Leveling as Unholy

It's been a long time since I originally leveled my Death Knight. When I first leveled him, back in the early days of Wrath, Blood was the optimal leveling spec. Now, with the release of Cataclysm, all that has changed. Blood is now the tanking spec and what seems to be the best leveling spec is unholy.

Interestingly enough, it doesn't really seem to change that much about the ease with which Death Knights can mow through questing content. The addition of a permanent pet only helps things. I'm lacking a lot of the self-healing abilities that I remember fondly from Blood, so I'm having to sit and eat or bandage more often than I remember, but other than that, things have been remarkably smooth.

I've also been having lots of fun popping Army of the Dead on some of those elite quest bosses. It's really complete overkill, but it's fun, so I don't really care.

I've also been working on his Mining and Blacksmithing a bit (so I expect his leveling time to fall behind the priest). There's a lot more Obsidium in Hyjal than I remember. Might have something to do with the fact that the last time I leveled a miner through Hyjal was on launch day. Could be that.

So, all in, I've managed to get the Death Knight to level 82 and he's working his way through Deepholm.

I also finally got my epic trinket from Hellscream's Reach / Tol Barad on my warlock, so I'm pretty much just focused on Dragonmaw and Ramkahen dailies as well as the fishing and cooking dailies now. My ability to run heroics continues to be extremely limited, but hopefully I can rectify that soon and power through the rest of that Ramkahen rep.

On to the Death Knight!

Hit 85 on the shadow priest today - so that's #6! Interestingly enough, it was also my fastest leveling time to date. My total played time to 85 from 80 was 21 hrs, 28 minutes.

My previous best was the enhance shaman at 23 hrs, 10 minutes. Of course, there were two different elements to this. I don't have any professions on this toon, so no extra time for that. I also didn't do a single dungeon on this toon.

So, now I'm on to the death knight.

Bad Altoholic...Bad

I've been a particularly bad altoholic lately, having stopped leveling my remaining army of alts and have instead been messing around with gearing up my warlock. The sad thing is - I'm not even sure why I'm doing it. I have absolutely no intention of raiding on this toon. I do enjoy running heroics on him every now and then when I have time - so it's probably just a desire to get myself in a better position for heroics.

In any case, over the last week, I managed to get him to Exalted with both Therazane and Earthen Ring, which opened up a nice set of epic gloves as well as stylin' new shoulder enchants from the Stonemother herself.

I'm also just a step away from Exalted with Hellscreams reach, although I need about 70 more commendations before I can get the epic trinket that I want. Again - not even sure why I want this stupid trinket. It's all about hit, and I'm already hit capped for heroics. But - I should be able to unreforge hit to haste or something else on a bunch of gear, so I guess it's all good.

I also maxed my tailoring and accumulated enough Dreamcloth to make an epic belt and I'm half way to having enough for the epic pants. I'm tempted to work on gearing my hunter next. For some reason, I still just don't enjoy healing on either my paladin or my druid all that much, and there's so much good daily questing to do for nice shinies, that I don't really mind the longer dungeon queues.

Plus, it guarantees that I'll have at least one dps in the group that knows how to crowd control and move out of fire on the ground, which is one more than I often get when I'm healing.

I did manage to get another level on my shadow priest, so he's at level 83 now and working his way through Uldum. A few interesting observations on the shadow priest. With the healing reductions to Vampiric Embrace, he's not quite the indestructible tank he was questing through Wrath. In Wrath, I took no net damage at all while questing. Now that's not the case.

The thing that I've really been enjoying on the shadow priest though is with the addition of Mind Spike, I found that there are really two different play styles available to you while leveling. One is what I would call the traditional shadow priest style. Loading your targets up with dots and slowly destroying them from the inside. Vampiric Touch, Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Flay, Devouring Plague and Mind Blast when your shadow orbs proc. Dark Evangelism procs. Big fun.

The addition of Mind Spike has provided another leveling style that I call the Shadow Mage. Big quick casting nukes. Stuff gets hit hard and dies fast. Mind Spike, Mind Spike, Mind Spike, instant cast Mind Blast. BOOM! And the best part of this is it really requires no changes in spec, gear, talents, glyphs..nothing, to switch back and forth between these two options. I can alternate it on individual mobs if I want to. You're mastery and dark evangelism are basically wasted with this style. But it's still a lot of fun to be a nuking Shadow mage!

Gearing My Main

I finished the shammy within a day or so of my last post and have taken my foot off the gas a bit on leveling my various alts to work on gearing my main - Joar. So, I've been diligently knocking out dailies for Therazane, Tol Barad and Dragonmaw. I went back and ran a few quests through Hyjal to get to revered and pick up the head enchant. And I've been running a heroic or two whenever I can.

It's been much better on the warlock than I was expecting. Having two dependable forms of crowd control makes me a welcome addition to almost any group. And now that people finally seem to understand that these things aren't going to be a cake walk, the extra utility that warlocks can bring also seems to be much appreciated by most groups. Things like Healthstones and Soulstones.

I'm also considering going back and giving healing another shot on my paladin, now that folks have spent enough time in these instances that they have a better understanding that they can't just stand in whatever they want because the healers can't heal through it now.

I also started leveling my shadow priest a bit (I mean come on - I'm still addicted to alts, so I can't give it up entirely!) He's sitting at level 82 and is working his way through Deepholm. After the shadow priest, it will be the Death Knight next, followed by the mage, and then the rogue.

I've also been working on getting my professions a little further along on Joar. Both his tailoring and enchanting are sitting within 10-15 points of max. I've managed to collect about 4 pieces of Dreamcloth as well, so I should be in good shape to craft my first epic as soon as I max it. I've been keeping myself supplied in cheap volatiles for the crafting using my alchemists transmutes, so I'm leveling it slowly, but on the cheap. I'm basically leveling enchanting using whatever greens I pick up while doing dailies or while leveling other toons. So it's also on the cheap, but almost done. I'll have managed to level both of those without spending a dime. So I'm pretty happy with that.

The Death Knight will be my biggest challenge for professions. He's a Blacksmith, and I'm also thinking about trying to level that one without making any auction house purchases. We'll see how that goes.

Hunter Done and Almost There on the Shammy

So I managed to get the hunter to 85 within a day or so of my last post. Total played time for the hunter from 80-85 was right at 24 hours, so not as good as the warlock despite my expectations. No epic flying on the hunter. Not sure if that makes a huge difference, but I guess it could have.

I've been working on the shaman next and have actually been leveling him as enhancement and that has been an enormous amount of fun. Very high survivability and incredible burst damage. Mobs have been going down faster with the shaman than with any other toon so far. I did equip him with two Heavy Geode Mace's, a BoE drop out of Stonecore, that's made him a bit overpowered. They can be purchased on my server for about 150g each and are really an excellent enhancement weapon. Slow, high dps, with hit and expertise.

I very rarely make it all the way through my rotation on this guy. I'll pull with lightning bolt, drop totems, Flame Shock, Storm Strike, Lava Lash, Unleash Elements and maybe Earth Shock if they're still alive. Then pull the next one. Rinse and repeat. Mana is not a problem at all. I have Lightning Shield glyphed so I only have to refresh it every 10 minutes.

I've done a few dungeons on him as well and have found his dps to be very good. I also tend to be pretty popular with the healers - healing stream totem and a few well placed chain heals off of Maelstrom Weapon procs tends to make everyone's life a little bit easier. Combine that with a very nice interrupt and good crowd control, and you've really got a lot of utility that you can bring to an instance.

After then enhancement shaman, I think the shadow priest will be up next.

I also did a few heroics over the weekend on the warlock. Pugging continues to be incredibly frustrating about half the time. I continue to be amazed by how many folks running instances are still not understanding how much of a difference it can make to just take the time to mark pulls and set up crowd control. But, instead of doing that, everyone rushes in, wipes and leaves and spends another 40 minutes waiting in queue.

Had a Throne of the Tides one - warlock and mage in the group. Tank didn't mark on the first trash pull, but the mage and I each CC'd one of the healers in the back. The tank broke the crowd control on both, so the mage and I reapplied, and he broke it again! Mage and I both said in party chat at the beginning of the pull that we'd be cc'ing the healers, so the tank was aware we were doing it (in case the new penguin on the floor wasn't his first clue).

Needless to say, the warriors in the front never went down and we eventually wiped upon which the tank and healer immediately left group leaving the mage and I standing there with bewildered looks on our face. Oh well. Eventually, either people are going to figure this out, or Blizzard is going to realize that their average player base isn't as smart as they give us credit for and either nerf the crap out of everything or start making epics rain from the sky. Probably a little of both.

And sadly enough, that's actually probably fine with me. While I get an incredible sense of accomplishment out of a well executed heroic that takes 2-3 hours to complete, I honestly don't have the time to be doing that on a regular basis. I'm not a big advocate of the 10 minute "gogogogo" chain pull fests either, but there should be something reasonable somewhere in the middle.

Profession and Leveling Status

I'm so close on the hunter. So of course there is maintenance today. Just 5 bars to go, and I'll have my fourth toon at level 85. And it will be happening today. (Unless of course 1/11/11 ends up being the day of eternal maintenance because something about that strangely binary string of date numbers caused Blizzard's servers to inexplicably implode).

So I've been providing a pretty decent string of updates on my leveling progress, but realized that I hadn't really been talking about my professions at all. So quick update on that as well:

My first toon out of the gate, the Paladin, has maxed his Mining skill and is almost there on Jewelcrafting. I'm not in a big hurry on Jewelcrafting since that's really more about acquiring all of the recipes than it is about necessarily getting to max level. All that being said, I'm around 515 or so, so pretty close.

On my Druid, my skinning is maxed (because really, how hard is that?). I've barely even started on leatherworking though. The skinning mats were just selling to well, and I just couldn't see any major benefit to working leatherworking all the way through at this point.

On Joar, he has maxed his cooking and is diligently working on fishing dailies. I'm working on both enchanting and tailoring but both are in the 490 range. Again - no big hurry here.

My hunter has maxed his alchemy, which is a huge money maker for me at this point, and he's getting pretty close on herbalism. The next toon up after the hunter is going to be the shaman. His professions are herbalism and inscription. Not sure I'm going to be in a big hurry on inscription, but we'll see. The Darkmoon cards, as always, are selling really well.

With the hunter, I've been leveling him as beast mastery and it's been extremely easy. My little bear mini-tank can stand up to just about anything. The rotation is very easy and extremely forgiving. There are quite a few cooldowns to keep track of, but if you don't bother with them much while questing, it's really not a big deal. I try to use Bestial Wrath as much as possible along with Focus Fire and that certainly helps speed things along. Leveling as a hunter for me is like running an instance in miniature. Send your "tank" in. Get a HOT rolling on him. Misdirect to him if you're so inclined. Wait for him to build aggro a bit then blow the bad guys away. Rinse and repeat.

The shaman is going to be next, and looking at the various quest rewards, I think it should be fine leveling him as elemental. This whole expansion doesn't seem to be all that wildly friendly to melee classes. The more you can do to make the mob dead before it even gets to you, the better of you'll be at the end of the day. And elemental is all about making things dead fast.

I briefly debated sticking to resto with the Shaman and trying to level him purely through the dungeon finder just to compare the times. I might still go that route, but we'll see.

Level 85 #3

Well - finally managed to get the warlock to level 85 this morning. Very easy to level as affliction - just took a while because of other commitments. The actual leveling time was about two hours faster than the druid, so still improving.

Off to work on the hunter next.

Holiday Delay

So my leveling progress has slowed down a bit as I've been a bit distracted by the holidays. We've been out of town visiting family, so my game time has been limited to after bed time and sometimes during naps. My wife has also been using my laptop for her work during some of those times, so I'm experiencing some serious withdrawal.

I have managed to get the warlock to level 84, and just a few bars from 85. Leveling a warlock as affliction has been, without a doubt, the easiest Cataclysm leveling experience so far. I've also had the chance to run a few instances, where the combination of decent dps and a lot of different crowd control options have made them pretty smooth runs.

Not sure what my leveling time on the warlock will be just yet. I have been leveling both tailoring and enchanting as I've been going, so that likely will have taken some extra time. I'm no where close to max on either one, but I've got plenty of time, and seven more toons worth of leveling to provide the mats. I'm guessing it will come out somewhere between the paladin and the druid.

I should hit 85 in the next day or two, and over this weekend, I plan to finish gearing up my druid for heroics and get a few runs in on him. I think I may switch up my leveling plans just a bit and go with the hunter next instead of the shammy. I just need to get him to Uldum so I can start porting there rather than flying to do his alchemy transmutes.

Level 85 #2 - Boomkin!

I managed to get my second character to level 85 yesterday evening. It's an interesting read on how much it slows things down to start leveling on launch day. My total played time to 85 for my first toon, the paladin, was 35 hours. The total played time to 85 for the druid was 25 hours.

Now I think there were several factors at work here:

• First, the obvious delays caused by competing for mobs and quest objectives around launch day.
• Second, I leveled mining simultaneously on the paladin and did not move on to Deepholm until I had gotten my mining high enough to mine Elementium. This added probably about an hour to my leveling time, possibly more, as I spent time just searching for nodes which were being heavily camped in the first few days. I leveled skinning on the druid, which is much faster and easier.
  
• The first time through, I always tend to read the quest text and just enjoy the lore parts of it more.
• Sometime mid way through the process of leveling my first toon, my guild received the xp boost perk. That boost was in place for the entirety of leveling my druid.

When I leveled the druid to 80 initially, I leveled him as feral, but this time, I did the trip to 85 as a boomkin, since I was already rocking decent caster gear from my resto set. It was definitely an easier way to level for me, but I think I'm basically a caster at heart. Towards the end, I was getting Starsurge crits of around 40K, which really encourages those Twilight Highlands mobs to die much faster!

The new eclipse mechanic is also extremely easy to use and figure out. Just follow the bar back and forth and switch between Wrath and Starfire depending on which way you're heading on the bar. Mobs died very very quickly for me.

So, next I'm off to level the warlock. My plan is to at least start him off as affliction. Given how hard the mobs hit, I really think the self-healing abilities that come with affliction will boost my leveling speed nicely. While huge Conflagrate and Chaos Bolt crits that go with destruction are fun to watch, they'll tend to pull aggro off my voidwalker and just cause me trouble in the long run. So we'll see how it goes.

Ding! Level 85 #1

I managed to hit level 85 on my Paladin over the weekend. Total played time to 85 was about 35 hours, but that included time to level my mining. Also, the first time through, I spent a lot of time just reading the quest descriptions and enjoying the lore.

After finishing with my Paladin, I started on the Druid next, and have managed to get him to 82.

I started the Paladin in Mt. Hyjal and have been starting the Druid in Vash'jir. On the Paladin, particularly with Mt. Hyjal and Deepholm, I finished the zone before moving on to the next zone. Given that quest XP increases significantly from zone to zone, I don't think that's the most efficient way to do it. So as soon as you hit 82, you should really move straight to Deepholm, at 83 head to Uldum and at 84 head to Twilight Highlands. There are more than enough quests in each zone to be sure you get to the next level.

The other things that slowed me down on the Paladin is that I was also working on putting together a holy set while leveling, which took a lot of time to evaluate gear drops. I will likely have some of the same issues on the druid.

I've tried healing quite a few of the instances on my Paladin and have had pretty decent success so far. It was pretty hard at first, but figured out a few tricks that have helped a lot.

1. Beacon the tank so that you're getting the extra holy power from Tower of Radiance.
2. Use Holy Light - particularly if someone doesn't need a lot of healing. Use holy shock on others in the group to top them off when needed.
3. Light of Dawn or Word of Glory at 3 stacks depending on how much damage the group has taken.
4. Don't use Divine Light unless you get an Infusion proc.
5. Judge whenever you can. The mana return becomes really important.
6. Use your cooldowns - your guardian, hands, avenging wrath, etc. can make an enormous difference - particularly on boss fights.

I've been thinking about working on the warlock for a little bit just because I'm getting a little bit tired of watching out for two sets of gear. Although I will admit, Starsurge on the Boomkin is crazy fun!

Kudos on Darkshore

So as I mentioned earlier, with my Horde toons pretty much ready for Cataclysm, I've been working on leveling a couple of Alliance toons a bit. This week, I've been mostly focused on my Night Elf Hunter, and have gotten him to level 25. As part of that progression, he quested through Darkshore.

I may have done that once before on various Alliance toons that I've tinkered with in the past, but it hasn't been very recently. The questing experience there is really fantastic though. Without giving anything away, you get very involved in the Lore around the Cataclysm itself including helping Malfurion Stormrage directly with some quests.

You also get a couple of really nice blue quest rewards. Overall, so far, I'm really impressed with what Blizzard has done with the early questing experience. Making travel easier with more flight paths and some "nightsaber shuttle" options has also made the zone a lot easier for a player operating "pre-mount."

I've now moved onto Ashenvale with this toon and don't expect to get much further before Cataclysm. I was somewhat surprised to also discover that you can't use glyphs now until level 25. Not sure I remember seeing that in patch notes anywhere. Of course, glyphs have gotten so expensive on some servers now with the essential unavailability of the ink trader, that they're really not affordable unless you have an existing 80 sugar daddy supporting you. If we're talking first character, I could see you very easily getting into your 60's or 70's before being able to afford glyphs - particularly if you plan to buy flying skill right away at 60.

So, I'll be parking the paladin in Blackrock Mountain on Monday to pick up the entrance to Blackrock Caverns and will then start my leveling right away on Tuesday. Until then - more Alliance fun!