Now what?

As I posted last week, I’ve been pretty focused lately on getting Ginnger up to 80.

I’m not a person who has typically had a lot of alts. I mean, I do have alts, but they tend to be lower level alts that I rolled when I was bored. I just goof around on them for a while, then I tend to abandon them around level 20 or so, though a couple made it to the early 40s.

Sindei was one of those alts, languishing at level 24 for ages. Once I picked her back up and got her to 80, she became my new main. I like Ginnger plenty, but have no plans to abandon Sindei. I enjoy shaman healing, but I find that my priest just has more tools and I still love healing with her. Maybe I’m at the point where I just have two mains.

That said, Sindei does see considerably less action these days. She’s already well-geared, but Ginnger has jewelcrafting dailies, rep to grind, and gear to gather. Ginnger’s dailies have taken priority: if I can only do one thing a day online, it’s the jewelcrafting daily. If I have time to run a random, it’s on Ginnger first. Of course, most days I have time to do a lot more than a couple of dailies, but I usually try to do those things first, just in case. Even Sindei’s daily randoms–which I used to log in for religiously — have taken a lower priority. For one thing, I am getting Emblems of Frost from ICC, so I don’t have to rely on just the daily. Besides, she has the T10 2-piece bonus and I’m n0t in such a rush to drop the T9 2-piece bonus, since I like it better than the T10 4-piece.

I love raiding on Sindei, and I love having the haste and the throughput to handle difficult healing situations (usually). But I’m also having a great time running heroics on Ginnger. Not only does Ginnger still need gear, she’s made heroics fun again. I thought I was sick of running heroics. It turns out I was just sick of sleeping through heroics on Sindei. So while I still think of Sindei as my main, and I’ll keep playing and raiding with her, it’s fun to be gearing up a second main. And I should think two mains would be plenty.

Though I did just buy the leather caster heirlooms and an heirloom staff for my level 43 druid….

 

And how have YOU been?

I haven’t posted this week because I have been focused on one thing, and one thing only:

Eight days, 16 hours, 10 minutes, and 37 seconds.

(By the way, that guild chat comment has nothing to do with me leveling!)

 

Catching up…

When last we left our heroes, Sindei had helped to conquer Yogg-Saron, and Ginnger was level 70 and had gone back in Azeroth to level mining and jewelcrafting.

Our raid team is progressing nicely through ICC. We had a little trouble with Saurfang at the end of the Lower Spire, maybe  because we were three-healing the encounter to be safe. As soon as we tried two-healing it, we won the dps race and got Saurfang down. On Friday night we spent some time in the Plague Wing. Festergut didn’t give us too much trouble, but just to be a jerk, he dropped druid healing gear on a night when our druid healer was uncharacteristically absent. Rotface, on the other hand, proved a little more of a problem. I look forward to three-healing that encounter next week, because I think a third healer would help us out on it.There’s an awful lot of damage flying around in there!

In the meantime, to break things up, our team likes to do an off-night activity every other week. I took a poll of our team, and despite my efforts to institute bi-weekly Celestial Steed Parades through Dalaran, it seems everyone else wants to work on Trial of the Grand Champion instead. So we’ll take a swing at that on Tuesday.

After a lot of mining and a lot of spending gold at the Auction House, Ginnger’s mining and jewelcrafting are both leveled up to a reasonable skill for her level. Mining is at 440-ish and jewelcrafting at 430 or so. So at least she can mine where she’s leveling and get the JC daily done every day. I try to get her daily random dungeon done every day, though if push comes to shove, Sindei’s takes precedence. I got Ginnger to 74 last night, so she’ll be questing in Zul’Drak for a little while.

And I don’t want to forget about Children’s Week! Sindei wasn’t my main at this time last year, so she hadn’t done any of this achievement. I grabbed her a couple of orphans from Orgrimmar and Shattrath — sadly, the Dalaran quest seems to be bugged for anyone who did it when it was first released. Everything in the For the Children achievement is pretty easy, with the glaring exception of The School of Hard Knocks. Lucky for me, Day 1 of Children’s Week seems to be an unofficial interfaction cooperation day. Of the four battleground achievements needed, I was able to get three in battlegrounds where Alliance and Horde players worked together to get each other the needed achievements. I’m always glad to see people work together for a common goal. My one “real” achievement was capping the flag in Eye of the Storm, just moments before we were soundly defeated.

After wrapping up Hail to the King, Baby tonight, Sindei is proudly wearing her Matron title and is one step closer to her Violet Proto-Drake. I’m not sure how much of Children’s Week I’ll do with Ginnger, though I did pick up the Children’s Week quest in Dalaran for her. I generally side with the Oracles, but just to try something different this year, Ginnger has a little Wolvar companion in tow.

 

Leveling 1-10

Based on recent reports from Blizzard that 70% of their accounts never make it past level 10, Guthammer of Guthammer’s Last Stand suggested this Blog Azeroth Shared Topic.

When Blizzard recently disclosed that 70% of their accounts never get past level 10, I was a little surprised. Leveling 1-10 is so fast and simple, I was surprised that people give up that quickly. Trials are 10 days long, and the first ten levels only take a few hours.

But perhaps my view of the first ten levels is a little skewed. After all, longtime players have significant advantages over newbies when it comes to leveling.

First of all, I have heirloom gear and funding for any alts I decide to start. Ginger had all available heirlooms equipped at level 1. With a twenty percent XP boost, and the equivalent of blue-quality items, the first ten levels are lightning fast.

And I know the first ten levels. Of course, I’d be a little lost if I rolled Alliance, but after five years of rolling Horde toons, I’m deeply familiar with the starting areas. I know where the mobs are, the fastest way to the major cities, what areas I’ll go to next. I know which quests to do and which ones I want to skip.

I also have the advantage of addons. Brand new players aren’t likely to know about addons and how much they can speed up the leveling process. It doesn’t matter if you use Carbonite, TomTom + Lightheaded, or Quest Helper, these help streamline leveling.

Finally, I have a great deal of social support in the game. When I’m starting a new alt, I can get help from my friends when I need it, whether that’s quick instance runs, downing elites, or just chatting as I crank through the early levels. Unless they come to the game with real life friends, new players have little or no social support: no one to run instances with, no guild or buddies to help or guide them. Ever try asking a newbie question in trade or general chat? It’s not particularly encouraging.

So how do you fix these issues for brand new players?

Some efforts have already been made. The tutorial has allegedly been improved, though I confess I haven’t checked it out yet myself. I actually kind of remember the tutorial as being OK anyway, but as I said, it’s been a long time. Blizzard has added quest helper functionality; I still prefer addons for this, but it should be a big help to newbies. Not everyone wants to spend an hour hunting for the quest location like I sometimes did when I started!

An increase in health and mana regen for low level toons, coupled with decreased mana costs on their early spells, should also help with some of the tediousness of the early levels. (You know: Cast, sit & drink, cast, sit & drink.)

More changes are planned for Cataclysm. All the starting zones are being revamped, with improved flow like that seen in the Blood Elf and Draenei starting areas. Class changes for low levels — giving level one hunters a pet or equipping level one rogues with two daggers, for example — will give players a better feel for their class from the start.

I think all those things will really help new players, but I find myself coming back over and over to the social aspects of the game. Don’t get me wrong — I think the game itself is extremely engaging. But I increasingly find it’s not about just the game for me. It’s much more about the friendships I’ve developed in the game. I find myself logging in just to see if my friends are around, sometime on nights I might otherwise take off of the game.

Blizzard is implementing new guild rewards in Cataclysm, as well as the upcoming Looking for Guild function, to encourage the development of these kinds of relationships in-game. Recruit-A-Friend, too, is meant to encourage in-game relationships, this time by getting your real life friends involved. The more social interaction you have in the game, the more likely you are to keep coming back to it. Conversely, the more asshattery new players encounter, the less likely they are to return.

I’m not sure exactly what Blizzard can do about some of this. Some players are just jerks — we’ve all seen them. Other players will restore your confidence in humankind. Player interactions are really up to the players themselves. We can’t kick the jackasses out of the game, sadly, but we can choose to be helpful and friendly. The game has gone beyond being a game and has grown into a community. I hope most players will decide to welcome others into that community.

A lot of this goes well past level 10, of course. Blizzard is making its effort to help out those new to the game, but established players have a part to play as well. So be a community player, and help a noob get to level 11 (and beyond) today!

 

We did it!

Woot!

My raid team finally got Yogg-Saron down. This had been a bit of a sticking point for us. The initial plan had been to clear Ulduar completely before moving on to Icecrown Citadel. But power outages, screwed up raid lockouts, and scheduling issues frustrated our efforts, and when we could get in to fight Yogg, we found the fight coordination a little troublesome. Last night, we worked it all out and got Yogg down for the first time. Woot!

Of course, we didn’t wait to get Yogg down before we entered ICC, because at some point, it just seemed silly to let this one clusterfluffle of a fight stall out all our progession. Still, it’s nice to have it cleared and feel like there’s no unfinished business. We can really focus on ICC “with a clear conscience,” as our main tank said.

As for Ginnger, she’s now at level 70 and living at Vengeance Landing. I’m running her daily random to save up emblems for when she gets to 80, and doing some questing, of course. But her leveling has been slowed down by my decision to change her profession.

I’d been leveling skinning and leatherworking, because skinning is leveled so naturally while you’re questing, and I could make some decent mail gear with leatherworking while she leveled. On further reflection, however, I decided mining and jewelcrafting would be a much better way to go. It’s something that will benefit all my toons, unlike leatherworking. My rogue is an herbalist/alchemist, so I’ve got that synergy working for me. So now Ginnger has gone back to Azeroth to level mining in between random instance runs. I hate having to go back and do that, but better now than at level 80.

 

Ding!

I’ve been sneaking in an extra hour here and a spare few minutes there, in Winterspring and Silithus, to get Ginnger to 58. In the race to 58, Ginger had never been to Stonard, so I hit up a mage friend for a port and ran her down to the Dark Portal. Outland at last!

I’ve always just leveled by questing solo and running occasional instances in appropriate-level groups. No dungeon run-throughs from higher level players or anything like that. But when Ginnger got to Outland, my druid friend (and raid co-healer) came out to Hellfire and leveled me up to 60 in less than an hour. It was pure awesome!

I’ve run Ramparts several times already, and I’m finding it a lot of fun. When Sindei ran these instances, I was still new to healing, and I was pretty nervous about it. When you’re responsible for keeping everyone alive, that can be a lot of pressure!

With Ginnger, I have a lot more confidence. The specific tools are different, but now I have a deeper understanding of healing. And healing at this level can be more interesting. On Sindei’s daily heroics, the groups are generally experienced and overgeared. They often take little damage, and I don’t have to do much to keep them going. But the groups Ginnger is running with really need her. There’s nothing quite like getting an inexperienced group through a tough situation, saving people who are sure they’re going to die, and at the end of it, seeing “Epic heals!” in party chat.

 

What we are up to these days

Last week, my raid team dipped its toes into ICC. Sure, we’re a little behind the curve in content, but we’re a close-knit, casual team, and we have a great time. We regularly clear ToC, and we’ve cleared most of Ulduar. We’d hoped to get Yogg-Saron down before going into ICC, but that’s taking a little longer than we expected. Yogg is a tough fight, coordination-wise. Several of our team members are relatively new to raiding, so there’s a learning curve. And the fight is complicated!

Of  course, I’m sure we’ll have him down soon, saving the minds of all Azeroth, but in the meantime, we’ve decided it’s time to head into ICC. We’ve done a bit of rep farming in there already, but after a little glitch with the Ulduar 10 raid ID we’d been saving, we took our first swing at the Icecrown bosses last week. We one-shot Marrowgar, who dropped loot for just one raid member (our pally tank/healer). How rude!  Since we didn’t expect to be in ICC that night, we hadn’t really researched the fights, so we wiped on Lady Deathwhisper’s trash before time ran out for the evening. Still, we had a good time, and I’ve no doubt it will be much smoother next go.

I’m resisting the urge to buy Sindei’s T10 gloves. She has 70 frost emblems now, but I’m holding off for a new hat. Currently, she’s wearing four Tier 9 pieces: the shoulders, the gloves, the robe, and the pants. The helm is an offset piece, the Hood of Clouded Sight. (How clouded sight makes me a better healer, I’m not sure, but that’s a question for another time.)

She has the T10 shoulders already, but then I decided not to break the Tier 9 4-piece bonus until Sin had two pieces of Tier 10. I mean, the T9 4-piece bonus isn’t all that, but a bonus is a bonus, I figure. So… if I bought the T10 gloves, she’d have a 2-piece T10 bonus right away, but no T9 bonus at all. So the plan is to go T10 shoulders and helm for the 2-piece T10 bonus, while keeping the pants and gloves for the 2-piece T9 bonus. I plan to buy an offset robe — Meteor Chaser Raiment is better overall for the Disc spec, while Ermine Coronation Robes would be more balanced for both Disc and Holy — and upgrade the T9 pants and gloves last.

Meanwhile, Ginnger continues to suffer the ill effects of my recently curtailed playtime, though I managed to sneak in enough time this morning to get her up to 54.

Soup's on, little guy!

Gin is still living in Tanaris. I wanted to do some leveling in Felwood, but there’s no place for her to live! There’s no inn in Un’Goro Crater either, but I can live in Gadgetzan and fly or run to Un’Goro easily.  Besides, I’m working on that Venomhide mount quest, so it’s convenient to have my hearthstone set there. My to-do list also includes lots of leather farming, so I can get leatherworking up to 300 by the time I hit Hellfire Peninsula. Cooking is way behind, though, and my fishing’s even worse.

I’m eager to get some real grinding time in on Gin so that I can get her moved to Outland soon, but I don’t know when that might be happening. I don’t foresee much extra playtime anytime soon, and next week will be even worse, since I’ll be focused on getting Sindei’s Noblegarden meta.

 

(It’ll be just like) Starting over

What if you were given the chance to start over completely in World of Warcraft? What if you lost your account, and Blizzard offered you the level 80 of your choice (or, if you love leveling, you may start at level 1). Would you stay with your current class? Race? Faction? And what would you do with this brand-new toon? PvE? PvP? Troll trade chat in Dalaran?

If Blizz suddenly offered me a brand-new level 80 for some reason — because my account was lost or hacked or Chris Metzen just decided I was the hotness — I do believe I would just keep my priest. I know I actually haven’t written a lot about my priest here yet, but I really love playing her. She has two — count ‘em, TWO — healing trees to choose from. In fact, I recently dropped my Shadow spec and went back to Holy as my second spec. I wanted some more options for healing and there are some things to love about a Holy spec (i.e., Circle of Healing, a kick-ass Renew, Body & Soul). I’ve been running five-mans as Holy to keep fresh on playing it, because I think Disc is still my stronger raiding spec for most fights.

I probably wouldn’t change race, because I really like the trolls. They’re tall and interesting and the females can stand up straight and Berserking is really quite awesome. So no, I can’t say I would pick a new race. Certainly I wouldn’t change my faction. For the Horde, baby! And if I’m taking my priest back, I definitely want her at 80 already.

All that said, I do love to try out new classes. I’ve rolled every class in the game at this point, at least to give them a try. And I have, in fact, started over several times.

My first real main was my hunter. I loved having a pet to help me solo anything. My bear, Treadwell, was my faithful companion, keeping mobs off me while I killed them. It was easy mode.

I started fooling around with a rogue alt soon after Burning Crusade came along. I loved getting the jump on my enemies, stealthing up behind the unsuspecting and picking their pockets before swiftly slaughtering them. I could sneak around mobs I didn’t feel like fighting. I stealthed my way through the pet quests in Blackrock Mountain, and snuck past enemies to get my Elder achievement at the lunar festival. My other toons had to fight their way through, but not Marsha. She just slipped past. It was this character I took up to level 80 and discovered raiding with.  The hunter remains on an abandoned server, stuck at 66, probably forever.

I had some other alts: a warlock and a warrior and a druid… but none were as much fun as my rogue. I started a priest, but it was brutal. I died all the time. Leveling was taking forever because I was always on a corpse run. I dumped her at level 24.

Ha! I picked her up again, months and months later. I got her a pair of heirloom shoulders and learned to be a lot more careful with my pulls. I tried out some healing in low-level dungeons and while it made me anxious, I also kind of liked it. Marsha was still my main, but I was liking Sindei more and more. I knew Marsha would always be my main, but I was spending a lot of time on Sin, especially once I hit 80 and wanted to gear her up. Before I knew it, Sindei was definitely my new main, and Marsha only came out for farming.

Lately, as you know, I’ve been leveling an Ele/Resto shaman. I wonder sometimes if I am starting over again. I spend a lot of my spare time leveling Gin, though I never neglect Sindei’s daily frost emblem run. I’m healing lots of PuGs with my shammy and enjoying it quite a bit. It’s a different healing style, but I like it. I can’t say I like it better than priest healing, but I do like it. I don’t think I would give up my priest — but I guess I won’t know till I get there.

This week’s Blog Azeroth Shared Topic was suggested by Pieces at Blasting Away.

 

Level 50!

So I did get Ginnger to level 50 over the weekend, though I had to stay up into the wee hours Sunday night / Monday morning to do it. My husband is still at home recuperating from major surgery, so my usual play times are all askew… WoW interruptus, if you will.

For the last couple of levels I’ve been questing in Tanaris, partly because I’m also leveling my leather working and I need to farm Scorpid Scales for my Dragonscale Leatherworking quest.

I did pick up several PuGs last night to make 50. First I healed BRD, and the group was fine until the dps warrior rolled Need (and won) on the mail boots clearly meant for me! I asked, “A warrior needs spellpower and int?” To which he responded, “I like to sell them,” and promptly dropped group. These were BOP boots, of course, so he swiped my shoes so he could vendor them. What a tool!

Whatever… the next random was a repeat of BRD, so I got my boots at the end of that run. Then I dps’d for an awesome Sunken Temple run with two other shamans. (I’m really happier healing, but you can’t hog up all the fun, I guess.) Yes, there was also a tank and another dps, but that’s not important. What matters here is how shaman-tastic the ST run was. I dinged 50 right at the end of that run.

The trainer had lots of new spell ranks for me, of course, and Call of the Spirits, which lets me have a third set of totems to set down at once. So I  can now have three pre-picked sets to choose from on my totem bar, which is nice. But of course at 50, the juicy stuff is your 41-point talent: Earth Shield (for Resto) and Totem of Wrath (for Elemental). Woot!

My plan is to stay in Tanaris long enough to get those Scorpid Scales farmed. I want to get over to Un’Goro as well, since it’s right next door and I’d like to get started on my Venomhide Ravasaur quest. Besides, I like Un’Goro Crater: there’s a whole lotta quests so you can level up fast. And you know, I like the green areas with lots of vegetation and creatures to skin.

I know the Western Plaguelands are supposed to be a great place to level in the early 50s, but I don’t care for the Plaguelands much, so I may skip it. I’ll probably head over to Felwood instead, then up to Winterspring for the last couple of levels before Outland. If I can get a couple levels out of Winterspring, that is; I recall that there aren’t quite as many quests there as I would like.

 

Update from Camp Mojache

After a semi-hiatus from WoW for the past few weeks, I’ve finally had time to pick up Gin again for leveling. Major surgery for the Hubby and a guest from out-of-town have kept me busy, so while I’ve managed to get on every day for Sindei’s two frost emblems, I haven’t had any time to level Ginnger. I did find some time this weekend to run her through a couple of levels (yay, rested bonus!) and dinged 46 last night.

She’s settled in Feralas for the time being. I forgot how much I like Feralas: it’s lush and green and there’s weather, and hippogryphs, and sprite darters, and lots and lots of quests. And I love leveling the shammy. It’s the only class I’d never even rolled until now. I wanted to level another healing class to try something different, even though I do love my priest. I have a level 42 druid, but the other main healer in my raid is a druid, so I thought something different would be good. I have a level 22 paladin, but I didn’t enjoy the class too much. That left a shaman, and the idea just hit me right. So I rolled a toon, sent her a bunch of heirlooms, and off we went.

I’m leveling Elemental, so my gear can double for Resto. I know people say Enhancement is faster, but I’ve found I don’t care much for melee anymore. I prefer to stand back from the action, where I can better see what the heck is going on. I dual specced at 40, though I could have waited until 60.

The shaman is certainly easier to level than the priest was. For one thing, Gin’s not nearly as squishy as Sindei was, and she can kill things reasonably fast. The heirloom experience bonus is fantastic, of course. Sindei had the shoulders, but Blizz didn’t give us the heirloom chest until Sindei was around 70. The levels really fly by on Ginnger with both. I enjoy the spells and the totems. The LB, LB, LB rotation isn’t the most exciting, but I shake things up with some frost or flame shocks. I’ve even been doing some AOE grinding… I drop mana spring and magma totems and just chain lightning and fire nova them all down, healing myself in between. It’s not the most mana-efficient way to do it, but it is fun.

Life remains a bit hectic right now, but things are settling down enough that I think I can get the show back on the road. Hitting 50 by next weekend seems like a reasonable goal.