Project Lore

Maelstrom, Emerald Dream Or Some Combination? A collection of Blizzard's community managers have been teasing the next expansion lately, according to WoWInsider, and it got me thinking about things I would like to see in number three.  Outside of the added content, The Burning Crusade's biggest feature was the space goat - does anyone else think of "Coast to Coast" after reading that? - and sexy horde character, as well as Blizzard giving up on balancing faction-exclusive classes.  For its part, Wrath of the Lich King introduced everyone to the first hero class, the overpowered, free-minded Death Knights.  Without further ado, I present one of the major additions I would like to see in the upcoming expansion, whatever it may be, new leveling zones. We've essentially been leveling from level 10-60 in the same zones since World of Warcraft launched back in late 2004.  If it wasn't for The Burning Crusade's addition of opening zones for the added races, we could extend that to level 1-60.  Sure, Azeroth offers many areas that overlap in their level range, but after leveling six characters to level 60, the content has run dry for me.  I can only fight the raptors outside Menethil Harbor, squish the spiders of Duskwood, and farm various animals in Stranglethorn Vale so many times. There's no serious indication that this could happen in the next expansion, but I will grasp any bit of information that can be skewed and twisted in a fashion to make my dreams seem possible.  Case in point, when the topic of redesigning some of the Old World zones for a new expansion was raised, Zarhym chimed in with a seal of approval, "Good post :)."  It's nice to know that someone within the Blizzard dictatorship agrees with us common folk, even if it is a disembodied, chattering skull. Although I would prefer new content rather than redesigned zones, I will take what I can get.  After all, the overhauled version of Silithus for The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj was absolutely brilliant and we need something brilliant to bring us back to the Old World.  It may be a bit premature to begin thinking about the next expansion before we have killed Arthas, but that has never stopped me before and it won't stop my brain from thinking of new things either. Do you think there's a chance that the developers will revisit the old world, whether it be adding new areas/zones or redesigning existing ones?

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It's been a solid eight months since Blizzard introduced its Recruit-a-Friend system and this week, I know of at least two more accounts they've roped in. One is legitimately one of my RL friends from college who finally caved to playing WoW for the first time out of general boredom. I'm hoping it keeps him entertained enough to get a paid account. And the other is my husband, determined to take advantage of the triple XP to get at least two new level 60 characters - a druid on his new account (which he then plans to transfer), and a shaman on his main account. Now how am I affected by that? Well, it's my DK who is running his new shenanigans through dungeon after dungeon. So he rolled his two Taurens and had one /follow as they leveled to 10 within an hour - triple xp for both the new account and the one its linked to (only up to level 60) is grand. Meanwhile, I quickly leveled my DK (who I had not really touched since completing my initial quests in The Ebon Hold and getting in good graces again with Thrall) to 60, so I could get Death and Decay and some AoE power. Now, I'm certain there are more efficient methods to achieving the quickest-as-possible leveling results. But I'm going to share how we've been going about it. We started off with running the Wailing Caverns to level 20, then Scarlet Monastery to level 40. Pull a group of mobs, bring them back within xp range of the alts, Death and Decay and spam a few spells - mainly Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Strike, Corpse Explosion, and Unholy Blight. I'm not a DK expert, but it gets the job done. And despite the difference between the DK and the alts' levels, the triple xp (which unfortunately doesn't seem to stack with rested xp) more than makes up for it. He's actually been doing the bulk of the work - we're on different work schedules, so when I'm not around, he's multi-boxing with his two accounts and my one. It's quite a site. Four days in, and he's got both alts to level 40. Once they're to the level 60 cap for the xp, perhaps we'll start a new pair. The levels come so fast that it seems a waste not to! Now, there is a cost. In order for the characters to be transferable, you have to buy the game and upgrade to a paid account (however, your main account gets a free month for this, so the account costs basically cancel each other out). Then there's the transfer fee. But even if you decide not to transfer, the characters you level up on your main account still get to keep their levels. I guess it could be a game killer for some, but for people who cringe at the leveling process and just want to get to end-game, I say it's a fun and productive way to pass the time in those long hours when we were waiting for 3.1. And although I'm not much of a mount collector, I really want that damn Zhevra! I know a bunch of us here at Project Lore already have taken advantage of the Recruit-a-Friend bonuses - who else has? And how do you view the system - as a game promoter or destroyer?

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Many people, including us at Project Lore, find monotony in playing at level 80. Without the overall goal of leveling up, you can feel misguided. Many people decide to create alts so they can again have that purple (or blue) experience bar on their screens. You may find that it is much easier to level than before! With a recent patch, more than 60 new graveyards now scatter Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. There have been a few new flightpaths added over the past few months (Un'goro, Ratchet, Mudsprocket), ghosts move faster as of 3.0.8, and the amount of experience required to level has been slashed repeatedly. The XP required for 10-60 is less than half of its original value, and 60-70 has been slashed by just as much since the release of Wrath. In the case that you have high level friends on other servers, you can now make a new level 55 death knight on their server (provided you have a level 55 on your "home" realm). I've already taken advantage of this and now have death knights running around a half dozen realms. If you have an active level 80, you may want to consider getting a few Heirloom items if you plan on leveling any alts. These items are "bind to account" and can be mailed between your characters. Their stats scale with the level of their owner, and even their armor type in limited instances. Perhaps most importantly, the shoulder pieces give you an additional 10% experience gain from killing monsters. This means you have to do about 10% less stuff for every level from 1 to 80. That's like requiring only 90% of the normal experience required level (provided all your experience comes from killing monsters). Not to mention, shoulder pieces don't really start appearing until the mid 20s, so its a good extra boost in power by putting something in that otherwise empty slot. You can pick up a pair of these shoulders in many flavors for whatever spec of whatever class you want for either 200 Stone Keeper's Shards (for pieces with resilience) or 40 badges of heroism (for pieces with more PvE stats). I'd use the Shards personally since most people will have many more of them than badges, but if you are swimming in badges and already have tier 7.5 gear, you might want to use some of those badges on heirloom gear. There are a couple cool trinkets too. They can be bought for 50 emblems of heroism and give you 2% of your health or mana back when you kill something. Additionally, they offer some stats. The Swift Hand of Justice gives you 2% health when you kill something and haste, while the Discerning Eye of the Beast gives you 2% mana when you kill something and spell power. These can greatly reduce your downtime while leveling. I'd personally pick the Swift Hand of Justice first since anyone can use haste and gives you flexibility to change your mind with which alt you want to level. In addition to these pieces, you can find every flavor of weapon, off-hand, and ranged weapon. The stats scale well with level, and it keeps your alts well-geared without having to worry about tracking down every last piece to keep them powerful. If you can convince your friend to start playing WoW with you, you can use the refer-a-friend program and get 3x the normal experience when you play together (provided you are both under level 60 on the characters you are leveling and are within 5 levels of each other) along with many other nice benefits, like the fancy zhevra mount. They don't even have to pay until after either 10 days or if they want to level past 20. Lastly, you may want some addons to help you track the rest experience status of all your characters. If you use FuBar, check out RestFu, which shows you the rest status of all your characters, time to fully rest, and more. What tricks and addons do you all use to enhance your alt experience?

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As I said in my last post, I have been putting some time into leveling my level 60ish toons and trying to get them ready for prime time. As I’ve been questing away in Outland there is one thing I can’t seem to get away from, Death Knights! They are everywhere!

I’m not saying this is a bad thing, in fact it has worked to my advantage quite a bit. Leveling my resto-shaman for instance, has been a breeze. I just type “Healer LFG any instance, I will heal all you DKs!!” into general and I have a group together within minutes every time.

The fact of the matter is that DKs can destroy anything in Outland, I’ve experienced it myself by soloing groups quests several levels above me on my own Death Knight. Dare I saw they are a bit overpowered when compared to other classes of that level (I’ll save the max level discussion for later)? While not crazy about playing the class myself, I sure don’t mind riding their coattails through instances and leveling myself that much faster!

It’s not all smiles, however. I’ll admit the DK issue can be a bit problematic, there are of course Horde DKs everywhere, and I don’t stand a chance against them. Also, it does make me miss class diversity a bit, so I hope everything will even out a bit by the time my alts start hitting Northrend.

I know I had heard reports of the DKs running rampant all over Outland when WotLK first dropped, but I would have thought by now things would have calmed down. It appears they haven’t. It begs the questions, is everyone alting on a Death Knight? Or am I just experiencing the second wave of people leveling their DKs after they first geared up their mains?

I can appreciate the new Death Knight craze, but is anyone leveling anything else?

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As I’ve said before, I’m a little frustrated at the level of content available for my main at the moment. Lucky for me I am a bit of an Alt-o-holic, and have elsewhere to turn in this situation: my army of alts.

While the Paladin will always be my first love, I really enjoy giving my alts some play time and seeing how the other half lives. Lately I’ve been having a bit of trouble deciding which alt I want to level. My “main alt” has always been my rogue, but I am finding more and more that I am not enjoying the rogue as much as a I used to.

I also have a shaman, druid, and death knight (obviously) all above level 60. In trying to decide which one of these to spend time on, it occurred to me, why not level all of them!

Going back and logging into these characters for the first time since WotLK dropped, I noticed that they were all at full rested XP. This means that all of the experience for killing mobs is double. This coupled with sped up leveling from 60-70 AND the fact I’m getting another 10% experience from outfitting them all with heirloom leveling shoulders really meant that the experience was racking up fast.

By running two or three instances I could easily gain a level and use up a good chunk of my rested xp. Then I can simply switch to another character the next day and do the same. By the time you work your way back to your first character you are rested again!

Of course this isn’t the most efficient leveling system if you want to get another 80 as soon as possible, but that has never been the point of an alt for me. I like to hurry my first character, and do progression raiding as soon as I can before there are people around that can run me through stuff. On my alts I am much more likely to “smell the roses.” This method seems like the way to do it! Level quick, but try on a lot of shoes!

What do you think? What’s your approach to alts?

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I'm currently specced enhancement, which is my spec of choice for the time being. It's also the one I tend to recommend to shaman who are leveling up. Of course, both Elemental and Restoration have come a long way in their viability as leveling specs, but an enhancment shaman is able to solo with very, very little downtime, PvP decently, bring utility along with great DPS in groups, take on elites without breaking a sweat, heck I even tanked the ranged horsemen in 10 Man Naxx. Knowing the abilities that are at your disposal will help you make fights go much smoother. One of the key abilities available to enhancement shaman is Feral Spirit, the 51-point enhancement talent introduced in the Echoes of Doom patch. I said I would address my love for this tandem of wolves and you might have wondered what they do besides look cool and make lots of noise. I'll tell you right now - they are a versatile little cooldown that I've used in a myriad of situations. While leveling through Northrend, I used my wolves to solo most of the group quests that I encountered. My basic strategy when approaching an Elite was to start out with totems that would increase my damage output. That means Strength of Earth, Windfury, Flametongue, and Mana Spring. If I knew the enemy was a caster, I'd drop a Grounding Totem and wait for the cooldown to be up before heading in. Once set, I'd run in, let the dogs out, take some damage, heal with a 5 stack of Maelstrom Weapon when I got low on health, use my wolves' Twin Howl when I got too low on health to let them soak up a little damage, grab aggro again, and repeat. Usually by the time my wolves despawned, I was able to kill the enemy. If things got too dire, I'd use Shamanistic Rage or even Heroism, but most of the time I wouldn't need to go to those lengths. Now, while the additional DPS from the twins doesn't hurt, the real key to these guys is one of their abilities: Spirit Hunt. Spirit Hunt heals the wolves along with the Shaman, for 150% of the damage they cause, which ends up being a very nice HoT on both me and the wolves. This means that when I'm ping-ponging aggro on an elite by using their taunt, I generally don't need to heal myself during the time that they are being targeted and they don't need healing unless they're taking a severe beating. It also gives your healers a break during heavy raid damage and can give you a nice buffer in PvP so long as your wolves can stay on an enemy. Another useful ability that the Spirit Wolves have available is Bash, which is a stun. This is the only true stun that shaman have access to. It's amazing for PvE since it can give you an extra breath between damage, and in PvP, well, you can't do that while stunned. If you're a Shaman who's done any real PvPing, you know how much it sucks to be stunned, so start using it against all of those rogues and pallies. Unfortunately, the wolves will cast this as soon as they start attacking something, and although autocast can be turned off manually once the pets are out, it will turn back on the next time they are summoned. I've looked and tried hunter macros that turn off autocast, but they are not effective on the spirit wolves. Blizzard is aware of the issue and hopefully it will be fixed soon. Spirit Walk is the last of the wolves' abilities that I'll cover. It is a Sprint-like ability that increases your run speed and your wolves' run speed by 60%. It also clears any root effects on all three of you. Incoming AoE spell? Stuck in a Frost Nova? Getting kited? Running a flag? Trying to catch a flag carrier? For an enhancement shaman, if you aren't in melee range, you're missing out on a lot of your potential damage. Sure you can Lava Burst for a decent crit on top of a Flame Shock, but that's not how you get your damage done. Movement is critical especially in PvP. Spirit Walk will get you there faster than Ghost Wolf, frees you from roots, and even works indoors! (Insert Plea for Ghost Wolf Indoors, maybe a glyph? Please!). If used early enough in the wolves' 45 second duration, it can be used twice per summon. I often use it while running back in an instance if I know it is going to be a long one. Now, if only they were permanent and not just 45 seconds every 3 minutes...

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Many moons ago, Bastosa and I discussed how and who we planned on getting to 80. Back then I figured I would simply keep healing my way up to level 80, pushing my priest as my main toon. While things started out that way initially, Solidsamm has returned to the forefront. After Mutilate's “from behind” requirement was removed, I jumped at the chance to try the new dagger spec that would not force me to be behind my target at all times. The freshness that came with the conversion is exactly the reason I returned my angry Gnome to main status.

There are two reasons why I knew I was going to be hooked on World of Warcraft when it was released in late 2004. First off, I have loved the WarCraft universe since I first entered it via WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness. Secondly, and probably most important, was Blizzard's reputation. The company should just make their tagline “We don't make bad video games.” While a game can have the best story ever, it'll still suck if the gameplay isn't there to back it up, enter Wrath of the Lich King.

I had a pipedream that I would level mostly through instances, but without a close friend who's main is a healer, that is pretty hard to accomplish these days. Lucky for me the quests in Wrath of the Lich King have diverse goals, interesting lore, and an attachment to the zones that keeps me interested. While grinding via quests may not be the best XP/hour (that still goes to good old fashioned grinding), it is incredibly less mind-numbing. I will save that process for leveling my fishing.

Now that many of you are well on your way, or already 80, who and how did you get there? Did you roll that Death Knight and start from level 55 or abandon that idea and go with one of your level 70s? While I have done some instances, I generally haven't gone back to them after finishing their quests. How about you?

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So we have all had Wrath in our hands for a little over a week now. That was enough time for a few dedicated people to “beat the game” but I suspect many of us are a little behind the curve in that regard. I, myself, am on the verge of hitting level 80… and will likely have done so by the end of the day today. So I feel like I have seen a fair bit of the new content. Originally I had intended to grind instances all the way to 80, but quickly learned that was not the way to go. The XP per hour is simply much larger if you are questing. So ultimately I ended up questing for the majority of the leveling process. And, man, I am glad I did! I have found questing in wrath to be absolutely awesome! The new phasing mechanics really add a while new element to the game. While I have always enjoyed questing, there was never much tangible result other than a quest reward and unlocking the next link in the chain. Now you get to see the world change as the result of your actions. You get to witness time move on and realize things will never be the same as they were. It is great. I am not going to give out any spoilers here, but the epic quests that take advantage of it in Dragonblight, Icecrown, and even the DK starting area had me cheering at my computer monitor. Beyond the phasing mechanic, it seems to me the quests are all together better. You don’t see nearly the amount of kill X mobs for Y drops. They are more creative, more exciting, and all together larger feeling. The new vehicle mechanics play a big part in this, making lots of things possible that you were not able to do before. From time to time you get to step out of your character and control something of absolutely epic proportions. For me, so far, Wrath has been all I wanted and more. Now with hopes of seeing some end game next week I am anxious to see what the rest of the game has in store! What do you guys think so far?

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Many players have been griping that the gear they have seen on their first five levels towards 80 have not been good enough. Generally speaking, these players are decked out with Tier 5/Season 3 gear, or better. Heck, one of my characters has a combination of heroic/Karazhan/Season 2 and their set is still going strong. Blizzard Poster Bornakk even addressed the lack of upgrades by stating that those with concerns should "keep leveling and keep instancing, you'll find upgrades soon enough. :)" The flip side to this discussion is that this is exactly the opposite situation from The Burning Crusade's release. After TBC went live, people who had been raiding for the previous two years realized that their gear was being replaced by early quest rewards and instances. Mind you, these players had the best gear available in the game, making them feel that all their hard work was pointless. The reversal of fortunes is not perfect, but I feel it is a much better way to go than the itemization from The Burning Crusade. However, it remains to be seen if Blizzard made the end-game stuff difficult enough to force players to upgrade. While TwentyFifthNovember has now beaten all of Wrath, the hardest way possible, they are the best of the best. Many other guilds are now tackling endgame heroics with their Sunwell gear, and blowing them away. Hopefully they have upgrades available to them, and need them to complete the end-game raids. It remains to be seen. While I have been complaining the majority of this post, that isn't my only point. Many of you out there are in the same boat as me, seeing quest reward after quest reward being wasted because you can't use it. In the interest of helping with your personal economy, I have another gold creating tip for you. If the quest reward isn't a solid upgrade then buy the plate or weapon reward and just vendor it. As tanks know, plate gear costs way more to repair, but on the flip side, sells much higher than Cloth or Leather. The Auctioneer Suite used to be able to tell you exactly how much things would vendor for on mouseover, but the last version I grabbed does not have the updated information. It will likely be updated soon, if it hasn't been already in an alpha release. So for the players out there complaining about not getting upgrades, perhaps this is Blizzard's way of handing you 1000 gold for the Cold Weather Flying fee. Seriously, if you do 300 quests with item rewards on your way to 80, average 4 gold per vendor, you'll bank 1200 gold. Remember, the harder it is, the better it sells.

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I'm not sure if any of you had heard, but Wrath of the Lich King launched yesterday! Somehow, people are already hitting level 80, as there is proof of Nymh, a Level 80 Human Warlock (Alliance FTW) right here on the Armory. It makes sense that the first eighty was on the EU servers, as their time zones had a few hours of a head start to get the record. Personally, I've only leveled a couple of times, but I cannot get enough of Northrend. I am enjoying pretty much every single quest I've done. I'm a bit of a quest-a-holic, and I'm going for both the Loremaster and 3000 quest achievements, so I finished up in Borean Tundra and headed over to Howling Fjord. I figure if I'm going to be doing these quests anyway, I may as well get XP for them. What level are you guys a day and a half in? Vote on this poll! I'm guessing most are in the 71 area, but I've seen a bunch of mid 70s on Executus, so let us know.

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