Back to Gearing a Bit

So I've been feeling like I need to slow down the breakneck leveling pace, so I've been going back to working on professions a little bit as well as focusing on gearing up some of my characters a little bit more.

I know have everyone geared up enough that they're at least able to do the Arathi Warfront, and it really only seems to take a couple of weeks of that to get to the point of being able to do Darkshore.

I managed to get both Tailoring and Cooking to 150, and all the other professions are at least started so they can cycle through the Darkmoon Faire quests each month.  Enchanting, leatherworking and herbalism are all at 110, so they're the next closest.

I also ran the first LFR wing of the new raid, which I really enjoyed.  Did it both from the alliance and horde side, which was kind of interesting.

I have been making decent progress on the alliance paladin, who is currently sitting at level 116.  I started leveling him as prot, but was finding that mobs were dying much too slowly, so have switched back to ret, at least for now.  After this guy is done, the Horde rogue will be up next.

Cheers,

Joar

A Real Life Pause in Leveling

I've had several very busy real life weeks that have seriously cut into my normal leveling time.  So I've made very little progress since my year-end update.  I did manage to get that 11th toon to 120, and toon #12, my Horde Goblin Warrior, is sitting at 117.  So I guess that's some progress.

I also did the latest phase of the war campaign on both the Horde and the Alliance.  It was something to do, but not particularly inspiring.  At least for me.

I spent a week out of town for work in New York City, which was fun, and a week out of town for work in Miami (in a windowless conference room, yay), but at least had dinner on the beach one evening.  So cheers for fresh air.

In NY, I had some of the most amazing sushi.  I'm not normally one to share pictures of food, but holy crap, you have to see this.

Also, the hotel, which was decorated for Christmas still, was pretty amazing.

In Miami, while I didn't actually get outside hardly at all, the view from my room was pretty cool (although no balcony and the window didn't open at all).

So, that's what's been keeping me from leveling, and blogging.  And work.  Lot's of work.

Looking forward to LFR on the new raid opening next week.  The eldest Joarling tells me the fights are pretty awesome.

Cheers,

Joar

2018 Year In Review

I used to do these year in review posts every year, and just noticed I haven't done one since 2015.  Going back and looking at my calendar, I think it's actually because I was off skiing with the family that past two years, so I suppose that's a reasonable reason to miss it.

But some IRL work stuff has me stuck this year, so at least we'll get a year in review blog post out of it!

2018 has been a pretty productive year from a leveling standpoint.  When last year finished up, I had just finished getting my 26th toon to level 110.  I ended up doing 7 more over the course of the rest of 2018 before Battle for Azeroth came out.  I also managed to finish up all the professions for Legion in 2018 as well since I had put that off longer than I ever had before.

There doesn't seem to be quite as much to do on quite as many toons at end game this time around, so I'm finding that has given me more time for leveling alts in Battle for Azeroth.  I have managed to get 10 different alts to level 120, and the 11th is about half way there.  For comparison purposes, at this same point in Legion, I only had 7 alts done, so we're running pretty far ahead of the normal pace.

I do need to go back and spend some time working through the professions.  I've been collecting a fair amount of materials as I've been leveling.  Just need to go back and knock a few more out.

That's really the update.  Once the current toon (Alliance death knight) is done, it'll be back to the Horde side with my goblin warrior.

Cheers,

Joar

Pre 8.1 Leveling Update and Plans

So I managed to finish toons #8 and #9 since my last blog update.  The mage was fine right up until the last 2 levels or so where the scaling seemed to be get a bit off, my ice shield turned to paper, and the last two levels became a constant corpse run.

Got through it though.  What only kills you a dozen times or so makes you stronger.  I guess.

Also started on the plan of switching between Alliance and Horde, so went back and did my alliance warlock, with War Mode on, just for something completely different.  Only got killed by the Horde twice during the entire 110-120 leveling process.

That's just sad, Hordies.  Sad.

It didn't really seem to speed up the time significantly at all.  I also leveled as Demonology, also just to change things up a bit, and did some battlegrounds since I was in PvP mode.  So the mage was 14 hours and 15 minutes played, and the alliance warlock was 16 hours and 2 minutes. 

Keep in mind, I do a lot of screwing around while leveling so these are intended to be casual times, not leveling speed records.

I'm back to Horde side now and working on the monk.  Not sure I'm liking leveling as Windwalker this time around, so I've been switching back and forth to Brewmaster on and off.  He's sitting at 114 now and just starting on Nazmir, so we'll see how things go as he gets closer to 117/118.

I'm looking forward to checking out the new content in 8.1 once it drops.  I think pretty much all of it should be available to me right away.  I realized as I was looking things over that I didn't have a Dwarf that was exalted with Ironforge or a Blood Elf that was Exalted with Silvermoon, so I've grabbed some tabards and I've been running a few dungeons, both to gear those toons up and to rectify that so I can hopefully grab those heritage armor sets sometime soon after they're available.

My primary alliance character is also pretty close to having all the key alliance reps at Exalted.  So should be able to grab my extra horses soon, along with the Dark Iron Dwarf allied race. So more to come on that!

Cheers!

Joar

Horde Side Reps Are Done, and a Change in Leveling Plans

So I'm fairly close to finishing toon #8.  Courtesy of the anniversary token, the mage has been going extremely quicly.  He's sitting at level 118 and should be done today or tomorrow, depending on how much time I spend on the world boss and on the post-Warfront quests and rares today.

Now that we're 14 years in, that anniversary token is a huge boon to leveling and rep grinding.

I also managed to get all of the reputations to exalted on Horde side earlier this week.

I'm getting pretty close on the alliance side as well, so hoping to knock that out before the next patch hits in a couple of weeks.

I've been thinking about switching up my leveling approach.  With only 3 zones to work through, things are already getting a bit old on the Horde side, and I'm only 7 toons in.  So I may start alternating leveling my Horde toons and alliance toons.

I only saw a small part of the storyline in Tirisgarde and Stormsong on the alliance side when I did the one toon there, so was thinking it would be fun to do more thorough play throughs in those zones.

I also saw that Warsong Battalion had returned to Emerald Dream, but on the alliance side, so it might be fun to turn on War Mode and do some World PvP for a bit as well.

That's it for now!

Cheers! 

Joar

Level 120 #7 Complete

I finished leveling my demon hunter earlier today.  This one was the fastest one yet.  I think part of what drove that was the use of the anniversary xp bonus through a large part of the leveling process.  I was also basically just questing straight through zones rather than bouncing around.

Total time was just slightly over 13 hours, so that still seems to be the consistent standard for a straight leveling approach.

I'm now at the point where I'm not really trying to gear these guys after I get them to 120.  The world quest slog is just too frustrating, and I'm not really looking to have that many characters to run through the Warfront anyway. 

So I'll just wait for the eventual BOA catch up mechanism to hit to gear the rest of these guys up.

I'm either doing the monk or the mage next - haven't quite decided.

Level 120 #5 Complete and #6 Underway

I hit level 120 on the paladin last week.  As seems to be the case with my last few max level toons, there is no way he's going to get to the required item level in time to be able to do the Warfront this time around.  Oh well.

The gearing process is slow, at least the way I'm doing it (which is just looking for WQ upgrades every day), but not particularly time consuming, since it's usually just a matter of doing a WQ or two every day - or maybe the emissary if it looks like it will be an upgrade.  It's definitely not the fastest way to rise your ilvl, but it works for me.

I've now started working in earnest on the druid.  I'm leveling as balance, which I've enjoyed for the last few expansions (I was not a fan of leveling Boomkin in Cataclysm or MOP, but that seems to have changed starting with Warlords)

I was originally planning to do the monk after the druid, but I might change that up a bit.  Haven't decided yet.

Still not particularly close to being Exalted with all the factions.  I'm really not doing anything beside the daily emissary and there doesn't seem to be any great rush.  Should probably get there within the next couple of weeks either way.  I'm mainly interested in whether unlocking the Allied Race at Exalted on Horde side will also unlock it Alliance side. 

I keep hearing yes, but I'm doing the same daily emissary alliance side just in case that turns out not to be true.

That's about it for the updates.  I have a feeling, once I hit exalted on both Horde side and Alliance side, that  my leveling efforts will get a lot more focus.  This is different from Legion where there was all the Class Order Hall stuff and Class Mount stuff to be done across every toon.  There doesn't seem to be a similar issue with BfA.

Gearing Up Alts - Patiently Avoiding the Grind...Or Not

Battle for Azeroth has introduced an interesting dynamic with Warfronts,  With the new 320 item level cutoff for entering the warfront, there is some time pressure to get fresh 120's geared in time to be able to participate in the Warfront.  I hit 120 on my death knight in the early days of the warfront. 

For most of my 120's, my plan has been to do the weekly world boss, do the Arathi gear quest and otherwise look for world quest upgrades, and the item level seems to steadily creep up.  With the death knight having a limited amount of time and neither the Arathi world boss or gear quests available, I was trying to do it a little bit faster than normal.

I almost got there too.  But not quite.  Grabbing the cloak from the first faction to hit honored helps, but beyond that and the regular check for world quests, I ended up running a few dungeons to try to get myself over the hump.  Those were all generally good experiences, but the loot RNG gods were not kind, so I came up just short, finding myself at 317 when the Warfront ended.

Today, I'll be running all three max level Horde toons through the Arathi world boss and also doing the gear quest there hoping for some nice juicy upgrades.

The paladin finished up his first zone, and has moved on to Zulduzar.  So far the leveling process has been pretty smooth.  Some of the harder "you may need help" elite quests have required help, but that's probably why they say that (although they didn't on the warlock, hunter and death knight)

I also managed to get Pathfinder on Joar, so that piece is done until the next major patch.  I'm also close to having the War Campaign done on my alliance toon as well.

Cheers,

Joar

Level 120 #4 Complete

I managed to hit 120 on the death knight yesterday.  I leveled mostly as frost, although found myself switching to blood for many of the harder elites.  That's probably my biggest frustration with death knight leveling the last few expansions, is that frost doesn't really tend to have as much survivability as I'd like until higher gear levels, but blood just tends to be a lot slower at killing things.

The leveling time for this guy was about an hour and a half longer than it was for the hunter, which is not unexpected.  The death knight came in at right at 15 hours played time, versus 13 hours and 50 minutes for the hunter.

The warfront also unlocked Horde-side yesterday, but I probably won't be able to get the death knight to 320 in time to take any meaningful advantage of it, so it'll mostly be an activity for the hunter.

Next up on the leveling front will be the paladin, which may very well have the same issues as the death knight (ret vs prot).  I tend to be a little more comfortable with ret while leveling though.

I only have Champions left to get to revered before finishing up all of the requirements for this initial stage of pathfinder, and I'm working through a similar path on the alliance side in order to finish up the war campaign there and be in a position to unlock both of the allied races there.

Cheers,

Joar

Level 120 #3 Done and the Warfront Shuffle

I managed to hit 120 on my third toon last Friday morning.  During Legion, it was mid-October before I had my third toon to max level, so this is pretty on pace with that.  This one came in more than 6 1/2 hours faster than the previous Horde toon, so that's probably a good approximation for the time savings if you don't putter around and read all the quest text, etc.

So now I'm working on running all three toons through the daily emissaries.  I want to see the full War Campaign on the alliance toon, and my plan is always to run the emissaries on somewhere around 5 Horde toons.

So far, gearing up via world quests has been working out just fine.  I managed to get world quests weapon rewards on both hunters, and I've had pretty decent lucks with World Bosses.

I probably shouldn't have used the phrase Warfront Shuffle in the title of this post, because it probably gives the impression I'm talking about some kind of gold-making plan.  I'm just referring to the weird weekly back and forth cycle of the Warfront and the different types of awards available at each stage.

I've found the world bosses to be pretty rewarding and a few of the quests to be definitely worth running.  By the time my main got around to doing Warfronts, the gear upgrades from every run weren't necessarily worth doing it too many times.  I think that math may work differently for my alliance hunter once the cycle comes back around.

The regular quest to kill 20X mobs that rewards an equipment cache has also been really worthwhile.

I haven't gotten anything interesting off any of the rares at this point, but I haven't really done any aggressive farming of them either.

Up next in the leveling cycle is my death knight.  I'm going to at least start trying to level him as frost, but I usually end up switching to blood at some point.  We'll see if I can hold out as frost the whole way this time.

Cheers,

Joar

Level 120 #2 done - First Alliance Toon to Max Level

I managed to finish getting my alliance hunter to max level yesterday.  His total played time was 18 hours, which was about 2 1/2 hours faster than my warlock.  Because the alliance zones were all new to me, I was still basically reading all the quest text, so I was surprised it was that much faster.

I played Beast Mastery the entire way.  Interestingly enough, even though it appears to be one of the strongest specs at end game right now, it didn't feel as strong to me while leveling as Marksmanship does. 

The other thing that I realized as I've been working Joar through the various end game content is that I'm really going to want to see the War Campaign alliance side as well, which means I'll be doing the WQ rep grind on this alliance toon as well.  Not really what I planned, but I suppose that's fine.  I'm guessing I'll be mostly through it before I get to that point with the fifth Horde toon anyway.

My Horde hunter is sitting at level 118 and working his way through Nazmir.  That's an interesting zone for me this expansion because it combines some of my favorite questlines with some of my least favorite of the expansion.

One thing that has also become clear is that once the eventual leveling nerfs hit later on, it will very likely be possible to go completely from 110-120 entirely in a single zone.  For me, that will be AWESOME!  because it means I'll be able to rotate the crew among 6 different leveling plans.

Also tried the Warfront on Joar.  It's a fun and interesting thing.  I'm looking forward trying it on the alliance side as soon as the Horde loses it again.  It's at least a good way to get a few decent gear upgrades for new 120's which will be a nice way to get them started and make world quests a little bit easier.

So the plan till this time next week is keep working through emissaries and stuff on the two max level toons, give the first wing of LFR a try and continue to leverage Warfronts as they're live for gear upgrades on new max level toons.  We'll try to get the Horde hunter to 120 and get him in the WQ groove and then start on leveling the death knight.

Still not sure if the plan is going to be Frost or Blood for the DK, but we'll have to see what Frost's survivability feels like.

Cheers,

Joar