The Fun of Random Content Discoveries

So after finally hitting 80 with my fifth toon last week, I actually took a day or two off to just mess around rather than getting fully back into the swing of hard core leveling. I've been very focused on doing the dailies on my brand new maxed out Jewelcrafter, since a jewelcrafter without enough epic cuts is just no fun at all.

Also, my new paladin / jewelcrafting has been having to do a lot of kissing up to my transmute alchemist spec'd hunter, since he's keeping him stocked in raw epic gems to cut and filling up his bags with raw gems for when he finally does get those cuts.

And last, the price of some eternals on my server has gotten so ridiculous that I've actually spent a little bit of time just farming up the few eternal fires that I need for the cardinal ruby transmute. Transmutes and epic gem cuts are really insanely profitable when you've actually farmed up all the mats yourself.

When I finally did pick up with leveling, what I ended up deciding is that I can't decide, so rather than focus on just pounding the next toon through straight to 80, I'll just take the remaining three and level each of them a little bit at a time. After all, there really is no hurry at this point. Based on all my data and projections, I should get my 9th toon to 80 sometime in early July, which still seems likely to be long before Cataclysm comes out at this point.

I've probably spent the most time lately on the rogue. Primarily, because I wanted to get him to 20 for his mount (woo hoo! no more unmounted toons!) and also for poisons. I've never had a toon that got to play with poisons before, so that's been a lot of fun. I've also really been enjoying the class quests on the rogue. As near as I can tell, there's really no reason to do them anymore. Seems like one of them was probably ended to get you the lockpicking ability and the other was intended to give you the ability to use poisons, but both of those are just abilities you get for "free" now. All that being said, these are really fun class quests and really give you more of a feeling for being a rogue. So even though there's no ability-based reason to do them anymore, I'd encourage everyone to go back and do them if you haven't.

That pretty much goes for all of the class quests. Some of these are really epic and fun quest chains that should really be completed and experienced in order to fully round out your understanding of your class. The warlock epic mount quest and the druid epic flight form quest both come immediately to mind.

Also, with Jewelcrafting now maxed, that leaves me with only two professions still to max out before I have all of them - Inscription and Engineering. I've already started Inscription on my Shaman, and I'm thinking about taking Engineering on the Rogue just for fun. Seems like it would add some neat tools that seem rather appropriate for the class.

I know this topic has been discussed a lot lately, particularly over at Big Bear Butt Blogger (http://thebigbearbutt.com - if you're not reading this blog regularly, you're really missing out, whether you're into bear tanking or not!), but I think Blizzard needs to bring back the emphasis on class quests, particularly adding them on at later levels. I also understand making the endgame more accessible to players, but I also really miss some of the attunement quests that used to be required in order to unlock certain dungeons. The Onyxia and Karazhan quest chains in particular took a lot of time and effort and you really felt the payoff at the end.