Closing in on Completion

So it's started to bug me not having this last toon to 85. After all, that has been my stated goal for so long, it seems silly to put it off, so I've been focusing a little bit more on leveling my warrior. He hit 84 last night and now just has the slog through Twilight Highlands to finish hopefully within the next day or two.

I've also been working on gearing my shammy. I've been doing it the old fashion way - initially grinding out regular instances and rep dailies and such until I have enough gear to qualify for heroics - which I just hit.

I could afford to buy a few epics to instantly gear him, but why bother?

So with the shaman now geared for heroics, I now have 3 toons that are raid geared, 7 that are geared for heroics, 1 that is PvP geared (and would qualify for heroics based purely on iLvL) and two that I will still need to gear up - my rogue and my warrior once he finally hits 85. And I may actually work on those. Why not?

I've also done a little bit of raiding on my warlock. My guild is doing pretty well from a progression standpoint and invited me into some raids a week or so ago. Oddly enough, my first Cataclysm raid boss down was Ascendant Council!

On the same weekend, I also managed to get Magmaw, Omnotron, Maloriak and Chimera down but we weren't quite able to get Atramedes down. I was lagging like crazy at that point which didn't work well with the strategy we were using.

All in all, it was a fun time, and nice to go from 0 to 5/12 almost instantly!

So after getting the warrior to 85, I need to finish maxing the rest of my professions - Leatherworking, Blacksmithing and Engineering. I also want to finish getting Joar to exalted with my guild so I can get the stylin' new mounts. Beyond that, it'll just be working on continuing to gear the various toons!

What a Long Strange Trip...Violet Awesomeness!

So after 3 years of trying, I finally managed to get the School of Hard Knocks achievement finished on Joàr, which was the last piece of the meta that I needed. A huge thank you to Scariteri from Sisters of Elune, who let me cap the flag in Eye of the Storm giving me the very last piece that I needed!

So I sat in Org on my new Violet Proto-Drake for about 10 minutes really enjoying it, before switching back to my much more sleek flying carpet and going about my normal business, albeit at a much brisker pace.

I've also now been working on leveling my warrior through the new Cataclysm content - grant very slowly. He just hit level 81, so I'm on my way back to Org to figure out what this Colossus Smash thing is all about.

I also spent a few days working on gearing my hunter for the new ZA/ZG heroics, which took a lot less time than I thought it would. I've also been gearing up my frost mage for PvP and he's now got 3 of the 5 core pieces.

I'm thinking about working on gearing up the shammy next after I finish getting the warrior to 85. I might work on finishing up those last couple of professions a bit as well.

So, that's the update for this week!

Speed to 80

So I managed to hit 80 on my goblin warrior the other day. My total played time to 80 was 3 days, 6 hours. Just slightly more than half the time of my previous best. Really amazing how much they've improved the leveling speed. Obviously guild xp bonuses and two more pieces of BoA gear also make a substantial difference.

So now I shed 3 pieces of BoA and continue on through the Cataclysm content. I'm curious to see if I come in significantly better than my previous record which was around 22 hours played from 80-85.

Pugging ZA/ZG

So I spent a ridiculous amount of time this weekend running the new Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman instances. It was generally just myself and my son and for a couple of them we had one other guild member joining us, but the rest of the group was generally pugged.

I also did pugs of both instances at least once all by myself. With a couple of exceptions, I was really surprised by how smoothly things went almost every time.

The first clear that I did of ZA on Tuesday night was a complete pug, and we wiped numerous times while we all worked on figuring out the mechanics, but everyone stuck with it for the entire time until we finally managed to get that last boss down.

It restored my faith in the LFD tool a bit to have a really good PUG group that communicated well, talked things through, was patient and just generally did a great job.

All told, I'm enjoying the two new instances a lot. I haven't tried running them on my paladin yet as I'm not entirely sure he's quite well geared enough for them. He is over the minimum iLvL by about 5 points, but I did a few runs with my son on his holy pally, and he's raid geared and was still struggling with mana. So I'm a bit hesitant.

I'm also considering focusing a bit more on gearing up my hunter. I purchased a few crafted epics for him and am keeping my eye out for a better weapon on the AH. I'm hoping within the next week or so to get him geared enough to start running the new instances on him as well. He's currently sitting about 3 or 4 points short and I'm not one to try to cheat it by putting a cheap tanking cloak or something in my bags.

I've also continued to level the warrior who is at level 79 and about 4 bars from hitting 80 and heading to the Cataclysm zones. Tons of fun on the warrior.

Finally, I've also been working on the School of Hard Knocks achievement on my warlock. It's the one last one that I need for the meta. I managed to get 3 of the 4 battlegrounds knocked out yesterday and am going to work on the last one - Eye of the Storm - until I get it.

My son has agreed to come along on his holy pally to pocket heal for me to help me get there!

So, all in all, a lot to do in game and I'm enjoying all of it.

Rambling On

So, my goal of having a toon of each class to level 85 before the next expansion seems to be very much attainable at this point. With 9 toons already there and my 10th toon at level 76, I have 9 levels to go. If the next expansion is coming in somewhere around 18 months from now, that means I need to knock out a level every 2 months.

I think I can handle that.

So, given the complete lack of pressure there, I've been spending more time working on some of m other toons. Mostly running dailies for rep and running the daily heroic - both on my warlock and on my paladin. Both are currently geared well enough that running heroics on either of them is a breeze. They are also both geared enough that they'll be able to get into the new/old troll instances later today after maintenance is done!

So, now I'm debating which toon to work on gearing next. I'm debating between priest, hunter and death knight. The hunter and priest are actually both already geared enough for heroics. It's really just a matter of finishing the various rep grinds and getting them both to the point where they have all the JP gear they need.

I may give the priest a try as a holy 5 man healer. My complete inability to get the hang of the druid does make me want to try one of the other healing classes. I've never really done anything with the priest, so that intrigues me a bit.

I've also somewhat debated putting the shammy in that group and trying to gear him up as enhancement. I've never been a big fan of melee, but I definitely enjoyed the shammy while leveling, so I'm tempted to give it a try.

At the end of the day, I may give tanking a bit of a try on the death knight, and after I've tortured myself sufficiently, switch back over to the priest.

Most of the heroics that I've done recently through the dungeon finder have been pretty smooth - mostly due to the fact that people now understand the instances pretty well and also are finally at the point where they outgear them. You still get the occasional wipe, but it is no where near as bad as it was.

The speed leveling warrior is sitting in Zul'Drak and is pretty close to hitting 77, so I may be running a bit ahead of my "once every two months" schedule.

Breezing Through Northrend

In between running dailies and heroics on my paladin and my warlock, I'm still occasionally working on leveling my warrior. He is breezing through Northrend with ease. I'm working him through Grizzly Hills at the moment, where he just recently hit 75. Northrend really does seem to go quite a bit faster with the bonus to leveling speed as well as a couple of additional pieces of BoA.

I'm also about a day or two away from hitting exalted with Dragonmaw on my paladin which will hook him up with a nice new epic necklace for his healing set and a nice new set of boots for his ret / questing set. He's also pretty close to exalted with Hellscream, but he's going to need quite a few more commendations in order to get his epic trinket. I'm not in a huge rush on that, as he's got two good jewelcrafter trinkets equipped right now that seem to do the trick nicely. After that, I just need to finish getting to exalted with Ramkahen for some stylin new boots and then it'll just be working on the daily each day.

On the warlock, he's basically just in the daily heroic for valor points mode. I'm just a couple of days away from getting the T11 chest, and after that will be working towards the cloak and a ring.

Beyond that, I'm starting to think about which toon to gear next - still debating between the hunter and the shadow priest. The druid for some reason still runs hot and cold for me in terms of whether I find it completely irritating running heroics on him. Not sure why. I may have just gotten spoiled with the paladin having the huge heals to keep the tank up, that having slightly better AoE just doesn't seem to compensate much.

Northrend Ho

First off, sorry about the lack of posts in a while. Things have been extremely busy at work. I've resumed focus on gearing up my warlock and my paladin. The return to prominence of my druid was extremely short lived. Despite all the AoE, the lack of a truly monster heal just made me miss my paladin too much. And now that all the dps are learning what stuff they shouldn't be standing in, there seem to be relatively few encounters where I really need a huge AoE heal.

I've also been working a little bit on the warrior - he's sitting at 68 and just made his way to Northrend. Given the improved leveling speed in Northrend that I've heard about, I've decided to skip Borean Tundra and just start in Howling Fjord and then go straight to Dragonblight. Hopefully that will work well enough. I'm at just slightly over 2 days played time at this point.

Arms continues to be a complete beast for leveling, and I'm really looking forward to picking up Bladestorm in another level or two to have yet another way to mow down everything around me.

Back from Vaca and Back to My Favorite Tree

Well, I was away on vacation with the family for a week with essentially no internet access, so wasn't getting much done on the leveling front. I did manage to get my warrior to level 62 and pretty far through Hellfire Peninsula since my last post. He continues to be an absolute blast to play.

I've also rediscovered my love for my druid. I'm not sure why, but early in Cataclysm, I seem to have totally lost the feel for healing on my druid. For some reason, after a week off, it all seems to make sense again, so I've been doing a little bit more healing on my druid and have knocked out his first few heroics. So, in the interest of getting him a little bit geared, I've started working on Tol Barad, Therazane and Dragonmaw dailies as well.

By the way, for those of you that hate getting mobbed by all those dwarves while you're doing your Dragonmaw dailies, let me pass on a little bit of unfairness that I discovered today. Druids can ignite those Wildhammer kegs and pick up that food, while still in flight form. Oh yeah. Hover overhead, ignite keg, grab bread, fly away, completely oblivious to the chaos around me.

So, leveling the warrior may go on hold for a while so I can work on getting the druid caught up gear-wise to my warlock and my paladin.

Closer to Outland

I hit level 49 on my warrior last night, so down to single digits until Outland. It actually makes me a little sad as I've really enjoyed what Blizzard has done with the old starting zones so far. Every zone I've been in so far has been very engaging and interesting.

I finished up Badlands (the questing line in there involving Black Dragonflight eggs is really fantastic) and have moved on to Searing Gorge. That's the first place that I seem to have found a little bit of repeat from what I remember before, but it's still all pretty well done.

The only downside that I've been able to find from the new smooth questing paths from 1-60 and the fact that Blizzard has removed all the hopping back and forth between continents is that getting training for new spells and abilities has become a bit more challenging as there is really no reason whatsoever to go back to a capital city other than that. So it's no longer just a matter of "I'll swing by and grab that on my next zeppelin trip" because there isn't going to be a next zeppelin trip.

So, that's been a bit of a struggle, but not a big deal overall.

My guild is basically one day away from hitting level 20, which will open up the BoA head pieces, which should accelerate my leveling even further. Right now I'm at 1 day, 2 hours played time to level 49, which seems absolutely lightning fast to me. I know Joana's old record for 1-60 was 4 days, 20 hours which was absolultely breathtaking speed at the time. And it looks like I'm going to completely blow that away. Of course, Joana wasn't working with 35% BoA xp bonuses and a 10% guild xp bonus, so that makes a big difference. However, even if you adjust for that 45% boost, it should still come out to somewhere around 2 days, 16 hours to 60, and it at least looks like I'm going to be faster than that.

The difference would at least seem to be driven by the improvements that Blizzard has made to the questing experience.

Love that Warrior

I've been splitting time these days working on various dailies mostly on my paladin, and then working on leveling my warrior. I've been really pleasantly surprised by how much I've been enjoying leveling the warrior. Now I will admit, it may have something to do with the fact that he's totally tricked out in full BoA's which means he's wreaking total havoc with everything that gets in his way, but it's still tremendous fun.

I'm leveling as Arms - mostly because I already had a good two-hander BoA sword. It seems to be a pretty vicious spec though - the combination of Victory Rush and Mortal Strike seems to put most things pretty quickly on the ground.

I've been able to get him to level 40 pretty quickly. I've been enjoying all of the new quests. While I started him as a goblin, I've actually been leveling over in Eastern Kingdoms just because I really wanted to see all the new quests in Silverpine, Plaguelands, etc. It has definitely not disappointed!

I was intending do try tanking in some dungeons, but I've been enjoying the new quests so much, I haven't really felt the need to bother. That might change once I hit Outland in a few more levels and get back to the same old same old.

Sad Tree

From the 4.1 PTR Patch Notes:

• Lifebloom's bloom effect has been reduced by 20%. In addition, it now costs 11% of base mana, up from 7%.

Sad tree. Sad sad stump of his former glory.

I guess my druid will be staying on the bench while my pally continues to get all the attention for healing heroics and such.

Even my priest is getting more love these days.