Patch 3.08 Death Knigget Explosion

1/20/09

Patch 3.08 should be hitting the servers this morning, so it’ll be time to make a new Death Knight this afternoon. I’ve been wanting to play with Francois and his wife on Lightbringer, but really, really, haven’t wanted to level up any toons. This will allow me to have a 55 toon on that server, and since they haven’t gotten their DK’s past 60, we can all level together.

I think I’ll go with a Night Elf female. I like gnomes because of their passive +15 engineering racial ability, but at 55, a DK has the opportunity to have up to 375 engineering automatically, if you powerleveled them. Besides, this is a care-bear server (PvE), so I won’t need engineering to help prevent being ganked. I figure I’ll go Mining and Skinning up until 60+, then drop skinning for engineering once I get to Outlands. Same plan as Pallormortis on Demon Soul, just less pressure, since I only have to worry about mobs killing me. So for that reason, I’ll go with Night Elf, since Shadowmeld will have uses throughout the game, whereas the +15 engineering won’t.

In other news, Tsuris is now level 38 ½!!! I spent a bunch of time leveling him over the weekend, and now he’s going to be my highest level Leatherworker. Along the way of leveling, I dinged Exalted with Stormwind, since I had done so much questing there, plus a lot of quests give rep with them anyway. I had originally started both Tsuris and Preyonyou with the idea of grinding rep with Darnassus, to get the Nightsaber mounts, but this happened along the way. I did most of my questing in Dustwallow, and didn’t bother going back to Exodar for my level 30 Totem of Air quest until level 37, since I wanted to get Exalted with SW and get my horsies. Yup, Horsies, plural. I bought all four of the Stormwind mounts, and later on, I bought all three Darnassus cats. I also made a macro to randomly select what mount I’ll use, so it’ll keep it interesting.

/castrandom Pinto, Black Warhorse, Spotted Nightsaber….
You get the idea. Not sure if I named the mounts correctly, since I’m doing this off the top of my head while at work.

I also looked up upcoming profession quests for Tsuris. Of course, I know about the engineering spec quest, but the leatherworking ones will be new to me. Apparently, there’s two. Wild Leather, available around level 30, and your actual specialization quest, available at 40. Wild leather is like the blacksmithing quests, where you have to make a bunch of items and turn them in to receive additional recipes. A good amount of Thick Leather is needed, and TONS of Turtle Scales (considering I only have 7 in my bank). It looks like Ryoushigishi will have to brush the dust off his gun, and get to killing turtles in Tanaris. He’s level 37 I believe, and the turtles are around 40, so that should be good XP as well as turtle meat and turtle scales for Tsuris.

Also for Tsuris, I’m going to be doing the opposite of what I do with paladins. Since I want the Pet Bombling minipet on a least ONE toon on each server, I’ve decided to have my Shamans go Goblin first, get the Goblin Dragon Gun and minipet (not the Goblin Mortar, since he won’t be able to reload it), and respec to Gnomish. Yeah, it’s kinda a pain, and expensive, but……what else do I need to do with my gold? I’ve gotten a bunch of epics off the AH, I’ve gotten most if not all all recipes I’ll need in the foreseeable future, and….I got the gold and the time.

Surprisingly, my Ally account on Daggerspine has the most toons over level 35 now. Only Doomslinger (19 twink) and Preyonyou (26 Priest) are under that level. On Demon Soul, Burizadokyan (27 Priest), Morticide (26 druid), and Kukoshakaku (28 Shaman) still need to be leveled.

Recap on Gold: Demon Soul is about 50.3 K, Daggerspine is about 42K, and my baby account on Darrowmere is just over 16K. I attribute most of the gold to level 300 enchanting recipe scrolls on Demon Soul and Daggerspine, as well as my ruthless manipulation of the Glyph market on all servers. People have a natural tendency to try to sell items at any price, and usually end up driving the market down. For the people who rely on the AH for materials, rather than grinding for them, that’s a good thing. For the sellers, it’s a bad thing. So, for example, if I see some of the glyphs that I normally sell for at least 20+ gold being sold at 5-8 gold, I’ll price my regular 4 glyphs (since I only make 4 at one time, since it’s not wise to flood the market) at a high price, like 30-35 gold. By the next day, the lower priced glyphs have been sold off, and people are undercutting my high priced glyphs, leaving me free to undercut them, still at a nice profit.

I'm counting my rocks.....

Chris Rock -
No one cares when you get outta school-
"I just got outta school! Got my masters!"
"So what- dont come around here with all that readin and shit- see I can count too 1,2,4,9 So- what! You be countin these rcks byotch!"
"but I got my masters!"
"So what you my master now???"

1/16/09

Whew, Mastery of professions is expensive! I finally got around to leveling Bloodshrike on Demon Soul in his professions, since he’s 55. Alchemy probably took 200 gold to powerlevel, and it would have been higher, but I had a ton of herbs saved up from Morticide camping the Darkmoon Faire for herbs and motes. I haven’t picked Potion or Transmute as a specialty yet, and I haven’t researched where/when to do that. You probably have to be level 60 or something, but I’m an impatient little sod, and want to powerlevel professions as soon as I can.

Bloodshrike’s Engineering is probably around 330 right now. I’m torn between making Arcanite Dragonlings, since I had Bloodshrike learn it, and it turned yellow at around 320 engineering, or making Health Potion Injectors, since he made a ton of Super Health Potions while leveling up Alchemy. Or, I could make Crashin’ Thrashin’ Robots, since I learned that at 325, and those should sell for a good price. Aaaaugh, too many choices!
Arcanite Dragonlings are super expensive to make. 1 Mithril Mechanical Dragonling, 8 Delicate Arcanite transformers, 6 Thorium Widgets, 10 Enchanted Thorium Bars, 6 Enchanted Leather….. I could probably sell one for 500-600 gold, and come out about even on mats. Since I’m making 9 of them for my toons, it’s cost efficient for me to make them first, and worry about selling them later. If I do sell enough of them, it won’t be a problem to come back and make more of them for myself.

Tsuris is now level 34 1/2, waiting for me to come back and finally get him to level 35, and be able to finally powerlevel my first toon past 225 leatherworking. I think I’ll probably go Dragonscale LW, since he’s Enhancement spec, and I like doing DPS rather than healing.

Reconnaissance of VC

12/10/07
Woohoo! I finally got a character thru the Deadmines! A guildy offered to run me thru, and I accepted happily. My level 26 Shaman Tsuris and his lvl 48 Shadow Priest had no problems with the instance, with me taking a lot of them down by myself. My bombs and target dummies really helped out, distracting and stunning the elites so I could channel some high damage spells on them. When we finally got out into the cavern, I was struck by how much it reminded me of the movie“The Goonies.” The pirate ship in a cave brought back memories of growing up. I used a Goblin Land Mine on the boss fight with Van Cleef, which helped to take him and his friends down quickly.
We had missed the Wilder Thistlenettle quests that involve killing the undead miners outside the instance, so I went back in by myself after the run to do them. No problems doing it, so I also knocked those out with my priest Preyonyou. Prey also went into the instance to try to knock out the Red Silk Bandana quest, and to see how far I could get. I got stopped cold by the first named boss that you encounter. My DOT’s weren’t doing anything to him, and wanding him wasn’t doing much either. Since she wasn’t an engineer, and didn’t have much physical damage, she got killed right there. I rezzed at the spirit healer back at the camp, and turned in those 3 quests to knock them off my quest log.
I honestly think my hunter or warlock could probably solo that instance at level 25-30. Since they’re both engineers, they have extra damage sources, and the target dummies will give them a way to distract the enemies when they get swarmed. Not to mention their pets/demons keep a lot of the damage off of them. Now that I know the instance, I’m going to try it with my different characters to see how far I get. Maybe now I’ll be brave enough to try Gnomeregan/Black Fathom Depths/Shadowfang Keep at a level where the mobs will actually give me XP, and items that I can use.
So with Doomslinger, I can do 3 of the 5 quests, and be able to get the Tunic of Westfall before level 20. The Wilder Thistlenettle quests are only available after level 20.

Darkmoon Faire Time!

12/7/07
Ok, NOW Tsuris is ready for the Deadmines. A Horde troll hunter was killing all the NPC’s at the Westfall flightpoint and tower, and he killed the Defias traitor as I was escorting him. I /bored at him and his pet, and tried it again. This time I did get to Moonbrook, but I was a bit too cocky and took on too many adds, and the traitor got killed. One last time, and he made it to the entrance of VC safely. I ran back to Gryan Stoutmantle, got the Red Silk Bandanas quest from the top of the tower, and got the 3 quests from the Dwarf quarters of Stormwind.
I can’t believe I didn’t realize it was Darkmoon Faire week in Elwynn Forest! The one time out of 3 months where you can buy highlevel stuff for relatively cheap. I usually try to get the mid-high level herbs, healing potions, lvl 2 scrolls, and motes. Motes are a 10th of the price you’d pay in the AH, and I’d like to get more of my characters the +12 Agi to cloak enchant. I just don’t want to pay 20 gold for another Primal Air, so I’m going to save up the Motes that you can buy for 16 silver each at the Darkmoon Faire.
Kishi finally got out of the Spider cave, and is currently resting at Menethil Harbor. I want her to be 25 before going to Arathi and Hillsbrad so she can turn in the wounded soldier quest too, and she was fighting on normal XP in Thelgen Rock.
I don’t have the time for normal xp. I’ve always got someone who’s fully rested, so I might as well take every advantage I can get. I flew back to Ironforge after setting my hearth to Menethil harbor, so I could powerlevel my Mining with Gold Ore and buy my level 24 skills. She now has about 182 mining, so I’ll be able to mine Mithril if I stumble across it. I learned from my mistake with Bullkathos, having to pass up the Ooze-covered Mithril veins in the Sithilid caves of the salt flats of 1k Needles.
Hmmm, I’ve got about 60 Essence of Undeath, do you think I have enough? I guess I’m just traumatized by the high price they were charging for a long time in the Demon Soul AH, so I buy up every one I see at a low price in Daggerspine, even though I won’t be using them for a while.

Making a list of quests to do

12/6/07
Not much done last night. Tsuris finished up the Dark Threat looms quest on the dam by Thelsamar, and knocked out Mercenaries and Chok’sul at the same time. With a level 26 shaman engineer, lvl 19-20 elites aren’t much of a problem. Now he’s back in Stormwind, waiting to get all the VC quests.
In Thelgen Rock, Kishigishi is stuffed full to the brim, but she’s still only 152 mining, and I don’t want to go out until I get to 155 mining. However, there is a vendor situated in the middle of the map, so I could go sell stuff to him, and come back for more. Some of those spider remains (like palp) can add up to quite a bit. Besides, I want to be level 25 when I get to Menethil Harbor, so I can take the wounded soldiers quest to Dun Modr when I’m running thru to get the flight points. After that, it’s back to Thelsamar, to do Dark Threat Looms, Mercenaries, and Chok’sul, because her paladin quest needs an item from the ogres.
Then, on to Auberdine with the 2 traveling quests (Corruption Abroad and Kiera Longears), and run down to Ashenvale to get an item from the elite naga in BFD. I’ll probably take the Wrathtail head and Ruzuul quests first, so I can knock out a few while I’m over there. Then, take the 2 traveling quests to Forest Song, take 1 down to the border of the Barrens, and warp back home. I figure I should knock out the Deadmines before trying SFK, since it’s Horde territory, and I’m going to be trying it by myself. I’ll probably be level 30 by the time I get there, knowing how I run things.