To Hellfire and Back again .... As a Shaman
The speed at which quests stack up and bonus XP accumulates is staggering. I took a portal to the Outlands at level 58. Racked up the two level s quickly to 60 and got my flying mount. This opened up a wealth of opportunities. Collection quests just became 50% easier when you can swoop in and grab whatever you’re after. The back and forth travel got faster. Can I afford an epic flyer? Yes. Probably. I can’t physically get it till I break the level 70 cap on 225 Riding. I’d certainly purchase it for 4200g at Honor Hold. Who WOULDN’T take the 800g tax break? Plus, most people take flying into Shadowmoon Valley like going into Bangladesh, Darfur, or Tiajuana. Avoid it if you can.
I hit Lv64 before I left Hellfire Peninsula. There are THAT many quests in the zone. You can’t avoid making a couple of levels and my drop rate on some of the “kill these for item x” quests were pretty good. I hit 66 wrapping up Zangarmarsh. Get the 30 min buffs to spellpower and attack from the Treant guardians in Cenarion Enclave. Even hybrids can benefit from this cheap and easy buff.
Cenarion Faction. I’ve done this several times and it’s a huge boost to Cenarion Expedition faction gains. DO NOT take any quests in Zangarmarsh without collecting / buying up 200 unidentified plant parts. Ideally the max number is around 300, but the turn ins for the plant parts are repeatable. Grind your faction up to Honored thru turn-ins. Then any quest XP will guarantee your character reaches Revered with the Expedition. All of the tradeskills have one or two good patterns / recipies with this group. Why not max out your faction early? The swamp was going green as the mob level was falling below mine quickly. I needed the faction with the Kurnei in Nagrand as well, so I decided to stick it out. This was also setting up some important quest chains.
Terokkar forest. Not much to say. I hardly knew ye. There were no significant blue drops. I did a few quests and stopped when the rest became green or instance quests. No time to mess around with Auchunei crypts or Mana Tombs. No one goes to those places any more. Off to Nagrand. I got into the zone after hitting Neutral / Friendly with the Kurnei. This is a must. Then you can get the Ortor my Old Friend quest + Sunspring villiage cleansing + Murkblood corruption + another quest. This gives you 5 quests for the same spot. All 5 involve burning or killing something in the area. You can just go to town. The whole carnage took 5 minutes. The flight there and back was more tedious. Shamen don't get AOE, but we can chain lightning rather quickly with Malestorm weapon. We also get wolves and elementals to summon. Too easy.
Gear Upgrades
I gemmed out the Helm from Zangarmarsh and the blue cape from the goblin + Jump-o-Tron . Using a flying mount on the Jump-o-Tron is priceless! I was so over-geared, the Windrock Matriarch was beat down quickly solo and I got the blue DPS cape. Quickly, getting a +22 AGI enchant and crossing cloaks off my list. Both the Old crone and Zelgor the Wise died in seconds. Even 20 minions were trivial matter. Elites like the Felguards and the Demonic Engineers are painful. Luckily, I tagged along with a very nice 80 Paladin and a pair of DK’s at level 69. We did the Ring of Blood and the first Forge Camp: Hate quest chain. Easy 80k xp there plus some gold, potions, and a blue 2H Axe. Am I gonna use the axe? Probably not. I’ve been selling off or replacing my caster set since level 40.
I have the Relic 2 set for Caster Mail Armor. No big. I’ll dual spec Heals at level 70 or 72. This is just to multiply my Raid viability at Lv 80. For leveling, I can stick to grinding out Enhance Shammy dps and shredding anything I meet. Durn the Hungerer? Not quite. Everything else - Yea. It’s toast. I'll ride along with my blues till mid 70s. I've seen 80s with green gear in pickup runs. I plan on being light years ahead of them.
I hit 68 last night . The upper 60’s as a Shaman are just rockin’ good. Level 60, Spirit wolves. Every minute I get to call them in for 15 seconds. I don’t use them enough because, I can’t get mana back from Shamanistic rage. You get that from hitting things. The combined dps of the wolves + myself + totems is too darned high. That’s right. The wolves just tear up stuff for 15 seconds and I have nothing left to hit for mana. 1 minute cool down is quick. Nothing survives long. Mob density is rarely high enough to warrant using them all the time. If I’m in a confined space with enough creatures to absorb all the dps, I’ve screwed up or I’m facing an elite mob alone.
Level 64, Earth Elmental with 10 minute cooldown. Level 68, Fire Elemental with separate 10 minute cooldown. Level 70, Heroism with a 10 minute net cooldown. That’s a lot of dammed power available for oh-shit moments. What shamen don’t get? Aggro reduction. Once I win the threat war, I get to tank. I did a crushing amount of DPS compared to the others in an instance run because I’m a shameless twink. My gear is ugly powerful. However, I don’t get to drop threat. At all. In any manner.
Aggro Reduction
Hunter – Feign
Mage – Invis
Warlock – Soul Shatter
Rogue – Vanish
Priest - Fade
Pally - Bubble
Warrior - ?
DK - ?
Druid -?
Shaman - ?
I can’t think of any way these classes can drop agro. The top 3 classes have Tank specs. Warriors / DKs / Feral Druids can handle a beating. Kitty Druids, Fury Warriors, and Blood DKs get hosed, but I kinda see how that spec is a choice and agro reduction shouldn’t be a guaranteed ability held by all classes. Pure DPS should get aggro reduction. Healers should get aggro reduction. Hybrids…. Meh.
We get Reincarnate. Lol. 100% Guaranteed to drop your threat to 0 every time. Usable every 30 minutes without glyph. Repair costs are at a variable rate for use.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
Twink Gear vs Levelling gear
(Building a better Shaman.)
There's twink gear and there's enchanted/gemmed/blue quality stat enhanced equiment for the gods. We classify twink gear as normally lv 18-19, lv 27-29, or Lv 49-50 item sets geared to overpower and dominate PvP battles. This is where spending 1000g to give your 19 rogue an extra 1000 health, firey weapons, and +90 AGI may give you a big edge in combat. Players enjoy "owning" a PvP bracket and dont' plan on getting any further xp.
Buff Levelling gear is a different vehicle alltogether. Relic items are purchassed thru Conquest / Heroic / Valor / Triumph badges and give your players blue quality gear that scales to your level. This in essence means if you buy a Mail BP and shoulder for your shaman.... That's the last one you'll probably need until he hits level 80 and replaces them with Epics. I've checked. Even Outland/Northrend blues don't beat them. Enchant them up and watch the xp fly past.
Relic Chest + Shoulders. Most crucial pieces. Each adds 10% Extra XP from Killing and Quests. The 2 set give a 20% bonus. The pieces don't even have to match.
Relic weapon. Although they are limited by which enchants you can place on them... Relic weapons have no equal. They rock. Crusader + 15 AGI on my two maces. I'm a shaman. You may change which one you buy for your favorite Newbie. At level 1 they are Insanely powerful. At level 41 they're Awesome. At level 61 they're geat. Eventually they will scale to level 80 and be "Good weapons".
Relic trinkets. Know any good level 1 trinkets? I do. The +Haste and the +Spell power trinets also give 2% to your HEalth and 2% to your Mana when you kill stuff for xp. A bonus to levelling indeed.
Overgemming Armor. At level 58, I hit the Outlands and rolled thru Hellfire Penninsula. Great fun. Very few other players. I could just tear across content. Yay! In the first instance, Hellfire Ramparts, I got a pair of Mail pants and a pair of Mail gloves. The pants are spectacular. Three Gem slots plus attack power, AgiI, Sta, and Int. wow. The gloves have two red slots and more great stats. Normally, with newbie JC gems available in outlands, these gloves and pants can last you at least 5 levels. With a 440+ enchanter and 450 JC recipies, you can have a Monster pair of items. +30 STA, +20 Hit, +60AGI. Adda +30 STA +10 AGI armor kit and a +20 Hit glove enchant. Monster powerful gear.
This stuff will be the last set to get till 70. Normally, I would consider it wasteful to spend 5 epic gemsn and blue armor kits on Lv 60 gear. However, I had the gems in my bank. My stuff is all enchanted. Why NOT gear up myself? My dps from level 58 to level 61 went from 250 dps to 500 dps in group. At level 65, I'm getting a necklace of the deep. +21 AGI, +20 STA, +20Atk, and 2 red gem slots. Seriously?? That's gonna be Overpowerd!!
Some socket items are goldmines. If it's a blue with sockets, you have a safe bet. Greens, not so much. At level 80 it all becomes moot, but get as much mileage out of things as you can before you get to the end of Northrend.
There's twink gear and there's enchanted/gemmed/blue quality stat enhanced equiment for the gods. We classify twink gear as normally lv 18-19, lv 27-29, or Lv 49-50 item sets geared to overpower and dominate PvP battles. This is where spending 1000g to give your 19 rogue an extra 1000 health, firey weapons, and +90 AGI may give you a big edge in combat. Players enjoy "owning" a PvP bracket and dont' plan on getting any further xp.
Buff Levelling gear is a different vehicle alltogether. Relic items are purchassed thru Conquest / Heroic / Valor / Triumph badges and give your players blue quality gear that scales to your level. This in essence means if you buy a Mail BP and shoulder for your shaman.... That's the last one you'll probably need until he hits level 80 and replaces them with Epics. I've checked. Even Outland/Northrend blues don't beat them. Enchant them up and watch the xp fly past.
Relic Chest + Shoulders. Most crucial pieces. Each adds 10% Extra XP from Killing and Quests. The 2 set give a 20% bonus. The pieces don't even have to match.
Relic weapon. Although they are limited by which enchants you can place on them... Relic weapons have no equal. They rock. Crusader + 15 AGI on my two maces. I'm a shaman. You may change which one you buy for your favorite Newbie. At level 1 they are Insanely powerful. At level 41 they're Awesome. At level 61 they're geat. Eventually they will scale to level 80 and be "Good weapons".
Relic trinkets. Know any good level 1 trinkets? I do. The +Haste and the +Spell power trinets also give 2% to your HEalth and 2% to your Mana when you kill stuff for xp. A bonus to levelling indeed.
Overgemming Armor. At level 58, I hit the Outlands and rolled thru Hellfire Penninsula. Great fun. Very few other players. I could just tear across content. Yay! In the first instance, Hellfire Ramparts, I got a pair of Mail pants and a pair of Mail gloves. The pants are spectacular. Three Gem slots plus attack power, AgiI, Sta, and Int. wow. The gloves have two red slots and more great stats. Normally, with newbie JC gems available in outlands, these gloves and pants can last you at least 5 levels. With a 440+ enchanter and 450 JC recipies, you can have a Monster pair of items. +30 STA, +20 Hit, +60AGI. Adda +30 STA +10 AGI armor kit and a +20 Hit glove enchant. Monster powerful gear.
This stuff will be the last set to get till 70. Normally, I would consider it wasteful to spend 5 epic gemsn and blue armor kits on Lv 60 gear. However, I had the gems in my bank. My stuff is all enchanted. Why NOT gear up myself? My dps from level 58 to level 61 went from 250 dps to 500 dps in group. At level 65, I'm getting a necklace of the deep. +21 AGI, +20 STA, +20Atk, and 2 red gem slots. Seriously?? That's gonna be Overpowerd!!
Some socket items are goldmines. If it's a blue with sockets, you have a safe bet. Greens, not so much. At level 80 it all becomes moot, but get as much mileage out of things as you can before you get to the end of Northrend.
Warp Speed levelling
Get that Epic landmount at 40! Do this for every alt you have. The recent patch change is just awesome. How many times have I walked a character thru Stranglethorn vale or Desolace because I didn't have a landmount at level 40. Now we can get 100% movement Epic mount? Get to Zul Farrak and have soemone CRUSH Granzilla for your Carrot on a stick + some mithril spurs. Now you can have 107% Movment whenver you're just travelling on quests.
At level 60, get your Flying mount at Honor Hold / Thrallmar. 150% speed and you can now get your faction rep discount. That's Regular flying for hundreds less. Epic flying for almost 800g below cost. Seriously. Speed at movement = speed levelling. Also, running thru the valley of fecund orcs at level 58 is painful. Flying over the whole mess makes the zone a ton easier. Money is easy to get. The cost of the 225 speed riding skill is relatively inexpensive and would make things a great deal more efficient.
More levelling boosters? Keep a high level toon on hand. Too many times in the past I've been waiting for 5 people to kill Knig Bangalash or some other "hard" mob. Now I keep a 73 pally, 80 druid, or 71 Mage on hand for fast travel / buffs / or general killing. Now here's the TRUE secret about keeping a high level toon on hand. Use him/her sparingly. If you keep a level 80 DK on hand, don't use him for even level mobs. Properly geared, you should trounce creatures your level for max XP gain. I have taken out five mobs my level on one occasion in EPL. Use your High level toon for Elites, Giants, and (Group) quests. Solo everything you can. It takes about the same time to solo 5 mobs for 640 xp or than kill 10 mobs for 82 xp with your level 80 partner. For things clearly out of your league, bring in the big guns. Then send him back. Don't get used to a high level crutch. Learn your class.
Quest XP + Mob xp = Win. The best way to level is to kill things on a shopping list. I'd rather grind 10 mobs and then get 6k quest xp. Then grind another 10 mobs for another 6k quest xp. I've leapfrogged from 40 to 50 in no time. Now I'm coming up to outland zones thinking about which items to pre-stock and which quests I can multi-task. Kill 20 orcs THEN set towers ablaze THEN collect 16 scraps. Or we can play it smart and nuke, collect, and burn as we go. Really, once you've run thru Hellfire Penninsula once, you can run it a hundred times. Very easy. You get faster and more efficient at it.
Lastly, recapture your rest bonus by logging out at a city or Inn whenever possible. Blue xp is huge. 200% xp gains rock. Coupled with the 20% Relic armor set, you get levels in a fraction of the time it takes everyone else. Now to get my first few drops in Outlands under my belt.
At level 60, get your Flying mount at Honor Hold / Thrallmar. 150% speed and you can now get your faction rep discount. That's Regular flying for hundreds less. Epic flying for almost 800g below cost. Seriously. Speed at movement = speed levelling. Also, running thru the valley of fecund orcs at level 58 is painful. Flying over the whole mess makes the zone a ton easier. Money is easy to get. The cost of the 225 speed riding skill is relatively inexpensive and would make things a great deal more efficient.
More levelling boosters? Keep a high level toon on hand. Too many times in the past I've been waiting for 5 people to kill Knig Bangalash or some other "hard" mob. Now I keep a 73 pally, 80 druid, or 71 Mage on hand for fast travel / buffs / or general killing. Now here's the TRUE secret about keeping a high level toon on hand. Use him/her sparingly. If you keep a level 80 DK on hand, don't use him for even level mobs. Properly geared, you should trounce creatures your level for max XP gain. I have taken out five mobs my level on one occasion in EPL. Use your High level toon for Elites, Giants, and (Group) quests. Solo everything you can. It takes about the same time to solo 5 mobs for 640 xp or than kill 10 mobs for 82 xp with your level 80 partner. For things clearly out of your league, bring in the big guns. Then send him back. Don't get used to a high level crutch. Learn your class.
Quest XP + Mob xp = Win. The best way to level is to kill things on a shopping list. I'd rather grind 10 mobs and then get 6k quest xp. Then grind another 10 mobs for another 6k quest xp. I've leapfrogged from 40 to 50 in no time. Now I'm coming up to outland zones thinking about which items to pre-stock and which quests I can multi-task. Kill 20 orcs THEN set towers ablaze THEN collect 16 scraps. Or we can play it smart and nuke, collect, and burn as we go. Really, once you've run thru Hellfire Penninsula once, you can run it a hundred times. Very easy. You get faster and more efficient at it.
Lastly, recapture your rest bonus by logging out at a city or Inn whenever possible. Blue xp is huge. 200% xp gains rock. Coupled with the 20% Relic armor set, you get levels in a fraction of the time it takes everyone else. Now to get my first few drops in Outlands under my belt.
Dual Wield and + Hit
Just a few weeks ago, I decided to dust off my shaman and get him going again. At level 20, the new patch of WoW gives you tremendous bonuses to grind from a riding mount to Relic gear to XP reduction on pre-60 levels. IMHO the most beneficial things to have while levelling are the 2 piece Relic Armor, a Relic weapon, and a high level "buddy".
I took the Enhancement tree to spec before level 80 and the dps has been really great lately. The combat is very intense and visceral, instead of casting 3 dots and fear or Pyroblast and Fireburst. Totem layout and mana recovery being your biggest steady state issues. Afterwards, it's gearing up correctly. The first big hurdle is level 40 = Dual wield.
By level 30, you get your windfury weapon enchant and your windfury totem. Lava Lash is a talent that gives 100% of your offhand weapon damage instantly every 8 seconds. If your offhand is enchanted with Flametongue, you get 125%. I have a slow offhand weapon and was using the PvP Relic dagger. My dps at level 40 was a respectable 69 dps. Getting a slow mainhand works GREAT with Windfury effects. I got a second Relic Mass of McGowan. I enchanted it with Crusader and jumped up to 96 DPS.
Now my only problem is that I'm missing everything I'm attacking. Missing horribly. Nothing could be worse on scrolling combat text and my Recount than Miss, Miss, Miss, Hit, Miss, Miss, Glancing Blow, Miss, Miss. Wow Dual wield sucks. Maybe I sucked. Time to fix things!
I swapped some gear around and got more +hit. Getting more +hit is actually VERY difficult at lower levels. Nothing has gem slots. The first few talent points after Dual Wield must be placed into your three "Accuracy" talents that give +hit. Re-spec if you haven't done this already. Looking at the DPS charts = Pro hint. DPS charts are entirely for YOUR benefit. I don't like to link charts. They're for me to see the fight. Even on my hunter rocking more than 6k DPS on some fights... it's just not cool. So, looking closely, my dps chart gave me a 25% miss chance against level 42-44 mobs at Level 40. The opponents are higher level. They naturally dodge and parry more. It's an uphill battle. I'm probably killing them more with Lightning shield than my own weapon / spell damage. I have to fix that.
Take your +hit talents. Get the +hit necklace made from Jewelcrafting ( Lev 39 crafted item). Hunt down any +hit items. I wound up getting the Mail legs from Marudon, the DPS ring from Princess Theladras, and some +8 hit mail gloves from the AH. All this trimmed my miss percentage to below 10% and my dps from 96 to 250. What a huge jump!
I took the Enhancement tree to spec before level 80 and the dps has been really great lately. The combat is very intense and visceral, instead of casting 3 dots and fear or Pyroblast and Fireburst. Totem layout and mana recovery being your biggest steady state issues. Afterwards, it's gearing up correctly. The first big hurdle is level 40 = Dual wield.
By level 30, you get your windfury weapon enchant and your windfury totem. Lava Lash is a talent that gives 100% of your offhand weapon damage instantly every 8 seconds. If your offhand is enchanted with Flametongue, you get 125%. I have a slow offhand weapon and was using the PvP Relic dagger. My dps at level 40 was a respectable 69 dps. Getting a slow mainhand works GREAT with Windfury effects. I got a second Relic Mass of McGowan. I enchanted it with Crusader and jumped up to 96 DPS.
Now my only problem is that I'm missing everything I'm attacking. Missing horribly. Nothing could be worse on scrolling combat text and my Recount than Miss, Miss, Miss, Hit, Miss, Miss, Glancing Blow, Miss, Miss. Wow Dual wield sucks. Maybe I sucked. Time to fix things!
I swapped some gear around and got more +hit. Getting more +hit is actually VERY difficult at lower levels. Nothing has gem slots. The first few talent points after Dual Wield must be placed into your three "Accuracy" talents that give +hit. Re-spec if you haven't done this already. Looking at the DPS charts = Pro hint. DPS charts are entirely for YOUR benefit. I don't like to link charts. They're for me to see the fight. Even on my hunter rocking more than 6k DPS on some fights... it's just not cool. So, looking closely, my dps chart gave me a 25% miss chance against level 42-44 mobs at Level 40. The opponents are higher level. They naturally dodge and parry more. It's an uphill battle. I'm probably killing them more with Lightning shield than my own weapon / spell damage. I have to fix that.
Take your +hit talents. Get the +hit necklace made from Jewelcrafting ( Lev 39 crafted item). Hunt down any +hit items. I wound up getting the Mail legs from Marudon, the DPS ring from Princess Theladras, and some +8 hit mail gloves from the AH. All this trimmed my miss percentage to below 10% and my dps from 96 to 250. What a huge jump!
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