The Final Push To 80
iTZKooPA on Monday, January 12, 2009 - 16 Comments Tags: PvE, art book, birthday, cinematic, cinematic art book, ding, epic fail, grinding, heroics, level 80, questing, raiding, reputation, sons of hodir, the final push 
Well it has come down to this, the final level. I am fairly certain that I am going to be the last player at ProjectLore to hit level 80, but in all fairness, they play the game for a job. I write about the game for my job. My original goal was to hit the level before the holidays, enabling me to get some raiding in before the new year. Then it was to have it done before my birthday, which was yesterday (Thanks for the awesome weekend Lesley). I guess all those trolls are right, I do fail in an epic manner. New goal equals this week!
I may not have hit 80, but over the weekend I busted into my final stretch to immortalizing SolidSamm as one of the millions of toons to hit the level cap. After watching my second to last ding go off, I quietly logged out of the game and pondered his immediate future. On recommendations from friends and guildies, the little rogue will skip out on all of the quests for the lower zones, heading straight to Storm Peaks and Icecrown to finish out the experience bar.
Many of you may be wondering why a level 79 character hasn't already been in these zones, and that is a legitimate question. Being a hardcore PvEer, I have been tackling every quest I have come across, interesting or not. No ? has gone unanswered as of level 79. Due to this incessant questing, I spent most of my time in the lowbie zones – Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord, Grizzly Hills, Zul'Drak – going wherever those NPCs lead me. With 80 coming in just a few hours and my guild waiting for me to join the raiding ranks, I am abandoning Dragonblight and delaying my personal quest to complete all of Northrend's quests, in favor of starting my Sons of Hodir questline for the shoulder enchant.
Don't worry though, my escapades won't stop me from reporting on any fun quests that I came across. Icecrown's many phasing quests are supposed to be awesome and I will be running through them in short order. On top of that, I do plan on returning to questing between my reputation farming, heroic runs and raiding. Those of you in my boat, how do you plan on heading to 80? Do you have any special celebrations for when you join the ranks of the raiding elite?
Before I go, I have to mention Blizzard's newest WoW product, the The Cinematic Art of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. When I originally heard about the book, I figured it was another cash grab by Activision-Blizzard, but after previewing the first chapter, they had me sold. Hopefully some of our thoughts on the cinematic are confirmed.
P.S. Amazon
Reader Comments (16)
Don't worry I plan on eventually completing all the Northrend zones too. I dinged 80 somewhere in Sholazar Basin I believe, after completing the fjord, tundra, dragonblight, and zul'drak. I skipped grizzly hills but plan on coming back to it eventually, and currently am mostly done with icecrown (the phasing stuff there definitely is awesome you will love it). I feel bummed at all the zone content I missed in BC so I want to make up for it now!
Well gz :D
Took you a while but its all worth it, now nearly there.
enjoy the icecrown quests, they rock :)
I personally have followed a similar path. I have hit 78 and i haven't touched either of the same areas. Following every single quest line i have come across (other than a few group quests i am too lazy to find a group for) has been so interesting because Blizzard has made the story so captivating and immersive compared to the other expansions in my opinion.
I am in the same boat. I really want the achievements for all of the Northrend quests. Unfortunately RL has intruded into my gaming and I haven't logged on since Christmas. Thus stuck in Dragonblight and at 75. My current plan is to get there by my Birthday (February 11th).
Well, on Friday night I and a friend dinged at the same time (don't worry about my grammer). At first we were just doing every quest in order. Then we were able to fly (praise WoW gods) we split and went to different zones. Then we hit 79. For kicks it was first to 80 gets 100g (we still don't have our epic flyer so 100g is a lot to each of us). I was unable to play 2 nights in a row due to part time job kicking in (grrr...) Then he couldn't play one day, he was 4 bars ahead. Then friday, he is 1 bar away. I desided that all the flying around in Storm peaks was killing time, i went to the Basin and in an hour was able to catch up (i have know idea what the quests were about as far as story goes, but I am sure I can learn them when i start my DK). So, we are half a bar each and he flew to Icecrown. I said, ya know wait a few minutes and we can do this together. I make a quick stop in Dalaran, portal to IF, grab a few things from the AH and then hearlth back to Dal. Fly to Icecrown and instead of starting quests lets just grab a mob and move on. There was exactly 728xp difference between us, could have made it closer, but since we were agroing about 6-8 guys we didn't think it would matter. I did get the "offical" ding first (well achievement, no need to actually ding anymore - see previous Bastosa rant blog LOL!), but he was a mere 3 seconds behind me. After guild congrats we picked up our loot and i being the wonderful LW that i am, made my friend his first piece of epic gear. Woot!! (i also had 3 pieces of armor for myself & an epic dagger that I traded two pieces of armor for to swap out). Now we will go back to questing at the lvl cap to see who will get the epic flyer training first. I think he has a 75g lead, but I tend to make more at the AH then he does, so who knows. There is just too much to do now even at 80, I am sure I will get hate mail from my Alts for giving all my attention to my main rogue. Ah well.
Well, since that turned out to be quite long I will end it with. DING!! sorry Bast.
One of the things I found whilst leveling, was the staggering amount of time I wasted doing silly things like achievments. Then, when I hit 76 I could smell Naxx in the near distance, and I did the remaining levels in 2 days.
Luckily Blizz have made the gap between heroics and 10-mans fairly small, and within a day /played at 80, you should easily be able to do some solid raiding, if that floats your boat
Well first i would like to say, since it was your birthday, Happy Birthday.
I never had the goal to rush to lvl 80. I want to enjoy the quests, landscapes and i want to get that feeling: "wow this is great". When you get to lvl 80 is that frenzy to get all you need, all the gear, the honor, the reputations, the titles. I want that sensation of peace and quiet before i get all worked up about the lvl 80 stuff.
I also did all the quests. I actually dinged 80 about an hour before I finished my last Grizzly Hills quests. Now I´ve been 80 for weeks and have 0 quests done in Zul'Drak, Sholazar, Storm Peaks, Crystalsong and Icecrown. But i have no doubts I will eventually do all of them too.
Well, I thought I had it all planned out. But then I actually got to the good LK content and changed everything. I plan on going after the Loremaster achievement for Northrend, because the quests rawk ;P I hit 80 just before the weekend and I just started doing anything and everything that had to do with being 80 that I could before a busy weekend with homework :(
Dragonblight is one of the few zones that I list in my "must play" areas. If nothing else, the cinematic at the gate makes it so.
There aren't any quests in Crystalsong :P ( well, there are a couple of quests from Icecrown that send you there, but that's about it ).
Well, I just picked a few zones ( Howling Fjord, Dragonblight, Zul'drak, Sholazar and Icecrown ), dinged 80, and never looked back ( except to finish off Icecrown, and the quest line to unlock the Sons of Hodir ).
My DK will be doing the zones I skipped with my main ( already done Borean Tundra, now I'm doing Grizzly Hills and I'll be doing Storm Peaks when the time comes.
I did the same thing, started in Borean then did howling, grizzly, dragonblight etc. I think I hit 80 in the basin. I loved the quests and wanted to do them all, not just for the achievement but because they where fun. Plus now I have Icecrown and Stormpeaks still full of quest ( which means more money as quest rewards cos I'm 80 :D).
Happy Birthday btw!!
firstly, belated Happy Birthday ITZKoopa!
/cheers
secondly, regarding dinging those final levels, hehe im faced atm with the question of do i keep leveling my Shadow Priest to hit 80 or get my Shaman to there first in order to heal for raids.
that is halarious, you sound just like i am. i also am the last to get to 80, in my guild. i like to enjoy games, not to mention i came in late in BC so i had to power level from 1-70, witch i had no fun doing what so ever. i am a level 78 right now probley 79 by the end of today, and the best part is i am revered in two factions that my guild 80 counter parts are not. so in my eyes it pays to be slow less i have to do later. i mean if you guys really think about this game, we are all being an active part in history. this game is the largest of its kind, and it will be a long time before it is forgoten. if they come out with movies, we can all say we were there when the evasion of the lich king happend, and we were there when grom hellscreams son found out that is father was a hero not a villian. i too am going for the lore master title, this game is one of the first games i have ever played that allows you to be apart of its past; and the fact that when your questing some of the npc remeber you from ealier quest is awsome i think. i finaly picked up my epic flyer, yeseterday so i look forward to zooming around Northrend looking for allys. i am probley going to celebrate hitting 80 like i did hitting 70, find a nice juciey all farming spot; and have some fun. you should try it give the horde some hell, they desirve it.
Well, my shaman main hit 80 about 15 days after the WotLK release. She was soon followed by my hunter alt after about the same number days.
Some would argue that that's just rushing the game, not enjoying the landscape, etc., etc. But actually, I did do all that. My formula for going from 70-80 is to get the questing achievements for Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord, Dragonblight, Grizzly Hills, and Storm Peaks. Currently, I'm trying to get the final six quests -- they're all group quests, unfortunately -- for Icecrown done while working on Zul'Drak (still haven't been able to get that bugged "Betrayal" quest done).
I've also been doing heroic 5-mans and a little raiding. For my reputation dailies, I pretty much only do them for the gold since I'm already exalted with Wyrmrest Accord, Kalu'ak, Sons of Hodir, Warsong Offensive, Horde Expedition, and -- tomorrow, anyway -- the Ebon Blade.
Am I a busy bee? Maybe from others' perspectives, but I didn't get a 70 toon until well after patch 2.4 (Sunwell). I don't want to get left behind again.
plan to ding 80 by afk botting AV. 120-220k xp per round. 600xp a day. Find a gy hit space bar every 4-10m