Tuesday, December 8, 2009

This <- ^ -> way to Achievements













12/08/09

Since I'm waiting for the patch to download, I might as well post!

Well, thanks to the advice and comments of Joar and Kring, I finally got 2 achievements that have been bugging me for a while.
On the Blade's Edge
Check here for tips on how to get this. I had picked up the Orb of Grishna at one point, but I must have thrown it away, because the Ravens Wood Stonebark were still hostile to me. This achievement is very dependent on you doing 2 things.
1) Kill ALL the sons of Gruul.
2) Get all the Pick-up quests - i.e., all the items that drop that say "this item starts a quest." This item from the Bladespire Ogres is good for quite a long quest line.

I also got Nagrand Slam after deciding to run through Auchenai Crypts for Auchindoun, which is 8th in a 14 step chain quest.

Now I just need do about 78 Hellfire quests for the Achievement, and after getting Exalted with the Netherwing (sweet, sweet dragon mounts), I will never, EVER go back to Outlands with Bloodshrike if I can help it.

Woot! Download finished, time to play.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

I level......Daily

11/24/09

Well, Pilgrim's Bounty is now upon us, a new title and pet available from it (though you don't need it for the World Event achievement, it's always fun to get a new title, now that I've recently started getting them.

I'm not going to delve into the specifics of the achievements much, since Darth already has an excellent write-up on them, which adds to the guides already out there.

Instead, I'll add my viewpoints from the altoholic standpoint. Before, when world events came along, I'd do some of them, then give up, because I knew I couldn't finish all of the achievements needed for the title. I figured I'd get back to them later, when I finally hit 80 with one or some of my toons. However, I had been ignoring something very, very nice that happens during these times.

Daily Quests

Normally only available to level 70's and above (unless you're a cook, which allows you to do the Dalaran cooking daily at 65), World Event Daily Quests are usually easy to complete quests that offer a decent amount of gold, sometimes rep, and most importantly, usually a bubbles worth of experience for a few minutes work. With the Midsummer fire festival, I'd log in to do Torch Tossing and Torch Catching, and gain an easy 2 bubbles of experience a day for each of my alts. That's huge for me, since months or even years can go by for a toon before they get out of a city. Banesidhe (my first mage) stayed at level 40 for at least a year, before getting up to level 46 recently with the Hallows End and I believe the Midsummer Fire Festival earlier this year. If I can get to level 48, I'll be ready to zerg out to level 50 with grinding Timbermaw rep, same as I did with Clockwrkmage on my Ally server.

So, my tips on getting some easy gold and xp for your alts, without pulling out your hair in frustration over the lore cooking quests that you think you might have to do. Don't worry about the quests that aren't Dailies, do them as you come to them, but the reward? you get from doing the "Lore" related quests isn't something you will want to rush towards.

Tip #1:
Stock up! Clear out as much of your bags as you can, and stock up to 80-100-120 of each area specific item (Cranberries, Sweet Potatoes...). You never know when someone will offer gold for you to cook food that costs copper to buy. Plus, it really, really, really sucks to run out of Cranberries when you're in UC, and you only have to cook 5 more to turn in a quest. Trust me.

Tip #2:
If you can stand it, try to get as many Wild Turkey stocked up as you can. It's not a problem to replenish your stocks of pumpkins, but it's annoying to have to go out of the city to kill another 20 turkeys each day. Just try to get 60+ the first time, while you're going for the Turkinator achievement, and see if you need more after that.

Tip #3:
Try to do all 5 dailies with all your alts. It only takes a few minutes to run from a portal to where the dailies are, cook up the mats, and turn them in. Then hearth back to Dalaran, portal to the next city, turn in or pick up a daily there, and log out. Rinse and repeat with the next toon. By the time you've done this with your 10th alt, your first one will definitely have their hearth up, and will be ready to go to the next city.

Tip #4:
If you're going to visit the enemy capitals, you might as well explore the zone around there, since I doubt you'll want to come back again when doing all your exploration for the Explorer title. Darnassus and the Exodar are annoying zones to get to as a Horde, so you might as well kill 2 achievements with one trip.

Loremaster or Bust!

11/9/09
I’ve been trying to get around to having Bloodshrike on Demon Soul get the Loremaster title, since he’s the closest in terms of quests completed in Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms, missing only about a 100ish on Kalimdor and a little more in the Eastern Kingdoms. That’s fine and dandy, but what I’ve noticed is that it’s kinda impossible to do the Outland Loremaster without going into Auchindoun, since you stall out at 77 out of 87 quests in Nagrand at that point. I really don’t like being forced to go into dungeons, especially ones that would take me forever to solo. I’m sure I could probably get a group together for running it, since they’d appreciate having an 80 along, but I hate getting into PUG’s.

I guess this is just whining, because it’s really not that hard to get the quests needed for the Outland Loremaster achievement. Heck, I’ve still got a bunch of Consortium quests I could do in Netherstorm, including the quest line that leads up to the X-52 rocket helmet. It’s just that my philosophy has been “If I can’t solo it, I don’t want to do it.” I hate waiting around in Trade, spamming “LFG for whatever,” when I could be out completing other quests, or on an alt, finally getting around to leveling them.

One thing’s for sure, I’m not going to even attempt Loremaster on any other toon. It’s even worse on Alliance side, requiring 700 quests each for Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms. And, correct me if I’m wrong, but they aren’t all this easy. – Ding!

I’m also going to need to do a lot of quest catchup in Northrend too, since I mainly leveled to 80 while still in Outlands, doing all the dailies I could there. I’ve really only touched Sholazar Basin and a little bit of Borean Tundra. I guess it’s a good thing that Pallormortis, my DK, is almost to 70. It would be fun do the quests in Northred around their level, and actually get good amounts of XP for completing them, plus the quest rewards would be around my level. I’m really, really tired of doing quests that are gray to me, just to tick off 1 more number on quests completed.

Edit: Due to completing the Shadowmoon Valley quest achievement, I got some more quests to take back to Nagrand, to visit Altruis the Demon Hunter. So, I'm about 84/87 for Nagrand, and the Auchindoun quests should be filled this week, since I'm going to knock out the Thanksgiving holiday achievement on Bloodshrike at least.

And, after being 80 a few weeks, I finally remembered to visit a hunter trainer and get my level 80 spells, as well as retraining my gorilladin to be more of a tank. Doh! That allowed me to solo the quest in Netherstorm, where you have to defend Area 52 against a Fel Reaver, using a weak version that dies after a little while, leaving you to try to solo it, since there's nobody else out there. I couldn't do it at 79, but finally got it done at 80.

The Start of an Era

11/2/09
Thanks to Kring and Darth’s advice, I decided to try late night dailies of the Headless Horseman, and I was able to get the Hallowed Helm on my 2nd try. It was a good thing too, because I did it once halfway thru the week to get “Bring me the Head of….oh wait,” and didn’t get around to doing it again until the Friday before the event ended. Since I had gotten the Sinister Squashling pet as a drop from trick or treating the innkeepers, that got me all the achievements I needed for “The Hallowed” title.

Funnily enough, on Darrowmere, my other hunter Bloodshrike was able to get a title just yesterday. She finally nabbed the last 18+ female she needed for the “Shake your Bunnymaker” achievement to get “the Noble” title. Yeah, I’m a little behind the times, I know. It’s just hard to find females in Dalaran, since a lot of the high level armor makes it impossible to see faces. You have to basically inspect every toon of that race that you need, in the hopes of seeing bumps on their chests.
However, in addition to Bloodshrike #1 getting the title, I was able to get about 2-4 levels on each of my toons between the Hallow’s End Dailies and some of them going to get the candy bucket achievements.

Bloodshrike on Demonsoul actually leveled to 80 doing the daily in Brill, funnily enough. I was also able to get several toons on each server either the Squashling or the Hallowed Helm, which will make it easier on me next year, when I will hopefully have a lot more 80’s that I can kill the Headless Horseman with. At this point, I’m not worried about getting the mount from the HH, but it would be nice to have it SOMEWHERE on my account, even if it’s not on my main. And if I get 10-20-or 30 toons up to 80 by next year, that’ll give me tons more chances for it to drop each day.

Here’s the list of who got what from Hallow’s End.
Demon Soul:
Bloodshrike – Squashling and Helm (and Title)

Daggerspine:
Clockwrkmage-

Darrowmere:
Bloodshrike -

Still need to fill this in…….

Friday, October 23, 2009

The easiest way to win the Lotto.....is by having won it already

So, I dragged all my toons back from the far corners of the world, to concentrate on the Hallows End achievements.

My Alliance server Daggerspine has all the toons in Goldshire, even though it's a 2 building fire, Allies do it often enough to park all my toons there, and reap the rewards from one succesful fire quenching. Kharanos in Dun Morogh is a ghost town (heh, a pun), and though I've heard that Azure Watch in the Draenai starting area is easy, I haven't gone out there yet.

Darrowmere, my baby Horde account, has all the toons in Brill. Why not Razor Hill, since it's close by Orgrimmar? Because Brill only has the right side of the town hall set ablaze by the Headless Horseman, whereas Razor Hill has 3 buildings to quench. Needless to say, that quenching doesn't happen very often. Why not Falconwing Square by Silvermoon City? Yes, it only has one building front set on fire, but there's nobody there! It could be different on other servers, but I've noticed a tendency for nobody to go to the BC Expansion areas anymore.

A side note: If you do have a lot of toons, and don't want to have to worry about doing the town dailies more than during one login loop, do some preparation. I usually log in with my first toon, accept the "Let the Fires come" quest, then dump it and get "Put out the Fires" immediately. Go back inside the inn, and have all the other toons accept the "Put out the Fires" quest as well. Now, when you're logging in to trick or treat the innkeepers, and hear "My fires have died, left not a spark....." immediately run outside and loot the pumpkin, and this will also give you a completed status on the "Put out the Fires" quest.

However, this doesn't mean you need to turn in the quests immediately. In Brill, since the pumpkin and Matron are so close together, go ahead and turn it in and get your rewards, then dash back in the inn for the next toon.

In Goldshire though, you'll want to loot the pumpkin, then run back to the inn to get your next toon. With a lot of toons, seconds can count, and it's better to get the dailies over as soon as you can, because more and more people won't care to do them as the festival winds on. This philosphy would also apply to Razor Hill in Durotar, since the pumpkin lands straight out from the inn, and the Matron is a good distance away.

Now, as to the title of the post. The Sinister Squashling pet and the Hallowed Helm are needed for the Sinister Calling Achievement, which is part of the Hallowed Be Thy name Achievement, which rewards the Hallowed title after your name. If you don't feel like dealing with PUG groups to kill the Headless Horseman, you can also get them as drops from Trick or Treating the innkeepers every hour (usually 3-4 times a day for me, as I'd really rather be out questing).

Here's my luck so far:
Sinister Squashling
Clockwrkmage on Daggerspine
Doomslinger on Daggerspine
Aosdanasaoi on Daggerspine
Tsuris on Daggerspine

Hallowed Helm
Gwiddonyn on Daggerspine
Aosdanasaoi on Daggerspine (giving her the Achievement)
Bonescourge on Demon Soul x 2
Kukoshakaku on Demon Soul x 2

So, if you want something, get it, and you'll be sure to get it again.
I've also noticed a tendency to be repeat tricked - as in, if I'm a snake, and login an hour later, I'll most likely be transformed again, instead of getting a treat.

I know, I know, it's just numbers and statistics, but it feels weird to get your third Flimsy Male Troll Mask on one toon, without having any other masks received. The Random Number Generator (RNG) doesn't seem so random at that point, more like vindictive.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Ah crap, not another holiday event!

It's time for Halloween.....strike that, it's Hallow's End in WoW. Despite the title of the post, I actually don't have a problem with any of the quests/achievements in this holiday.

Visiting candy buckets in Azeroth and Outlands, and getting XP for each one? Check, gotta love it. This allows me to give some levels to some of my alts that I haven't played in a long time (clothies and druids, mainly), as well as perhaps getting some exploring and flight points unlocked.

So, I'll have all my toons parked at either Razor Hill or Goldshire, be able to Trick or Treat the Innkeepers every hour on the hour if I remembered to do it, and be able to cash in on one of the toons helping out with the daily, then having all the rest come in to pick up the pumpkin head.

This holiday, like the Midsummer Fire Festival, actually rewards altoholics with XP for trying to complete the achievements. Brewfest......not so much. Spending 2-4 hours ram riding, with no "Ding" of leveling, kinda made me not want to log on. With the candy bucket achievements, I've already gotten some toons to their next level, just by flying around. Much, much more fun.

Also, the pet available during this event isn't something I have to save up tickets for, it's completely random, and I can probably get it by just doing trick or treating enough. Sinister Squashling

Wish me luck, and have fun with Hallow's End.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

About Last Night.....

Well, since Blizzard decided to extend the Brewfest deadline by 2 days, I decided to see how many toons could save up 350 tokens by Monday night. Here's my progress up to now.

Demon Soul

Friday


Saturday








Daggerspine

Friday


Saturday








Darrowmere

Friday


Saturday








Most of the toons on Demon Soul, ALL of the toons on Daggerspine, and Bloodshrike and Psilentkill on Darrowmere will have the 350 tokens necessary for the Brewfest garb, then they'll return it for the refund, buy the Brew of the Month Membership if they don't have it already, and maybe buy the Beer Goggles with the rest.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Hindsight is always 20/20

To Kring, HokieJayBee, and David....

I'm kicking myself right now for not investigating the event more thoroughly. I should have looked up a strategy guide for the event, or even posted sooner, and all this would have been avoided. I originally wanted just the Elekk, and only after a couple of days had passed (and I had already gotten the Elekk on all toons on Demon Soul) did I start thinking about getting the achievement.

But, as has been pointed out, it's not necessary to drink each Brew of the Month to get the achievement, you just have to join. So, if I only get my toons enough tokens to join this year, I'll just wait for next year to see if my toons are high enough to warrant getting the other 350 tokens for the clothes, as well as killing Coren, thus getting the title at that time. Or, I could just hang on to the tokens that I get this year, wait til next year to get to 350, and follow the advice of buying the clothes, wearing them in Dalaran, returning them, and THEN buying the membership. I dunno, I'll make up my mind at the end of the week.

Wish me luck on getting some of my toons enough tokens this year that they won't have to repeat the hell of running kegs ad nauseum next year!

Monday, September 28, 2009

What Price Sanity?


































9/28/09
I've been meaning to post, I just haven't had the time. Why? Brewfest. More specifically, getting the pre-requisites done for Brewfest NEXT year. Bloodshrike on Demon Soul is the only toon even close enough to being able to get the Brewmaster title this year, but, since he didn't join the Brew of the month club LAST year, he still wouldn't able to get the title until next year anyway. So, I decided to take all of my toons and camp them in the brewfest grounds, all to get the Pint-sized Pink Elekk and the Brew of the Month Club done in the 2 weeks that Brewfest lasts.

Let's break down what that entails. 100 tokens for the pet, 200 tokens for the membership. Not too hard to do with one toon, although a bit tedious. Times 30 = mind-numbing insanity.

One-time quests:
There and Back Again = 10 tokens.
Chug and Chuck = 10 tokens
Catch the Wild Wolpertinger = 0 tokens, but gives you the Wolpertinger pet and achievement.
Pink Elekks on Parade = 40 tokens.
= 60 tokens so far.

Daily Quests
Bark for the beer vendors = 15 tokens, 4 minutes or less completion time.
This One Time, When I was Drunk = 10 tokens, 10 second completion time, and you can have all your alts complete it since the gear sticks around for 10 minutes after you've defeated the Dark Iron Dwarf attack on the camp.

Semi-Daily Quests
Remember the guy that had you pick up 3 kegs? Talk to him again, and he'll offer a semi-daily that you can do every 18 hours, to get as many kegs as you can with a diminishing timer. I can usually get 14-16 tokens from Horde side, but up to 30 tokens on my Ally server. Horde side is almost a straight shot, whereas Ally side takes you thru trees, but I guess the apple barrels are placed more strategically, because I hardly ever have my ram get exhausted.

So, as it stands, all my toons have the Elekk, and are working on the 200 tokens for the membership. Bloodshrike already got it, so he's going to see what pieces of the Brewfest regalia he can buy before the fair ends.

P.S. I got all the toons on Demon Soul the Elekk on the first day, with about 30 minutes needed for each toon to get 100 tokens. After that, it slows down, with only the 3 dailies to give you tokens. 10 + 15+ 16(or 30 for allies) = 42-50 average per day (and about 15 minutes needed), if I was able to do all toons every day. I've just been mostly doing the This One Time, When I was Drunk turnin, then seeing what toons are lowest, and focusing on them.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Questing in Northrend

9/18/09

From the last post until now, I've changed my mind a little bit. I took a simple travel quest Where in the World is Hemet Nesingwary to the middle of Sholozar Basin, to just meet the legendary Hemet Nesingwary and to do the Ghostfish Daily fishing quest for Dalaran. At least, that was my intention. So, I introduce myself to Hemet AGAIN, even though I've already done bucketloads of his quests in Stranglethorn Vale and Outlands (that dwarf has a memory as bad as my own), and run on down to the River's Heart to catch the elusive Ghostfish.

After I catch the fish, I look around, and I notice a ! over Tamara Wobblesprocket's head that I hadn't seen on the other few times I had done the Ghostfish daily. So, I accepted her Part-Time Hunter, since it seemed like it would be close, and I should be easily able to solo whatever mob I needed to. That led me to the Frenzyheart questline, and then I started doing the Nesingwary questline, since I now had 2 (two) tanks ready to soak up and deal out damage. As long as you keep Hoofing It, you've got a pocket tank with Zepik the Gorloc Hunter. As a hunter, I already had a tank, so this made questing SUPER easy. I got thru 39 out of the 75? quests in Sholozar before I stopped. And, I stopped because I dinged 77, and could learn Cold Weather Flying. :)

So, there is a bonus from spending time past 68 in Outlands, at least on your first toon on the server. I only really spent about 1 level stuck on a ground mount in Northrend, before I could fly again. With only 2.5 levels to go to 80, I'll probably ding 80 before Pallormortis, who is currently 67 and doing Netherstorm quests, will need or want to start to start flying in Northrend, so I'll be able to provide the Bind on Account Book of Cold Weather Flying.

My First Title

9/16/09
Last night, Bloodshrike on Demon Soul got his first title. At Exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive, you can buy the “of the Shattered Sun” title from the NPC in the high tower on Quel’Danas. After probably a month of dailies on the Isle of QD, as well as the Sunfury Attack plans in Netherstorm and the Spectro-graphic disturbances in Nagrand, I finally got to Exalted. And while the Alchemy trinket plans are useless compared to the highest level alchemy trinkets, the necklace I bought (Shattered Sun Pendant of Might) was actually a small upgrade compared to what I had. Couple that with being exalted with scryers, and having it proc because of that, and it becomes really nice (though I haven’t noticed it doing that). I haven’t been finding much on the AH for upgrades at level 76, maybe because people have found that quest rewards are better in Northrend than what drops? Dunno.

Speaking of Northrend, I’m level 76, Honored with the Kirin Tor because of the fishing and cooking dailies, and yet I’ve barely done any quests there. I did all the D.E.H.T.A. Little P.I.T.A. quests, and a few around Warsong Hold, but I haven’t really done much else there. I want to get exalted with whatever factions in Outlands that give me Alchemy/Engineering recipes before really moving on to Northrend.

Monday, August 31, 2009

How many Professions have you gone through?






At level 72, I finally decided to level Bloodshrike the rest of the way from 420ish Alchemy all the way to 450. One of the easiest and cheapest professions to max, I only had to do some Earthsiege and Skyflare transmutes, and badda-boom, I'm 450. Along the way I noticed some very nice bonuses that Alchemists have - Flask of the North, Endless Mana Potion, and Endless Health Potion are 3 potions that an Alchemist can use, and will not be consumed on use. Think about that, people! While the health from the potion isn't much for someone with 10k health already, it's nice to top off after a fight. Same with the mana potion. Before, I would have to switch to Aspect of the Viper after every 5 mobs or so, to regen my 5k mana. Now, I make it a game to see how low I can get my mana before chugging the mana pot. With only a 1 minute cooldown, I literally would never have to switch to AotV again while questing.

And with a proper macro, it can be made to be easily used.

#showtooltip
/cast [nomodifier] superduper high level healing potion, for use in combat
/cast [modifier:alt] Endless Mana Potion
/cast [modifier:ctrl] Endless Healing Potion

Demon Soul is my first server, and as such, I made some mistakes or choices that I rethought with my other 2 servers. On Daggerspine, I have a warlock as my alchemist, and on Darrowmere, my priest is my alchemist/inscriptionist. But, it's nice to know that it's not a wasted profession slot that one of my other toons could have done for me.

I even had my Rogue on Demon Soul going for Weaponsmithing for a while, before I made him into a miner, and then when my DK blew past him in Mining/Skinning, had him take up Skinning for when the DK would drop Skinning for Engineering at level 60.

Anyone else have any stories about changing professions midgame?

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Just having fun with the game

Hey all, I haven't fallen off the face of the planet. I tend to write posts when I have nothing to do at work, and since I've been busy, I haven't been writing.
But, since WoW is down for urgent maintenance, it was time to try to remember my password to Blogger, since I've gotten a new computer and the password wasn't saved. :)

I could write them at home, but.....I'm having too much fun with Burning Crusade content!
(Dude, BC came out like 2 years ago, what's so special about it?)
Well, I'm just getting into playing those areas. I've always been one to play a game to explore all areas of it, not just get to the end. I put 300 hours on Final Fantasy 7,8, and X each, and by the time I beat X, my levels were so high from doing the monster arena over and over, it would have been a 1-hit kill except there was a damage cap of 99,999.

(All areas of the game, that means character classes and professions, right?)
Yup, I'm on 3 servers, 2 Horde, 1 Alliance. Demon Soul is my only one with a Death Knight, but all the other classes are represented at least once on each of the servers.

(All Professions? What about dropped recipes for those professions?)
Each server has all professions covered, and I've bought/found most of the recipes I could. I'm not stressing on dungeon drop BOP recipes, as I don't like tying myself down to a toon for that long of a time. I like being able to hop around. Once I get high enough to solo the dungeons, maybe I'll go for the recipes then.

So, playing 30 toons at once tends to slow your leveling rate way down. Not to mention the time spent in the AH, looking for recipes that I want for the future.
But, I came to the realization that I.....pretty much got them all. I haven't learned a lot of the recipes, but I've collected most of the high level recipes for each profession, on each server, and am just waiting to get to the level caps to be able to powerlevel to the next cap of the profession. For example, Bullkathos finally hit level 50, and was able to advance to 375 blacksmithing. I leveled him to 372, and was able to learn all these recipes. 2-4k gold spent in a few minutes, and probably would have been worth 20k gold a few years ago.
Fel-Edged Battleaxe
Runic Hammer
Hammer of Righteous Might
Dirge
Khorium Champion
Steelgrip Gauntlets
Blessed Bracers
Felfury Gauntlets
Felsteel Reaper
Eternium Runed Blade
Fel Hardened Maul
Storm Helm
Oathkeeper's Helm
Black Felsteel Bracers

These are the recipes I've collected over the years, and after Bloodshrike stepped onto the shores of Northrend, I've learned they're useless. Same with all the level 300 plans that Burning Crusade greens put to shame. I kinda wish they'd revamp them so they'd have slightly better stats then the low level greens you get when you first get into Hellfire. They did modify some existing recipes, like the Radiant set, to give it Hit rating and resilience, instead of whatever idiotic stats that it had before. Here's hoping.

But, on the plus side, I am enjoying how well quests are strung together in Outlands. No more go here, kill these mobs, come back to the quest giver, get given a quest for a zone across the ocean, and get a quest to come back to the original mobs for a different thing that they can drop! Instead, if you collect all the quests in a zone, you will only get a few travel quests, and those are usually just to introduce you to the next zone.

I've also decided to not attack players unless they're my level or above. A hunter combat engineer is just too overpowered for most players I come across, who usually have a few thousand health less then me, even if they're only 3 levels below.
I was killing ogres in the Burning Blade ruins in northern Nagrand, when I saw a level 68 warrior (I was 70, I believe). I'm at about 10k health, he's at maybe 7k. I had picked up the daily PvP quest to kill 10 enemy players in Halaa, and thought that this would be a start on that total. Well, you don't get credit unless the kill is in Halaa, I found out. But, I found out that I can utterly annihilate any player around my level. Between my gnomish lightning generator bolts, the rockets from my gloves, and my bullets, he was downed quickly.

I continued killing ogres, and he respawned, and must have asked for help, because the next thing I knew I was being attacked by him, with a level 64 boomkin helping/healing him. I went down after a fight, almost taking the druid with me.
I ran back up from the Spirit Healer, and after rezzing and flying off to heal and buff up a bit, I came back. My gorilladin took on the warrior, with occasional Concussive shots and Immolation traps help from me, while I kept up Serpent Sting on the druid and kept bringing down his health thru his constant self-healing. Booya! 2 down. After that, I got almost 1-shotted by a level 80 hunter that they asked for help. :)

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Bringing the Lightning, bringing the Pain

8/4/09

Patch 3.2 hit today, while I'm at work....cough cough. Hmmm, maybe I should go home? :)

Well, since I can't talk about the new patch yet, I'll talk about powerleveling engineering. Being a gnome rox for engineering, recipes give skillups longer, and your crafting max limit is +15 of the normal cap, allowing you a taste of the level above you.

I made 9 Arcanite Dragonlings while skilling up, as Clockwrkmage was the first toon on Daggerspine to hit 50, and able to advance engineering past 300. I never make an item without getting a skillpoint for it, if I can help it, and this recipe got me from 330ish to about 340 (I think).

Remember that warrior that attacked me in Felwood? I think he had around 2500 health, way over my 1900 health. Well, I'd do a heck of a lot better in a fight against him now, being able to have my Stamina Trinket, 4K bubble shield, and my new stamina/crit/SP goggles. From 1900 HP to 3k HP, in three easy steps!!!! (and a few hundred hard steps, and a few K gold, but who's counting?)

I could have made this for my goggles, but I don't care about the spirit that much, and I had already made my goggles of choice for right now.

Oooh, I wants! Rocket Boots Xtreme Lite. And, requiring 420 engineering to make, but only 390 to use......Noise Machine. 375 engineering + 15 racial max skill cap = 390 engineering. Gnomes get the coolest toys.

Well, since I don't have my two favorite burst damage items (Gnomish Lightning Generator and Hand-Pyro Mounted Pyro Rockets, I shall have to make do with an old favorite of mine. Gnomish Death Ray. One of the main reasons I took up engineering, and my favorite trinket for any newly minted level 35ish alt. Cloth wearers don't get to use the Harm Prevention belt, but they can use the Nigh-Invulnerability Belt.

However, if you open up the comments on the Death Ray, the consensus is that you actually DO want to take damage while charging it. I usually would use the Harm Prevention Belt to absorb the damage, but I noticed I wasn't getting more than 900 damage or so when doing so, so I had stopped using the Death Ray. I think my new strategy will be to use the Death Ray, THEN pop the Nigh-Invulnerability belt to deal with the incoming damage from the mob/player I'm fighting.

Monday, August 3, 2009

"They Love me in That Tunnel" - Or, the quest for Twink Enchants

8/3/09

Clockwrkmage was on a mission this weekend. The mission was to commit xenocide on a whole bunch of furbolgs in Felwood, all in the name of cleansing the land and allowing another tribe to lay claim to valuable mineral rights, yadda yadda. I didn't care, all I knew was that at level 50, I'm allowed to bump my 2 professions (enchanting & engineering) up to 375, and I figured on making use of the 15 agility 1h and 25 agility 2h weapon enchants (From Timbermaw Hold)as a profitable way of leveling enchanting.

Twinks pay big for those to be put on their weapons, and they're actually really good enchants for any class that uses agility (rogues, hunters, feral druids). Instead of putting enchants that proc (and often don't), why not use an enchant that boosts dps, crit, and I believe dodge rating, all at once, all of the time?

My former twink Doomslinger is using it on her Twisted Chanter's Staff, and I haven't had the urge to upgrade her weapon because of it.

But, I digress. Using the level 48-51 southern furbolg's to level was good, because I got rep and good xp at the same time. I only intended to go to Honored, since that would allow me to turn in feathers and quests as I built them up, not waiting until Revered like the guides tell you to do. Bullkathos is doing that on Demon Soul, and it's a long, agonizing process, knowing you could turn in 100+ feathers at 300 rep per 5 feathers, giving you an instant 6000+ rep, but holding off until Revered, because that's when mobs stop giving rep for killing them.

Killing the those mobs was fun, but also dangerous. Since Felwood is so close to Orgrimmar, and Deadwood Village has a Horde quest to kill Overlord Ror, it's natural to assume that I'd be seeing Hordes pop up occasionally. Two encounters stick out in my mind. The first, being attacked by a level 51 warrior while I was level 48 still. He charged in and attacked me while I was finishing off 1 mob, so round 1 went to him.

Round 2 went to me, with my Gnomish Shrink Ray cutting him down to gnome size, and my Mechanical Dragonling getting in his face and landing some good hits. He made the mistake of focusing on the dragonling, which made me think he hadn't ganked many hunters.....Ignore the pet, go for the master, the pet disappears when your enemy dies!

Round 3 went to me again, though he ignored the negligible damage from my Gnomish Battle Chicken and went for me, a Frostbolt followed by Firebolt followed by Fire Blast took off a chunk of his life, then Frost Nova to hold him in place for Arcane Torrent, and a Fire Blast and a few Arcane Explosions took him down. Didn't even have to use my Gnomish Cloaking Device to buy myself some breathing room.

Final round 4 went to him, as I had tired of spamming /target player name to try to find him when he rezzed, and wanted to get back to grinding. Even popping my Mithril Mechanical Dragonling didn't help this time, as he got too close and just kept hitting me too fast.

After that, he rode off, probably figuring this was a waste of his valuable ganking time, since it wasn't an easy kill for him.

The flip side of that was meeting a level 48 Tauren Hunter, who ran along the hills behind all the Deadwood, obviously coming just to kill Overlord Ror. I had actually just overpulled or something, as I remember having to drop a target dummy, drop a Fel Iron Bomb for its daze effect, Frost Nova, and I think I even Blinked to be able to bandage a little. I ended up having to wand the final mob to death, as I was totally out of mana. Ahh, I remember, I had pulled a mob over, killed it, and immediately was attacked by a mob that spawned right there. We had a running firefight, and ended up by ANOTHER mob spawn.....Whew! Anyway, the hunter applauded my being able to pull that off, so I /bowed and /thanked her. I then /pointed to Overlord Ror, who had just spawned, and /pointed to her, then back at Ror. She got the hint that I would help her, so she sent her pet in, and I rained some firebolts and arcane torrents into him to help out. After that, she did the same /point thing, so I said /no, and went back to killing deadwood.

It's always nice to be able to connect with someone, even if you don't speak the same language, and be able to realize there are nice people everywhere, even on PvP servers.

Friday, July 31, 2009

WWGD – What Would Gevlon Do?

7/31/09

I’ve been reading Gevlon’s blog for a bit now, and I’m wondering what Gevlon would have to comment on about getting recipes for professions other than Inscription. Would it be worthwhile to a goblin to pay gold for recipes, instead of farming them themselves? Also, would it be worth getting all recipes for that profession, no matter if they were moneymakers?

From a goblinish standpoint, the trick is to get rare, midlevel recipes that few other people on the server have, or make trainer taught items that require quite a few different mats. For example, the Helm of Fire will cost me about 15-20 gold in mats, but can be sold for 60-65 gold easily. It’s a great helm for its level, and even though it’s leather, I’m using it on a few of my paladins and warriors around that level, just because of the high agility (crit) and awesome fire burst damage every five minutes (great for a PvP server). Add to that all the rogues, hunters, druids, and enhancement shamans, and you have a wide market base. You just have to market it effectively, and don’t flood the auction house. Post one at a time.

Farm World Dragons, if you can. The recipes they drop are very rare, like the Lifelike Mechanical Toad and the Radiant Belt.

I also am a sucker for recipes. All of them. If it’s a dropped recipe, it’s a decent price, and I don’t have it…….sold. That means less time that I would have to spend bored out of my mind, mindlessly killing the same mobs over and over again, cursing Blizzard for making recipes have such a low drop rate. Case in point: Pattern: Stormshroud Armor. When I finally got Tsuris to level 35, and powerleveled LW to 300, I noticed this high crit/dodge armor set, perfect for feral druids or rogues. The pants recipe is vendor bought, and the gloves and shoulders are usually readily available on the AH, but the armor…….the armor……
I ground the Arkkoran Oracles in Azshara for 3+ hours on Daggerspine to get the recipe, and then decided to do the same on Demon Soul. Another 4 hours of grinding, an almost infinite amount of zesty clam meat from the clams they drop, and Kukoshakaku had his own recipe. And on Darrowmere, it dropped for me on the AH, for a mere 10 gold. Aaaarrrrggggh!!!

Since I've gotten to Outlands, and have started to replace my 50's blues and epics with Outland greens, I've come to this conclusion: Don't kill yourself. Unless the recipe is for stuff below level 59 that a twink could wear, don't spend a lot of time or gold trying to get the recipes (this applies to Blacksmithing/Tailoring/Leatherworking recipes). If it drops, or if it's cheap on the AH, get the recipe. But after having the Arcanite Champion recipe learned for for months, and finally getting my warrior Bullkathos high enough to use it, and spending 150+ gold on mats even after I had Bloodshrike make the Arcanite Bars..... then replacing it with Fel Iron Hatchets at level 61 with Fel Iron Greatsword right around the corner.....Priceless. Granted, I'll still use it when I'm just doing some grinding for quests, but as soon as I hit 63, that's going in the bank.

Finish – I’m not trolling for comments from Gevlon, or flaming him, or anything like that. I just came up with the headline, and had to write something to match it.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Holla!!!! Holler? Hola…. Halaa!

7/7/09

Well, I only ended up with Bonescourge and Pallormortis getting the Spirit of Summer pet on Demon Soul, and I think Clockwrkmage got it on Daggerspine. But, I didn’t care too much about the pet, I appreciated the 2 bubbles of EZ XP per character, per day.

So, once the Fire Festival ended on Sunday morning (4 am server time), I decided it was time to start leveling some professions. Annihilus on Darrowmere needed to level her JC skillz to 225, Thrillkiller on Demon Soul needed to get to 375 engineering, and Doomslinger my former hunter twink was in need of 225 Inscription and Engineering.

Annihilus didn’t take too long to level, and I loved making the mithril settings, as I was able to go from 150-190 JC with just one recipe.

Thrillkiller, on the other hand….. It takes me a while to level each stage of engineering. The guides that are on the interwebs are designed for people who want to level up their professions as fast and cheaply as possible. They usually don’t have dropped recipes included in them, and really, nobody will ever be rich or even break even using just trainer bought recipes. Looking back on it though….I didn’t really make anything special to sell, it just took me a while to get all the mats together. I know I made a bunch of Elemental Blasting Powder, then Fel Iron Bombs until 330+. Then I switched to Adamantite Frames, and 5 Adamantite Scopes, and got to 350 with a Cogspinner Goggles of the Bandit (31 Agility, 46 Stamina, 62 AP). After that, it was smooth sailing to 375, making Volatile Blasting Triggers, with 1 point coming from the Gnomish Poultryizer.

I didn’t make the Nigh-Invulnerability Belt yet, as Khorium Bars/Ore couldn’t be found on my Auction house, and I hate asking in trade for items, since buyers know they have you over a barrel at that point. When they have metal in the AH, they paid a deposit for that, so they want to sell it. When in trade, they’ll jack up the price or simply refuse to talk to you because your initial offer didn’t match some price they had in their head, and they punish you for not being able to read their minds. I’m somewhat used to haggling, or at least offering low, being countered high, and usually settling in the middle. With some WoW players, you only have one shot to give them a price, and if you offer low, they laugh at you and /ignore you. Idiots…..

So, because of the need for Khorium Power Cores, Bloodshrike went on a field trip! I had intended to wait to adventure in Outlands until the new patch, when I’d be able to get my flying training at 60, training and mount prices would be reduced, and I could finally get mounts for all my level 20+’s on Darrowmere. But, needs must, I suppose.

So, Bloodshrike set off from Falcon Watch, ran thru Zangarmarsh (getting the FP on the way), thru Blades Edge Mountains (getting the FP from Mok’Nathal Village), and on to Area 52 in Netherstorm. I was freaking on the way, especially in Blade’s Edge, since I was running thru a cave with a bunch of higher level spiders, and I was expecting to be automatically dismounted or knocked off by a spider at any second. I’m used to ghost-running, or even corpse-hopping exploring, but being able to explore high level areas without getting killed repeatedly is still a new one to me. Of course, having 7.5k health at level 63 does help a lot. :)

I left Bloodhrike at Area 52 for a day, checking in occasionally to what I could buy from Qiff. I got 1 Khorium Power Core for 4.8 gold, a few Fel Iron Bolts for 60 silver each, a few Adamantite Frames, and some smoke flares just because.

After a while, I realized I was only a half bubble away from leveling to 64, so I decided to go out and explore, and maybe pick up some Alchemy recipes for Bloodshrike. I also realized that I could get the Gnomish Toshley’s Station transporter recipe, since I had 450 engineering, and you only need 350 to learn it. After I picked it up from Smiles O’Byron, I headed west to the other Horde town, Thunderlord Stronghold. Got the flightpoint there, and flew back to Zangarmarsh. I picked up the alchemy recipes Recipe: Elixir of Major Frost Power and Recipe: Sneaking Potion from Seer Janidi, then decided to go get the fp for Nagrand. After looking at ProfessionsBook, it showed that a vendor in Halaa sold a couple of alchemy recipes as well, so I headed over.

Along the way, I got waylaid by a quest. The quest giver for the Cenarion expedition had a simple exploring quest, which got compounded by me running into Fahssn on the way over. So, I got sucked into grinding the Bog Lords and picking up spore sacs, but it was actually pretty fun! With the burst damage from Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket and Gnomish Lightning Generator, using each one every 30 seconds really, really speeds up grinding those bog lords. I got to almost friendly with the Sporeggar, then decided it was time to call it a night, and just made a run to Garadar in Nagrand. That’s some really beautiful scenery to run through! The funny part is, even though I’m 64, and the monsters are higher than me, I have way more health than them, and me and my gorilla didn’t have a problem dealing with a few pesky 67’s that attacked.

Midsummer Madness

6/29/09

I freakin’ love the Fire Festival! Not just because I’ll be getting some of my toons the Spirit of Summer pet, but because of the daily quests that all my toons can do. I’m running 30 toons on 3 servers, and I’m trying to level all of them. With the ability to log into each of them for 5 minutes, and get 2 bubbles of experience a day, it’s going to make leveling them a whole lot easier.

Preyonyou, my Draenai priestess, has been stuck at level 26 for……probably 6 months or more. I specced to Discipline on one of these Talent rollbacks, but she still doesn’t seem to do a lot of damage. But, she dinged 27 last night after I had her do the dailies in Darnassus! I can’t wait to get to 30, and after 2+ years of playing, finally get to (Levitate)! --- Edit, I looked at the training, and it's actually 34.

Bonescourge, my Demon Soul Undead Warlock, went from 44-47 over the weekend, just by exploring, honoring flames, and desecrating Ally flames. Well, he maybe have done a quest or two, but I’m not making it a habit, I swear! :P
I snuck over to the Draenai starting area, and desecrated both flames there. Bloodmyst Isle has WAY too many little areas to discover, and it’s annoying, because they aren’t listed on the map, and the fog of war on the map isn’t always helpful in finding what you haven’t discovered yet. Vindicator’s Rest, anyone?

I think this will also prompt me to take Bloodshrike and Pallormortis to Outlands, since there’s more fires to honor and desecrate out there, as well as some vendor-sold recipes and pets that I’ve been looking for.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Mouse Vs. Keyboard – 2 peripherals enter, 1 peripheral leaves.




6/25/09

I’ve been trying to get Francois and Steve to try using their mice for turning and movement, instead of just using it to click attacks. Why? I believe it’s far superior to have your right hand control your movement, and you’re already used to using your left hand for typing, why not use it to hit attack spells?

This isn’t something I developed while playing WoW, I’ve used this strategy for Half-life, Counter-Strike (when it was still a mod), Diablo 1, Diablo 2……and basically any computer game I’ve ever had the option of changing the command keys on.

Francois’ first toon is a druid, and having played druids, I concede that you could probably do fine with WASD for movement, and just clicking through your attacks. You might miss an attack, but you really don’t need all that many keys for your attacks.

In contrast is…….every other character class out there. Hunters, Mages, Warlocks, Shamans, Paladins, Warriors, Rogues, Death Knights, and …..Priests. Ok, ok, I haven’t played a Priest past 30, and my highest Druid is 35, but they haven’t racked up enough skills at this point to really NEED the whole keyboard like the other toons do.

It seems like a lot of people fall into 1 of 2 categories.
1) Mouse for looking around, keyboard for movement with the arrow keys, and either clicking attacks or using the number keys.
2) Mouse for looking around, WASD for movement, clicking or using Z,X,C, Alt, Ctrl, and maybe the number keys as well.

I don’t fit into any of that. I use my mouse purely for movement AND looking around (very handy to do 360 spins of the environment on a PvP server), with only the right click button to start auto-attack, and either press both keys to run, or a button on the side of the mouse.

The keyboard is where everything else is. My first toon Bloodshrike is a hunter, and I quickly found my action bars filling up with all the new skills he was learning. And to me, they all seemed pretty useful, so I wanted instant access to most of them, without having to look at them in my action bar, and then click them when needed. I don’t understand how people with chance on hit/dodge/block/parry abilities like Rogues and Warriors can manage to click Riposte, Overpower/Revenge with the narrow window of time that’s offered. I don’t have to look at the action bars during a fight, all my attention is focused on my opponent or mob.

I use A-G for my main attacks, with usually some cast sequence or Alt or Ctrl modified macros thrown in. Space Bar is jump, Z-B are my less used spells, with V and B being my “Oh Shit” or melee hot buttons. Q + W up top are usually my potion keys, or in the case of my Warriors, W is always Charge. I don’t PvP much, even though I’m on PvP servers, but I just figured out that I could have E be Strafe left, and R be Strafe right.
1-6 are the last set of keys that I press.

Since most of my toons are engineers, 1 and 2 are usually bombs or target dummies. 3-5 is up for grabs, or for Warriors, who have 3 different Stance bars, I’ll have 4 set for Shoot, since all Stances can use it. 6 is usually Blink for mages, or the Gnomish Harm Prevention Belt or Nigh-Invulnerability belt for those toons that can wear it. 7 is ALWAYS my mount button. Since I use an ergonomic keyboard, it’s still pretty comfortable for my index finger to hit it. Everything else on my action bars (usually I have 2 stacked above my XP bar, using CTMod) is clickable.

So, in total, I have 20+ keys/spells that are very easy to reach and use, with more being available with Ctrl and Alt modifier macros.
Anal-retentive? Sure. Handy? Very much so. Hmmm, maybe I’ll do a series of posts for what I’m using for each character class, using my highest level of each of those classes.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Weapon Skills

6/24/09

Hey, just a quick little thought for those interested in achievements. One easy way of leveling weapons skills is to always switch up your weapons while leveling. .

Every 4 levels or so, peruse the auction house for a weapon that you have the lowest skill in, and start using that one. Buy a rare one if you can, so the weapon skill AP modifier won't be as apparent.

Maximizing low level quests for fun and profit.....well, maybe not fun, but definitely profit


6/24/09


Production Line Assembly of Alliance-Only Quest Reward Recipes.

My previous post about ez gold – which we will expand upon.
Post- Spider Kabobs

From Step Two, you’re logged into your throwaway Night Elf, level one. This time, run around and do some quests until you get to at least level 3. Then, go get your 625 XP by getting the Kaldorei recipe in Dolanaar, and continue on to Darnassus. Fly over to Darkshore, and set your hearthstone in Auberdine.

Take the boat at the very end of the pier to get to Azuremyst Isle, You should be pretty close to level 4 by now, with the XP bonus from discovering different areas. If you’re not, kill Moongraze Stags to the south and east of Azure Watch to get the 6 needed Moongraze Stag Tenderloins needed for “The Great Moongraze Hunt.”

Send your recipes to your bank alt, or your Booty Bay transfer character, and stop for a second.

Do you want to spend a few more hours and get three more Ally recipes? They don’t sell as well as the cooking recipes, but they will sell to completionists. I wouldn’t try it until you’ve built up either a stockpile of Copper Ore/Bars (the rough stone can usually be bought anytime for 20 silver a stack), or the necessary items by scanning the AH religiously by typing “copper” and clicking on Weapons, and then Armor.

So, you decided to go for the recipes, you masochist you. Hit your hearthstone to zoom back to Auberdine in Darkshore, then run down the dock and take the boat on the left, going to Stormwind. Run FIRST to the Windrider Master to get the flight point, then go to Dwarven District to take the Tram to Ironforge. Coming south from Tinker Town, go directly to the Windrider to pick up the flight point.

Pick up Blacksmithing and mining, then go pick up 100-160 rough stones from the AH, or have an alt send you them, along with the copper weapons and armor, or the copper and mats to make them. However, you don’t learn the recipe for the Heavy Copper Maul till 65, and the Runed Copper Belt isn’t learned until 70, so its up to you how you want to play it.

Ally Blacksmithing Quests: Get to level 60 Blacksmithing, using only rough stones. Do about 35 rough sharpening stones first, then switch to rough grinding stones. Once you hit 60, both of the BS quests will be ready to pick up at Tormus Deepforge, right at the Great Anvil in Ironforge. The quests are detailed at the end of the post.

If you like, you can drop blacksmithing, and pick up skinning, because you’ve already accepted the quests. Now, it’s time to run to Loch Modan. Make sure you have the 6 copper belts and 6 axes in your inventory, because you’ll turn in the quest before you come to a mailbox. With the mauls and runed belts, keep them in the mail system, so you can get them out of the mail once you get to Redridge.

Follow the path, and feel free to zig-zag a bit if you see a copper node or a rabbit you want to skin. You might as well make some gold while doing this.
Go thru the Southern Entrance to Loch Modan, and turn in the Supplying the Front quest in the Valley of Kings (the round building ahead of you as you come down the path). Now continue North up the path until you get to Thelsamar, then take the gryphon and fly back to Stormwind (you DID remember to get the flightpoints for both Ironforge and SW, right?)

Once you land in SW, just jump into the water below. Follow the path to the east towards Redridge Mountains, and I’d advise walking a little to the right of the path (south) so you can spot the copper nodes that are on the edges of the hills. Try to kill enough mobs along the way so you’re about 1100 XP under dinging level 8, as you’ll need that level for the leatherworking quest.

Once you get to Redridge Mountains, hang a hard left. There’s a little path up thru the mountains that can actually let you get to Lakeshire unharmed, if the mobs are far enough away. If not, just rez at the spirit healer, and swim across the lake to the mailbox at the inn. Get your mauls and belts from the mailbox, turn them in at the eastern edge of town, and you’ve gotten the Ironforge Breastplate recipe! You should be level 8 by now, so hit your hearthstone to zone back to Auberdine.

Take the grypon back to Darnassus, drop mining, and pick up leatherworking. Once you hit level 70 LW, Lotherias will have a “!” over her head, and you’ll have the items already in your inventory. Turn in the quest, send the excess mats and the recipes to your alt to sell off or give to a friend, and never, ever, EVER do that again. It takes way to long, for too little gain.

Definitely take advantage of the Kaldorei recipe being easy to farm, and if you have the time, or if you have a mage friend, have them come to Dolanaar and have them port you to Exodar after you’ve gotten to level 4 (do it with a few of these throwaway toons at a time, so it’s worth their time and yours.

In conclusion, here’s the mat cost and expected sell price of these recipes.

Recipe: Kaldorei Spider Kabob -- 1-20 silver if you buy the mats off the AH, sell on the neutral or Horde AH for 250-350 gold
Recipe: Roasted Moongraze Tenderloin – 0 mat cost. Seriously, there’s a 100% drop on the meat, so you might as well farm it. Sells for 250-350 on NAH or Horde AH.
Recipe: Tasty Lion Steak – 50 silver to 20 gold on the Ally AH. As long as it’s not too expensive, buy it every time you see it on there. Horde will snap it up. 250-350g

The most I’ve ever gotten for the BS or LW recipes on Horde side was about 200 gold, but usually they sell for around 100-150.
_______________________________________________________________________

For the quest Supplying_the_Front, you’ll need 6 Copper Axes and 6 Copper Chain Belts. For the Axes, that means 36 Copper Bars, 12 Linen Cloth, and 6 Weak Flux. For the Belts, that’s 36 Copper Bars.
Total: 72 Copper Bars, 12 Linen Cloth, 6 Weak Flux.
Reward: Plans:_Heavy_Copper_Longsword

For the quest Gearing_Redridge, you’ll need 4 Runed Copper Belts (40 Copper Bars), and 4 Heavy Copper Maul (48 Copper Bar, 8 Weak Flux, 8 Light Leather)
Total: 88 Copper Bars, 8 Weak Flux, 8 Light Leather.
Reward: Plans: Ironforge_Breastplate

Leatherworking Quest: try using this guide http://www.blizzardguides.com/wow_leatherworking_guide.html or whatever gets you to 70.
For the quest Moonglow_Vest, you’ll need to get to level 8, and level Leatherworking to 70, plus turn in 1 Embossed Leather Gloves (2 Coarse Thread, 3 Light Leather) , 5 Embossed Leather Boots (25 Coarse Thread, 40 Light Leather), and 5 Embossed Leather Cloaks (10 Coarse Thread, 25 Light Leather). Follow the above guide to 59 (probably about 100 Light Leather worth), then make the required quest items from there.
Total: 168+ Light Leather, 37 Coarse Thread.
Reward: Moonglow_Vest

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

The Diplomat

6/16/09

Continuing with my plan to escape the AH, and get out to leveling, Bloodshrike (Demon Soul) dinged exalted with Orgrimmar and Undercity, and maybe Thunder Bluff as well. I can't remember, but I know I got to 1000 achievement points, and the Armory is only showing 960 right now. With Tsuris on Daggerspine, I purchased all the low level SW and Darnassus mounts when I hit Exalted with those cities, but I'm going to hold off on that for right now, until the patch hits. Why?
With the new patch, mounts and training will be SO much cheaper.

Apprentice Riding (Skill 75)

60% land mount speed
Requires level 20
Cost: 4 gold
Mount cost: 1 gold
Mail will be sent to players at level 20 guiding them to the riding trainer
Journeyman Riding (Skill 150)

100% land mount speed
Requires level 40
Cost: 50 gold
Mount cost: 10 gold
Mail will be sent to players at level 40 guiding them back to the riding trainer

Expert Riding (Skill 225)

150% flying mount speed; 60% land mount speed
Requires level 60
Cost: 600 gold (faction discounts now apply)
Mount Cost: 50 gold
Can now be learned in Honor Hold (Alliance) or Thrallmar (Horde)

Artisan Riding (Skill 300)

280% flying mount speed; 100% land mount speed
Requires level 70
Cost: 5,000 gold (faction discounts now apply)
Mount Cost: 100 gold

You might as well show them off, too. Here's a handy little macro I just spotted on Wowmacros.com, that selects an appropriate mount for your location.

/run if IsMounted()then return end local t if GetRealZoneText()=="Dalaran"and GetSubZoneText()~="Krasus' Landing"or GetZoneText()=="Wintergrasp"or not IsFlyableArea()then t={1,12,16}else t={6,7,15}end CallCompanion("MOUNT",t[random(#t)])
/dismount

Here's another one of their macros I've been using for a while, to randomly select a pet companion.
/run CallCompanion("CRITTER", random(GetNumCompanions("CRITTER")))

I've also started Bullkathos on farming rep with the Timbermaw, as they have recipes for Blacksmithing that he wants. It doesn't hurt that he's actually in the level range for grinding on them, since I've been doing gray and green quests recently, trying to get Exalted with Undercity with him too. I think I'll try for Exalted with the Timbermaw, so I can add to my trinket collection, and have a pocket healer Furlbog. I'm going for Revered anyway, as the belt recipe is available to a Honored, and the boots at Revered.
Of course, there's no recipes for Engineering. As usual.

Monday, June 8, 2009

How are you doing?

6/8/09

I finally, finally got around to leveling Bloodshrike on Demon Soul from 445-450 engineering. I was dreading it, because my chief method of skilling up was making Heartseeker Scopes, as I had this crazy idea of, y'know, actually making SOME gold while leveling a profession. But, when I was buying Twilight Opals at 20 gold each, and the recipe takes 2, plus 10 Saronite bars, and other people were posting them at 34 gold buyout......I said screw it, and started making more Gnomish Army Knives.

Granted, I'm a big fan of the Army knife. Almost all of my toons have one, except for my first mage, who's a Tailor/Enchanter. But Engineering forces you to almost oversaturate the market with just one person skilling up engineering up to 450. You learn the recipe for the Knives at 435, and even though I tried skilling up with the Heartseeker recipe to 445, I still ended up with at least 15 knives for one of my bank toons to sell off.

When I finally hit 450, and went back into the engineering shop in Dalaran to learn the 2 gun recipes, the engineering supplies vendor had the nerve to ask "How are you doing?" I'm freakin' pissed, that's how I'm doing!

If it required me to make a consumable to level engineering, I wouldn't care. A 20-stack Big Box O' Titanium-cored Titan bombs would be awesome, dealing 2500-3000 each bomb. Make the mats 1 Titansteel bar and 5 Saronite bars, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest.

Instead, the highest level regular bomb you get is:
Saronite Bomb
Requires Engineering (350)
1150 to 1500 Fire damage to targets in a 5 yard radius. This explosive is powerful enough to cause moderate siege damage

It's sad when Target Dummies exceed bombs in damage.....
Explosive Decoy
Requires Engineering (350)
Use: Summons a decoy that explodes when attacked, shredding enemies for 1440 to 2160 Physical damage. Lasts for 3 min or until it explodes. (2 Min Cooldown)

And, yes, there is one more bomb, available for Goblin Engineers to make AND use. But, my only Goblin engineers are Paladins, as you might have picked up.

Global Thermal Sapper Charge
Requires Engineering (400)
Requires Goblin Engineer
Use: Explodes when triggered, dealing 2188 to 2812 Fire damage to all enemies nearby and 2188 to 2812 damage to you. Also causes major siege damage. (5 Min Cooldown)

I haven't tested it yet, but this will probably be negated by the Nigh-invulnerability Belt, so Pally's wouldn't have to expend a bubble or a Blessing of Protection to soak up the damage.

I'll test it when I have my DK pick up engineering and go Goblin, since Pallor is 61, and Clockworknyt is only level 44.

Or perhaps they could make depleted-uranium Titansteel Bullets or Arrows..... but as of right now, it's not worth leveling to 450 for any of my other engineers. Level to 440 for the BOP helm, then stop. The 2 guns and the motorcycle can be bought off any other engineer, since they're BOE.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Where’s MAH money?

6/1/09

I’ve been reading http://wowalone.blogspot.com/ about a guy’s adventures in solo WoW, during downtime at work. He was talking about being proud of having 32 k gold again, after spending 21 k on the Kirin Tor ring and a motorcycle mount. I’m a recovering AH house addict, but I felt like helping him out with a few quick tips on making gold, especially since he had an Ally toon. So, I typed aboyandhisdeathrays into gooogle to go cut and copy some of my tips, and this was the first entry on the list http://www.cubestat.com/www.aboyandhisdeathrays.blogspot.com.
Website Worth: $273,750,000.00 Daily Pageviews: 125,000,000 Daily Ads Revenue: $375,000.00

So, where’s my money?!? I should have installed a pageview counter a while ago, but there’s been only 1 comment on the site, so I figured there wasn’t any interest in it. I tried BigBearButt’s site, and BigRedKitty’s, and both had less Daily Ads revenue coming in. Granted, both of those are their personal websites, so they don’t do advertising. But I tried www.4haelz.blogspot.com, who is someone that BigBearButt links to, and also had low pageviews.
Website Worth: $2,842.62 Daily Pageviews: 1,298 Daily Ads Revenue: $3.89

I’m guessing those are real people though, who leave comments and have interaction with the author, which I’d much prefer. I also saw that further down the list one of my posts was cached on an Asian site, but it was a post about Fury Warriors, not gold making. Strange.

Don’t call it a comeback, I didn't go anywhere.... :)

5/29/09

I’ve been concentrating on leveling toons lately. On Demon Soul, Bloodshrike is now 62, Bullkathos is 52, Thrillkiller just got to 50 last night, and I buckled down and ground out levels with Kukoshakaku, so he went from 28-35. I had to, he has about 400 clefthoof leather that I’ve been keeping in the mail system forever, and I want to just keep it in the bank once I learn all the recipes in there. Plus, since I got Tsuris on Daggerspine to level his LW to 300, I found some nice, actually useful leather items that I wanted to make for my rogues/hunters/shamans/druids when they got to those levels.

Helm of Fire is an awesome leather helm, and the mail Dragonscale chest is pretty sweet for hunters and shamans. The Stormshroud pants aren’t that great though, only giving slightly more crit than the level 37 pants Thrill had, and a lot less Agi and Stamina. I’ll see if it’s worth making the whole set for Thrill. They’re basically a dodge/crit set, and designed for rogues or feral druids, since one of the set bonuses is for regaining energy.

Speaking of Thrillkiller, he went on a rampage this last weekend. I was tired of having old quests clutter up my quest log, and I realized that since I had been so anal about completing every quest I came across, Thrill was already half-way or better on most of his reputation levels with the capitol cities. I figured I might as well get more rep by knocking out the dungeon achievements and quests. So, during the Memorial Day weekend, I had Thrill solo Wailing Caverns, Blackfathom Deeps, Razorfen Kraul, and Razorfen Downs. Downs was the hardest, since Ammenar the Coldbringer had his summons swarm me, and I had already used up a Fel Iron bomb on him, and had just used my Harm Prevention Belt on Glutton. I think I was still 48 when I took down Glutton, but he hits pretty hard.

This Dungeon clearing kick got started by Thrillkiller being in Booty Bay, and deciding to do Gnomer. I had already snuck down in there before to get the Discombobulator ray schematic from the Punchograph-D machine, but I didn’t kill Thermaplugg. Since the last patch changed how the engineering Lil Smoky and Pet Bombling recipes drop in that you can now get both of them from Gnomer, and you can’t get them from renewing your membership, I figured it would be a good time to pop in there, get both recipes and kill Thermaplugg, and be on my way. No such luck. Thermaplugg is supposed to have a 100% drop on the Pet Bombling recipe, which may be, since I only killed him once and he did drop it. But Warcraftpets.com lists the drop rate of the Lil Smoky recipe from the Arcane Nullifier, Crowd Pummeler, and Peacekeeper mechs at 20%. Thottbot lists it at around 2%, which is how it was for me. I probably did 6 runs on that blasted instance, killing 1 Crowd Pummeler, 4 Peacekeepers, and 10-15 Arcane Nullifiers each run. I think it was the last Arcane Nullifier in the area on the 6th run that finally dropped it, and it was a good thing, because I was ready to just forget about it. Luckily, Bullkathos already has the Lil Smoky recipe, so when he goes into the instance, he’ll just use seaforium charges to blow the back door, come in thru the Engineering Labs, get the Discombobulator recipe in the Engineering Labs, then go kill Thermaplugg and get the Pet Bombling recipe.

I also worked on Bloodshrike (Darrowmere), my Blood Elf hunter. She knocked out Ragefire Chasm (very good Thunderbluff rep on those quests), and Wailing Caverns (decent TB rep). I was surprised that the Leaders of the Fang quest gave no rep at all, even though you usually get rep when you have a quest to kill a boss in an instance. But, the Glowing Gem quest that drops from Mutanus does give a good bit of TB rep.
I’m mentioning TB rep because I want Bloodshrike to have a Kodo, and not the Hawkstrider that Blood Elves get. Granted, the Hawkstriders are a lot better looking than the elephants that Draenai get, so I guess I should be grateful.

While Bloodshrike was finishing up quests, I took her to Ashenvale to do the Test of Lore section of the whole quest chain that starts in 1K needles. It ends up with quests to go into Scarlet Monastery, so I want to do it with SOMEONE who can actually benefit from the quest rewards that drop. While I was there, I noticed I hadn’t killed Shadumbra, so on my way back from dropping off the book in Stonetalon, I swung by the Laughing Sisters and took Shadumbra’s head. Since I was there, I figured I’d go up to Feralas and pick up the neutral flight point there, for when I could come back to it at 45 or so. So, I ride up there, and I noticed a Human Rogue that was a skull to me. He had about 2500 hp, and I had 1900 at level 39, so he was probably 10 levels above me. I’ve gotten used to higher level players not attacking me, and I figured he’d do likewise. I figured wrong. I’m heading toward the flightpoint, when all of a sudden I got sapped. I stand there, swaying dazedly, while he calmly proceeds use my back as a pincushion. I got a bit annoyed at that, so I charged back from the graveyard, found him starting to use his hearthstone, so I rezzed and immediately started attacking. He hadn’t killed Arikara, so I was able to summon him instantly, then I popped my Mithril Mechanical Dragonling trinket and my Gnomish Harm Prevention belt. The Mithril dragonling (unlike the others) has a limit on how much it can scale up with your engineering. It can only get up to level 50, whereas the Mechanical Dragonling and the Arcanite Dragonling scale up based on how high your engineering level is. So, my level 62 Bloodshrike has an Arcanite Dragonling guardian that’s probably level 75 or 80.
But I digress. Between Arikara, my dragonling, and me riddling him with holes, the rogue got kilt. He tried to do the smoke bomb escape, but since I always start out with a Hunter’s Mark/petatttack macro, I was still able to see him, and of course my dragonling could too. I bet that sucked for him, thinking he was big and bad by taking down someone gray to him, then that player coming back and just annihilating him in retaliation. In hindsight, I should have stuck around and killed him a few more times, just to drive home the fact that it’s not cool to pick on lower levels.

After that, I decided to take Bloodshrike to Badlands, since that’s a 40-45 area, and it would be a good place for her to work on her skinning. Plus, I’ve had the items for all the turn-in quests in that zone for far too long, and I need to start clearing out her bank.
I’m so relieved to finally be able to level Kukoshakaku in Leatherworking. Not only that, but due to my pack rat mentality, I’m able to make multiples of items that will actually sell well on the AH, instead of having to sell them for less than the cost of the mats. I was looking ahead at what the mats are for the Stormshroud set that I’ll make for Thrillkiller, and I noticed it took a bunch of Ironweb Spider Silk and Essence of Air……..hmmmm, Clockwrknyt just so happens to have a hundred or so Essence of Air in her bank, and probably about 50 Ironweb Spider Silk. I just went from 275 to 285 last night, and was able to learn about 10 new recipes. I did notice that the Stormshroud chest recipe wasn’t among them, and apparently it drops off a specific mob type in Azshara. Looks like Pallor needs to make another trip up there.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Poof! Whaddaya need?








4/15/09

It's the day after patch 3.1, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth (qq'ing for those of the younger generation) by twinks as their beloved leg armors and other twinkish stuff were removed by the evilness of Blizzard. :p

For me, it don't really matta. Doomslinger hasn't fired a shot in anger in a looooong time. It's probably time for her to go kill something, and get the last bit of XP needed to tip her over to 20.

But what I really, really don't like about the patch is that Arikara's summoning puff of smoke and sound effect no longer exist. It was very cool having one of the rarest pets that an Ally hunter can get, and now there's now difference between her and a Rogue Vale Screecher from Feralas.

Ehh....just another thing in my list of general apathy about the game currently. I've severely curtailed my selling on the AH, and haven't even been looking for mats much anymore either. I'm not logging in every hour to gallop around Stormwind looking for Lil Timmy, but I do log in every few hours to try to kill the Dalaran Spellscribe.

I want to play all my characters, which leads to me playing none of my characters, because I'm always thinking "Oh, Ryo needs to do this" or "I forgot to get this item for Kuko off the AH." I haven't even finished leveling Bloodshrike to 450 in engineering, and he's already level 61. I usually powerlevel my toons to the max they can get whenever they hit the appropriate milestone. I know it's a game, but....I hate wasting my mats on making stuff, and then having to sell it for pennies on the dollar. Or, making stuff for other people, and paying them for every skillup.

On the other hand, I have had a lot of fun leveling my DK. Since he's a dual gatherer, and I haven't really played in the Outlands yet (except for going there to talk to the mining trainer), Pallor had a blast in Un'goro, Sithilus, Burning Steppes, and all the zones earlier than that which helped me to level up my skinning and mining skills. Since I'm only limited by my skill level in skinning, I'm free to move to the next zone as soon as mob skill level x 5 = or <>160, that only takes 5 kills. But...... Pallor will have to drop skinning. I gotta drop one profession so I can take up engineering when I hit Outlands, and now, he's my highest miner. With the level 300 mining skills of being able to break apart Primal Earth and Fire, that lets me consolidate the hundred's of Mote of Fire and Earth I've saved up for when you need to make Elemental Blasting Powder from level 300-310. It takes a lot, and I hate being unprepared, and having to get ripped on the AH because of it.

Besides, I think Thrillkiller would benefit from dropping mining to take up skinning. Critical strike chance benefits rogue's and hunters (who are my usual skinners) way more than it would help out a Death Knight at 60.

Demonsoul has 67k gold, Daggerspine has 59k, Darrowmere has 31k, Lightbringer has about 8k, and I've made about 6.5k gold for Steve on Bladefist. I'm not bragging, it's just a thing so I can track how much I made over the last few months or so, and how much more I'm making than when I started out.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

The Kindness of Strangers







2/21/09

As we’ve already established, I’m an altoholic. I’m also a bit of a recluse. Most of the time I prefer doing my own thing, and don’t like having to deal with people on a regular basis. When I first started WoW, I joined the first guild that invited me. I left after a little while, because the conversation scrolling by on guild chat was about as interesting as trade chat, and I didn’t want to double my punishment (yeah, I know you can turn trade chat off, I just keep it up because very occasionally there’s some topic that’s interesting, or a good deal comes up on it).

Nowadays, I play WoW like I used to play Diablo II online; I kind of view people as my gatherers. I don’t have the patience or time to grind for dropped recipes on 3 different servers, but if it happens to drop for someone, and they happen to put it on the AH, and I don’t have the recipe, I’ll probably grab it, no matter the price. It’s not that I’m shy around people, and I don’t talk about WoW ALL the time - though Steve or Francois might beg to differ.

Anyway, I had started toons on both Draka (PvE)(Horde side) and Gurubashi (PvP)(Ally side) to help out Kevin and Francois, respectively. They both ended up transferring those toons from those servers, and I was left with a few more toons on my account, bringing me closer to the 50 toon limit set by Blizzard. I decided to get rid of the temptation of playing those toons, and went ahead with it this evening. I logged into Gurubashi, and discovered that I still had a bunch of engineering stuff that hadn’t been moved to Horde side before Francois’ toon got transferred. I didn’t want to waste the recipes/mats/gold that I had collected, so I decided to host a giveaway. I posted on trade “Looking for dedicated low level engineer. I don’t want advice, pst link to engineering for a reward.”

People are naturally suspicious of strange posts, so I didn’t get many replies at first. So, I decided to make my message a bit less cryptic. “I’m deleting this toon, and I want to give my stuff to a low level engineer that shows worthiness. You won’t be disappointed.” The criteria I was looking for was someone who took the time and effort to actually acquire dropped recipes, either by buying them on the AH, or by grinding for them by themselves. The Johnny-come-latelies to engineering that powerlevel it at 80 are usually the ones that sneer at the low level trinkets and bombs, and refuse to admit how useful they could be. I didn’t want to reward them, so I was looking for someone a bit like me, who powereleveled engineering to 225 at level 20ish, and would appreciate the gift I was giving them.

Well, a couple of high levels posted me, wanting to know what I was up to. One level 72 said he had 360 engineering (I think, fuzzy on the numbers). That didn’t sound like my type of player, so I kept looking. Another level 80 had a whopping 99 out of 150 engineering. No, sorry. The level 72 was persistent, though. He asked, “What about a level 19 with 165 engineering?” I said he could log him in, and I’d check him out. He posted his engineering list, and while he was definitely a twink, he didn’t just do it for the goggles. He had the Goblin Jumper Cable recipe, and the Minor Recombobulator and Gnomish Universal Remote trinkets equipped. I thought he deserved a reward.

So, Endeavour of Gurubashi, I salute you. You showed perserverance in talking to me, and dedication in engineering by getting all the recipes you could for your twink. You deserved the 462 gold, the Schematic: Arcanite Dragonling, the Schematic: Sniper Scope, and the rest of the stuff in my bank that I gave you. Oh yeah, I also gave him 3x
Recipe: Tasty Lion Steak, and explained how much it could sell for on the neutral AH.

One toon deleted. On to Draka. Pretty much the same story, a disbelieving audience, a couple of high level engineers were the only ones to post. One, a level 70 Tauren Hunter named GSMoomoo, posted his Goblin recipe book. 315 out of 375, not bad, and he had learned the Goblin Jumper Cables XL, the Mechanical Yeti recipe from Winterspring, and the Snake Burst Firework recipe from Feralas. He deserved it, in my opinion.
On Draka, I had most of my stuff transferred to Kevin, so all I had to give him were 45 Truesilver Bars, 57 Thorium Ore, 4 x Pattern: Bright Yellow Shirt, 4 x Recipe: Elixir of Giant Growth, 4 x Recipe: Discolored Healing Potion, 5 x Formula: Enchant Chest - Lesser Mana, and also 152 gold. I asked if I could give him some advice, and he said yes, so I told him what to sell in the Horde AH, and what to sell in Booty Bay AH. He said he wished that we could play together, which would have been cool, but the whole reason for the giveaway was so I could delete some toons. I gave him my blog address in case he ever wanted some advice, I /saluted him, logged, and deleted the toon.

That was pretty fun, actually! I’m thinking of perhaps doing this weekly on Demon Soul/Daggerspine/Darrowmere, seeking out a deserving engineer to give a a Lifelike Mechanical Toad or 50 gold, or give them the choice to post it on the AH while I price higher, so they could double their money. Hehehe, I’ll hook them on the AH before they know what hit them.

I might even do it on the opposite faction of those servers, seeking out a worthy Alchemist to give a Recipe: Elixir of Giant Growth to, since I usually have a backlog of those recipes on Ally side. They just don’t sell as quickly as the Savory Deviate Delight recipe.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Gold? I got a guy for that.




2/20/09

Well, I’m helping out another friend at work with gold. My dispatcher Steve is a fellow player, but like most normal people, doesn’t worry overly much about making gold. He just hit 64 with his main Mage, and noticed he was starting to have a tough time taking down mobs. I told him to start buying armor and weapons on the AH, and he said he couldn’t. He only had 40 gold at level 64……….

That’s a bit of a shock to me. My level 20 characters are regularly raking in at least 100 gold a day, after only 5 minutes of reposting items. I couldn’t let that situation continue, so I offered to help him out. I started 2 Orcs, ran one to Booty Bay and the other one to Orgrimmar (well, I flew from Ratchett, after making some coin), and logged out. His level 3 warlock ghost ran down to Booty Bay from Elwynn, and then his main bought 12 Fillet of Frenzy and 12 Clam Chowders (since he was by Auberdine), then he did about 5 flips of the Recipe: Kaldorei Spider Kabob. He sent them to the warlock in BB, my Orc bought the recipes, and sent them to the Orc in Orgrimmar. I posted 2 each of the Frenzy and Chowder recipes for 16-18 gold each, and the Kaldorei recipe for 90-99 gold.

I checked back an hour later, and they were all sold out. I put up more of the Frenzy and Chowder, and another Kaldorei for 99-110 gold. It sold almost immediately, as I was checking for enchanting bags on the AH (Steve has 240 enchanting at level 64, which is pretty decent, but his entire bank was full of enchanting mats, with only one bag slot bought, and no bag in it.)

After another recipe sold, I had enough for a 32-slot Mysterious Bag (enchanting bag). I checked back later, and I had enough to buy a Recipe: Savory Deviate Delight at 150 gold. We did the swap at Booty Bay, and after selling the Savory recipe on Ally side for 399 gold, he now has about 430 gold, plus ALL of his mats in one bag, and a lot of empty space in his bank.

On a side note, I took yesterday off sick since there wasn’t any service calls, and as I was finishing up transfers from Ally to Horde side on Demon Soul, a level 80 hunter asks Thrillkiller, my level 44 Rogue, if I wanted a free run of Zul’Farrak. I was like “sure, let me clear my bags and get the quests, and I’m ready.” Well, it took a bit of time to get it organized, since we were waiting for other people, but once it started, it was pretty fun. We knocked out most of the ZF quests you can get in Gadgetzan (along with Gahz’rilla from Shimmering Flats), and only when I logged into Bloodshrike later did I discover that there’s a couple more quests that Thrillkiller hadn’t picked up. Oh well, I don’t really mind. I just want to do dungeons once, or maybe do them solo at 80 for the achievements.

After we had run ZF a few times, the level 80 said we were going to go to Blackrock Depths. Wow, that’s a huge instance. The biggest one I’ve seen so far has been Wailing Caverns, but BRD is WAYYY bigger. Pretty cool, even though I died multiple times because I was trying to help the hunter’s gorilladin on DPS, and ended up grabbing aggro. I’m sorry, I just can’t put myself on follow, and sit on my ass doing nothing, like the hunter/mage/druid that the level 80 hunter was rushing. The hunter was getting knocked down to 10% of his health on a lot of these encounters, and so I’d run in with a Fel Iron Bomb and an Advanced Target Dummy to distract some of the mobs, and hurt them a lot. Since the druid was with us, it wasn’t annoying to get killed, since I wouldn’t have to run back from the Spirit Healer outside. He got killed, but luckily my Goblin Jumper Cables XL worked, and we were able to continue on. In the ZF runs, a couple of the other guys got killed, and I tried the jumper cables, but there was no reaction. I think it was because they had already released their spirit to the Spirit Healer. When the druid died, I immediately said “Don’t release!” and when I selected him and hit the cables, the channeled Defibrillate showed up on my screen, and it rezzed him. Gogo engineering!!

After an hour or so of running around BRD, we had had enough, so they ported back to UC, and I teleported back to Gadgetzan. Level 47 3/4ths, after only 4 hours. Pretty cool, though now I’m out of well-rested XP.

"Yum, those Spider Kabobs are tasty! What's your secret?"

2/20/09
This is/will be posted on Markco’s site, when he has a slot open for it, but I figured I might as well post it here as well.

Here’s another quick thing to keep in mind for making gold if you’re Ally side on a PvP server, or if you’re whatever on a PvE server. Quest:Recipe_of_the_Kaldorei
is a low level quest available to Ally only characters. How low level? Well, actually, level 1 ONE one (1). So, if you happen to scan your auction house, and find 5 full stacks of 10 Small Spider Legs for 10 silver a stack, you’d have all you needed to make a TON of gold.

Step 1: Make a bunch of Night elf toons. I usually name them Kaldorone, Kaldortwo….

Step 2: Log on to your toon with the spider legs and at least some money. Send 7 small spider legs AND 95 copper to each of these throwaway toons.

Step 3: Zone in to the starting area, and immediately run to Dolanaar. Pick up your copper and legs from the mailbox, make a hard left towards the lake, and talk to Zarrin to learn the cooking skill for 95 copper. Ding! The quest appears immediately over Zarrin’s head, and you accept it and immediately turn it in. Sell off the extra Kaldorei Spider Kabob and your starting food, and you end up with 1 silver, 19 copper. Run back to the mailbox, send it to whoever, along with the 89 copper (leaving you broke), and delete the toon. Rinse and repeat for as many times as you can stand. While the entire process only takes about 2-3 minutes, it is extremely boring, especially if you have mods (CT mods always cover my screen when logging in a new toon. I guess I could turn them off, duh!)

Step 4: Collect your recipes, and go to the neutral Auction House in Booty Bay/Tanaris/Winterspring. I prefer Winterspring, since it’s not that popular, because if you’re high enough for it, you’re high enough for Outlands. Posting with an alt on a PvP server at Booty Bay is extremely frustrating, since you can get ganked a lot, or even accidentally ganked by a high level going for the Bloodsail achievement, and his AoE spells kill you.
Now, if you only have access to one account on a PvP server, here’s where it stops. I’d say experiment with posting at 60-100 gold, and keep increasing until sales drop off. You can even have another alt Post at 200-300 gold, to get people wondering why these recipes are so expensive. They look it up, they see it’s Ally only, they buy it. Cha-ching!
By the way, Horde toons can do the same thing by buying the Recipe: Elixir of Giant Growth and Recipe: Savory Deviate Delight recipes from the Horde AH, and reposting at a large profit on the Neutral AH.

Extra Credit Step 5: If you have access to a second account, or another person you know plays WOW and isn’t on your server, ask them to help you get it to Horde (If you’re on a PvE server, you could get a guildy to make a Horde toon to help you out.). You post the Kaldorei recipe for 1 copper bid/1 copper buyout, and they immediately buy it out. They or you post it on the Horde Auction house for 80-100-130 gold, and wait for the money to roll in. Now, if you use Auctioneer to make money on the margin, this long of a process won’t appeal to you. But, considering that you could get 8 of these recipes in under 20 minutes if you had the 8x7=56 Small Spider Legs and 8 silver, that translates to over 800 gold on Horde side. You (or your friend) can use that to buy mats for your professions, or buy the Recipe: Savory Deviate Delight at wholesale, or just buy Abyss Crystals to bring back over to Ally side and sell off.

Hope you liked it,
Bloodshrike