Happy New Year

So I took a bit of a break from WoW over the holidays and have just now started to get back into playing a little bit.  I did get a chance to do relatively full LFR runs on both my shadow priest and my warlock over the weekend. My warlock is now sitting at a total of 8 Sigils of Wisdom, with another shot tomorrow at finishing it up and getting the legendary gem from Wrathion.

My shadow priest actually has 10 Sigils of Wisdom, but no sha-touched weapon to put a gem in.  Doesn't that just figure.

I've been leveling both the rogue and the mage a little bit, and both are currently sitting at 86. Both so far have been incredibly easy to level and both have fared very well against the soul crushing virmin warrens of the Valley of the Four Winds.  Keeping recuperate and leeching poison up on the rogue makes him essentially indestructible.  The mages ability to freeze, blink away and then huge burst makes him equally good against packs of multiple mobs.

I've also been playing a little bit of Rift in between.  I'm still working on getting my mage to the new max level, and he's now at level 53 and working his way through Seratos and Eastern Holdings.  I'm still having a hard time getting into the new Storm Legion zones as the questing and story line just doesn't seem to progress as well as it did in the earlier levels, and I find myself quickly out of quests to do and getting outleveled by the zones.

The new carnage quests are interesting in the sense that it brings a new twist to the "go kill 10 boars" quests in that, the first time you kill a boar, you'll be automatically granted the quest and can turn it in right from your screen as soon as you kill the 10th boar.

The only problem is that there are so many mobs that trigger these carnage quests and the amounts involved tend to be pretty large - typically around 16 each.  There's no rhyme or reason as to why you're killing these things and after a while it gets a bit overwhelming.

Ding! Level 90 #6.

I hit level 90 on my druid last night, making him my 6th character at max level.  Despite my flirtations with feral kitty, I ended up basically finishing him as boomkin.  I guess it's just easier for me to continue doing what I know.

The total played time on the druid from 85 to 90 was right around 24 hours, making him one of the slower toons to 90 so far.  This was probably in no small part due to time spent respecing and regearing while I flirted with feral.  No big deal.  An hour here or there doesn't make a huge difference anyway.

I also managed to max both of his professions along the way - skinning and leatherworking - leaving me with one more to go before I have all of them at 600.  That last one is engineering, so I've decided to pick up my rogue for leveling next to get engineering finished up.

I did dungeon finder this time through most of Kun Lai Summit and Townlong Steppes just for a change of pace.  It didn't seem to impact my leveling time significantly.  I went back to questing for all of Dread Wastes just for the Klaxxi rep in case I decide to do some end game with the druid at some point.

So now we'll start working on the rogue, all while continuing to finish dailies and run LFR on the warlock and priest.  I still go back and forth on whether I want to focus on disc or shadow for the priest, so for now I'm doing a little bit of both.

Epic Weapons Do Exist

So since my last post, I managed to get epic weapons to drop in LFR for both my priest and my warlock.  In neither case was it a Sha-Touched weapon, but I'm happy nonetheless.  For my warlock, it was the wand off of Elegon, which I was becoming convinced did not exist.  For the priest, it was the mace off of Will of the Emperor.

I'm working through the new Krasarang quests on both characters and have really been enjoying that a lot.  The story lines on both sides are really fantastic and it's some of the best solo content I've done in a while.

I've also gone back to working on the druid and have managed to get him to level 88.  He's part of the way through Townlong Steppes.  I've been doing a little bit of dungeon finder on the druid and have been pleased to find that the xp per hour from the mid level dungeons seems to have increased a little bit since the first time I did them.  I've been approaching 7 million xp per hour running through dungeons versus around 6 million per hour while questing, so it's obviously very competitive.

The mage will likely be the next toon that I level although I've been debating picking up the rogue next.  Engineering is the last profession that I need to max in order to get the Master of All achievement.

So maybe we'll rogue it instead.

The Mythical Weapons of the Terrace

So I've now run the Terrace of Endless Spring 3 total times on my warlock and have yet to see a single weapon drop.  I've also run it once on my shadow priest with the same result.  If it wasn't for the fact that I have seen other people in the raids get them, I would be starting to be concerned that these weapons did not in fact exist but were simply put there in the Dungeon Journal to torture us.

So, my warlock is still using his 463 staff (now upgraded to 471).

I also now have a total of three characters that are geared enough to do the dungeon finder since my paladin is now there as well.  I'm getting close to being finished with the rep grind on my shadow priest as well.  He's about half way to revered with August Celestials, which is the last one up for him.

All these dailies and LFR runs on all these toons are not leaving a whole lot of time for leveling though, so I haven't really made any progress at all on the druid.  I might quit with the gearing at some point and just focus on leveling, but at least for now, the end game gearing is enough to keep me interested.

Ding! Level 90 #5

I managed to hit level 90 on my paladin last night making it my 5th toon at max level for this expansion and earning me the Quintessential Quintet achievement.  It also pushed me over the 9,000 achievement point level, earning me that achievement, which was unexpected, since I don't really pay much attention to my achievement points.

I finished leveling as ret through Townlong and Dread Wastes which worked quite well, but then immediately geared him out as holy at max level.

Interestingly enough, the rep bonuses from Grand Commendations also count toward rep earned while leveling, so I'm just 1,000 rep away from Revered with Klaxxi already.

The next character up is going to be the druid.

I'm also working through rep grinds on my shadow priest as well.  I hit revered on Golden Lotus yesterday and so have switched to just doing Shado-Pan, August Celestials and Operation Shieldwall now.  Since my warlock is already exalted with all of the original factions, he's just working through Dominance Offensive.

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.