Finally over the hump

I didn't level my druid last night like I've been doing for the past week. Nope. After watching the football game (I'm a Panthers fan and actually had to pay attention to this one, so no WoW during it), I decided to go ahead and push my priest's enchanting skill to the 300 mark, no matter what it took.

Luckily I didn't have to spend all the money I had to do it, but I did have to spend a lot. Enchanting mats are expensive, especially the ones that everyone knows you need to level.

I made my way to Moonglade to buy a couple recipes that would make it easier to level. I was already at 290, so I only needed to go 10 levels, but I pretty much had none of the mats I needed to get there.

First up was making a Runed Arcanite Rod. Guess what you need for that? An Arcanite Rod, and those are made by blacksmiths, which I don't have any of, so it's off to the AH. Oh look there's a few on there, the cheapest one costs...75g. Well I'm getting to 300 tonight, so goodbye 75g, hello Arcanite Rod.

Next up is a Golden Pearl, and the only ones selling are a stack of 3 for 6g. I bought them and put the other two up for 6g, maybe I can get away with it. I also had to buy Greater Eternal Essences because for some reason they hate me and everything I disenchant gives me dust, doesn't seem to matter if it's a weapon or armor.

Then I needed lots of Illusion Dust, of which I had 8, so I only had to buy 2 more, sweet. And surprisingly enough I already had the Large Brilliant Shards I needed to complete the recipe.

So I made my new rod, and now I'm at 291 skill. Only 9 more to go. I take a look at my recipes and see that with the mats I have I can still enchant 3 bracers with Greater Stamina, and with no more recipes from this point on needing Dream Dust, why not see what I get out of it.

The recipe was green, so I was expecting maybe one to get me a level, but the first one got me a level. Well that was unexpected, but great! Then try the next one, and get another level! Awesome! My luck has probably run out by now, but I still have one more to try...and it bumps me up to level 294! Maybe that will make up for the 7 times I used it last time I was on and it gave me no levels. Either way, that's 3 less levels I have to buy mats for.

So I need more Illusion Dust, and I just used the last of it on that rod, so now it's back to the AH to buy the cheapest I can find in mass quantities. Surprisingly, it wasn't the stacks of 20 that were cheaper overall, it was the stacks of 5.

So after buying enough to finish the job, I had probably spent more than half the money my priest had on her when I started, but I did make it to 300. From there I made my way to Hellfire Peninsula to find the trainer, but when I got there I got interrupted by the cat and decided to call it quits.

In the end I did make it to 300 enchanting. Did I spend way more gold getting there that I needed to? Probably, but a lot of that was on the Arcanite Rod, which I can't get on my own. So while I could have waited for some random greens to disenchant from my hunter and shaman for the rest, I can always sell them to pay myself back later on too.

I'm so glad my druid only has one crafting profession, although he's almost level 74 and his leatherworking is still below 300, but farming for leather is easy, especially when what you need comes off mobs that are 20 levels below you. Hopefully all the Outland leather he has built up will get him a good chunk of the way to 375 as well.

I think I'll be sending him back to do that once he finishes up Howling Fjord. I need to get his new skills anyway, and with no class trainers in Northrend I guess I have to make my way back at some point.

These professions are so much work, but I find myself needing to do them anyway. One of the drawbacks of being a completionist.

Dumbed down?

I got an interesting comment from Anonymous on my post about druid versatility last week and it deserved some thinking on my part. Here it is:

So although I am happy that you are finding the druid powerful I think you also must look at the severe nerfing to quest level difficulty in the game as well.

This really got me thinking about my experience with questing through Outland and how it compares to what we got with Northrend. The first question we have to ask is, does it seem like Northrend is a little dumbed down compared to what we're used to?

Now being that I'm still level 73, almost 74, I may not be far enough in to make the most accurate assessment, but from what I've seen so far it does seem to be a bit easier than what I was used to. I can solo elites without much trouble, the regular mobs seem to die much faster, and I'm not even in the TBC raid gear that many of you started in.

But here's the thing. While the quests may be easier than we're used to, they also have a lot more variety, and there are more of them in each zone. They really set up many more quest hubs, and a lot of those quests are a lot more fun what anything we did before. I think they wanted to scale back on the grinding aspect of questing and focus more on accomplishing objectives that are both interesting and fun.

I'm finding I have to think a lot more about how to get quests done. It's no longer just finding the right mob and killing enough of them to complete the quest or collect a certain item (well it is, but the ratio is significantly lower).

Now we get to fire cannons at giants from a ghost ship, trick wolves into letting you help them by disguising yourself as one, and scare the crap out of bats so you can collect the guano. It's not as straight forward, and even when you figure out where to go you still have to figure out what exactly you have to do when you get there.

I'm finding it a lot more stimulating, and I really don't run into those quests that are just so boring and monotonous that I have to take a break afterwards just to let my brain come back online.

Back to the point. Are the quests easier? Well if you base this only on how easy the mobs are to kill then I would say yes, but I don't think that's the only factor they look at when they come up with this stuff.

I think we all know that Blizzard wants the fastest way to level to be questing, but also that all those end game junkies want to get to level 80 as fast as they can, so why not make quests that those people are able to blow through quickly so they can level up? They also know that players like me, who just like the experience of solo questing and exploring, are excited about fun quests that are stimulating and don't frustrate us.

I guess what I'm saying is, maybe the quests aren't as difficult as we're used to in the way that it was almost impossible to solo an elite of the same level, but those elites are still difficult and require us to use up our cooldowns to take down, they aren't a cakewalk that we can defeat without some amount of skill.

I think what they took out in mob strength they managed to make up for with quests that appeal to a wider variety of players and won't frustrate the hell out of those of us that choose to solo as much as we can. So while the quest difficulty may be nerfed, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing unless you really like to struggle your way through the levels.

Moved on too early?

I get the feeling like I'm missing something in Borean Tundra. I've pretty much traveled the whole map, but reading this post by Spicytuna I see a quest where you dress up as the opposing faction, and I never did anything like that. I'll have to look into it, but even if I did miss something it will have to wait until I go back there.

Right now I've moved on to Howling Fjord. It's a pretty cool looking zone, and once again the Alliance town is under attack at the gates.

Before heading there I finished up the last few quests I had in Borean Tundra. I like the debuff you get from killing mammoths where the D.E.H.T.A. can tell you killed one and attack you for it. I think a lot of little things like that is what makes WoW great, and I love finding stuff like that. I am glad your rep with them doesn't get lowered when you kill the animals though, becuase it was part of a quest and I didn't want to miss out on that XP.

In the end I still hadn't hit 62, but I was within one bar, which is close enough for me. I hopped on one of the sea turtles and made my way to the fjord, stopping off in Dragonblight for the flight path and to switch turtles on the way.

I'm almost glad they don't let you fly in Northrend until later on. Despite not having the money for the skill, I also wouldn't want to miss out on the exploring by just flying everywhere. A lot of what I enjoy about this game is just how massive it is, and flying around causes you to miss out on a lot of stuff.

I did manage to get another few levels of leatherworking on my druid, and even better was the fact that I could send the stuff I made back to my priest to disenchant and get some mats for herself. The mats she got out of it got her a few levels as well.

One of these days I'm going to farm some leather so my druid can get over that 300 hump, and maybe the mats my priest gets from that will get her over too. Is it sad that I have two characters over 70 with crafting professions under 300? I just need more money I think, that would solve everything.

Saving my own hide

As I continue to play my druid through Northrend I'm remembering how to deal with certain situations, which I had forgotten over time since I had been playing other characters. One of the best things is how versatile he is when faced with various situations where most classes would either die or have to run away.

I think the most helpful is their ability to outlast an elite mob. When you come upon those quests where you have to fight an elite mob, and of course the reward is always better than normal, it's such a drag to have to skip it because you just can't find any help. On a druid things are different, because there's a pretty good chance you can solo it.

There was an elite quest I came across last night that had me kill an elite tauren and his kodo mount. I was actually saving it for later but on my way to do something else I saw him and figured I should try it and see if it's doable. First try I killed him.

Bear form is awesome. All I have to do is Mangle every time it's up, Lacerate the rest of the time to keep it going, and if I get low on health I can pop Frenzied Regeneration or if that's on cooldown I Bash, heal myself, then go back to bear form. For the most part I rarely have to heal more than once, and I'm specced for cat DPS, not tanking.

For normal questing I'm in cat form. It helps me kill things fast, and there is almost no down time. I can usually take out 5 or 6 mobs in a row before having to heal, and since cat form uses no mana I always have some available for a quick heal before getting back to work.

Then I run into those unexpected moments. The times when you've got one mob on you, then another walks up and starts beating on you, and then just when you thought you were finished with them another mob somehow aggros on you and you're already below 25% health.

At that point I have to figure out if that health will last me the rest of the fight or if I need to do something else to save myself. And it doesn't even mean healing either, I can usually just switch to bear form and the extra health and armor does it's job. Last night I had to last through 4 additional mobs and was hovering at about 15% health the whole time. It was awesome when I finally killed them all and realized that I had survived.

I've been hearing lots of talk about big changes coming to druids, most specifically armor from things such as trinkets and rings not being counted in the armor increase from bear form. Well, I might be one of the few that this could actually help. Not really being a tank, I don't have anything other than leather that provides me with armor, and since the change is supposed to compensate for that loss of armor that others will suffer, it should be a benefit to those that don't have the kind of gear it affects.

In the time I played last night I made it to level 71 and am already more than halfway to 72. These zones have so many quests, and I'm just hopping from one quest hub to another and clearing them out. All the money I get from them isn't too bad either, and I think the new gear looks really cool. I'm thinking I'll have this zone done after my next session, and then it's off to Howling Fjord.

I also sent my priest some stuff I picked up from various mobs and she now has new pants and a new wand. I had planned on disenchanting the rest, but her enchanting isn't high enough. Looks like I better get that leveled up before she heads over to Northrend.

Helping out

The more I play in Northrend the more it grows on me. My druid is closing in on the level 71 mark and the way these quests are set up is great, an awesome change from the normal way we've been used to for so long.

First, despite there still being many kill X amount of Y or collect X amount of a certain item, there are many other variations on how to accomplish those quests. On top of that, there are a lot of brand new mechanics used, such as being able to ride wandering beasts, spearing a giant sea creature to drop it's health to a level you can deal with, and lots of others.

Another thing that threw me off at first, but that I now think is a great change is getting away from only having a few central quest hubs per zone and pretty much having to run back there every time you have quests to turn in. Now the quests givers are scattered around, but not in a way where you would miss them entirely if you didn't know where they were.

Much like when you first started out in your starting zone at level 1 and finished those quests, then were sent on your way to the next town via a quest, you are now sent to find various NPCs around the map after completing other quests. Not only that, but the quests have a certain succession to them that minimizes travel time. It was very well thought out.

I'm finding the experience very enjoyable so far, and while there are more players around than I'm typically used to seeing, I don't find it overly crowded. I also haven't been ganked much, and the few times I have didn't interfere too much. It seems Horde is more focused on leveling than picking a fight that could possibly cause them more trouble if that particular player has any friends around.

I'm not really sure how much more I have left to do in Borean Tundra, but after I'm done there I will be heading over to the Howling Fjord to check that out too. I'm excited to see what that place is like.

70 priest and feralization

After a lot of playing over the last couple weeks I finally managed to push my priest the rest of the way to 70. With only 4 bars left to go it didn't take too long, and after turning in those last few finished quests I dropped the rest and made my way back to Stormwind.

While there I learned my new spells and then decided to clear up some inventory space. How did I do this? Well, I put away all the enchanting mats that I will probably never use because they are for low level enchants.

In the process I decided to see about getting my enchanting to 300 so I could use all the mats that I got from disenchanting Outland stuff.This turned out to be harder than I thought it would be. Pretty much all the enchants I had that were orange at my level used Eternal Essences of some sort, and I had none and nothing to disenchant.

I ended up looking up enchanting leveling guides and found an enchant that would help: Enchant Bracer - Greater Stamina. It was yellow to me, but only used 5 Dream Dust, which I had in great excess. I ended up getting my enchanting to 286 before I ran out (which is 18 levels on just that one enchant). Now I'm stuck again, but I'll figure it out later.

On to my druid, who I finally sent over to Northrend. Of course I didn't do my homework and was confused when I went to Stormwind Harbor and found only one boat that would take me there when I thought there would be two. Then I read that to get to Howling Fjord you have to take the boat from Menethil.

I didn't really have a preference, so I just went to Borean Tundra anyway since I'll be going to Howling Fjord after I'm done there.

My first impressions of Northrend? It's very cool. Finally we have some buildings with new layouts. No more of these keeps and inns that all have the exact same floorplans. The variety of quests is nice too. Rewiring harvesters, throwing nets on flying mobs, unlatching a mine cart, uncovering cult members, and that's just to name a few.

Actually when I first got there I still hadn't redistributed my talent points since they were refunded last, and upon fighting my first mob I found I had no Mangle in the '2' position like it's supposed to be. I guess that's as good a time as any to research feral druid talent builds.

I found a pretty good one that seemed to go for all the cat talents, since I'll be leveling mostly as a cat, and after making a few tweaks to it I had my new talent build all set up. It's pretty crazy how fast mobs go down now. My gear is just quest greens and a few blues from Outland, but the damage I put out now is crazy.

After doing the first few quests I got some significant upgrades to my gear and now I'm having no problem taking down multiple mobs in succession with little to no downtime. My crit rate in cat form is over 30%, which is awesome, and I get to see crits pop up all the time now. I'm also noticing a lack of strength on most of the leather items and instead they include agility and +attack power. I assume these are the stats to look for now.

If the rest of Northrend is as interesting as the little that I've seen so far I think I'm going to have a lot of fun making my way through, although it won't go nearly as fast as most of you are probably going.

Big weekend

So how did my holiday weekend go, you might ask? Well even if you didn't ask I'm going to tell you anyway.

First off, Thanksgiving was awesome. Lots of good food and fun with the family. My cousins had their Wii there, and we all had a great time playing. Watching my parents try to figure out how to do the bowling, and then how much fun they had when they finally got the hang of it was awesome.

I also got a lot done in WoW. The gf had to work most of the weekend, and with most of my other friends either out of town or also working, I had a lot of time to myself, and a lot of it was spent trying to push my priest the rest of the way to 70.

I didn't quite make it, but I got close. I did manage to finish up Terokkar (except the group quests), and made my way to Nagrand, but only for the flight path. From there I flew up to Orebar Harborage and ran through the cave to Blade's Edge. Since I was there I decided to do those first quests at Sylvanaar before continuing on to Netherstorm.

I did pretty much all the quests in that first little area, but when it was time to move on to a new quest hub I skipped it and went straight to Netherstorm. By that time I was a few bars into level 68 and figured it would be a good time to make the move.

I'd never been there before, and didn't really know what to expect. It's a really strange zone, and I don't think I was really prepared for it. The thing that surprised me the most were the ecologies.

On my way to turn in some quests I pretty much expected to just see more of the same purple landscape, but then I ran into a glowing hemisphere with plants and wildlife inside, and I could pass right through into it with no trouble at all.

When I finally called it quits last night I had finished almost all the quests given at Area 52 and the southeastern island with the Kirin'Var village. I also managed to do a few of the quests at the first ecology and made my way up to the Stormspire and got the flight path. After all that I was about 4 bars away from level 70, and with lots of quests left to do I should get there in my next play session.

It's been a great experience playing to 70 on a second character, and being able to go through an entirely different zone to get there makes it even better. My usual motto is to stop playing a character immediately when the run out of rest XP bonus, but I'm so close I'm going to have to waive that restriction this time.

The only problem I'm having is that her enchanting skill isn't high enough to disenchant the green items she's getting. I ended up putting all of them in the bank so I can get some mats out of them when I get there.

The big problem is that I've outleveled my enchanting. All the items I get give me the mats for the next tier of enchanting recipes, so I'm going to have to figure out the easiest way to go about getting those mats. I'm hoping the items my hunter and shaman will be getting when they start up again will disenchant into the right mats, but I'm almost certain that's not the case, so I'll probably have to figure something else out.

Hopefully I can push my priest to 70 tonight, then it's time to head over to Northrend on my druid and see what all the fuss is about. I'm hoping the big rush has calmed down by now, and maybe I can quest without too much of a crowd, I'm not holding my breath though.

That was my weekend, how was yours?