A Dirty Little Secret

3-22-11

Don't tell anyone, ok? (looks around nervously)

I actually like questing in WoW. Unlike about 95% of the population, I quest to level up. On each of the 3 servers that I have guilds on, it feels like I have to beg, plead, cajole, or even threaten to get people to get quests done to get guild xp. Since a lot of them don't bother trying to group together to do BG's or dungeons, questing is their only option to actually contribute to the guild, and get paid for doing so.

I've even dropped the requirements to get paid, from 250 gold each 250k gxp, to 50 gold per 50k gxp. This allows lower level toons to get paid much more regularly.

Despite all that, on Demon Soul, with my level 4, 80 member guild, probably about 20 of the members are still at 0 gxp. One dear little frost mage logs in daily to do a few solo BG's, doesn't say anything, then bounces.

To me, leveling solo thru dungeons or battlegrounds is boring. Yes, questing can be boring too, but every so often you'll stumble across a quest that makes you laugh, or makes you sad, but in a good way (Little Pamela's quests in Darrowshire for example).

The original thought for this post was questing. I have kept all my toons in Orgrimmar or Stormwind for the past 3-4 months now, with only sporadic forays by select toons to actually go questing in zones, just so I could level them all slowly with the daily cooking and fishing quests. Yup, of the 3 85's, and 3 84's on Demon Soul, none of them except Pallormortis has done any serious questing in Cataclysm zones, and Pallor only did Mount Hyjal and Uldum by the time he dinged. I think it's time for a change.

I'm going to make a point to enjoy the game again, instead of just having each day be about the same dailies x20 for each server.

Surprisingly, I'm not going to drop my policy of paying guild members for their contributions to the guild. I have way too much gold, won't ever spend it all, and despite being jaded from being constantly exposed to the trollish behaviour of immature people (see Penny Arcade link), I......still like helping people.

However, I don't like being used. When a guildy will constantly ask for a port, and I'm playing my warrior, that's kind of annoying. Or begging for gold/bags, that stuff drives me up a wall. But I love explaining how to do a quest, how to make gold, how to grind rep, where to find a difficult NPC, or where to go to find how to spec their class.

All I ask for is appreciation, just a simple thank you. I stopped answering questions in Trade long ago, those little attention-deficit moon units will spam a question, ask why nobody answers it after 30 seconds, then won't even say "thanks" after you do give them an answer. WE DON'T GET PAID TO HOLD YOUR HAND, WE'RE TRYING TO ENJOY OURSELVES TOO!

Waaaahh!

2-20-11

I had already talked about some quests getting marked obsolete, but I found some more that are even more of a bummer. It appears that any quest that would make you travel the world was ruthlessly eliminated. In general, I agree with the decision. It wasn't fun picking up a quest in Stranglethorn that told you to go to the Hinterlands, when you had so many more quests left to do in STV. Then, if you put it off until you finished STV, it was already gray, making it next to worthless.

However, in particular.... I for one enjoyed doing 2 particular quest lines, especially since they both shared a couple of zones. The "A Yeti of Your Own" and the quest line that ends with "It's Dangerous to Go Alone" are now marked obsolete, and cannot be completed.

Edit: On further digging, you can still get the Yeti schematic for engineering, and complete the "A Yeti of Your Own" by following the quest line from Lilith the Lithe.

But the Linken quests are gone, which does suck. My girlfriend's 16-year old sister Molly is starting to get into WoW thru seeing her friend play it, and was intensely wanting to see the Linken quests after I had told her about them. She had grown up playing the more recent Zelda games, and was anxious to see Blizzard's homage to them in the game. While they have additional references to other games now, like the Atari Joust! game that you play in Mount Hyjal, nothing comes close to beating Blazerunner to get the Tri-force, and getting the Master Sword and boomerang as quest rewards.

Spring...I mean, Winter Cleaning

12-21-2010

The Cataclysm has hit, and that brings changes for not only max level characters, but low level toons as well. Blizzard went through their quests with a fine-tooth comb, and marked oodles of them obsolete, and can't be obtained or completed. This is a very good thing, don't get me wrong.

However, hidden among the hundreds of "kill 10 rats, come back, turn it in, go back to the exact same spot and kill 10 Elder rats" type of quests were some quests that I had come to rely on at certain levels for fast XP and sometimes rep.

Wool (12), Silk (26), Mageweave (40), and Runecloth (50) turnins are gone. At those levels, my toons would make the rounds of the capitol cities, turning in 60 pieces of cloth to 5 different NPC's, and gaining a good chunk of rep and XP in the process. Those NPC's are now goooooone. Sell your stockpiles of cloth, use them in Tailoring or First Aid, but you can't use them for rep anymore.

Next up, we have a quest located in one of the busiest ganking spots on a PvP server, Stranglethorn Vale. It used to take 14 seperate pages to do all the quests needed for the Green Hills of Stranglethorn Vale, now it only takes 1 page. Sell any and all pages in your bank, even old page 14 won't work for the new quest.

Blasted Lands had about 5 quests with extremely low drop rate quest items, doable at level 45. It was a nice XP boost if you did it right at 45, bringing you almost to 46 if I remember correctly. Basilisk Brain, Blasted Boar Lung, Scorpok Pincer, Snickerfang Jowl, and Vulture Gizzard were all needed to finish the quests, in varying amounts. The Vulture Gizzard drops were particularly horrendous. Toss them, you can't sell them. Here's an example of how many I had saved up, on my baby Horde server Darrowmere.








And finally, Argent Dawn rep. I wanted rep with factions as soon as it was possible, and I wasn't high enough to solo instances yet, so I started collecting the quest items. Dark Iron Scraps, Bone Fragments, Crypt Fiend Parts, Core of Elements, Savage Frond.....I collected them all from the AH, when they had a low bid of a few silver for several. Sell them, you can't do anything with them.
Anyone wanna buy some Dark Iron Scraps?








Surprisingly, the Craftsman's Writ quests, even though marked in Wowhead as obsolete, CAN be still completed if you have the writ and items needed. My warrior Bullkathos did the Stonescale Eel one last night, and instead of being given the choice between Insignia of the Dawn or Insignia of the Crusade, he just got a straight 150 rep. Dump the Insignia's btw, you can't redeem them anymore.

Am I mad that Blizzard got rid of these quests, making the items useless? Hell no! I'm glad that we no longer have quests that require 12 raptor heads, and all the raptors you kill in the Barrens seem to be headless. Random Number Generator items should be on important stuff, like Rivendare's mount. It shouldn't take an hour to do one simple quest, and Blizzard finally recognized that.

Out of Phaze

So, Bloodshrike, and ONLY Bloodshrike, will be going for the Loremaster achievement. I'm not going to put myself through the misery of slavishly trying to complete all those quests again on another character. I'll do the rep grind for certain factions if they have recipes that that toon needs for their profession(s), but I'm done with being a perfectionist.

I guess this whole thing kind of spun off from me doing the Icecrown quests. I'm currently about 104/140 on them, and I grouped with a BE rogue for a few of the group quests. One in particular was kind of funny. See, I only really got into Northrend at about level 76. I did all of the Sholazar Basin quests by level 77, then came back to Northrend for the Storm Peaks, and I know I got 80 before finishing the quests there.

When I finally started in Icecrown, I went straight to the Argent Crusade, did the intro quests, then became an Aspirant. I did those quests for 25 days, becoming "Champion of ..." and "Exalted Champion of .." at the same moment, since I was already exalted with all the home cities. It wasn't until about halfway thru Revered that I realized that the OTHER quests in Icecrown probably would help boost my Argent Crusade rep, so I wouldn't only rely on the dailies for the rep grind. Doh!

Needless to say, when I finally hit Exalted with the AC, I had over 180 tokens to spend. The first 50 went for the teleport Tabard, and another 120 went for my clothies to level up in style.
I also spent about 10kg for another teleport, though this one actually helps me kill stuff faster.
So, between the tabard, ring, 3 engineering teleport devices, and my hearthstone....I'm almost a mage!

Anyways, back to the original story. The BE rogue and I were about to kill the dogs and the casters for the Guardians quest, but when he came to join up with me, I couldn't see him. We could both see the monsters, but since we were in different phase stages of quest chains, we couldn't see each other. It was quite interesting to coordinate attacks on the monsters, especially since I'm a suspicious basterd, and don't trust that people are pulling their weight unless I actually see them fighting. But, we got it done with only 2 people, so it was a lot better than trying to solo it. I had tried before, and died twice while only killing one of the mobs. But, since we had also done Basic Chemistry and Coprous the Defiled, that finished my list of group quests that I need, except maybe the Banshee's Revenge. Ahh, I'll be happy to get this zone over with.

"Jump, jump, jump around!"

What's your favorite quest in WoW? There's some quests you loathe, and breathe a sigh of relief when you complete them, and others that you always enjoy, even after the 20th time. My favorite is this one. I don't know why, it's just fun to see how fast I can jump up the mountain, with as little time spent on the ground as possible.

And conversely, I really came to dislike the hunt for shiny baubles that I completed, ad nauseum, after I got exalted with the Frenzyheart, and rashly decided to go for both reps. Luckily, I did get the transformation item from the Frenzyheart on my first Ripe Jar, but then I had to start over again on the rep grind with the Oracles. The shiny treasure quest just bugs me for some reason. I don't mind killing Frenzyheart, it actually is kinda fun to send my gorilla and Jaloot into the middle of the flat rock on the north side of Kartak's hold, gather 22 of the warriors, then annihilate them with 1-2 volleys. The other quests where I have to fly around to the tops of mountains don't bother me either, as it gives me a chance to search for Loque.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

12/29/08

Since the Feast of Winter Veil began, it’s given me the kick in the butt needed to level up some of my toons, so I could do the “You’re a mean one, Mr. Greench” and “Save Metzen the Reindeer” quests before the event ends. On Daggerspine, I leveled up a bunch of my toons by doing the Greench quest in Alterac mountains, along with all the other quests from Southshore. Ryo went from 37 to 39, Gwidd got to 39 as well, Aos got to 43, Kishi got to 44, and Panzer finally dinged 40 (woot, plate mail time!).

Hangfire is level 35 though, so it’ll be interesting to see if he can take down the Greench. But, with a Mechanical Dragonling and Shrink Ray to help, along with a Big One bomb and a Target Dummy, not to mention the Lifebloom buff from Herbalism, I think he’ll be able to get it done.

I’m doing the same thing on Demon Soul too, having my toons get all the quests from Tarren Mill before heading up to Alterac. For most of the toons that can do the quests, they’re level 40+ already, so it’s not that hard for them, but the Metzen quest might be a bit tough, since he’s surrounded by level 40 something pirates, and they keep on adding to the fight, since they run and get help. Granted, this was my experience with my level 55 hunter, and I wasn’t really worried about pulling in singles, I just wanted to nuke everything as fast as possible.

Oooh, oooooh! Tsuris finally hit level 30 last night. For some reason, my Shaman/leatherworkers, Druid/herbalists, and Priests don’t get a lot of play from me. I’ve never gotten a leatherworker above 225, because all 3 of them are still in their 20’s. Well, until last night. I decided to clear out some of Tsuris’s quests, one thing led to another, I laid a trail of slaughter all the way through Duskwood….y’know, the usual. I was doing the Wolves on our Heels/8-legged Menaces/Lean wolf flank quests in the northwest part of Duskwood, and I got bored waiting for the meat to drop, so I was starting to see how many wolves I could collect before AOE’ing them with Solid Dynamite, then cutting them down with my shiny axe buffed with Windfury. Granted, those were only level 20ish wolves, and I’m level 30, but enough low level enemies can still hurt.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I took engineering to its low level limits. At level 29, I picked up the quest to kill 12 Darkrunner Worgen. There’s a group of them directly west of Darkshire, near the mountain in the middle of Duskwood. I had been picking off a few Darkrunners here and there, but when I saw the village, I decided to do a full-on attack, and wipe it all out. I buffed up with a scroll of stamina, cooking for +8 stamina and spirit, got my electrical orbs spinning, and used my Mechanical Dragonling as I was running to attack. I quickly swapped it out for the Cloaking Device, since I hadn’t entered combat yet, and wanted the option to bug out if it looked like I was going to lose. I jumped into the village, tossed down a Stoneskin totem, started swinging at the nearest Worgen, and quickly let off a Big One bomb (400-500 damage). Following that, I threw down a Target dummy, to hopefully distract them for a second or two. At level 10, they’d keep hitting the Target dummy until it blew up, but at level 25+, you put out too much aggro, and the monsters see you as more of a threat than some paper figurine waving back and forth. It was a bit iffy for a second, but I got through through the fight with some judicious use of my Flame Shock spell and Magma? totem for additional damage, not too mention my dragonling chewing on them from the side. After the fight is done, I’m at 10% health, but still alive, and he runs off and starts attacking another Worgen! I used a Mageweave bandage, and went to help the dragonling, since I knew he’d be despawning soon anyway. But hey, at least he bought me some time to bandage…..which I would have had anyway, if he wasn’t such a bloodthirsty little beast…..ehh, whaddya gonna do.

The Death of a Twink

11/26/08


Bloodshrike got to level 53 last night, finishing up all the yellow quests I had in my quest log for Hinterlands. Actually, it was probably about 5 quests that got knocked out in one area (Jintha’Alor), which is very nice, as I hate having to do a quest in an area, only to find out that I have to come back there to kill a group of monsters that were RIGHT NEXT to the ones I went there for originally. The Harpy quests in NW Barrens comes to mind, as you have to travel up there THREE different times in the quest chain to get to the end quest.

But in Jintha’Alor, I just ran through, killing X number of mobs, collecting 10 of the cauldrons, finding the Huntsman’s Skull and Bones in the sludge pit and wolf den, freeing Elder Runetusk, killing the High Priestess Hexx (she didn’t stand a chance against my pet and my dragonling, even though she polymorphed me), and finally hearthing back to the village to turn them all in. There’s still a few green quests that I could do, but I’m not sure where to go after this. Maybe Felwood in Durotar, I think Alchemists can get recipes by grinding Timbermaw rep.

Unfortunately, there’s no engineering recipes they give, which also goes for Thorium Brotherhood rep, so I probably won’t be grind rep for them. I think Thorium Brotherhood is only for Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, Tailoring, Enchanting…..and maybe Alchemy? I checked--alchemists can transmute 1 Heart of Fire into 3 Elemental Fire with Friendly Rep. Wow, totally not worth it.

It looks like Alchemists can get Transmute: Earth to Water at Friendly status to Timbermaw, so maybe he’ll do that. Alchemists and Engineers are screwed on Cenarion Circle rep as well (Recipes for BS, Ench, LW, Tailor)……Geez, what gives!

So about that Death of a Twink headline – Yup, one of my twinks is going bye-bye. I thought that Blizzard had said that in order to make a Death Knight, you wouldn’t have to change over one of your existing characters, or delete any. I figured wrong. You still can only make 10 toons per account, so I’m going to have to delete Sansetsukon off of Demon Soul if I want to try out a Death Knight. Tauren Hunters…..heck, Tauren anything just aren’t that fun to me. I like my Tauren Warrior Bullkathos, but on Demon Soul, I also have a Tauren Shaman and Druid, as well as the twink hunter. There’s not really enough character design implemented to make them look very different from each other, which is something that you can do with Blood Elves. All …..6 of the BE on Darrowmere look totally different from one another, which is very cool. They also don’t have that hunchback look that Undead, Tauren, Orcs, and Trolls tend to have. BE’s are the only ones that stand up straight in the Horde Faction.

Anyways, Sansetsukon needs to be axed. I think I only played him in Battlegrounds once, to get the Olympic Tabard, so it’s no big loss. I spent a hundred or so gold on his bank slots, but with 33k gold on Demon Soul, I think I can afford it.
I’ll give it until I hit 55 with Bloodshrike, and see if they will magically open up another slot then.

Getting over the hump of leveling

11/24/08

Wahoo! Bloodshrike, my first toon, is now level 51 and a half! I just started playing him again this weekend, and gained about 3 or so levels, and a lot of it was from finishing up green quests in the Badlands. Why was a level 48+ questing in the Badlands? Well, I wanted to do the Uldaman Reagent run to get the Restorative Potion recipe, so I accepted the other quests while I was there.

Running around Uldaman as a level 50 is fun! I ran clockwise around the area before the instance, and even went into the instance, but decided not to push my luck. I got the Adventurers Pith Helmet as one of my drops, which will serve Kukoshakaku or Morticide very nicely once they level up.

After that, I moseyed over to Burning Steppes (I think, whatever zone is west of Badlands) and did the quests for the Outhouse. I even ran up to the tunnel to Loch Modan, and found out that a Large Seaforium Charge will pick the lock to the tunnel. I’m not sure if a small one will do it, but you’d better have 2 of whatever you got, because the door shuts behind you pretty quickly. Luckily, I did have 2 Large Sea charges, so I was able to get out of there. After that, I went over to Un’Goro Crater, and was doing the Sticky Stuff quest, along with all the rest of the quests I picked up at the Marshal’s Refuge. The only one I got completed was the Sticky Stuff quest, along with getting 20 Un’Goro soil to turn in at Thunder Bluff. I’ll come back to it after I finish the Hinterlands.

Next, I went to the Hinterlands, stopping first in Arathi to do the level 225 First Aid quest. Easy enough, but 60 Mageweave wasn’t enough to get me up to Runecloth bandages, so I had to have Bullkathos send me another 40. Then, he had to send me more runecloth, since the 60 I brought didn’t get me up to level 300. Once that was done, I flew over to the Hinterlands. I accepted all the quests in the village, and had to drop some of the Un’Goro quests to get all of them, but they were yellow to red, so I’ll be able to see them even without low level quest tracking turned on. Snapjaws, Mon!, Gammerita, Mon!, Lard’s Lunch, and the Pupellyverberos port quest from Booty Bay are all on the same stretch of beach in the Hinterlands.

Judge not, lest you be judged........ screw dat, I'm a Judging fool.

11/10/08

Ding! I got a few characters out leveling this weekend, Bloodshrike the original, going from 45 to 47 in a few hours, making him my highest toon ever. Level 50 and 300-375 Engineering and Alchemy are so close I can smell them! I had fun playing him, running some quests in STV to get them out of my quest log. The Stranglethorn hunting quests were fun, I’d gather a bunch of raptors together before setting off a Dense dynamite and a Explosive trap, bringing 6 raptors or so to near death almost instantly. It’s funny, I usually avoid STV while leveling, because there’s usually so much ganking going on there that it’s not fun for me. However, as a level 47, nobody bothered me.

I also got my newest Paladin (Misericorde) out leveling, going from level 22 to 24 just by running from Splintertree Post in Ashenvale to the Zoram Strand, and completing a few quests along the way like The Sacred Flame quest, along with Shadumbra and Ursangous, and the Wrathtail heads along with the escort quest at Zoram Strand. I also went over to Black Fathom Deeps to pick up the Corrupted Kor Gem for my The Blood-Tempered Ranseur , even though I had picked up a better axe from Shadowfang keep when I had someone run me through it to get the the Crate of Bloodforged Ingots.

I haven’t played my paladins since before the patch broke, so this was my first time playing after the patch. I gotta say, I like it! No need to charge seals to get the judgements you want to apply, you just have to have A seal running, and you can judge away every time the cooldown cycles. The way it was before, I’d power up the seal that would weaken enemies toward Holy when they were judged, judge them, and switch to the Seal that gave extra Holy damage. Judgement of Light (JoL) rocks, btw! I’m barely using any mana, since my seals are staying up for 2 minutes, and the only mana output is my judgements every 10 seconds of so. On top of that, I’m always staying at full life easily, since JoL has a chance to proc healing on you too. At level 23, I was able to take down Shadumbra (lvl 28) by myself, with only one use of Solid dynamite and Target Dummy. I could have probably done it without, too, but you might as well use all the resources at your disposal. :)

I got my first HK, too. As I was looking for the Warsong Outrider to the east of Splintertree, I ran into a level 26 gnome mage and level 31 gnome rogue coming up the road. I figured they were about to gank me, so I hit back first. I started judging the mage, while letting off Consecration and a Solid Dynamite, and was able to take out the mage and get the rogue to half health before getting killed. They camped my body, and I wasn’t able to get any more kills off them, while they killed me about 2 more times. But, since I just hit 24, I’ll be equipping my Shining Silver Breastplate with a 100 health enchant, so that’ll give me a lot more health and armor.

Gimme minipets! I gotta catch them all!

11/6/08
Clockwrkmage is now 300 enchanting, with Lifesteal and a bunch of other level 300 enchanting recipes learned. I had thought that Lifesteal was an expensive enchant, but it uses items that I’ve saved up a ton of (Essence of Undeath, Living essence, Large Brilliant Shard?), so I was able to make 3 of them easily, and I put them on the AH at 80-100 gold each. Surprisingly, it was still able to fit on an armor vellum (1), cause it has no level restriction. Maybe they only made level restrictions for stuff that gives a constant buff (12 Agility to Cloak has a item level 35 requirement), not for enchants that proc (Lifesteal, Fiery, Mongoose). I also put up about 4 Fiery enchants at 30-35 gold, when the small radiant shards only cost me about 4g each, and I had a ton of Essence of Fire.

Bonescourge explored the Wetlands while getting the channeling rods to summon the Felhound, and then continued on to the Badlands. That area has a few crafted item turnin quests (Frost Oil, Gyrochronomatom) along with regular items (Blue Pearl, Healing Potion), so any toon that goes over there will pick the items up before they get there. I had Bonescourge pick up enough Cockroaches in the Undercity for all my toons, then had Banesidhe port to Silvermoon to get all 3 of the Dragonhawk pets. With what Bonescourge had already learned, that was enough to get him to the “Plenty of Pets” achievement (15 pets), and well on his way to the 50 needed to get the pet skunk. I’m going to need to get the cats from Elwynn Forest, the moths from Exodar, the rabbit from the Dwarf area, and the Owls from Darnassus for all of my toons on Demon Soul and Darrowmere, plus enough to sell on the Auction House.

Questing, the 13th step

9/19/08

Well, I got Misericorde on Darrowmere to level 20, and took her over to Silvermoon City to learn her level 20 skills, learn Polearms, and pick up the Blood-Tempered Ranseur quest. I need her to skill up engineering by using only trainer taught recipes, and especially by making Gyrochronomatom, since Gavel needs a whole bunch to make the Mechanical Dragonlings for everyone.

A buddy of mine on Demon Soul just leveled an undead warrior to 70, giving him at least 4 level 70 toons. Troll Rogue, Undead Warrior, Tauren Druid, and Belf Shadow Priest. I, on the other hand, have 30 level 20-45 toons, say, level 30 average. So, 30x30 equals 900, whereas 4x70= 280. I just spend way too much time leveling their professions and secondary professions, and not enough time questing. But, I am getting better. I only have a level 14 priest and level 13 druid on Darrowmere to level to 20, and then ALL my toons (except twinks) will be a level 20 or above. I’ve got 23k gold on Demonsoul, 13k+ on Daggerspine, and about 5k on Darrowmere, so I don’t really need to worry about money anymore. If I can wean myself off the AH, and only sell things, and not worry about getting bargains on mats, that will free up at least a couple of hours a night.

Clockwrkmage needs a mount

9/15/08

Well, over the weekend I brought most of the stuff I’ve been getting on Ally side over to Horde side for Demon Soul and Darrowmere. The friend that has been helping me on the opposite faction got fired from my company, so I don’t know how long he’s going to keep paying for WOW. You know you have too much stuff when you have your OWN guild bank, with 3 tabs, most of your 10 toons have all their bank bag slots purchased, and you STILL have a problem with having too many items. I have probably about 300+ Essence of Air on each of my toons, mainly because it was pretty cheap to bid/buy. I think it’s used in high level blacksmithing recipes, but I’ve got way too many of them. I just made 5 Goblin Jumper Cables XL with Kishigishi, and that barely used up any of the mats I have on her. I need to stop buying, and need to start questing.

So, in that light, I did. Granted, I still took some time to log into the toons camping the Darkmoon Faire on each of my servers, but I concentrated on Clockwrkmage on Daggerspine last night, and got her from 28 to level 30. I was spurred on to do that because I tried to kill Mor’Ladim by Raven Hill, and just barely lost. I led off with Frost Bolt, immediately followed by Fire Ball, and then the instant cast fire blast. After that, I used a Big One, followed up with a fire blast, then frost nova and arcane missiles. I tried tossing up a Target Dummy and bandaging myself while he was distracted, but that healing overrode what little aggro the dummy was putting out, and he turned back to me. I was able to get off a second Big One, hoping it would finish him off, but no such luck. I had no health left, and he had no health, but he was able to get off one last attack, and that was enough to finish me off, and waste all the bombs I put into the fight. I hate being defeated, so I continued on to finish off my other quests, vowing to come back at level 30, when I would have a Mechanical Dragonling to help me out on my fights.

Also, I gotta go back and take care of Gahz’rogg and Blaze in Redridge Mountains. The main quests I did to get from 28 to 30 were the Legend of Stalvan, Worgen in the woods, and the Embalmer quest lines. While killing skeletons for the Night Watch quest line, I ran across Mor’Ladim, and got kilt. I finished my quests, did some of my turn-ins, went to Stormwind for the Defias Docket questline, and hit level 30. It’s mount time!!!!!!............well, kinda. Surprisingly, for an engineering freak, I’m not a fan of the Mechanostrider. I find it too noisy for my tastes. However, I’m already at Revered with Stormwind, so maybe Clock will find herself a nice horse to ride in the near future.

Blood's adventures in Tanaris

9/12/08
Bloodshrike met up with a level 43 Troll Priest, slaughtered all the pirates in the camp, killed Andre Firebeard, and picked up Stoley’s Shipment, all pretty much at 0 mana. I burned thru my mana way too fast, but luckily, due to engineering, autoshot, and the priests healing skills, I was able to continue killing everything that needed it. After we finished, we mounted up and rode out, and I stopped along the way to burn down a level 46 druid, just to see if I could. I could, and did, so we continued on to Steamwheedle Port to turn in the quests.

After that, the priest and I parted ways, and I went south to kill more Wastewanders, and to try and locate Caliph Scorpidsting. That was pretty easy, even though I got annihilated by a level 44 mage and level 49 Paladin, probably in retribution for killing the druid.

After that I headed over to the insect Centipaar area, to try and get 5 Centipaar parts. At this point, I was level 45, and Arikara was level 38. I was able to handle the level 47 and 48 wasps without too much of a problem, but the level 50 beetle ones kicked my butt every time I tried them. I think they had those miniscule little minions with them, so they’d swarm me, and I couldn’t kill them and a mob 5 levels above me fast enough to make it thru the fight.

I finally went to the east side of the area, where it was mainly just wasps and level 48 workers, and I was able to finish it. I didn’t want to run all the way back to Gadgetzan, so I decided to jump into Un’Goro to get the flight point, and continue on to Sithilus. I rode north to the furthest point where you could run off the cliff edge, and ran & jumped off. I triggered my parachute cloak and came in for a safe landing, but aggro’d a level 49 baby Pterosaur. I was tired of running from fights, so I decided to try to take him down. Surprisingly, I was able to do it!

From there, I continued northwest around the slopes of Un’goro, hugging the wall to avoid aggro. I grabbed the flightpoint from the Marshal’s area, and continued on to Sithilus. When I first came into the zone, I noticed a leatherworking vendor to the left, so I stopped off and bought the Heavy Scorpid Bracer recipe (255) for Kukoshakaku (which, incidentally, is NOT allowed in an Leatherworking bag), then continued on to grab the flightpoint and some more recipes from Kania for Bullkathos to sell . I flew back to Gadgetzan, turned in the quest, and logged out at 45 and a half with Arikara at 39.

Bloodshrike's day with the pirates

9/9/08

Bloodshrike on Demon Soul actually got out and did some questing, instead of being a good little Neutral Auction House mule. Being inspired by my friend Francois, who is currently leveling his level 44 hunter with his level 30 lion, I decided to take Arikara out and do some leveling by Steamwheedle Port. Those pirates don’t like a big red pet menacing them, while being shot full of holes. Since Arikara was level 34 when I started killing pirates, he wasn’t able to hold aggro very well.

Clockwrkmage busts loose

9/5/08

I got off work early yesterday, so that allowed me to run through AH toons early, and actually think about questing. Clockwrkmage, my lvl 24 Gnome Ally mage, has been level 24 for probably 6 months. Since I’m getting a lot of my characters over the level 35 range on Daggerspine, I decided it was time to level her a bit, so I get her to 35 as well, and unlock 225-300 enchanting, since they’ll be needing higher level enchants as they level up. I flew over to Redridge Mountains, and started blasting the Blackrock Orcs around Stonewatch Keep and Illgar Tower. I took down Tharil’zun pretty easily, but I guess I hadn’t gotten a quest for him yet, since he didn’t drop his head. I then had the bright idea of taking on Gathll’zog and Blaze by myself. Not a good idea for a level 24 mage to take on a level 26 elite humanoid and level 24 elite dragonling by themselves. Bad, BAD idea! I wiped on them a couple of times, before deciding to take on easier prey.

As I was killing the Shadowhide gnolls, I partied up with a level 27 priest, and we worked pretty well together. He was very good at shielding and healing me, and I was dishing out the pain to groups of 3-4 level 26 gnolls at once, thanks to the crapload of Big Iron bombs, Solid Dynamite, Mithril bombs, and Hi-Explosive bombs (lvl 235 engineering) that I had saved up while camping the AH. I love being a gnome engineer, the +15 engineering racial really comes in handy. Hi-explosive bombs rival Goblin Land Mines for power, and you don’t have to wait the 10 seconds for them to arm themselves. Lil Timmy's Peashooter dropped while we were questing, and the priest was decent enough to greed on it, same as me. I won it, which was cool, since my twink Doomslinger only has the Lovingly Crafted Boomstick at the moment, so that’ll boost her dps by 1, which is good for a twink. After we both got our Shadowhide pendants, the priest had to leave, so I decided to go towards the Burning Steppes, as I had heard you could die there, and resurrect right next to an engineering vendor that has the Deadly scope recipe. Well, that got put on hold, as I was asked to join 2 warlocks dealing with the Blackrock Champions quest, along with the escort quest that starts in that cave. I really, really hate escort quests now, they take too friggin’ long, and there’s so much opportunity for a high level ganker to kill you, and make you do the quest over again. I led the party in damage against the mobs, bombs being dropped everywhere, and sheeping the casters on the outskirts.

With those quests done, I headed back up to the Burning Steppes, got inside the entrance, and promptly got killed by a mob. The ONLY spirit healer there is at the Fire Scar, which is conveniently located right by a HORDE Flightmaster, and the engineering vendor is in a cave a little farther back. I rezzed, bought the Deadly scope recipe, then began corpse-hopping down to Morgan’s Vigil in the south eastern portion of the map. I got the flight point, and flew the heck out of there. I turned in a bunch of quests at Lakeshire, and ended up at level 26 and a half. Not bad for a couple of hours of questing.