding.
However, Smoke Dog's tanking ability was not outstanding.
The Rebirth of CC
I suppose we could blame the healer for the early trash wipes, since he's total noob and still wearing attack power belt and boots.
But we love the healer, so we're gonna look elsewhere and see what we can do with our motley crew.
Tank McTankerton was a bit squishy. And was pulling everything in sight. Ok, stop that!
And we've got a mage who's just itching to show off his cute Turtle Polymorph.
And somebody playing his Hunter alt, champing at the bit to try some chain trapping.
Lets Doo Eet! Sheep the moon, trap the square, I'll try to heal stuff, gogogogogoggogo!
It was awesome
It really was pretty cool again. The alt-Hunter did a great job trapping. Sheepy was spot on with his job. Despite having a kiddy pool for mana, the healer was sorta keeping people alive. Smoke Dog was showing signs of his mind altered state, but whatever, it was fun. And I dinged 70 while turning in the quest for the guy's head, so that didn't hurt the fun-factor at all.
We were relying upon the ancient art of crowd control, and every pull that we survived was actually a sense of accomplishment.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Two pair of Twins
Get ready to cry a river for Amava. I'm sure you'll all be full of pity at this one.
The RAF bonus has clearly made me lose my marbles.
The first set of twins boosted straight to 58. They're now happily playing like real toons, with two actual people playing them, on two separate computers, questing as a duo in Hellfire, no more big sister run throughs. Ding 60 last night. Hop, skip, and jump over to Exodar to find the Elephant guy. Totally forget that back in the good old days, a toon actually had to earn her gold, and get the smack in the face surprise at around 600 gold each for the epic land mount and training. Grr!
And then, the second set of twins. Following Amava around Hellfire grinding Orcs and Helboars, anxiously waiting for 55, the minimum level to enter Ramparts. These two are gonna milk the run throughs for everything they've got. Like this morning, seconds after dinging 55. 25 minutes in the belly of the beast, Amava, Bubbles, and the two girls, Normal-mode Ramparts. 25 minutes. Cleared up to and including the first boss. 60% of the XP to get to level 56. 25 freakin minutes. Levelin' like it oughta be!
So in the next few days, these little ladies likely gonna hit 60 also.
Will it be another 1200 gold for their riding, or does a Druid get an epic travel form and a Paladin get a free mount like at40 30?
I'm sure you're all sad to hear about my 2400 gold expense on fast cars for my babies, so everybody get their tiny violins and start playin', I feel like a song.
Let's just hope all 4 don't ding 70 at the same time, or ding 70 before November 13th, or else tough decision time between new epic flyers or the Mini-Van.
Oh, and that's not to even mention of the Rogue who went from 36 to 59 in about 2 minutes, thanks to the grant-a-level, although she's unlikely to see any action other than crafting in the foreseeable future. But she's .5 bubbles away from 60 also, due to some fancy planning on when to begin granting-a-levels.
The RAF bonus has clearly made me lose my marbles.
The first set of twins boosted straight to 58. They're now happily playing like real toons, with two actual people playing them, on two separate computers, questing as a duo in Hellfire, no more big sister run throughs. Ding 60 last night. Hop, skip, and jump over to Exodar to find the Elephant guy. Totally forget that back in the good old days, a toon actually had to earn her gold, and get the smack in the face surprise at around 600 gold each for the epic land mount and training. Grr!
And then, the second set of twins. Following Amava around Hellfire grinding Orcs and Helboars, anxiously waiting for 55, the minimum level to enter Ramparts. These two are gonna milk the run throughs for everything they've got. Like this morning, seconds after dinging 55. 25 minutes in the belly of the beast, Amava, Bubbles, and the two girls, Normal-mode Ramparts. 25 minutes. Cleared up to and including the first boss. 60% of the XP to get to level 56. 25 freakin minutes. Levelin' like it oughta be!
So in the next few days, these little ladies likely gonna hit 60 also.
Will it be another 1200 gold for their riding, or does a Druid get an epic travel form and a Paladin get a free mount like at
I'm sure you're all sad to hear about my 2400 gold expense on fast cars for my babies, so everybody get their tiny violins and start playin', I feel like a song.
Let's just hope all 4 don't ding 70 at the same time, or ding 70 before November 13th, or else tough decision time between new epic flyers or the Mini-Van.
Oh, and that's not to even mention of the Rogue who went from 36 to 59 in about 2 minutes, thanks to the grant-a-level, although she's unlikely to see any action other than crafting in the foreseeable future. But she's .5 bubbles away from 60 also, due to some fancy planning on when to begin granting-a-levels.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Basics of Shammying
So, playing an Enhancement Shammy. And here I was, thinking that Melee was only for pets, lol.
At level 58, seems like this is the routine. Lemme know if there's something big I'm missing.
Seems to be about it at level 58. Ideas?
Also, on my unit frame, I have these four obnoxious circles that indicate which totems I dropped and how long they'll be alive for.
I don't know if this is from the Blizz UI or if one of my addons is doing it.
The problem is, they're positioned directly over where my X-Perl puts all the buffs/debuffs, so its really awful.
Without the benefit of a screenshot, anybody know what I'm talking about and/or what I can do about it?
At level 58, seems like this is the routine. Lemme know if there's something big I'm missing.
- Apply Windfury Weapon to main hand, and Flametongue to off hand
- Drop some totems, generally Strength of Earth, Winfury, Flametongue. Usually Mana Spring, but occasionally Healing totem.
- To pull at range, Lightening or Chain Lightening. For the tightly packed mobs, have the priest SW:P a mob to peel it off.
- Melee attack. Position yourself such that you'll be behind the mob if your friendly Shadow Priest pulls aggro.
- When the cooldown for the "swing both weapons at the same time" ability is up, use it.
- When a whirlwind visual effect goes on your guy, I think that means you get a shock for zero mana, so slap a Fire Shock for the DoT or an Earth Shock if the fire DoT is already up.
- I have some Lava button, but I have no idea if its good, so I'd slap that in there if I felt I had a decent mana pool.
Seems to be about it at level 58. Ideas?
Also, on my unit frame, I have these four obnoxious circles that indicate which totems I dropped and how long they'll be alive for.
I don't know if this is from the Blizz UI or if one of my addons is doing it.
The problem is, they're positioned directly over where my X-Perl puts all the buffs/debuffs, so its really awful.
Without the benefit of a screenshot, anybody know what I'm talking about and/or what I can do about it?
Entry Level Outlands Toon
Been quite a while since Amava first entered Outlands. Twas a fun and exciting time, generally having a decent handle on how to play my class, only minimal trouble finding dungeon groups when I wanted them (i mean, who really wants yet another night elf hunter chick/man?), and free from the stresses and schedule of raiding.
Upon entering Outlands, pretty much got my tail whooped. Hellfire Peninsula is a dramatic uptick in how much of a pounding you take. All well and good, part of growing up.
So, now lets do it all over again.
Under the sweet sweet RAF bonus, was able to mindlessly boost a priest and shaman through 1-58, without their having fired a shot in anger. Well, maybe a few shots back in the 1-10 range or so, but since then, nada.
Even their action bars. Using Keyclone, I can easily send the same command to both at the same time, so their most commonly used buttons were to mount up and to /follow Amava.
That's about it.
Gear. They've got some of the most beautiful gear you can loot....out of Deadmines...and Stockade....and Scarlet Monastery...and ZF. Maybe a piece or two out of BRD.
Along the way, the only thing they really EVER needed to worry about is a little magic damage that might come from a mob that does AoE or casts a spell that sprays out to 2 or 3 targets. So all I ever looked for in gear was Stamina to help survive those moments. As you can imagine, probably not optimized for actually doing anything but following.
So welcome to Honor Hold. Put your big sister Hunter to bed and head on out for some fun.
The uber gf on the Shadow Priest and me on the Enhancement Shammy.
Between the piss poor gear, and the fact that neither one of us really knows how to play our class yet, its quite the adventure.
Spend the first 20 minutes getting axes, daggers, wands and defense skills up from basically one, give or take a few swings along the way.
Highlight of the evening....we're fighting the orcs to the east of HH, and you've got to light some fireworks off underneath four of their towers. Lots of close mobs with big aggro radius for a level 58, lots of patrols, lots of multi-pulls (skeletons and dogs).
Accidentally pull four mobs, clearly going to hell in a handbasket. Shammy calls out at about 200 health "run, run, run. try to die in a good place to rez".
Shadow Priest calls out "STFU n00b. [bubble] heal yourself and keep quiet or go play your hunter" The bubble hit with seventeen (17) health.
Timely indeed. We survived the pull. The Shammy kept quiet, for a little while :-)
The whole trip through the orc camp was hectic and awesome, sitting at nearly no mana, low health, never really able to stay still to drink due to patrols and floating green eyes. Made it through without a single corpse run, which is more than I can say for when Amava came through the area a year ago.
If this is any indication of what's to come, its gonna be a fun trip through the Outlands!
Upon entering Outlands, pretty much got my tail whooped. Hellfire Peninsula is a dramatic uptick in how much of a pounding you take. All well and good, part of growing up.
So, now lets do it all over again.
Under the sweet sweet RAF bonus, was able to mindlessly boost a priest and shaman through 1-58, without their having fired a shot in anger. Well, maybe a few shots back in the 1-10 range or so, but since then, nada.
Even their action bars. Using Keyclone, I can easily send the same command to both at the same time, so their most commonly used buttons were to mount up and to /follow Amava.
That's about it.
Gear. They've got some of the most beautiful gear you can loot....out of Deadmines...and Stockade....and Scarlet Monastery...and ZF. Maybe a piece or two out of BRD.
Along the way, the only thing they really EVER needed to worry about is a little magic damage that might come from a mob that does AoE or casts a spell that sprays out to 2 or 3 targets. So all I ever looked for in gear was Stamina to help survive those moments. As you can imagine, probably not optimized for actually doing anything but following.
So welcome to Honor Hold. Put your big sister Hunter to bed and head on out for some fun.
The uber gf on the Shadow Priest and me on the Enhancement Shammy.
Between the piss poor gear, and the fact that neither one of us really knows how to play our class yet, its quite the adventure.
Spend the first 20 minutes getting axes, daggers, wands and defense skills up from basically one, give or take a few swings along the way.
Highlight of the evening....we're fighting the orcs to the east of HH, and you've got to light some fireworks off underneath four of their towers. Lots of close mobs with big aggro radius for a level 58, lots of patrols, lots of multi-pulls (skeletons and dogs).
Accidentally pull four mobs, clearly going to hell in a handbasket. Shammy calls out at about 200 health "run, run, run. try to die in a good place to rez".
Shadow Priest calls out "STFU n00b. [bubble] heal yourself and keep quiet or go play your hunter" The bubble hit with seventeen (17) health.
Timely indeed. We survived the pull. The Shammy kept quiet, for a little while :-)
The whole trip through the orc camp was hectic and awesome, sitting at nearly no mana, low health, never really able to stay still to drink due to patrols and floating green eyes. Made it through without a single corpse run, which is more than I can say for when Amava came through the area a year ago.
If this is any indication of what's to come, its gonna be a fun trip through the Outlands!
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
I can haz babies
Its been a while. So where'd you go, Amava?
I'll tell ya where I went.....
To the Deadmines.
And the Stockades
And Gnomeregan (/shudder)
And Uldaman
And Razorfen Kruller
And Scarlet Monastery
And Scarlet Monastery
And Scarlet Monastery
And Mauradon
And Zul'Farrak
And Sunken Temple
And Black Rock Depths
And....Ramparts (solo up till first boss with two 57's following, aggroing everything in sight ftw cant wait till patch is done for gorilladin ftw)
It was a little less than two weeks ago when I signed up for the Refer-A-Friend program and referred myself in an effort to pay Blizzard for faster leveling.
Holy. Dog. S.
My babies hit 58 and nearly 59.
But that's not all folks.
Nope, not enough fun to have one set of twins, why not do it again.
The second set of babies is now 49.
The beauty of it is that I only used a couple of the "grant a levels" on one of the toons to keep the pair in sync, so I've got in my pocket nearly 60 grantable levels, which is nice.
I have no idea what I'm going to do with all these toons, but I'm cashing in on RAF while I can. It is very nice to blast through Azeroth. Its a great place, but I'm kinda done with leveling through it the old fashioned way.
On the brighter side, I now have enough silk and mageweave cloth in my possession to completely dominate the market should I so desire. But I really dont desire, so I'll probably just trickle it out over the AH as prices peak and then ultimately stabilize through the patch and the expansion.
I could probably crit you with a massive two-week wall of text, but I'll try to break it into lil stories. So there.
I'll tell ya where I went.....
To the Deadmines.
And the Stockades
And Gnomeregan (/shudder)
And Uldaman
And Razorfen Kruller
And Scarlet Monastery
And Scarlet Monastery
And Scarlet Monastery
And Mauradon
And Zul'Farrak
And Sunken Temple
And Black Rock Depths
And....Ramparts (solo up till first boss with two 57's following, aggroing everything in sight ftw cant wait till patch is done for gorilladin ftw)
It was a little less than two weeks ago when I signed up for the Refer-A-Friend program and referred myself in an effort to pay Blizzard for faster leveling.
Holy. Dog. S.
My babies hit 58 and nearly 59.
But that's not all folks.
Nope, not enough fun to have one set of twins, why not do it again.
The second set of babies is now 49.
The beauty of it is that I only used a couple of the "grant a levels" on one of the toons to keep the pair in sync, so I've got in my pocket nearly 60 grantable levels, which is nice.
I have no idea what I'm going to do with all these toons, but I'm cashing in on RAF while I can. It is very nice to blast through Azeroth. Its a great place, but I'm kinda done with leveling through it the old fashioned way.
On the brighter side, I now have enough silk and mageweave cloth in my possession to completely dominate the market should I so desire. But I really dont desire, so I'll probably just trickle it out over the AH as prices peak and then ultimately stabilize through the patch and the expansion.
I could probably crit you with a massive two-week wall of text, but I'll try to break it into lil stories. So there.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
How fast is fast?
So I mentioned yesterday that the RAF bonus leads to fast leveling.
Indeed.
I created my babies on thursday morning. For the record, they are not death knights, and therefore start at level one (1).
When I left for work monday morning, they were level thirty eight (38).
Now, I'm willing to stipulate that I did spend quite a large amount of time in the game through the weekend. But even so, 38?????
Somewhere around level 17 or so, I became fed up with questing in Westfall. So I decided to try my hand at triple boxing.
All boosting runs, all the time.
Amava on the main computer, the two babies on the other one, with keyclone managing the small screen size and key mappings.
Just following along as Amava slaughters instanced mobs.
Deadmines
Stockades
Razorfen Karl
Gnomer
Scarlet Monastery
Ah, Scarlet Monastery.
Ran SM Cathedral maybe 15 times.
When I leave from Chillwind Point, between the 3 toons I have roughly 140 bag slots available.
I just grind the Cathedral until all those bags are full. Hearth to Ironforge, empty the bags, and head on back up to Chillwind.
The highlight of the looting - Fifty seven (57) stacks of Silk Cloth
Indeed.
I created my babies on thursday morning. For the record, they are not death knights, and therefore start at level one (1).
When I left for work monday morning, they were level thirty eight (38).
Now, I'm willing to stipulate that I did spend quite a large amount of time in the game through the weekend. But even so, 38?????
Somewhere around level 17 or so, I became fed up with questing in Westfall. So I decided to try my hand at triple boxing.
All boosting runs, all the time.
Amava on the main computer, the two babies on the other one, with keyclone managing the small screen size and key mappings.
Just following along as Amava slaughters instanced mobs.
Deadmines
Stockades
Razorfen Karl
Gnomer
Scarlet Monastery
Ah, Scarlet Monastery.
Ran SM Cathedral maybe 15 times.
When I leave from Chillwind Point, between the 3 toons I have roughly 140 bag slots available.
I just grind the Cathedral until all those bags are full. Hearth to Ironforge, empty the bags, and head on back up to Chillwind.
The highlight of the looting - Fifty seven (57) stacks of Silk Cloth
Monday, October 6, 2008
Totem Management
Anybody know of a good way manage Shaman totems?
Nothing fancy, but just a way to keep my action bars free of the massive numbers of totems?
The best I've come up with is a macro that I hit 3 or 4 times that'll just cycle through the most frequently used totems (Strength of Earth, Mana Stream, Windfury, etc). And then just leave some of the more situational ones on the action bar (Tremor, Earthbind, etc). This still leaves me using lots of action bar space for the situational ones, since I'm not familiar enough with the class to wisely choose which are situationally used often enough to warrant permanent action bar real estate.
Nothing fancy, but just a way to keep my action bars free of the massive numbers of totems?
The best I've come up with is a macro that I hit 3 or 4 times that'll just cycle through the most frequently used totems (Strength of Earth, Mana Stream, Windfury, etc). And then just leave some of the more situational ones on the action bar (Tremor, Earthbind, etc). This still leaves me using lots of action bar space for the situational ones, since I'm not familiar enough with the class to wisely choose which are situationally used often enough to warrant permanent action bar real estate.
How fast is RAF?
While I'm looking at my own predictions from the past, I though I might revisit something else.
Back in July, before Recruit-a-Friend was a reality for the public, but I'm sure it was being finalized and made ready to roll out at Blizzard, I wrote about how WoW is unfriendly to leveling in a group.
One of the things I asked for was a Best Friend option or a Friends and Family option. The biggest thing I was hoping for at the time was the ability to summon your best friend, because at the time I was leveling a Blood Elf paladin along side an Orc Shammy in the Durotar/Orgrimar area. That trip all the way to Silvermoon City and hearth back every two levels was a pain.
So Blizzard listened and gave us summoning in RAF. I'm pretty sure they didnt have that feature in the RAF program until they read my posting. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Back to the RAF speed....
How fast is RAF?
Fast. Pretty mutha-f'ing fast.
Level 6. Not usually one of the levels that you'd think about as a lengthy grind or anything painful.
BUT...
Kill some mobs, ding level 5.
Run back to the Draeni starting area and turn in two quests.
Ding 6.
Ok, so that's pretty fast.
You level so fast that sometimes you look and you've got 3 talent points unspent.
You better have a well-funded alt though, because you ain't gonna be able to afford all your training.
All in all, spent about 2.5 hours leveling last night. Got the pair up to 14, and that includes spending 30 minutes running from Exodar to Auberdine to Menethil to Dun Algaz to Iron Forge to Stormwind City to Westfall, making a quick stop in Dun Modur to pick up the flight path.
2 hours to get to level 14? That's pretty damn fast.
In other news, Westfall sucks.
In other other news, leveling as a pair still stinks. If you get your quests out of sync at all, its just plain old stupid. But with the Grant-a-Level feature, those pesky gathering quests are not as bad. Just do them on one toon, and as that toon gets a little ahead from doing the extra quests, grant a level to the other toon to catch her up.
In other other other news, playing a Priest is still one of my favorites. I just like 'em. And all the better to have the Priest following an Enhancement Shammy as a healbot. Enh Shammy with a renew and a bubble, with a Shadow Word: Pain helping burn stuff just a drop faster? Its pretty cool.
I can't wait for Amava's Mammoth mount so she can swing by like a soccer mom and load the kids into the mini van and cart them over to pick up all the flight paths without all the pain-in-the-ass running around.
Back in July, before Recruit-a-Friend was a reality for the public, but I'm sure it was being finalized and made ready to roll out at Blizzard, I wrote about how WoW is unfriendly to leveling in a group.
One of the things I asked for was a Best Friend option or a Friends and Family option. The biggest thing I was hoping for at the time was the ability to summon your best friend, because at the time I was leveling a Blood Elf paladin along side an Orc Shammy in the Durotar/Orgrimar area. That trip all the way to Silvermoon City and hearth back every two levels was a pain.
So Blizzard listened and gave us summoning in RAF. I'm pretty sure they didnt have that feature in the RAF program until they read my posting. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Back to the RAF speed....
How fast is RAF?
Fast. Pretty mutha-f'ing fast.
Level 6. Not usually one of the levels that you'd think about as a lengthy grind or anything painful.
BUT...
Kill some mobs, ding level 5.
Run back to the Draeni starting area and turn in two quests.
Ding 6.
Ok, so that's pretty fast.
You level so fast that sometimes you look and you've got 3 talent points unspent.
You better have a well-funded alt though, because you ain't gonna be able to afford all your training.
All in all, spent about 2.5 hours leveling last night. Got the pair up to 14, and that includes spending 30 minutes running from Exodar to Auberdine to Menethil to Dun Algaz to Iron Forge to Stormwind City to Westfall, making a quick stop in Dun Modur to pick up the flight path.
2 hours to get to level 14? That's pretty damn fast.
In other news, Westfall sucks.
In other other news, leveling as a pair still stinks. If you get your quests out of sync at all, its just plain old stupid. But with the Grant-a-Level feature, those pesky gathering quests are not as bad. Just do them on one toon, and as that toon gets a little ahead from doing the extra quests, grant a level to the other toon to catch her up.
In other other other news, playing a Priest is still one of my favorites. I just like 'em. And all the better to have the Priest following an Enhancement Shammy as a healbot. Enh Shammy with a renew and a bubble, with a Shadow Word: Pain helping burn stuff just a drop faster? Its pretty cool.
I can't wait for Amava's Mammoth mount so she can swing by like a soccer mom and load the kids into the mini van and cart them over to pick up all the flight paths without all the pain-in-the-ass running around.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Help me hide my stuff before the Scourge comes and takes it
I am no role player.
I have a loose familiarity with some Warcraft lore from the good old days of Warcraft 2.
That is to say that some of the character names evoke fun memories of playing with 3 friends on a LAN I set up in our dorm room, back before networked games played over the information super highway was the big thing. I cried when doing the quests out in WPL at Uther's tomb.
And now, based upon the server choice of some friends, I find myself leveling a toon on a Normal-RP server.
Generally not too much RP, other than I try to use more complete sentences, and maybe even some capitalization and punctuation when I text chat.
And since my toon's name is Moodyswinger, sometimes I get grumpy with people, guilt-free. I'm just RP'ing XD
Well, being on a new server, I've discovered a growing need to stash stuff away somewhere. I'm mining up lots of ores, I'd like to save them for JC or Eng once me and the gf are at 70. Cloth for a mage tailor (btw, watching my friend boost us with her mage frostnova'ing and then arcane exploding everything in sight was inspirational. back to boxing my priest and mage once things settle down. overextending yourself, ftw).
The individual bank slots arent enough. My toons like to travel in style.
So I need a guild bank for my mule.
So I need 10 signatures.
So I created 10 alts on the other account.
So I signed with the first alt.
So I signed with the second alt.
Wait, what? No signature? It says this guy already signed the charter.
Ugy. Must be one signature per account.
Well, good thing I tested this on the second alt before making 8 more. lol
Now its back to Orgrimar for some signature spamming.
Knowing its an RP server, I'd better come up with something good, rather than just "sign guild charter, plx, so i can get phat tabard and raids and be helpful and run dungeons"
I have no idea what Scourge is.
But I think its a group of bad guys. They seem like the types that would take your stuff if they found you.
And, I'm betting on the fact that most other folks on the server share that same basic understanding of what Scourge is.
So, standing between mailbox and auction house, I began to whisper any un-guilded folks that were running about (note: not anybody standing at the AH, and nobody standing at the mailbox, dont want to be rude, this is RP here folks).
"The Scourge killed my family and are coming after me. Will you please help me create a guild so I can get a bank to keep my stuff safe from the Scourge?"
I have no idea if that's 100% nonsense, or maybe its even a giant contradiction in lore.
But, it worked.
In less than 10 minutes, I had all the signatures.
Only one person declined helping me. I bet he knows what Scourge actually is.
Contrast this with Amava's server, where I offered 2 gold per signature, and still took over an hour to get all the sigs.
And, seconds after establishing the guild, I chime in on brand-new gchat...
"Thank you all for your help. I can now safeguard my precious stuff. It is with the highest regard and utmost respect that I now boot you all, lest you be an agent of the Scourge trying to invade my bank. If you should ever need assistance, prove to me that you are an enemy of the Scourge, and I shall heed your call."
So, any lore junkies out there know if I'm full of baloney or am I even vaguely on target with the story line?
And moments later I was reminded that it'll run me 100 gold for that first bank tab.
Doh. I've only got about 700g on the toon right now, so I might have to play email ping-pong with items for a little while yet.
I have a loose familiarity with some Warcraft lore from the good old days of Warcraft 2.
That is to say that some of the character names evoke fun memories of playing with 3 friends on a LAN I set up in our dorm room, back before networked games played over the information super highway was the big thing. I cried when doing the quests out in WPL at Uther's tomb.
And now, based upon the server choice of some friends, I find myself leveling a toon on a Normal-RP server.
Generally not too much RP, other than I try to use more complete sentences, and maybe even some capitalization and punctuation when I text chat.
And since my toon's name is Moodyswinger, sometimes I get grumpy with people, guilt-free. I'm just RP'ing XD
Well, being on a new server, I've discovered a growing need to stash stuff away somewhere. I'm mining up lots of ores, I'd like to save them for JC or Eng once me and the gf are at 70. Cloth for a mage tailor (btw, watching my friend boost us with her mage frostnova'ing and then arcane exploding everything in sight was inspirational. back to boxing my priest and mage once things settle down. overextending yourself, ftw).
The individual bank slots arent enough. My toons like to travel in style.
So I need a guild bank for my mule.
So I need 10 signatures.
So I created 10 alts on the other account.
So I signed with the first alt.
So I signed with the second alt.
Wait, what? No signature? It says this guy already signed the charter.
Ugy. Must be one signature per account.
Well, good thing I tested this on the second alt before making 8 more. lol
Now its back to Orgrimar for some signature spamming.
Knowing its an RP server, I'd better come up with something good, rather than just "sign guild charter, plx, so i can get phat tabard and raids and be helpful and run dungeons"
I have no idea what Scourge is.
But I think its a group of bad guys. They seem like the types that would take your stuff if they found you.
And, I'm betting on the fact that most other folks on the server share that same basic understanding of what Scourge is.
So, standing between mailbox and auction house, I began to whisper any un-guilded folks that were running about (note: not anybody standing at the AH, and nobody standing at the mailbox, dont want to be rude, this is RP here folks).
"The Scourge killed my family and are coming after me. Will you please help me create a guild so I can get a bank to keep my stuff safe from the Scourge?"
I have no idea if that's 100% nonsense, or maybe its even a giant contradiction in lore.
But, it worked.
In less than 10 minutes, I had all the signatures.
Only one person declined helping me. I bet he knows what Scourge actually is.
Contrast this with Amava's server, where I offered 2 gold per signature, and still took over an hour to get all the sigs.
And, seconds after establishing the guild, I chime in on brand-new gchat...
"Thank you all for your help. I can now safeguard my precious stuff. It is with the highest regard and utmost respect that I now boot you all, lest you be an agent of the Scourge trying to invade my bank. If you should ever need assistance, prove to me that you are an enemy of the Scourge, and I shall heed your call."
So, any lore junkies out there know if I'm full of baloney or am I even vaguely on target with the story line?
And moments later I was reminded that it'll run me 100 gold for that first bank tab.
Doh. I've only got about 700g on the toon right now, so I might have to play email ping-pong with items for a little while yet.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Horde'ing Gold and Angst
While not raiding or raid prepping on Amava, I'm pretty much playing my lil Tauren Druid. Trying to level her curvy butt up quick like a bunny, but unfortunately, that's not one of the animal forms I can shapeshift into just yet. But hitting 20 brought kitty form and the joy that is two points in faster running speed, and that led pretty quickly to level 23.
So a round of some quick thoughts:
1) You know money is always forefront on my mind, and my little girl happily dinged 100g this morning while still level 22. I can't stress enough how much fun Herbalism/Mining is. Only pain is toggling the macro to swap between tracking modes. And always seeing shiny objects on the way to quest objectives, thus taking forever to get anywhere. But she can stealth and bypass many mobs, which is something Amava never could do.
2) Only charity I've accepted so far was a set of 4 large bags from a friend, which have been hugely and completely amazing. Bag space changes the game dramatically for any toon, but a dual gatherer especially. Also, picked up a few silvers during some boosting runs through RFC, but not enough to really affect the overall balance sheet.
3) At 21/22, I transitioned from Barrens to Ashenvale. (A) I've been through Ash thrice as alliance. Fun to be there as a bad guy. (B) There seems to be a gap in quests, as all I can find are level 24/25 quests in either of the two zones. So for most of level 21 I was doing level 24 quests and either taking forever between mobs or just getting my ass kicked. First time I can ever remember reaching 0% armor durability. That gave me a chuckle. But the 15 silver cost to repair was nice. Amava's bill would be about 45 gold for a 0% repair.
4) If I understand the tooltip correctly, I'll eventually get a Faerie Fire that I can cast while in Kitty mode? Please, pretty please, give me this sooner. When I cast FF on a mob, I kill it so fast it aint funny. But that requires I switch to caster form, do the FF, switch back to kitty which costs me mana and eliminates any energy I had (and I got no points in the talent that gives you energy when you shape shift. I want running speed too much to go there). If its castable from in cat form, FFF will be the shiz.
5) Oh, and I need to stop calling Horde Druid Cat form "kitty" because the lion just looks stupid with those horns. I like the Night Elf kitty more better.
6) And the most fun....the Guild she's in, Has Made A Huge Mistake, did their first Karazhan raid. Many of the raiders have been to Kara before, but not as a unit and not since the guild formed up a week or so ago. Very successful run, killing bosses up to Curator. Sadly, I was not there, but Thursday nights are Real Life nights. Oh yeah, and I'm only 23.
So a round of some quick thoughts:
1) You know money is always forefront on my mind, and my little girl happily dinged 100g this morning while still level 22. I can't stress enough how much fun Herbalism/Mining is. Only pain is toggling the macro to swap between tracking modes. And always seeing shiny objects on the way to quest objectives, thus taking forever to get anywhere. But she can stealth and bypass many mobs, which is something Amava never could do.
2) Only charity I've accepted so far was a set of 4 large bags from a friend, which have been hugely and completely amazing. Bag space changes the game dramatically for any toon, but a dual gatherer especially. Also, picked up a few silvers during some boosting runs through RFC, but not enough to really affect the overall balance sheet.
3) At 21/22, I transitioned from Barrens to Ashenvale. (A) I've been through Ash thrice as alliance. Fun to be there as a bad guy. (B) There seems to be a gap in quests, as all I can find are level 24/25 quests in either of the two zones. So for most of level 21 I was doing level 24 quests and either taking forever between mobs or just getting my ass kicked. First time I can ever remember reaching 0% armor durability. That gave me a chuckle. But the 15 silver cost to repair was nice. Amava's bill would be about 45 gold for a 0% repair.
4) If I understand the tooltip correctly, I'll eventually get a Faerie Fire that I can cast while in Kitty mode? Please, pretty please, give me this sooner. When I cast FF on a mob, I kill it so fast it aint funny. But that requires I switch to caster form, do the FF, switch back to kitty which costs me mana and eliminates any energy I had (and I got no points in the talent that gives you energy when you shape shift. I want running speed too much to go there). If its castable from in cat form, FFF will be the shiz.
5) Oh, and I need to stop calling Horde Druid Cat form "kitty" because the lion just looks stupid with those horns. I like the Night Elf kitty more better.
6) And the most fun....the Guild she's in, Has Made A Huge Mistake, did their first Karazhan raid. Many of the raiders have been to Kara before, but not as a unit and not since the guild formed up a week or so ago. Very successful run, killing bosses up to Curator. Sadly, I was not there, but Thursday nights are Real Life nights. Oh yeah, and I'm only 23.
Friday, May 30, 2008
For the Horde
As repayment (*) for some cheeseburgers and bratwurst (well, they said it was bratwurst, but I'm thinking it was Italian sausage disguised as bratwurst), I rolled a Hordie on the server of some friends.
Not sure what the future has in store for her, or how long playing her will last, but for now, guild pressures and a recent spurt of BG's have me a little burned out on Amava, so she'll probably only be logging in for raids for the next lil bit, which means I'll be getting my moo on.
Tauren Druid. With aspirations of becoming a tank. Maybe. Or maybe just a short lived diversion.
So that's that. Maybe a chance to play with some RL friends, which will be a first for me. Or maybe just a temporary vacation from end game madness. We'll see what the cards have in store for her.
* more like punishment, because they're gonna get all sorts of nagging whispers for boosting runs
Not sure what the future has in store for her, or how long playing her will last, but for now, guild pressures and a recent spurt of BG's have me a little burned out on Amava, so she'll probably only be logging in for raids for the next lil bit, which means I'll be getting my moo on.
Tauren Druid. With aspirations of becoming a tank. Maybe. Or maybe just a short lived diversion.
- Tauren females rock, she's a little cutie pie.
- Played her to lvl 10. Mulgore is pretty cool place.
- Mining / Herbalism rules. Even at entry level. When I logged this morning, I had one gold in my pocket, and about 4 gold in the AH waiting to sell. Dual Gathering, FTW!!!!
- First starting out, even the 30c to mail mats to my AH mule is painful. I find that amusing. Starting from scratch is kinda cool.
- Kyle the Frenzied is awesome. Especially when he humps your leg after you feed him.
- As usual, Quest Helper rocks. Although it did keep getting confused and started flickering back and forth between two different locations for various mobs. Pretty funny to watch it get confused.
- Having only a 16-slot bag sux balls. As soon as I could afford it, I bought four 6-slot bags. They're waiting in my email for when I log back in.
- Outfitter is causing me pain. Everytime I jump in the water, it changes my gear. When I get out, it doesn't change it back. This caused me to sell a bunch of the little scrappy stuff I was collecting along the way, since all the early stuff is grey and AutoProfitX automatically vendors that. Annoying because every tiny bit of armor at the early levels helps.
So that's that. Maybe a chance to play with some RL friends, which will be a first for me. Or maybe just a temporary vacation from end game madness. We'll see what the cards have in store for her.
* more like punishment, because they're gonna get all sorts of nagging whispers for boosting runs
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Shadowform ain't too Shabby
Finally got a chance to try out my new shadowy muscles on my lvl 40 Priest.
Mudsprocket in Dustwallow Marsh. Immediately became confused because my action bar would swap when I took on Shadowform, so in my first fight, I had no clue what I was doing. Not sure if the swapping is done by the default UI or if its being done by some addon I've got laying around, it was confusing to say the least.
Got my actionbars squared away and went to town.
Ended up doing Mind Blast, Mind Flay, SW:P, Mind Blast, Mind Flay, and most mobs were dead at that point. I want to put Depending upon how much health they had left I either would go to the wand till dead, or apply a Mind Flay and Mind Blast. Not a whole lot of mobs would still be standing at this point. And naturally, start off with a Shield up and reapply as necessary.
Pretty easily took out mobs 2 levels higher than me, only needing to use Psychic Scream to shoo them off if I pulled 3 or more.
Much more mana intensive than my previous 5/5 in Wand Specialization, so I was sitting down to drink every 3 or 4 mobs, where as before I pretty much never had to drink unless it was a tight cave where you have to chain pull 2 or 3 at a time continuously.
Levelled from entry-level 40 to 41.5 in about an hour which is crazy fast, but I'm not complaining.
Definitely fun to be an unguilded Priest. Everybody wants a piece and I politely tell them I'm not looking for a guild, but they should let me know if they need help with anything. I haven't been in an instance with this guy since Black Fathom Deeps at lvl 25-ish, and I'll be needing to throw together a PUG for ZF to get the Carrot, or maybe some of Amava's guildies have alts in their mid 40's.
Solo'ing the Priest is quite a lot of fun. Can't wait to get to 50 to start playing Alchemist and Tailor some more. Lol, and then level to 70 for no other reason than "just becuz". Playing this guy is a refreshing break from Amava's Dailies, BG's and raid consumables grind.
EDIT: this was written before I got some feedback from Chorius regarding the mana efficiency, or lack thereof, for Mind Blast. I'll have to try out his suggested rotation soon and see how it works for me.
Mudsprocket in Dustwallow Marsh. Immediately became confused because my action bar would swap when I took on Shadowform, so in my first fight, I had no clue what I was doing. Not sure if the swapping is done by the default UI or if its being done by some addon I've got laying around, it was confusing to say the least.
Got my actionbars squared away and went to town.
Ended up doing Mind Blast, Mind Flay, SW:P, Mind Blast, Mind Flay, and most mobs were dead at that point. I want to put Depending upon how much health they had left I either would go to the wand till dead, or apply a Mind Flay and Mind Blast. Not a whole lot of mobs would still be standing at this point. And naturally, start off with a Shield up and reapply as necessary.
Pretty easily took out mobs 2 levels higher than me, only needing to use Psychic Scream to shoo them off if I pulled 3 or more.
Much more mana intensive than my previous 5/5 in Wand Specialization, so I was sitting down to drink every 3 or 4 mobs, where as before I pretty much never had to drink unless it was a tight cave where you have to chain pull 2 or 3 at a time continuously.
Levelled from entry-level 40 to 41.5 in about an hour which is crazy fast, but I'm not complaining.
Definitely fun to be an unguilded Priest. Everybody wants a piece and I politely tell them I'm not looking for a guild, but they should let me know if they need help with anything. I haven't been in an instance with this guy since Black Fathom Deeps at lvl 25-ish, and I'll be needing to throw together a PUG for ZF to get the Carrot, or maybe some of Amava's guildies have alts in their mid 40's.
Solo'ing the Priest is quite a lot of fun. Can't wait to get to 50 to start playing Alchemist and Tailor some more. Lol, and then level to 70 for no other reason than "just becuz". Playing this guy is a refreshing break from Amava's Dailies, BG's and raid consumables grind.
EDIT: this was written before I got some feedback from Chorius regarding the mana efficiency, or lack thereof, for Mind Blast. I'll have to try out his suggested rotation soon and see how it works for me.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Basic Mount Speed, FTL
Based upon the advice of some nice commenters on a few recent Priestie alt posts, I took the plunge and flew my lvl 40 priest over to Stormwind and went full in on Shadow to get Shadowform.
Intent on trying it out to see what kind of damage I can do in the hour before the server went down tuesday morning, I mounted up on my elekk, loving the shadowy visual effect. And Outfitter spewed forth an error message, saying that my boots with the mithril spurs were nowhere to be found.
Ah, fart. AutoProfitX must have sold them to a vendor or something, because I had the spurs attached to an El Cheapo pair of boots that won't soulbind, thus making them available for transfer to another alt once Mr. Shadow hits 69 and can have Amava craft him a Riding Crop, if she's still a LW by then :-P
While I do want to go fry some mobs shadow style, I despise the slow running speed of the basic mount. I need my spurs. And I need to find either an enchanter with the glove riding skill, or find said formula for my other alt. And then I need to do some Troll bashing in Zul'Farak once I'm appropriate level for a Carrot on a Stick. I hear Elekk's love those things. But that's neither here nor there.
Spent the rest of the morning locating a spur-capable blacksmith, then the mats for the spurs, then travelling to said blacksmith.
Never did get to fry anything, but I'm at least travelling 4% faster.
So thank you all for the advice on my Shadow Priest, I'm pretty excited to try him out on some mobs in Dustwallow Marsh.
What sort of attack sequence do you open up with in Shadowform?
I'm thinking Mind Blast, Mind Flay, SW:P, and then I'm lost. Using my old spec with 5 points in Wand Specialization, I'd pretty much just wand him down from there, reapplying SW:P as needed. That gave me decent damage and excellent mana conservation.
How does Vampiric Embrace factor into the solo game?
That's all I got.
Intent on trying it out to see what kind of damage I can do in the hour before the server went down tuesday morning, I mounted up on my elekk, loving the shadowy visual effect. And Outfitter spewed forth an error message, saying that my boots with the mithril spurs were nowhere to be found.
Ah, fart. AutoProfitX must have sold them to a vendor or something, because I had the spurs attached to an El Cheapo pair of boots that won't soulbind, thus making them available for transfer to another alt once Mr. Shadow hits 69 and can have Amava craft him a Riding Crop, if she's still a LW by then :-P
While I do want to go fry some mobs shadow style, I despise the slow running speed of the basic mount. I need my spurs. And I need to find either an enchanter with the glove riding skill, or find said formula for my other alt. And then I need to do some Troll bashing in Zul'Farak once I'm appropriate level for a Carrot on a Stick. I hear Elekk's love those things. But that's neither here nor there.
Spent the rest of the morning locating a spur-capable blacksmith, then the mats for the spurs, then travelling to said blacksmith.
Never did get to fry anything, but I'm at least travelling 4% faster.
So thank you all for the advice on my Shadow Priest, I'm pretty excited to try him out on some mobs in Dustwallow Marsh.
What sort of attack sequence do you open up with in Shadowform?
I'm thinking Mind Blast, Mind Flay, SW:P, and then I'm lost. Using my old spec with 5 points in Wand Specialization, I'd pretty much just wand him down from there, reapplying SW:P as needed. That gave me decent damage and excellent mana conservation.
How does Vampiric Embrace factor into the solo game?
That's all I got.
Friday, May 16, 2008
What's a Priest to do?
Chorius commented on a recent post that included a snippet about my Priestly Alt. Aparently reading my mind, the comment essentially warned me to not get my hopes up for tailoring at 50, since the specializations that make it really cool are only available at 60. Hmmm, its as if you heard me mutter about the full guild vault tab I have that is solid, wall-to-wall Netherweave Cloth stacks and my dream of primal mooncloth bags out the wazoo. I really should screen shot it, the entire grid is purple cloth just waiting to be knit into something.
Luckily, 50 is just my immediate goal. Naturally, 70 is where he's going, slowly, but going.
I'm not sure if I want to run Kara as a priest, or just make bags, brew elixirs, and PVP.
There's a part of me that would love to have a Discipline Priest all decked out in PVP gear just kicking butt andchewing bubble gum saving teammates in some premade BGs.
I've had some fun healing in The Stockades and Black Fathom Deep. I could see dungeon or raid healing as being pretty cool, because its so dramatically different than hunting, but there's just something sexy about delivering unimaginable damage, and then getting to yell at the other DPSers who pull aggro in an effort to catch me. FD, FTW!!! Not sure I'd ever really like being a non-DPSer. Its nice to be able to make grilled cheese sandwiches while auto shotting through Kara, then blaming the wipe on bad infernal placement, rather than the reality of bad non-stick frying spray placement. I doubt my tanks do that, g0d bless them.
At level 38-ish, I went over to Theramore and the new questing area in Dustwallow Marsh. So far pretty cool. I did like the mortar firing quest that starts with Nat Pagle and ends up with me healing 12 riflemen and firing mortars at some giant sea creature that's attacking the docks. As always, Quest Helper takes some of the pain of levelling away.
Pain you say? Without even thinking or trying, I dinged 38, 39, and now 40, taking about 1.5 hours per level or so. Just silly fast. Before I left for work, I got on the plane to Darnassus where I'll be waiting to grab the boat to Exodar and get my elephant.
The question is whether to respec to full shadow so I can get shadow form right away? I do like my 3 points in Holy for fancy renew, and scattering of points in Discipline for fancy fortitude and fancy bubbles. It all depends on if I can find an upgrade to my lvl 22 wand, for which I haven't yet found an upgrade. Well, there's an upgrade that will add one (1) DPS, but it doesn't look like a cool magic wand.
You know Blizz got the graphics right when a 3 year old can wander past the computer and say "ohhh, he's got a magic wand". Now just let me buy dyes for armor pieces to ensure he's always wearing purple, and you've got another subscriber, from cradle to grave.
Luckily, 50 is just my immediate goal. Naturally, 70 is where he's going, slowly, but going.
I'm not sure if I want to run Kara as a priest, or just make bags, brew elixirs, and PVP.
There's a part of me that would love to have a Discipline Priest all decked out in PVP gear just kicking butt and
I've had some fun healing in The Stockades and Black Fathom Deep. I could see dungeon or raid healing as being pretty cool, because its so dramatically different than hunting, but there's just something sexy about delivering unimaginable damage, and then getting to yell at the other DPSers who pull aggro in an effort to catch me. FD, FTW!!! Not sure I'd ever really like being a non-DPSer. Its nice to be able to make grilled cheese sandwiches while auto shotting through Kara, then blaming the wipe on bad infernal placement, rather than the reality of bad non-stick frying spray placement. I doubt my tanks do that, g0d bless them.
At level 38-ish, I went over to Theramore and the new questing area in Dustwallow Marsh. So far pretty cool. I did like the mortar firing quest that starts with Nat Pagle and ends up with me healing 12 riflemen and firing mortars at some giant sea creature that's attacking the docks. As always, Quest Helper takes some of the pain of levelling away.
Pain you say? Without even thinking or trying, I dinged 38, 39, and now 40, taking about 1.5 hours per level or so. Just silly fast. Before I left for work, I got on the plane to Darnassus where I'll be waiting to grab the boat to Exodar and get my elephant.
The question is whether to respec to full shadow so I can get shadow form right away? I do like my 3 points in Holy for fancy renew, and scattering of points in Discipline for fancy fortitude and fancy bubbles. It all depends on if I can find an upgrade to my lvl 22 wand, for which I haven't yet found an upgrade. Well, there's an upgrade that will add one (1) DPS, but it doesn't look like a cool magic wand.
You know Blizz got the graphics right when a 3 year old can wander past the computer and say "ohhh, he's got a magic wand". Now just let me buy dyes for armor pieces to ensure he's always wearing purple, and you've got another subscriber, from cradle to grave.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Priests are OP Solo (says the Hunter, lol)
Jumped on my lvl 34 priest to grind out a quest or two during a down moment.
I really want to ding 35 to train Artesian alchemist and tailor (well, really want to ding 50 for Master, but gotta start somewhere), so I've been trying to give him a whirl whenever I get a chance.
His spec is wonky, pretty much whatever I felt like sounded good at the time I had a talent point handy.
He's got enough Shadow to get Mind Flay.
He's got three points in Holy for a better Renew.
He's got Discipline for Wand Specialization, and improved Power Word: Shield and Fortitude.
He's geared mostly in the highest level stuff he can craft via Tailoring, with a few AH greens that provide Intellect or Shadow damage.
Not a twink, but also not a first-time toon who has no gold or clue about gear.
Questing in northern Stranglethorn Vale, there's a cave where I had to go in and grab Bookie's stuff.
As I slowly kill my way in there, its not too bad. Guys at or slightly above my level, pretty easy to kill, but they sometimes pull a friend which makes it a bit dicey.
Getting deeper into the cave, two level 39's come running out and there's corpses all over the place.
Cool, I'll zip in there since they just killed everything.
Deeper, deeper, deeper, the corpses thin out, and then I see the sparkly quest objective surrounded by a few lvl 36-37 elites.
what, What, WHAT?
Ok, I've come all this way, lemme try this one guy that's not a caster and is all by himself.
Shield
Mind Blast
Mind Flay
Shadow Word: Pain
Wand
Shield
Renew
Wand
Mind Flay
Ok, first guy dead. At the end of the fight, I'm at full health, mana is down but Spirit Tap runs its full course and I'm at full mana.
Are you kidding me? Is this part of the patch 2.3 nerf? The guys show up as Elite, so I suppose not. And even if non-elite, they're still 2 or 3 levels above me. Dead.
I can do this.
Yeah. Next guy, same routine, but he gets a little far away from me and pulls a friend.
Ok, np, mix in a Psychic Scream to buy some time, and two dead elites, both above my level.
Solo.
Now the respawn was crazy. These guys came back so fast, I had to really move.
So I quickly loot the quest item.
Kill a few guys near me.
Then I notice that because of those two departing 39's at the cave's entrance, I had Easy Street on the way in, since they had killed everything. Yeah, not so much on the way out.
Decide to run for it.
Shield & Psychic Scream.
Run run run. Renew. Run Run Run.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
I made it all the way through the winding cave like this, to within an inch of being outside and into relative safety.
The good news is that for killing the elites that were three levels above me, I was getting somewhere around 1800 XP per kill, including rested bonus.
Blew through half of level 34 in about 20 minutes. w00t.
I tell ya, Priests are OP
LOL
I really want to ding 35 to train Artesian alchemist and tailor (well, really want to ding 50 for Master, but gotta start somewhere), so I've been trying to give him a whirl whenever I get a chance.
His spec is wonky, pretty much whatever I felt like sounded good at the time I had a talent point handy.
He's got enough Shadow to get Mind Flay.
He's got three points in Holy for a better Renew.
He's got Discipline for Wand Specialization, and improved Power Word: Shield and Fortitude.
He's geared mostly in the highest level stuff he can craft via Tailoring, with a few AH greens that provide Intellect or Shadow damage.
Not a twink, but also not a first-time toon who has no gold or clue about gear.
Questing in northern Stranglethorn Vale, there's a cave where I had to go in and grab Bookie's stuff.
As I slowly kill my way in there, its not too bad. Guys at or slightly above my level, pretty easy to kill, but they sometimes pull a friend which makes it a bit dicey.
Getting deeper into the cave, two level 39's come running out and there's corpses all over the place.
Cool, I'll zip in there since they just killed everything.
Deeper, deeper, deeper, the corpses thin out, and then I see the sparkly quest objective surrounded by a few lvl 36-37 elites.
what, What, WHAT?
Ok, I've come all this way, lemme try this one guy that's not a caster and is all by himself.
Shield
Mind Blast
Mind Flay
Shadow Word: Pain
Wand
Shield
Renew
Wand
Mind Flay
Ok, first guy dead. At the end of the fight, I'm at full health, mana is down but Spirit Tap runs its full course and I'm at full mana.
Are you kidding me? Is this part of the patch 2.3 nerf? The guys show up as Elite, so I suppose not. And even if non-elite, they're still 2 or 3 levels above me. Dead.
I can do this.
Yeah. Next guy, same routine, but he gets a little far away from me and pulls a friend.
Ok, np, mix in a Psychic Scream to buy some time, and two dead elites, both above my level.
Solo.
Now the respawn was crazy. These guys came back so fast, I had to really move.
So I quickly loot the quest item.
Kill a few guys near me.
Then I notice that because of those two departing 39's at the cave's entrance, I had Easy Street on the way in, since they had killed everything. Yeah, not so much on the way out.
Decide to run for it.
Shield & Psychic Scream.
Run run run. Renew. Run Run Run.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
I made it all the way through the winding cave like this, to within an inch of being outside and into relative safety.
The good news is that for killing the elites that were three levels above me, I was getting somewhere around 1800 XP per kill, including rested bonus.
Blew through half of level 34 in about 20 minutes. w00t.
I tell ya, Priests are OP
LOL
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Kablammy in da House
After spending weeks pondering different words that rhyme with Shammy, I went with Kablammy.
I wanted to incorporate "totem" into the name, but there's really no way to use 7 alphabetical characters in conjunction with "totem" without immediately conjuring up a phallic image. But then again, when the human mind wants to see phallus, I suppose there's no choice of words that'll avoid raising that flag, so to speak.
Silly name? Yes. Will I regret picking it in a few days/weeks? Probably. Fun for now? Absolutely.
Inspired by (A) my recent semi-struggle with getting a nice gem cut and (B) my desire to see how cool Quest Helper will be for a brand new baby toon, and (C) old advice sitting in the back of my mind from a RL friend who thought pretty strongly that I'd like playing shammy.
She's my new space-goat Shaman. Destined to be primarily a Jewelcrafter, and for now a miner because I do so enjoy gathering as I quest/level. And she needs to farm all her JC mats herself, as I'm not allowing my alts to spend gold on their profs until the savings tracker dings 10K, which according to the pretty linear pattern in the chart to the right, should be about 3 weeks away.
Playing the Draenei starting area with Quest Helper is pretty fun, although getting used to running around on your feet is rough when you're happily crusing the skies with epic flight and a riding crop, but ah well.
Got to level 10 in no time flat, which is no real surprise, but fun to see. Nearly no down time or wasted travel when using QH.
So far JC is kind of dull, but my discovery of Prospecting to get gems to craft stuff out of made it a drop better.
There you go. Kablammy. Yet another toon that'll see action during boring times, or times when I need to escape from the social scene, or when I go on a crafting binge and need to get to the next level cap for skill-ups. Aspirations for 70? Sure. Or maybe 80 by then. Probably never make it, but you gotta think big, right?
I wanted to incorporate "totem" into the name, but there's really no way to use 7 alphabetical characters in conjunction with "totem" without immediately conjuring up a phallic image. But then again, when the human mind wants to see phallus, I suppose there's no choice of words that'll avoid raising that flag, so to speak.
Silly name? Yes. Will I regret picking it in a few days/weeks? Probably. Fun for now? Absolutely.
Inspired by (A) my recent semi-struggle with getting a nice gem cut and (B) my desire to see how cool Quest Helper will be for a brand new baby toon, and (C) old advice sitting in the back of my mind from a RL friend who thought pretty strongly that I'd like playing shammy.
She's my new space-goat Shaman. Destined to be primarily a Jewelcrafter, and for now a miner because I do so enjoy gathering as I quest/level. And she needs to farm all her JC mats herself, as I'm not allowing my alts to spend gold on their profs until the savings tracker dings 10K, which according to the pretty linear pattern in the chart to the right, should be about 3 weeks away.
Playing the Draenei starting area with Quest Helper is pretty fun, although getting used to running around on your feet is rough when you're happily crusing the skies with epic flight and a riding crop, but ah well.
Got to level 10 in no time flat, which is no real surprise, but fun to see. Nearly no down time or wasted travel when using QH.
So far JC is kind of dull, but my discovery of Prospecting to get gems to craft stuff out of made it a drop better.
There you go. Kablammy. Yet another toon that'll see action during boring times, or times when I need to escape from the social scene, or when I go on a crafting binge and need to get to the next level cap for skill-ups. Aspirations for 70? Sure. Or maybe 80 by then. Probably never make it, but you gotta think big, right?
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Running out of Quests
I don't know about you, but once I hit the 20's on a toon, I can't quite make it all the way to 30 by questing just in a single zone. Or maybe I can but there's a dead zone in the middle where you run out of quests you can handle at your level, but then a level or two away, there's another group of quests for ya.
My answer to that is grinding.
It started with Amava, but I didn't know it at the time. Galavanting around Ashenvale in her 20's, she found her favorite spot to spend time was just to the west of Astranaar. There's a series of camps of furbolgs or some such warrior and shaman humanoids in the level 23-24 range. Nice and easy to gain rested bonus in the inn at Astranaar, and then just pop over to those furry guys and grind them down, collecting coins (vital for a young lady who hadn't gotten any jobs yet, late bloomer that she was) and stacks of linen and wool.
Now, I'm levelling two alts in that same zone. My priest who was at 27, and my druid who's 26. Seems that there is just a gap in quests to bridge me up a level or two till I can handle the Forrest Song quests.
For my priest, at level 26 and 27, its perfect for me to grind those guys, as I can pretty much take them on 1 at a time, and my shield lasts long enough to keep me at full health through the fight, and the name totally escapes me right now, but 5 points in whatchamacallit talent from the shadow tree makes sure that I've got very little mana issues either. Makes me feel good about life, like I'm the big kid who can bully around these little guys a few levels below me, and take their lunch money, and still-unwoven clothes right off their back. Feels like a hunter, only delayed by 4 or 5 levels :-) Dinged all the way up to 28 this way, and now maybe I can start hammering out the quests in the east part of the zone to get to maybe 31 or so.
For my druid, she's a bit more capable of handling mobs at or above her level, but she's dancing to a different tune.
You can't skin those guys. Any grinding Moody's doing had better yeild some sort of a leather or hide, since trying to supply enough skins to her Leatherworking is consuming. Following along the Cleansing Rene Zelwigger quest line, she ended up north near the border with Felwood and found a bunch of wolves and bucks that're providing the Heavy Leather that she's just become interested in.
Sweet XP and sweed leathers to be had.
My answer to that is grinding.
It started with Amava, but I didn't know it at the time. Galavanting around Ashenvale in her 20's, she found her favorite spot to spend time was just to the west of Astranaar. There's a series of camps of furbolgs or some such warrior and shaman humanoids in the level 23-24 range. Nice and easy to gain rested bonus in the inn at Astranaar, and then just pop over to those furry guys and grind them down, collecting coins (vital for a young lady who hadn't gotten any jobs yet, late bloomer that she was) and stacks of linen and wool.
Now, I'm levelling two alts in that same zone. My priest who was at 27, and my druid who's 26. Seems that there is just a gap in quests to bridge me up a level or two till I can handle the Forrest Song quests.
For my priest, at level 26 and 27, its perfect for me to grind those guys, as I can pretty much take them on 1 at a time, and my shield lasts long enough to keep me at full health through the fight, and the name totally escapes me right now, but 5 points in whatchamacallit talent from the shadow tree makes sure that I've got very little mana issues either. Makes me feel good about life, like I'm the big kid who can bully around these little guys a few levels below me, and take their lunch money, and still-unwoven clothes right off their back. Feels like a hunter, only delayed by 4 or 5 levels :-) Dinged all the way up to 28 this way, and now maybe I can start hammering out the quests in the east part of the zone to get to maybe 31 or so.
For my druid, she's a bit more capable of handling mobs at or above her level, but she's dancing to a different tune.
You can't skin those guys. Any grinding Moody's doing had better yeild some sort of a leather or hide, since trying to supply enough skins to her Leatherworking is consuming. Following along the Cleansing Rene Zelwigger quest line, she ended up north near the border with Felwood and found a bunch of wolves and bucks that're providing the Heavy Leather that she's just become interested in.
Sweet XP and sweed leathers to be had.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Rested XP + Skinning = Ding
Feeling spiteful from a lousy (IMO) guild meeting the previous night, I refused to log into Amava thursday morning.
So why not play Moodyswinger, as her name, and playstyle were very reflective of my overall emotional state at the time.
Found her parked at the inn in Stonetalon Mts, with about half way to go to 26, fully rested for the whole way. Ok, why not. Started grinding the cats and buck deers (coursers???) nearby. Skinning everything. Barely had to venture out into the pass that has a bunch more of the bucks before I levelled up.
Took maybe a half an hour to go half a level, exclusively grinding mobs that are my level or within two below (and one random 27 that flew over to me, dunno where he came from, but took a little tap dancing between kitty, bear, and caster to get through that, as I was already fighting two 25's when he showed up).
Skinning broke 200, and Leatherworking hit 159.
If only grinding were that much fun on my Priest, I could switch back and forth, burning up rested XP.
So why not play Moodyswinger, as her name, and playstyle were very reflective of my overall emotional state at the time.
Found her parked at the inn in Stonetalon Mts, with about half way to go to 26, fully rested for the whole way. Ok, why not. Started grinding the cats and buck deers (coursers???) nearby. Skinning everything. Barely had to venture out into the pass that has a bunch more of the bucks before I levelled up.
Took maybe a half an hour to go half a level, exclusively grinding mobs that are my level or within two below (and one random 27 that flew over to me, dunno where he came from, but took a little tap dancing between kitty, bear, and caster to get through that, as I was already fighting two 25's when he showed up).
Skinning broke 200, and Leatherworking hit 159.
If only grinding were that much fun on my Priest, I could switch back and forth, burning up rested XP.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Hey, whaddya know, I'm a seal
This whole druid thing is pretty fun, and just keeps getting better. To get the aquatic form, you first need to turn level 17, and then a quest giver in Auberdine starts you off on a little quest chain that ends up with you running all over the place, swimming to collect a few items, and then you get your new shape shifting capability.
This is really the way to do it. I like the quest chain so much more than just visiting a trainer and paying a few bucks to get a new skill.
For Hunters, we had the level 10 pet training quests. And I think that's it. If I remember correctly, there was another Hunter quest in the 50's that took you all over Azshara and then into the Sunken Temple. But that wasn't for any new capabilities, it was just for some nice piece of gear.
I hope the new expansion has more stuff like this for different classes, because it really makes you feel like you earned the new skill, and not just "ding level, pay trainer".
Some of the very unique Hunter capabilities like Freezing Trap and Misdirection really could benefit from a nice little chain of quests that introduce you to the skill, and maybe also try to teach you the usefullness of the skill at the same time.
Of course, in terms of return on investment for Blizzard, class-specific quests are money they spend on developing content only limited audience will ever experience, so I won't hold my breath.
This is really the way to do it. I like the quest chain so much more than just visiting a trainer and paying a few bucks to get a new skill.
For Hunters, we had the level 10 pet training quests. And I think that's it. If I remember correctly, there was another Hunter quest in the 50's that took you all over Azshara and then into the Sunken Temple. But that wasn't for any new capabilities, it was just for some nice piece of gear.
I hope the new expansion has more stuff like this for different classes, because it really makes you feel like you earned the new skill, and not just "ding level, pay trainer".
Some of the very unique Hunter capabilities like Freezing Trap and Misdirection really could benefit from a nice little chain of quests that introduce you to the skill, and maybe also try to teach you the usefullness of the skill at the same time.
Of course, in terms of return on investment for Blizzard, class-specific quests are money they spend on developing content only limited audience will ever experience, so I won't hold my breath.
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