Jame’s Horde Leveling Guide

I reached level 42 over the weekend, this is due to the fact that I had some extra time to invest into leveling and that I used Jame’s horde leveling guide on wow-pro.com. I do have to admit I don’t follow the guide exactly because there is a lot of grinding suggested, which is one of those things I don’t enjoy too much although it is a good way to gain XP.

Here is a pic of my progress so far…it is almost a race for me in a way to try to level this character faster than any other I have played. I try to keep time spent not gaining experience to a minimum, I do have mining and blacksmithing as profession and try to work on them every once in a while, surprisingly as I follow the guide I seem to find quite a bit of chests, ore and rare mobs throughout Azeroth. I don’t know if this is a coincidence but I am not complaining.

I respecced once again if you click on my armory link at the bottom of this page you will see I am still retribution, but changed a few things, I don’t have the blessing of kings, which isn’t a big deal, to me anyway. So far I am still enjoying my paladin, although I do miss the high dps of my hunter, the play style is just different, it is fun grouping and being the one saving us in the end with divine intervintion, I used it on a 60 priest who was running us in SM Cath and he didn’t know how to turn it off. I thought that was odd, but then again not every healer out there has grouped with a paladin and not every paladin uses or knows how to use that spell…

In any case the grind will slow down this week as I head back to the real world, until next time friends, keep on grinding…

Flamen ~ Blood Knight of the Blackhand

And so the tale continues…last time when we left our heroin of the land she was at level 22. Now, after much bloodshed, sweat and tears she has reached level 30. I changed my talent build as well to mainly retribution…link is HERE

Basically I am going for all out damage, once I reach a level where I will be raiding, needed for healing I will gladly change my talent build. I found a really interesting post on The Holy Light, he writes about going protection build to take on many mobs at one time. The idea is very cool, I might have to look into that at sometime in the future.

Last night I was asked to join a group to go to the Scarlet Monestary, which I said sure, why not, but I didn’t realize I would be the main healer…since we went into the Cathedral, I had to cast Blessing of Salvation on myself so I wasn’t drawing all the aggro in the place…this also hindered my mana regen since I couldn’t use blessing of wisdom, so every single fight I had to stop and drink…everyone in the group was at least level 39, I was only level 30. We only wiped twice, and I didn’t roll need on anything since it was all way higher level than I could use. One thing I was getting irritated by was the warlock would lifetap after every battle, so here is the situation, everyone lives thanks to my expert healing, I am dry on mana, I sit down and drink, I am full on mana, at the same time warlock is life tapping, which means he was using his health to gain mana, we are all ready for the next fight except he is at 25% health…the tank says heal the warlock…after the 5th time I said I am not healing the warlock because he is using lifetap…the warlock says that is fine cause he can drain life…well, he never drained life and I only healed him when he was about to die in battle…so it is one of those situations where myself, as the only healer, have to choose whether to conserve my mana for the benefit of the group or use it all healing this retarded warlock…

Well, these past few weeks leveling my paladin has been a lot of fun, I really do enjoy healing, more than I like to admit I guess…but I also like being in the middle of the action. I ran SFK and WC multiple times playing duel roles of tank/healer, it wasn’t easy at times, but we always made it through. That was before I changed my talent build of course…now I am dealing a lot more damage, escpecially with a 2 handed weapon. Here is a pic of me doing battle in Hillsbrad yesterday…

I have a few people searching and come across my site looking for a Mirage UI screenshot, well here you go, I have it customized to how I like it. I also use healbot for healing, works out well for the most part and makes my job pretty easy. I ran into a little problem the other day when I had the quest where you have to control the robot to get the moonwell water, yeah I didn’t have my pet bar active, so I had to figure out how to find it, took me a few minutes but I got it working and completed the quest…now I have it right out in the open for next time…never know when you will have to control a pet…never even considered that when I hid the petbar…oh well…

Overall I am completely satisfied being a paladin, I love all the bubbles, the spells that counteract almost everything, the fact we get a free mount at 40 and it looks pretty damn cool…I will be a true blood knight in no time, and I can’t wait.

Alt or Main? Does it matter?

I have no reason to start playing another character, maybe someone can help me out with that…I started playing my Troll Shaman and wasn’t having much fun with him…so, I created a blood elf paladin, I really enjoy this toon so far. Spent the weekend leveling up knocking out quests in the ghostlands, eventually making my way to silverpine forest, next step is Tauren Mill. I reached 22 yesterday, did some Wailing Caverns runs, which didn’t get me much gear, just some XP. I have to say that I enjoy playing the horde more than the alliance, mostly because there are less people, and those who do play the horde (for the most part) are willing to help others out and not as greedy. As a gamer who has toons on both sides of the fence I see a big difference in the economy as well. There is less inflation on the horde side, but also less supply, which raises the price on certain items…so there is good and bad on both sides. Overall I do enjoy the skills and abilities of a pally, match those with the mana tap ability and it takes a lot to kill my paladin.
I joined a guild when I first started which is mainly an alt guild, but because I am putting so much time into this toon, it has temporarily became my main…so I had to find a guild with people on, more out of necessity than anything else. Finding other players for group quests and dungeons is difficult enough, for the most part, the other players are around my level, so I look forward to some good times in the future with that.
As far as alt or main goes, I don’t like to put a generic label on my toons, because I have quite a few on the 2 servers I play on, it kind of depends on my mood or what I feel like doing that day. I enjoy seeing the game from both sides, there are so many quests to do, and in a way it is like playing a whole new game. Silvermoon City is really cool, there are numerous mailboxes spread out all over, 2 auction houses, 2 inns, a translocation orb which takes you directly to the undercity. That saves so much time, for example, I joined a WC group, while I was quesing in the Ghostlands and hearthed to Silvermoon, orbed to UC, caught the Zep to Org, then just had to run to crossroads…total time took maybe 20 minutes. Compare that to the Alliance side of the house where if we wanted to go to WC, if I were playing a Dwarf, I would have to run to the Wetlands, catch the boat to Menethil, try to run all the way to WC…total time probably an hour…after the first run you get the flight path, but that first run is always the hardest…and without a mount it just adds to the time wasted. With the new feature of the Summoning Portal at instances it can save all that time if there are 2 people already there…
Transportation has improved a lot since I first started playing a little over 2 years ago, I just hope it keeps getting better.
As far an my alt’s and main’s, they are all creations of me, it is hard to say which toon’s I like the most, some I play part-time, some I don’t play at all, and others I play daily. Some would say it could be attributed to a personality disorder, or some other way of seeking out a path to something…who knows? But I do know I am not the only one out there with a lot of Alt’s, feel free to share your thoughts here…I am curious what other people think about this and how many and possibly why you play alternate toons in this great game of WoW.

Melee Caster Wannabe Witch Doctor Troll

The title best describes my Shaman. I decided to go with a build of 0/40/21. I do enjoy the 2 handed fighting backed up with the capable healing. It is hard to pick just one style and go with that when you have a hybrid class with so many cool abilities. But, after playing this week I have picked Enhancement as my main talent tree.
I reached honored reputation with Thrallmar last night, and I haven’t even reached level 62 yet, but I picked up 2 of these badass axes:

Brunt’s Waraxe.
And I am seeking some attack power and added strength and agility gear to replace half of my gear which is primarily for casting purposes.
It is funny how quickly the gear can be upgraded in the Outlands, I think I only have about 2 or 3 pieces left from the pre-BC days…
Of course choosing your talents is a big decision and I get a lot of visits from people who are looking for a template or maybe just get some ideas. All I can say is pick your talents based on your particular play style and how you play your character the best. Maybe because my first character I ever played in WoW was a warrior I am accustomed to the in your face action of a melee class dealing out the damage and taking the majority at the same time. Like I said in the last post I have retrained my shaman a lot of times, and I will more than likely do it again sometime down the road, but for now I will remain the melee caster wannabe witch doctor troll out there kicking ass.

Multiple Toons (Personalities)

Unlike my previous post stated, I haven’t begun my beast lord set grinding yet. Blame it on ADD or ADHD or whatever, but I decided to go back and work on leveling my long lost troll shaman, Drollam. He is on my original server, Blackhand and I have a friend who plays there part-time as well, so that is nice. The weekend primarily consisted of reaching level 61 and having fun with PVP taking over the stadium, the overlook and broken hill. I teamed up with a blood elf paladin throughout the day and learned some techniques which basically means we were playing hide and go seek… What do you expect when the Alliance outnumber the Horde almost 2 to 1?

Along the same lines I am wondering if I can get some suggestions on a good leveling build for my shaman, I swear I have retrained about 5 times throughout the life of this guy and my current build is 0/30/21, which is alright I guess, but my last build was PVP, focusing on DPS and I really enjoyed that, but it isn’t practical for PVE…I have read wowwiki and their suggestions are what I am using, anyone able to help me out here? Feel free to send me an email or leave a comment, thanks!