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?

Fear me…. FEAR ME……fear ME!!!!

11/12/08


I’m really getting into the whole macro thing, since I don’t like to use much more than my left hand to hit attacks and spells. Francois uses WASD to move, and clicks his spells individually….well, at least he did. His first toon is a Feral Cat form druid, but even at level 70, he doesn’t have to use more than 4 attacks, so he usually goes click, click, click, click in sequence, then repeats.

I couldn’t do that. I try to get as many spells as I can up on my action bars, so I’ll have easy access to them. Moreover, I want them all to be either on ASDFG ZXCVB WE 1234567, or I don’t really use them. 7 is usually reserved for summon mount, 6 is usually a healing potion, 1-3 are usually engineering bombs or target dummies. BTW, I use CT Mod, so when I refer to 1-7, that’s 1-7 on Action bar 4, and I usually have Action bar 5 above, for the abilities that I will only click on to activate, since I use them so rarely. Things like Blizzard or Hellfire, where I’d be in a dungeon, only providing DPS. Me + Dungeon = a rare occasion.
Anyways, I modified a macro that I had stumbled across on someone’s site, and gave it my own twist.

#showtooltip
/cast [nomodifier] Death Coil
/cast [modifier:alt] Fear
/cast [modifier:ctrl] Howl of Terror
/stopcasting

So, it would use Death Coil if I hit B, if I hold Alt+B it would use Fear, and holding Ctrl+B you could use Howl of Terror

Engineering: The great Equalizer

11/11/08

I have 2 stories, both similar in type. I was taking Bonescourge my level 41 Undead Warlock over to Arathi Highlands to finish up some quests there, and to help a friend do some quests as well. As I’m waiting for the zeppelin by Orgrimmar, a level 52 Orc hunter challenges me to a duel, because he was “board.” I offered some nails, and he laughed. After some consideration, I accepted the challenge. The countdown ended, and I immediately hit my /petattack /shadowbolt macro, followed up by Corruption and my other DOT spell. After a few seconds, he calls his pet BACK to help him out, since my Voidwalker is evidently doing more damage than he expected. I really wasn’t taking the duel seriously, or else I would have pulled out one of my dragonlings or my chicken. I didn’t think I’d win. Well, I didn’t, and that was my fault. At the end, he had about 5% health left, and had started concentrating fire on me, with his pet attacking me. I started casting a Fel Iron Bomb, but it was too late. But hey! Level 41 against a level 52, not too bad!

My friend Francois was helping his wife Darla level in Hillsbrad last night, and has a story with a better end. He’s a level 46 Troll hunter, and she’s a level 28 BE rogue. They were running around doing quests, and occasionally getting nuked by bored 70’s with nothing better to do. Not much you can do, just do a /bored or /violin at them while they’re attacking you, so they don’t get the satisfaction of watching you run.

Anyway, they were running along the south side of the main road in Hillsbrad, when they see a level 52 druid checking them out. They stop, /wave, and see what he’s going to do. He waits a bit, and then starts casting Wrath. Francois really didn’t want to get into it, so he decides to take the hit and see if the guy will quit. It hits him, the guy gets another one off, and Francois said “Enough.” He tells his pet to attack, Humar takes off out of Prowl, and starts hitting the druid. Francois starts running towards the druid, firing as he runs, and between his shots and his pet, they get the druid down to about 2/3’s health, same as Francois. When he gets near enough, he hits his Mithril Mechanical Dragonling. The druid sees it, and freakin’ bolts for Southshore. Too late! A couple of hits from Humar and the dragonling, and the druid is toast. Chalk one up to Engineering!

Heh, I just thought of a great macro to use.
/Cast Arcanite Dragonling
/stopcasting
/Cast Mithril Mechanical Dragonling
/stopcasting
/Cast Mechanical Dragonling
/stopcasting
/call pet
/cast Crimson Whelpling (or whatever non-attack pet whelpling you have, maybe even a dragonhawk from the Ghostlands)
/petattack

So from an opponent’s point of view, he sees a hunter run up on him, and suddenly he’s faced with 3 dragons AND a hunter. Granted, the non-attack pet won’t do anything, but from an intimidation standpoint, that would be quite scary to see all of them surrounding the hunter. You’d have to have a Windserpent, and as a Horde hunter, you’d want Arikara, since he’s the only pet in the game to appear in a puff of smoke and explosive noise. The rundown of the engineering dragonlings would make sure that it would switch to your highest available Dragonling, which you should have equipped anyway. If not, it would equip it if you were out of combat, and then you’d have to wait 30 seconds for the cooldown, which would spoil the effect somewhat.

On a closing note, I bought a Phantom Blade for Clockworknyt on Demon Soul for 100g. Why did I buy it, when I have Bullkathos, who’s level 300 Blacksmithing? It would cost me more for the mats, with the high prices of Breath of Wind and gems on that server. Anyway, I’m finally starting to get into doing high level enchanting recipes with Banesidhe, since he has Crusader, Lifesteal, Fiery, Icy Chill, Unholy….might as well start using them, now that the money is rolling in from the Lifelike Mechanical Toads that Bonescourge makes, and the minor Inscriptions that ….Bonescourge inscribes. Hmmm, didn’t think about it, but he’s jumped up from about 200 gold, to about 1800 gold in just about a week or so. I had a 500 gold day yesterday, as in opened my mailbox, walked away, and came back to being 500 gold richer. Pretty sweet for level 42.

But I digress. I decided to get the Phantom Blade, and put Lifesteal on it for Clockworknyt, my BE paladin. I had started leveling my new BE paladin on Darrowmere, and was astonished at how well the Seals and Judgement system worked. I figure, with the health from the Judgement of Life, PLUS Lifesteal, I’ll be pretty hard to beat in encounters with Allies on Demon Soul. I also like the bonuses on the weapon Phantom Blade, as it gives a Sunder like ability, as well as stealth prevention when you’re fighting rogues. The violet glow that Lifesteal gives the sword is nice, but I prefer my crossed Fiery and Icy Phantom Blades that Bullkathos wears on his back.

April Fools post

4/1/08
I’m giving up engineering, it sux, and doesn’t make any money. Matter of fact, I’m giving up WOW altogether…….April Fools!

Aosdanasaoi hit level 35 finally, so I leveled her engineering in Ironforge by making 8 Catseye goggles to give to every engineer alt except Doomslinger. I figure she’ll make her own once I start leveling her. These will be useful to keep in my bags for leveling in Stranglethorn Vale, Hillsbrad, and Ashenvale, since that’s where most of the ganking happens. I’m also going to make sure that all my toons have the Mind Control cap, as it would be a fun way to kill an enemy, by making them attack multiple mobs, or leading them into one of my cities, telling them to stay, and waiting for them to come out of “pet” status and getting beat down by the NPC’s.
After I got Aos up to 240 engineering, and bought the Death Ray and Battle Chicken recipes, I went over to Tanaris, since it’s so much easier to level engineering there. I figure I’ll powerlevel her by making Truesilver transformers and the Lifelike Mechanical Toad, since I had picked up that recipe the other day for only 3 gold. Kishigishi can use the transformers to finish up leveling to 300 engineering, since she’s at 295 right now, and the Goblin Jumper Cables XL are still green at that level.

What happened this weekend? I bought the Thorium Shield Spike plans for 12 gold for Bullkathos, and that allowed me to powerlevel from 285 to 300 BS, and the recipe is still orange to me. Even if the spikes don’t sell on the AH, my toons can use them, and it made powerleveling a heck of a lot cheaper. I was also able to learn all the 300 level recipes I had stashed in my bank, which freed up at least 10 spaces. I also got the Purple Smoke Flare for 5 g on Darrowmere, which will help me powerlevel engineering in about 2 years, once I get a toon up that far.
I also picked up the Robes of Arcana recipe for Banesidhe for 50 silver, when it normally is 50-60 gold. So, those were the highlights of my weekend. Lifelike Mechanical Toad, Thorium Shield spike, Robes of Arcana, and Purple Smoke Flare, all purchased for low low prices.

I also found out that I better level Kishigishi pretty fast, as once my Goblin Engineering membership expires in 14 days of play time, I’m SOL for getting the special Goblin schematics. Blizzard still hasn’t fixed that bug, even in the new patch. The same will go for Clockworknyt, once I get her to level 35.
[Edit 12/23/08] You can still get the spec specific recipes, even after you respec from Gnomish to Goblin. The only thing you can't do is get the Goblin Pet Bombling recipe, since you have to renew your membership card to get it.

For paladins, I’m going to set up a macro that will activate the bubble shield and cast the Death Ray at the same time, since those 2 actions work well together. Using the Goblin Flamethrower is better coupled with the Gnomish Harm prevention belt, since it gives you a set amount of damage that it will absorb (400), instead of the few seconds that the bubble shield gives you. Otherwise, enemies will start hitting you when the bubble shield gives out, reducing the amount of casts from the Flamethrower.

Shut up before I crush you with my wallet!

3/5/08
I played Bloodshrike again last night! This is some kind of a record for him, being taken out more than once in a month. I saw I had the Dawnrunner’s cargo, and the Spy’s report from the grave by the Hermit on Witch Hill, so I flew back to Dustwallow to turn them in. Since I was there, I decided to do the travel quest to Tabetha’s farm, and kill Deadmire. A level 40 horde warrior just killed Deadmire, so I wasted some time by zapping crocolisks and killing spiders/windserpents for the guy in Tabetha’s cabin. After Deadmire respawned, I took him down, then did the travel quest to Beazil’s Wreck. Those 2 quests are easy, and kinda fun. That leads to a travel quest to Rustsprocket, the new neutral town in Dustwallow, so I went there to turn it in, and get the flight point.

I also came up with a new macro last night. I know you can’t switch out trinkets while you’re in combat, but you can do it right before combat, if you’re quick enough.
#showtooltip
/cast Mechanical Dragonling (just add in Mithril or Arcanite, if that’s what you have equipped)
/stopcasting
/cast Gnomish Battle Chicken
/stopcasting
/equip Gnomish Death Ray
I don’t know if I need to have /stopcasting, but the macro does work. You call out 2 attack pets, and have the Death Ray starting its 30 second equip cooldown before you even get into battle. If you want to, you can even have it equip 2 new trinkets if you can set it up for the specific slots, but this is a pretty easy macro. I like having the chicken on my second trinket slot, since it only has a 20 minute cooldown, so any new trinket you right click to equip will go into your first trinket slot, and not interfere with the chicken.
(Edit 11/14/08) - The macro won't work anymore, since a later patch changed it so you could only have ONE mechanical trinket attack pet out at a time. I imagine that applies to the Goblin Bomb Dispenser as well.

Funnily enough, my blacksmiths are now my toons with the biggest wallets. Usually blacksmiths can’t find customers for the items they sell, since you can usually find a lot better as green drops from monsters. But, making Arcanite rods/Shining Silver Breastplates/Green Iron Hauberks will give you a lot of cash, pretty quickly. I now have about 1300 gold on my level 41 Tauren Warrior blacksmith Bullkathos, and I just got about 1200 gold on my level 24 Dwarf Warrior Blacksmith Panzergishi. I usually check to see what available recipes there are for Panzer when I log on, then I check to see what the epic and Blue recipes are going for. Well, I found an epic recipe (Khorium Longsword I think) for 100-150 gold, and when I looked at Auctioneer, I saw it usually went for about 700-800 gold. So, I bought it, and put it back on the AH for 600-700 gold. I logged in last night to see Panzer’s gold go from about 589 gold to about 1200 gold. That’s the biggest sale I’ve ever had!!! I’m used to getting about 80 gold for each Arcanite Rod, but that was an incredible rush to see my gold double overnight. Granted, I had paid 150 gold for it, but I still made about 400 gold profit on it.

Updates on characters

10-8-07
This weekend I concentrated on my Alliance account, so I can finish getting all of the characters to at least level 20. That opens up Engineering level 150-225 (165-240 for Gnomes, woot!), as well as 150-225 for whatever other professions the toons may have. My mage (Eng,enchant), priest (tailor,miner), shaman (Eng, LW), rogue (Eng, miner), and warrior (BS, Eng) are at least 20+ right now, and I burned up my well rested bonus on my warlock (Eng, Alch) to get her to level 18.
I need to get to level 20, so I can unlock the 150-225 skills (especially the level to make Frost Oil). My level 24 Warrior has the Snowmaster 9000 schematic, and I already picked one up for cheap on the AH, so once I get the Frost Oil recipe on my alchemist, I will be able to make one Snowmaster and use both of them to make more snowballs. Because my Warrior has the Snowmaster schematic, I’m going to hold off on powerleveling Engineering on him, until I can make a few of the Snowmaster kits and it will still give me a skill point. It’s already yellow when you learn it at 190, so I want to get some benefit out of making it.
This….is the bottleneck on Engineering? Alchemy has a 23 hour cooldown on the higher transmutes, Leatherworking has a 3 day cooldown on Refined Deeprock Salt using a Salt Shaker, and Tailoring has a 4 day cooldown on Mooncloth. I’m not sure if Enchanting has any cooldowns. But why have a freakin’ 24 hour cooldown on Snowballs? They aren’t used in anything EXCEPT the Snowmaster kit. You can have snowball fights with them, but that’s kinda pointless. 24 hours to be able to make something, 1 second to use it. At least the Heavy Leather Ball from leatherworking can be re-used, and you could have a game of Pass with it.
I leveled both my warlock and my paladin from level 15 to level 18 this weekend, doing the Defias chain quests in Westfall so I’ll have all 5 quests for the Deadmines when I finally go to them. My paladin was well stocked with bombs and target dummies, and she used most of them, and got killed at least 5 times, especially by those Defias pillagers/looters, since they group up. My warlock….not so much. I had 4 target dummies, and 13 Big bronze bombs, and I still have most of both. Warlocks and Hunters are great for leveling. I was taking on 2-3 enemies my level or higher, and always winning. I setup a macro for my warlock, because I was tired of having to stretch to hit Ctrl+1 to tell my pet to attack, then hitting the A button to fire off a shadow bolt. So, I borrowed the original macro I got from BRK
#showtooltip
/petattack
/Hunter’s Mark

And changed to:
#showtooltip
/petattack
/Shadow Bolt
So I just hit one button, and my imp and I both channel blasts of magic down upon our enemies! :) I should also make one to cycle through the DOT spells I use, since one is instant cast, and the other one was reduced by talent points to be instant cast as well.
It’s getting so much easier to level characters now. I know where all the quests are, and in what order to link them to maximize effectiveness. I’m no longer charging off to some new area because I have one quest there, I’ll save it until I actually go there, or not bother doing it at all. I’m probably going to do the quests in Bloodmyst Isle (Draenai area) with my warlock (since she’s going to Darnassus to level up Alchemy), just to see them, but I’m not going to bother with my actual Draenai characters, since they need to concentrate on building rep with Darnassus, and also getting their butts over to Westfall to get the 5 quests for the Deadmines. I’m going to have my Warlock skill up at Engineering level 225 by making parachute cloaks for all the other characters, since gnomes have that nice passive +15 to engineering.