Rep Grind Complete

So I finally managed to finish getting all of the current Pandaria faction reps to Exalted on my main this past week as I finished out the August Celestials faction.  Just in time for a brand new faction to drop today with Patch 5.1.  Woo hoo!

Overall, the process took me just a little under two months.  That doesn't include doing dailies every day, but probably on average around 4-5 days per week.

I've now started the process anew on another toon - my shadow priest.  So I'm looking forward to the reputation bonus that I'll get from already being at revered with every faction on another toon.

For the shadow priest, I'm just going to be doing the four factions that are directly relevant to valor point gear - Golden Lotus, Klaxxi, Shado-Pan and August Celestials.  I'm already almost to revered with Klaxxi and just hit Honored with Golden Lotus.

I've also been working on leveling the paladin and he's about half way to 89 working his way through Townlong Steppes.  I gave up on leveling as holy at about level 87 as it just wasn't scaling very well.  Mobs were taking way too long to die, especially compared to how quickly I can mow things down as ret.

As an altoholic, patch 5.1 contains quite a few things of interest.  The main thing for me is going to be the rep bonuses given that I already have all factions at revered or better on my main.  I'm also looking forward to the new faction and new content in Krasarang.  Finally, the new questline for warlocks and three new scenarios are all positives for me.

I still haven't touched pet battles at all, so the changes there aren't going to impact me, at least for now.

Ding! Level 90 #4

So I managed to get my shadow priest to level 90.  This post is a little bit late as I actually got there last Thursday.  So far, the shadow priest continues the trend from Cata of being my fastest character to level, finishing the 85 - 90 stretch in 20.5 hours.  That also surpassed his speed from 80-85 in Cata by about 1 hour, although unlike Cata, this time I completed both of his professions while leveling as well (although, honestly, with Alchemy, they've made that incredibly easy this time as long as you start with a nice sized supply of crystal vials).

I'm now back to focusing on the holy paladin.  I also did a little bit of work gearing up the shadow priest over the weekend.  I stocked him with epic chest and gloves and managed to get a few drops from heroics, but so far have found him to be pretty unlucky with the heroic drops.  He's still sitting 2 points short of being ready to queue for LFR.

The paladin recently hit 87 and is off to Kun-Lai.  The druid is up next after the paladin and after that will be the mage.  I don't think I'm very likely to hit my original target of having all 10 existing 85's to 90 by Christmas, but I'll be fairly close.

I'm also anxious to try the new LFR raid instance after the servers come up later today.  The one thing that my warlock really still needs is a weapon, and there appear to be options on every boss in the new instance.

Paladin Leveling as Holy

So I'm doing something this expansion that I've never really done before with characters making that incremental jump between max levels - leveling a couple of different toons simultaneously.  In the past, I've always just knocked them out one at a time, but this time around, I've been putting some down, picking others up and moving a couple forward together. 

It doesn't really matter, it all comes down to what you enjoy, and if you strategically park them in an inn each time, it probably improves your rested xp performance.

So while I've been pushing my shadow priest to max level (he's now sitting about half way to 89), I've also started to level both my druid and my paladin.  To avoid gear confusion as well as having to carry around two sets of gear, I decided to do something really strange, at least for me, and that is level my paladin as holy.

It's always my intention to heal on the paladin once he gets to max level, so with some of the new changes to holy paladins, I thought I'd give leveling as holy a try. 

So far it has worked out extremely well.  I'm primarily questing still - so we're not talking about running dungeons or PvP - just straight up killing mobs and questing.  The combination of Judgment, Holy Shock and Denounce and finishing them off with Hammer of Wrath seems to be killing mobs pretty quickly.  It actually feels slightly faster than my Blood DK was at killing things, and every bit as indestructible.  Huge self heals available essentially all the time.  The only downside at all is that I have effectively no AoE to use, but at least for now, that doesn't seem to be much of an issue.  If I'm pulling too many humanoids, I can always Repentance one and finish them off as my leisure.

He's just recently hit 86 and headed for Valley of the Four Winds, so I'm anxious to see how this model fares against vermin swarms.

In the meantime, my warlock is down to only two factions still to get to exalted - Shado-Pan and August Celestials.  I've got two days left on Shado-Pan and about 11 on August Celestials.

Exalted with Klaaxi

So I managed to hit exalted with Klaaxi on my main yesterday.  After running through the normal set of dailies, I was coming up about 90 rep short, but then remembers I hadn't done the "hidden" quest for the day, so went back and took down the big elite Kuchong to pick up his drop quest.  One turn in later, and I was at exalted.

The final quest for Klaaxi, like Golden Lotus was pretty interesting, involving a battle outside the Heart of Fear.  Then, a quick behind the scenes tour of the hidden parts of Klaaxi'vess with one of the paragons and a nice epic ring to show for it all.  Along with a shiny amber scorpion mount if you're willing to fork over 7,000g for it.

I can't really tell if it's any different than the guild rep scorpion mount in anything other than color, so I'm holding off before deciding if it's something that I want.

So I'm down to only two sets of dailies to run every day - Shado-Pan and August Celestials.  So this means I'll be back to running heroics on a regular basis in order to make sure I get valor capped for the week.

So if I'm doing the math right, I end up with 5 Shado-Pan quests per day, and 4 August Celestials quests, so that's going to give me 45 valor points per day from quests, or 315 per week if I do them every day (which I probably won't).  I'll be getting 270 per week from LFR now with the extra raid coming out, so that leave me needing to do 6-7 heroics per week in order to cap.  Not a big deal.  Toss in a scenario here and there for fun and it's even less.

Plus, that should seriously increase my stock of higher end enchanting mats, which is always a good thing!

I've also started leveling both my druid and my shadow priest, and both are working their way through the Valley of the Four Winds and approaching 87 rapidly.  There is a big part of me that is seriously considering not switching to the Valley upon hitting 86 with the next few characters and just finishing up Jade Forest - one because I haven't done it yet, and two because I'm developing a deep hatred for the giants swarms of annoying vermin near Halfhill and the damn sprites infesting the granary.  That part of that zone is getting really old and I'm not sure it's worth the increase in xp per quest.  So with toon #6, I'll use that approach and we'll see if it makes a difference in my leveling time.

Level 90 #3!

So I finally managed to get the hunter to level 90 just a couple of days ago.  His total played time from 85-90 was 22 hours, which was the fastest time yet, and about 2 hours faster than his 80-85 time in Cata.

I also managed to get to Exalted with Anglers on Joar, which now leaves me just doing Klaaxi, Shado-Pan and August Celestials.

I've started working through both the druid and the shadow priest next.

MoP Rep Grind Results

So I managed to hit exalted with both Cloud Serpents and Tillers this week.  There was a point last week though, where I was essentially doing dailies with every single faction - Golden Lotus, Klaaxi, Cloud Serpents, Tillers, Anglers, Shado-Pan and August Celestials.

The entire process took about 3 hours, and generally netted me around 1,100 gold (just from quest rewards and grey items) as well as around 250 valor points per day.  I was also collecting another 800-1,200g from selling all of the vegetables, fish and meat that I accumulated along the way.

Those numbers have dropped off significantly since I stopped running Cloud Serpent and Tillers after getting to exalted, but it's still a lengthy but rewarding process.

With the prices of cooking mats starting to drop on the auction house, I've decided to go ahead and start using my production to finish the other Ways rather than selling all of it.  None of the others are really very close at this point, but I should make decent progress with my full 16 plot garden focused on it every day.

I've also been working on my hunter after dailies and dungeon runs are done, and he's sitting about half way to 87 and working his way through Valley of the Four Winds.

Ding! Level 90 #2

So I finally managed to get my second character to max level yesterday, slightly more than 3 weeks following the release of MoP.  Obviously a much slower pace than I was on following the release of Cataclysm, but this clearly has as much to do with the prevalence of dailies at max level in MoP rather than any real difference in leveling speed.

The final played time to 90 for the Death Knight (from 85) was 23 hours, or about 5 hours faster than my first character (typically because of less competition for quest mobs).  Interestingly enough, this was also about 2 hours slower than it took from 80-85 on the Death Knight, but that may very well be because I also leveled both of this professions to max concurrently this time around.

I also managed to hit revered with Golden Lotus on my warlock yesterday which now unlocks two whole new sets of dailies with Shado-Pan and August Celestials.  I haven't yet finished up Tillers or Cloud Serpents, so I expect its going to add a significant chunk of time to my dailies regimen, which currently takes around 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Today will be the first time doing the full set, so I'll try to provide an update here later on the total time investment.

Note that I could theoretically stop doing Golden Lotus at this point, which is the most time consuming of all them, because having reached revered, I've unlocked all of their valor point gear (none of which I actually need anyway) as well as the other two factions.  However, I'll probably keep going in the interest of getting the mounts and achievements and the epic piece that comes as a quest reward at the end.

The hunter is up next.

Blood Death Knight Leveling in MoP

I've now gotten to the point on my warlock where I can get his set of dailies done in about 2 hours each day, which now leaves me with a little bit of time for leveling other toons.

I'm also starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel on some of the faction dailies.  I'm about 3 days away from Revered with Golden Lotus and probably 4 days away on Klaaxi.  At that point, since I'll have unlocked the Valor Point gear with both of those factions, I could stop with their dailies and focus on the newly unlocked Shado-Pan and August Celestials.  I'll also likely be completely done with Cloud Serpent and maybe Tillers by that point.

If I'm looking at Shado-Pan correctly, it'll take me about 3 weeks to get them to revered.  At this point, it's too hard to tell on August Celestials.

So I'm making additional progress on the Death Knight, who is just a few bars from 88 at this point.  I'm leveling as blood - after having tried a significant amount of time on both frost and unholy, I've finally stopped fighting the inevitable and just given in to leveling blood.  I'm basically an unstoppable unkillable machine.  Sort of like a ret pally with swirly bones.

I'm also loving the new level 87 Death Knight ability, Soul Reaper.  After getting my diseases started along with a Death Strike to get shields up and heals a goin', when I'm down to one blood rune, I'll usually pop Soul Reaper.  And usually by the time it runs it's course, the mob is down below that magic 20%, so it is taking them out with a 60K+ hit, critting for over 120K.  It's really a thing of beauty.

It's a different approach to leveling than the warlock, as I can definitely run in and pull a pretty large set of mobs and watch them all fall dead at my feet.

I also went to Kun-Lai right as I hit 87 rather than finishing out Valley of the Four Winds and Krassarang.  While the final scene from those two areas is fantastic, the higher xp in Kun Lai is definitely worth the switch.  Especially since I've already seen the conclusion there once - if you haven't finished the whole Stoneplow series, I recommend going back and finishing it up.  Think Wrathgate.

I've pretty much decided the hunter is going to go next in an attempt to unlock some of the transmutes, followed by the Paladin.

Dailies Dailies Dailies Dailies Dailies...ugh

So many freaking dailies.  I've been doing them for just a matter of a couple of days, and I'm already exceptionally tired of it.  Each day, between Golden Lotus, Klaaxi, Cloud Serpents, Tillers and Anglers, it's a good 2-3 hours just getting the dailies done.

Add in any heroics or scenarios at all, and it's become ridiculously time consuming.  The thing that has me really concerned is that I'm not yet Honored with Golden Lotus or Revered with Cloud Serpents or Klaaxi, which will unlock even more dailies, and then once I hit revered with Golden Lotus, it'll unlock two whole new factions that also have their own dailies that I need to do.

It's created a serious delay in my ability to level other characters.  I'm about two weeks from release and at this point in Cataclysm, I already had my second character to max level.  My third would follow about a week later.  I'm nowhere near that point with this expansion.

I'm hoping once I unlock Honored with Golden Lotus and can craft epic gloves and chest for myself, that'll give me enough iLvl to queue for LFR.  At that point, I might decide that I no longer give a crap about valor point gear and just stop with all the dailies.  I'd really like to get a 463 trinket out of heroics because right now I'm still rocking a 437 item there, so that would help a ton as well.  We'll see how that goes.

Played Time to 90

So I forgot to include in my post earlier in the week about my first toon hitting 90 - my total played time ended up being 28 hrs to 90.  That compares really favorably to my first character that I leveled to 85 in Cataclysm, which took 35 hours for the first character out on launch day.  That's not exactly a speed leveling time as I was enjoying the scenery, generally reading the quest text and also leveled both of my professions to 600 and got my farm started.

In Cataclysm, I saw approximately a 40% improvement in leveling time from my first character to my most efficient and with all the remaining characters after launch day / read the quest text character being within about 10% of each other in total leveling time.

If that carries through to Cataclysm, then I expect the remaining toons to take somewhere around 18 hours each.  We'll see how that pans out though.

I've started on the Death Knight next, although I'm still spending the bulk of my time on dailies and heroics on my Warlock, trying to get him geared up for LFR when it releases in another week.  The biggest difficulty so far seems to be Trinkets.

First Character to 90 and Post-90 Gearing

So I managed to hit level 90 on my warlock yesterday.  Overall, the leveling process in MoP was extremely smooth for me.  It wasn't even remotely about speed leveling as I was enjoying reading the quest text and also managed to get both tailoring and enchanting to 600 pretty easily over the course of leveling.

Interestingly enough, looking at the process going forward, it seems that there is still plenty to do at level 90, so unlike previous expansions, I'm probably not going to jump right in to leveling my next character.

My first task once I hit 90 was sort of a selfish and silly one, but I grabbed Pandaria flying and immediately set about grabbing all the various books and scrolls needed for Lorewalker rep.  The whole process took maybe two hours, but at the end of it, I had a nice styling new flying saucer mount.  Watch out Malygos!

It's then been quite an effort to sort through all of the dailies that are available and which ones I really need for advancement.  From a professions standpoint, August Celestials and Golden Lotus seem to have what I need in terms of profession recipes for this character, and then I'll need to add Shadow Pan and Klaxxi to have access to the full suite of Valor Point gear.  All of these only need to be at revered.  The additional rewards at Exalted are basically just mounts.

Then there are several other factions with dailies available including Tillers (which will allow me to upgrade my farm), Anglers (fishing gear and mounts), and Order of the Cloud Serpent (a must for jewelcrafters, but basically just really cool mounts for me).

The only other interesting factor her is that you have to have your Golden Lotus rep to revered before you unlock the dailies for either Shadow Pan or August Celestials.  It looks like I've probably takes about two days to get to Honored with Golden Lotus.

I also managed to run my first heroic on Joar - got Siege of Niuzao Temple.  No gear dropped for me, but it was a quick and easy run.  So it looks like it will be a lot of dailies and heroics for a while until raid finder comes out.  Will be interesting to see if it's enough to keep me from hopping into leveling on another toon.