Patches, Gold and Levelling

No, my Worgen is not called 'Patches'. I want to discuss briefly both patch 4.1 and 4.2.

4.1 dropped very recently, and it caused some of my addons to go a little haywire. I still have an issue because of the nameplate changes, but that should hopefully be resolved soon enough.

My biggest issue has actually been with auctioneer, for whatever reason. And so, after getting rid of addons I don't use and reinstalling LUI, I switched out auctioneer for auctionator. And I haven't looked back. I don't intend to spend a lot of time sorting out auctions, but I do still have quite a few glyphs and a few enchants to pawn off on my main server*; and I want to continue working towards a wee stockpile on my new server, with my little Worgen priest.

*Of course, I use TSM for posting glyphs and enchants.

Patch 4.1, Rise of the Zandalari, is not something I've actually got into. My mage is still plodding along through the original Cataclysm content; I have a long way to go still with reputation and quests!

Zandalar can wait; and in fact, the two new five-man heroic dungeons, Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman, are inaccessible to me right now, with an iLevel far below the recommended 346. Until I manage to get a few more heroic items, they will continue to be out of reach. But at least this gives people time to get used to the dungeons so that there will be less chance of frustrating chain wiping when I finally do get to experience the content. As with the other heroics now, thankfully. :)

The Zandalari quest chain is also something that I want to delve into sometime — hopefully — before patch 4.2.

Ok, so speaking of 4.2, Blizzard want to roll it out as soon as possible; and so information surrounding it started being churned out for us the day after 4.1 went live! We have seen the new caster legendary, the new dynamic questing hub with its own world tree, a preview of the Firelands, the tier 13 raid with Ragnaros and his six goonies, Tier 13 itself; and many more cool and exciting things surrounding this major content patch.

In fact, maybe if you haven't already, you should check out this video released by the development team:

I may never raid, but I still want to immerse myself in the story and experience as much as I can with my limited playtime and busy schedule. And that means trying to get through all of the current content first — at least, as much as possible. As I said, there is a lot of questing and reputation grinding ahead still. At least Deepholm is almost over and done with now!

My Worgen priest is level 21. I did the level 20 priest quest, Favored of the Light, that requires you to go to Shadowfang Keep. The reward was Staff of the Hallowed, but during the run I got Odo's Ley Staff, which has higher intellect — and is thus better.

I have also made 50-60g total from auctions. Not bad for level 21. It is hard to pinpoint the exact amount without running beancounter, as I have spent some coin on things. I've bought maybe four pieces of armour that I managed to find (not much supply at this level), for various prices ranging from less than a gold to a couple of gold each. And I spent a bit of gold on two more 12-slot bags (7-8g each), so my priest is now decked out in all 12-slot bags. That's a lot of space for a level 21 toon, actually; even taking into account the herbalism and skinning I hope to do as I continue to quest.

So now my bank toon is sitting on about 27g, with a little leather and maybe a handful of herbs yet to put up. Actual gold is always so liquid: even at this level of dabbling! But I just can't help myself. :p

Progress in Darkshore has been steady. I must have finished more than half of it by now. And the storyline has been very cool. The zone has changed so much, and it's just amazing seeing everything that is going on there. Malfurion standing in the middle with a big whirlwind spinning around him: epic.

So now it becomes a balance between completing zones and enjoying heroics with Gaiwyn, and completing quests and enjoying the fresh levelling experience with my Worgen. The game has gained new excitement for me, and for that I am partway glad. :o

Peace.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Worgtastic AKA Worgasmic

On the weekend, I took the plunge and rolled a Worgen priest. Since my character slots are all full for Proudmoore, I chose a new server to play on. A new toon with no support, starting from scratch. It's awesome! Feels so fresh.

So far, my priest has reached level 14 and I have started scratching the surface of Darkshore - the changed Darkshore. Since the Cataclysm, I haven't quite explored the entire world. Sure, I've seen a lot of it (maybe most of it, at a glance) through flying around doing Archaeology with Gaiwyn (which incidentally is at 515 now, though no Staff of Sorcerer-Thane Thaurissan in sight. Might help to actually gather Dwarf fragments...). But questing in the changed areas just adds to the freshness and coolness of playing through the game again.

I picked up two gathering professions: Skinning and Herbalism. Hopefully they will boost my gold reserves in the long run. It may even be well within my interests to head through Darnassus to the greater Night Elf starting area to level my herbalism a bit; since Peacebloom and Silverleaf seem to be far from common in Darkshore.

It was great to play through the Worgen starting zone - even though I had, unfortunately, already experienced the entire thing through TotalBiscuit's beta videos. At the end of the starting zone, when I was safely guided to Darnassus, I was finally able to put my goblin skills to use: I quickly looked through the auction house and put up whatever was in my bags and wasn't in abundance on the market. I really should turn auctioneer on for my new toon to better gauge things, but for now I'm taking things slowly and at a relaxed pace, without worrying about the minor details.

Well, suffice to say, I had good fortune. The next time I logged in, I had around 6g sitting in my inbox. From 97s to 6g in 24 hours for a level 12 toon on a fresh server is pretty good. I then bid on some 8-slot bags for 10s each, and the next day grabbed those out of my inbox, too. I will upgrade to 12-slotters when I get the chance, in order to better collect leather and herbs; then we'll see how well such lowbie reagents sell.

I guess I owe a big thank you to the guys at the JMTC community, because without being a part of that I would never have thought to attack things head on from the get-go. 6g is nothing in light of my main's stockpile of 65,000g; but I was still pretty stoked at this wee victory - and it's all the gold I have on my new server. It is actually really neat to start afresh. It has really put things into a new perspective for me. And I totally look forward to levelling this fresh toon to level 58, and experiencing the new quest chains and altered zones.

And who knows: if I end up making it to level 58, I may well push to 60, leap into Outland and keep on going, one quest and one instance run at a time.

If I can get patch 4.1 installed without too much hassle at lunchtime today, I may just have a little time to continue questing in Darkshore. Have I mentioned just how relaxing it feels to be levelling a brand new toon in a brand new place? I would recommend it to anyone who has become disillusioned with the game recently. Although, of course, with a new patch having just landed, there is now a lot more for people to sink their teeth into. I have a lot of original content (4.0.1-4.0.6) to wade through still, but I'm sure there are a lot of not-so-casual players out there itching to belly flop into the added flavours.

Since I don't have all that much time to play, before rolling my first Worgen, I was focusing on Gaiwyn. I did a few normal instance runs when I could fit them in, and got a few gear upgrades - boss drops and Justice Point purchases.

I weighed up how I was progressing and decided to try and hit up heroics. So I did a heroic, and it went really well. My first heroic was Throne of Tides. The other four party members were from the same guild and I managed to hold my own while learning the encounters. There was even a point where the tank went down and this hunter and I ended up kiting the big guy around until he dropped. It felt... exultant.

My second heroic, and the last one I managed to do, was Lost City of the Tol'vir. It was a ten-minute run for me, since I warped in at the second to last boss. We one-shot him, and proceeded to womp the last boss. Ironically, the one drop I got was an upgrade from Mantle of Master Cho to Mantle of Master Cho. :)

All that remains is balancing my time spent playing my mage (currently questing in Deepholm) and playing my little protégé, as he struggles and triumphs through storyline after storyline, zone after zone.

Peace.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore

Deepholm at 82

A spanner has been thrown in the works and when that happens, one must consider an alternate plan: create a contingency to jolt your plan back into working order.

My dilemma occurred when I researched how to get to Deepholm. But why would you want to go to Deepholm, Gaiwyn? The answer is simple: Elementium Ore. It is by all accounts the best zone for mining the new minerals. Sure, Twilight Highlands and Uldum are some great high-level zones and will prove to have a good number of node spawn points; but Deepholm is where the serious miners will farm. It's freaking underground!

Deepholm: Elementium Ore Mining Circuit

It turns out that to get to Deepholm you must be level 82. The only other way to get there is to ask for a Warlock summon. Good luck with that in early days.

So my choices are now three-fold: level my chosen miner to 82 before seriously focusing on mining in Deepholm for profit; try to play the auction house - buy as cheap as possible and resell for profit; or simply head to Uldum or Twilight Highlands and grit my teeth at the fewer nodes and higher level mobs with large aggro radii.

Option 1: Level to 82
Gidaeon is the warrior on my second account. Originally, he was on my primary account but I transferred him at the end of TBC to what was then my brother's account. He took him from 70-80 and played him a bit - mostly as a tank - in WotLK. Since then, my brother has quit playing the game and so I inherited his account as my own secondary account; essentially giving me back my old warrior to do with as I please - an entire account to do with as I please.

His second profession is maxed blacksmithing. This could prove to be fruitful also, in the long run, if I put a little time into levelling it for Cataclysm.

My initial plan was to pop 4x Mammoth Mining Bags onto him, zoom around Icecrown until I get mining up to 470 off Saronite nodes, and then head over to Deepholm to do a few mining spirals for Obsidium Ore. But since there is no way to get to Deepholm before picking up the quest from Naraat the Earthspeaker in Stormwind, in order to do this I would have to level him to 82.

This is not entirely out of the question. If I dual-box I can level both Gaiwyn and Gidaeon in tandem. Gaiwyn will definitely have the XP advantage, though, as I have 25 daily quests ready to hand in for a nice little boost on my way to 81. It also means that at 85 there will be a few more quests to complete for extra gold.

So this is one of my options. Once Gidaeon hits 82 I could then proceed to spiral around Deepholm tapping any nodes that I encounter before any of the dozens of other miners out there doing the same thing, while Gaiwyn picks up and levels Archaeology in the old world. A fairly sound plan.

Option 2: Sit at the Auction House
My second option is to sit at the auction house, buy up herbs, ores and leather for reselling, refresh glyphs, and slowly trickle out levelling and twink items for all those people who will have rolled new Worgen and be looking for gear to boost them or deck them out.

At the same time I would probably be levelling Gaiwyn in Hyjal; not too difficult to do dual-boxing, as not much concentration is needed to sit at the auction house on my other account.

The advantage of this is being able to snatch* what I estimate to be good deals as well as getting my goods out there to make a bit of profit as I go. The disadvantage is that Gidaeon will be no closer to 82 and able to go to Deepholm to mine, if I so wish to do so in future. Farming is not my thing; but there is no better time to mine the new ore than the first few weeks of the expansion.

* Turns out that you can set your snatch list for the new materials now. Read this great post by Mike over at Server Fifth: Build Your Snatch List Now.

Option 3: The High Level Zones
Forgoing levelling at all is my final option. I would still get to 470 mining (475 when my old Gauntlets of Might mining gloves are equipped) in Icecrown, but then shoot off straight to either Uldum or Twilight Highlands. I'm currently not sure which is the better of the two in terms of chance of being splattered into the ground by high level mobs camping nodes, but I'm sure they are both equally plausible for doing mining circuits.

The advantage of this is no waiting around and thus very little, if any, competition. Soon as my mining is high enough for the new ore, I can fly straight to one of those zones and go crazy finding nodes and tapping them out for their sweet, sweet juices. The disadvantage is being splattered into the ground by... well, you get the picture.

Twilight Highlands: A Rough Mining Circuit

This is the decision that I have just over a day to make. Come tomorrow I will be leaving very early for the conference out in the city (a two hour drive, at least). It finishes 30 minutes after Cataclysm goes live, and I have to then leave the location and drive somewhere to grab a bite to eat / snacks and drinks for the long night ahead, and head to the hotel to check in to my room.

Here's hoping that tonight I can set everything up that needs to be set up, ready to go, with my toons logged out at strategic locations, and my bags and banks sorted out ready for everything that is going to happen over the next few weeks of play.

Whatever happens, I look forward to everything that tomorrow night will bring. And whatever your plans are, so should you.

Peace.

Gaiwyn of Proudmoore