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Wednesday, July 25, 2007

5 Joana's Horde Leveling Guide Tips

I've had to take a short break from leveling Sango this week due to reduced play time. Since I don't have further updates to my ongoing review of Joana's Horde Leveling Guide, I thought I'd share a few tips on getting the most out of the guide.

1. Leverage Your Rested Experience. If you're using the guide like I am, to get the most out of your limited play time, make sure you always park your character at an Inn or City to gain rested experience. Try to play to a cutoff point in the guide that ends with you hearthing or going to a city to get the greatest benefit.

2. Don't ALT-TAB to read the guide! If you have dual monitors set up, then by all means, read the guide on your second screen. If you don't, then print out the section(s) you're working on from the PDF. If you really need to see a video on the quest, then tab over to the HTML version and check it out. You won't need anything but the steps in the guide, however, if you follow the next two tips.

3. Get a map mod that reveals your map. I'm using a mod called Metamap. There are two advantages to this approach: First, most map mods let you see your X,Y coordinates and find coordinates on the map by moving your cursor over it. That's what all the numbers in parenthesis are in the guide that look like this: Go to (41,75). The second advantage is obvious: Your new character won't have the map uncovered yet.

4. Get a mod called Lightheaded. This mod lets you see the wowhead.com entries for your quests in the quest window. It's simply a database of the quest summary info from wowhead and the user's comments. This saves you from having to tab out to go to a database site to look up quests you're unfamiliar with. It's a HUGE TIMESAVER.

5. As an alternative to printing the PDF, you can also get a notepad mod that lets you type in it while in game. All you need to do is highlight the text for your next steps and then use the Windows copy function (control + c), then in game, put your cursor in your notes mod and hit control-v to paste the text.

Now, get out there and level!
Horde: Joana's Horde Leveling Guide
Alliance: Brian Kopp's Alliance Leveling Guide

Monday, July 16, 2007

Marama's Very Short Guide to Heroic Underbog

I finally got a chance to run a Heroic mode instance. I haven't done one up until now for lack of finding a guild group on my PVE server. Fortunately, my PVP server guild have all dinged 70, so we've started hitting heroics.

This will be a very short guide, because frankly, Heroic Underbog doesn't rate any lengthy explanations.

OUR GROUP:

Our group make up was as follows: Arms Warrior (Tank), Feral Druid (DPS/tank), Holy Paladin (offhealer, DPS...no, really), Holy/Disc Priest (Main Healer), and a Rogue (DPS). Everyone has decent, but not amazing gear. Everyone has good enough gear to start Karazhan, without being dead weight, but without being maxed out for pre-Raid gear either.

An ideal group would replace one healer with a mage or other DPS with good CC. You don't really need two healers for this run, but it's perfectly doable with a lower DPS group.

We had the Warrior tank all the bosses since my Druid has slightly better DPS. This worked fine with only 3 pts in Tactical Mastery in Prot on the Warrior.

TRASH:

Underbog is a pretty easy Heroic. The trash pulls are all the same as in the normal mode, but the mobs are level 70-71. We used minimal CC on the trash pulls. Just Sap and some Hibernation. The only thing you have to remember is to separate the healers in the shambler groups and the groups before Gha'zan, so you can beat down the rest of the group. For the larger pulls, we just used two tanks, with the DPS on my druid's guys first, so I could go kitty and help dps down the warrior's adds when they were done.

The only tough trash pulls were the Underbog Lords. The trick with these guys is that they're all "RAWR! Hulk smash puny adventurers! The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets!" So, it's good to have high DPS for these guys. We didn't have huge DPS, but the bear/healer combo was good enough.

BOSSES:


Hungrafen: Pretty much the same tactics as on Normal mode, except that he spams the mushrooms like crazy. You just have to clear a bit more trash (more rep!) before his ramp, and kite him down the ramp instead of run circles up top. The two Bog Lords before him were harder. I tanked both on my druid, and we got one down. Then we ran back and killed the other one. I think with a higher DPS group, a decently-geared bear tank could handle both.

The loot: Girdle of Living Flame. Sharded. Seems like a decent Elemental Shaman belt though.

Gha'zan: Again, same tactics as in normal mode. Even with our DPS being a little low, he went down fast. Our tank brought him off the platform and put her back against the wall at the bottom of the ramp leading up to him. This worked perfectly for positioning him. You'll see warnings about avoiding his tail, as per normal, but it's worth mentioning that rogues and druids can dps from the rear. Remember, the rear arc is a 180 degree arc, so you can be on the side of his hit box and still back stab/shred by standing a little off center to the rear.

The Loot: Dunewind Sash. Went to our Rogue.

Swamplord Musel'ek: Again, identical tactics to normal fight. I pulled the Swamplord back down the hall a bit, and killed him with the rogue and pally while the warrior offtanked Claw with the priest healing. Then we killed Claw. Pretty straightforward fight.

The Loot: Armwraps of Disdain. Our Rogue scored again! Lambent Chrysoprase, went to our Priest.

The Black Stalker: Ah, end boss! Loot piƱata! The biggest difference here is that he spawns a bunch of Mini-Me's. Ignore them and DPS him down fast. We tried using Warrior and Priest fear cycling, but they're immune to fear.

The Loot: Primal Nether, went to our Warrior to upgrade her mace. Barkchip Boots, went to my Druid. Demonfang Ritual Helm, went to the Priest. Endbringer, went to the Pally.

Overall, a really easy, quick run. Some nice loot and four Badges of Justice. I highly recommend Underbog if you're looking for an easy "starter" heroic. Everything does hit harder, especially the Underbog Lords, but overall difficulty isn't any worse than the normal level 70 wings of other dungeons. The tactics are simple enough that you could probably get run it with a PUG with a reasonable chance of success.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

WoW Patch Notes for 2.2 Up

Patch notes for 2.2 are up!

Will comment later, just thought I'd throw this out there. Went up yesterday. When my internet was down ALL DAY AND NIGHT. Grr.

UPDATE: You know, commenting on patch notes is really kind of fruitless. So, I won't actually ever be updating this post with comments. =P

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

No Skeletons for U Chinese People!

I thought this was interesting: Skeletons have been removed from the Chinese version of WoW. I believe China has some strict laws on violence in games, but really... I wouldn't mind if we got rid of skeletons on US servers too! They seriously pile up in some world PVP areas, and I think contribute to framerate drops. The article doesn't state if this means all skeletons and bones or just those from PVP deaths, but I'm assuming the latter, as removing all the scenic ones strikes me as too much work for Blizzard to bother with. (If it is ALL bones and skeletons, then we know why the male orc shoulders haven't been fixed!)

BONES and skeletons have disappeared from the Chinese version of the popular online fantasy game, World of Warcraft (WoW), sparking fierce criticism from the nation's army of players.


Read more.

Falling Gnomes Caught on Film

Someone caught the falling gnomes on gamecam!

I don't really condone these scumbags, but I find this attempt at spam strangely amusing, so I'm compelled to share this video. Note, the person who made the video seems to have taken an effort not to show the URL, so good on him (or her) for not promoting our creative and amusing scumbags.


Falling Gnomes: A New Gold Spamming Technique?

I got a kick out of this article I found on QJ.net:


"We've all seen salesmen who would do anything to get a sale, it seems that the gold spammers in World of Warcraft have once again taken it one step further with a new marketing campaign: Falling Gnomes. These level 1 gnome warriors were plummeting to their deaths in Ironforge with their bodies spelling out the name of a site that peddles gold."

The full article is HERE.

I haven't spotted any falling gnomes yet, have you?

Burning Crusade Rep Maximizing Page Updated

Made a small update to the BC Reputation guide.

In the nutshell: If you grind Coilfang instances to Heroic you can actually hit Revered off of quests alone.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Guide to Pre-Karazhan and Pre-Heroic Druid Cat DPS Gear

EDIT: 11/20/07. Season 3 is starting on Tuesday 11/27. That means a new feral Gladiator set (without the +heal, adds +hit and armor ignore, very nice for PVE) is coming out. Season 1 Gladiator gear is becoming buyable with honor points and new Leather and Dragonhide boots, belts and bracers are coming out. Even if you don't like to PVP much, I highly suggest grinding the honor as much as you can stand, until you collect these epics.

If you've just dinged 70 and you want to get some decent cat dps gear before you head into Karazhan or Heroics, then you're in luck. As with bear druids, cat druids have quite a few goodies available from quests in the Burning Crusade.

This list is a little different from the bear tanking list, in that I've pulled most of these items straight from Emmerald's lists. The items will be listed in the order of their DPS from highest to lowest on the sustained dps list. Emmerald's system of converting stats to DPS gain from items is pretty solid, so I figured why reinvent the wheel?

If you want a whomping big DPS gear list, Emmerald has two that fit that descripition:

Emmerald's Cat Druid Sustained DPS Gear List
Emmerald's Cat Druid Burst DPS Gear List

Ok, now for my recommendations. All of this stuff is pretty easy to get, and rates pretty high on Emmerald's list.

One thing I'm not including are various green items "of the Tiger." Often, these will rank very highly on the list because of the STR and AGI. . Since cats don't have a good aggro dump, and a lot of fights involve damage to the whole group, I recommend you have a fair amount of STA even on DPS gear. As usual, the crafted BoP epics are very good, and if you have leatherworking or engineering, you should definitely take advantage. The dps figurines from jewel crafting are also very nice.

HEAD:

Cobrascale Hood (Crafted) It's epic, but it only slightly edges out Helm of the Claw, so I'd advise passing unless you have cash to burn.
Helm of the Claw (Quest in Steam Vaults)
Stealther's Helmet of Second Sight (Quest in Shadowmoon Valley)

NECK:

Haramad's Bargain (Consortium Exalted Rep)
Necklace of Trophies (BoE World Drop) This gains on Natasha's because of the +Hit. If you're already at 5-6% from other gear, Natasha's pulls ahead.
Natasha's Pack Collar (Quest in Blade's Edge Mountains)

BACK:

Vengeance Wrap (Crafted) Expensive, and lacks Stamina, but most DPS from a cape you'll find outside a raid.
Capacitus' Cloak of Calibration (Mechanar Drop)

SHOULDERS:

Expedition Scout's Epaulets (Alliance Only Quest, Shattered Halls)
Blackened Leather Spaulders (Kurenai Revered Rep)/Talbuk Hide Spaulders (Mag'har Revered Rep) A pretty easy rep grind, and well worth it.
Shoulderpads of Assassination (Shattered Halls Drop) The rep shoulders above are a little better, and don't need costly gems to get the most out of them.
Cleansed Fel Pauldrons (Aldor Questline in Netherstorm)

CHEST:

Chestguard of the Talon (BoE World Drop) This can usually be gotten off the Auction House very cheaply. In sustained DPS, it's rated slightly below the Tunic of Assassination, which it outperforms on burst DPS. Considering the gems to bring the Tunic of Assassination up to par are worth more than this chest, it's the clear winner in my book.

WAIST:

Belt of Deep Shadow (Crafted) I'm only listing this to tell you not to bother with it. It's a BoE crafted, but the mats list includes two Nether Vortex which only drop in 25 mans. At this stage in raid progression it's unlikely any guild who has the resources to make one is selling many outside their guild, and if they were to sell one, the price is sure to be high. However, if you're rich or know the right person to get one made, it's an outstanding belt.
Veteran's Dragonhide Belt / Veteran's Leather Belt (PVP) The Leather slightly edges out the Dragonhide in DPS, but I don't mind trading less than 1 DPS and a little STA for the INT. The extra Armor doesn't hurt either if the going gets tough and the tough go bearing.
Socrethar's Girdle (Scryers Quest in Netherstorm)

WRIST:

Veteran's Dragonhide Bracers (PVP) Fourth on the list for both burst and sustained DPS. Clear winner over the Leather version. These are the easiest to attain epic PVP piece, and considering their placement on the list, there's no excuse not to get them, even if you hate PVP.

LEGS:

Clefthoof Hide Leggings (Quest in Blade's Edge Mountains) Easy and fun quest line. No reason not to get these. They're ranked fourth for burst DPS and ninth for sustained DPS. Best choice for pre-raid or pre-heroic legs. Unlike their closest attainable counterparts, they don't require gems to get the most from them.

HANDS:

Gloves of the Unbound (Arcatraz Drop) If you're going to farm for gloves, these are the ones to farm for. Slotted with two STR gems, they blow away Wastewalker Gloves and Handgrips of Assassination.
Fel Leather Gloves (Crafted) These fall a little under 2 DPS behind Wastewalker and Assassination in sustain damage and beat them by a good margin in burst damage, and you can get them without relying on a lucky roll. These do lack any STA, however.

FEET:

Veteran's Dragonhide Boots/Veteran's Leather Boots (PVP) Again, the Leather beats the Dragonhide a little on sustained, and a bit more on burst dps. I'd opt for the INT, personally.
Fel Leather Boots (Crafted) Makes a good showing on the DPS list, but again, totally laking in STA. In my opinion, go pvp for the belts, boots and bracers, it's worth the effort.
The Master's Treads (BoE World Drop) Not half bad. Can use these until you get better if you find a deal on them at the AH or get them from a drop. Stealth bonus is a nice perk.

RINGS:

A'dal's Command (Sha'tar Exalted Rep) Will take a lot of TK runs, but there are enough other items on this list in TK instances to make it a no brainer if you like doing instances.
Overseer's Signet (Aldor Quest in Netherstorm) If you're Aldor, this is a great option, almost equal to A'dal's Command (and listed higher on burst dps by Emmerald)
Acrobat's Mark of the Sha'tar (Quest in Shadowmoon Valley)
Kaylaan's Signet (Aldor Quest in Netherstorm) From the same quest that gives Cleansed Fel Pauldrons.
Slayer's Mark of the Redemption (Quest in Shadowmoon Valley) Identical stats to Kaylaan's Signet, but not a faction specific quest.

TRINKETS:

Skyguard Silver Cross (Shat'tari Skyguard Exalted) It's a rep grind, but it's probably worth it. Great DPS trinket.
Hourglass of the Unraveller (Black Morass Drop) Another great crit trinket.
Bladefist's Breadth (Quest in Hellfire Peninsula) Yep, it's good all the way to 70.
Abacus of Violent Odds (Mechanar Drop)
Badge of Tenacity (BoE, World Drop) Great for tanking and not too bad on DPS. Good if you want to save some bag space.
Fetish of the Fallen (Auchinai Crypts drop)
Mark of Conquest (Zangarmarsh World PVP Reward)
Core of Ar'Kelos (Quest in Netherstorm)
Uniting Charm (Alliance Quest in Nagrand)
Ogre Mauler's Badge (Horde Quest in Nagrand)

WEAPON:

Merciless Gladiator's Maul (Arena Season 2 Reward) I normally don't put Arena gear in my guides, because of the effort involved, but you should give this weapon a good hard look. Even if you're the most casual pacifist of a gamer, it may be worth it to duke it out for a few weeks for this bad boy.
Staff of Natural Fury (BoE World Drop) This will set you back quite a bit. On the up side, it has excellent DPS and a nice shape shifting cost reduction. Not a bad choice if you PVP but don't Arena.
Dreamer's Dragonstaff (Botanica Drop) This seems to have a good drop rate. Even my Mage has it. Shouldn't be too hard to farm while you work your way up the list.
Earthwarden (Cenarion Expedition Exalted Rep) If you've got one for tanking, it'll do respectable double duty until you get a better dedicated DPS weapon.

ENCHANTS and GEMS:

Generally, go for STR and AGI. Given the choice between the two, go for STR.

Friday, July 6, 2007

Druids and Rogues Getting PVP Review

I'll never claim to be a late breaking WoW news site, but fortunately, World of Raids is.

They have just posted news of an upcoming Druid and Rogue PVP Review.

Not surprisingly, the news comes by way of the WoW-Eu forums, where information seems to flow more freely from the CMs. Judging by the blue comments, the focus will be on Arena performance for both classes. This is good news for me, because I plan to get a set of Merciless Gladiator's gear for my Druid, even if I gimp a percentage of my team's matches in the process. (That's not as evil as it sounds, 3/5ths of the team are in-laws, and I do far worse to them on a weekly basis in real life =)

Of course, I created the Druid as my PVP character because Druids have always been strong in PVP, if played well. I think Blizzard has been very kind to ferals since 1.8, and especially with Burning Crusade, so if there's more love coming to help us in Arenas, I'm very interested in seeing what form it takes.

Sango's Journey: Part 6 Southern Barrens

Joana sends Sango back to the safety of the Barrens for a couple of easy levels.

I finally got a chance to sit down and run Sango through another section of the guide today. Although today's entry involves a little stupid death at the hands of the Razormane, fortunately there were no ganking distractions (that should be coming up in the next section, however).

This section of the guide promised to get me from level 22-23, but I managed to hit 24 by the end. So, no complaints there. I could have probably skipped a little bit of content if I found it too annoying or difficult, so classes who aren't quite as strong at soloing should take note.

The quests for this section were pretty straightforward. Hit Camp T and head South. Do quests. Do a quest you pick up down there. Head back up to turn in. Pretty basic stuff. I think a bit more direction at some points in the guide would be nice, though. I don't mind the barebones format at all, since I know where most of this stuff is anyway, but you get a lot of instructions formatted like this:

Get quests W, X, Y, and Z in Town.
Go do quest W at (44, 63)*
While you're there, do X, Y and Z.
Head to NPC A and pick up quest B. Do it.

Of course, it would be nice if the guide gave a location for quests X, Y, and Z if they're pretty far from quest W, or if nearby a simple "head East." Same with the last part where it tells you to go find a new quest in the general area. Now, frequently, the guide does give you those nudges. But it frequently relies on either you clicking on the link to the database entry on the quest, or prior knowledge. It's pretty easy to just check the web for the quest, but it'd be nice not to have to tab out of game if you get confused.

*The number set in parenthesis is a set of map coordinates. There are several UI mods that will show you your current coordinates and the coordinates your cursor is on as you move it over the world map. I'll be covering these in a follow up post.


Total time played to 24: 1 day 7 hrs 54 mins

Time played 22-24: 3 hrs 19 mins

(That splits pretty evenly between the two levels too. Just over 1.5 hrs per)

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Guide to Pre-Karazhan and Pre-Heroic Bear Druid Tanking Gear

EDIT: 11/20/07. Season 3 is starting on Tuesday 11/27. That means a new feral Gladiator set (without the +heal, adds +hit and armor ignore, very nice for PVE) is coming out. Season 1 Gladiator gear is becoming buyable with honor points and new Leather and Dragonhide boots, belts and bracers are coming out. Even if you don't like to PVP much, I highly suggest grinding the honor as much as you can stand, until you collect these epics.

Bear gear has always been kind of interesting to find, because Blizzard apparently likes to put the best bear tanking stats in unlikely places. In the world of bear tanking, greens can easily outshine epics. In the Burning Crusade, nothing much has changed. Since some of the best gear is crafted or quested, it's pretty easy to quickly gear your bear up to step into Karazhan or Heroics.

Before looking at the individual pieces, a quick review of Bear tanking stats is in order.

Armor: Armor mitigation is capped at 75%, which is around 35,880 armor against level 73 opponents. Bear Druids are the only tanks that can hit that cap currently. Armor does NOT have diminishing returns. Druids have less avoidance than other tanks, at least when looking at this level of gear. So, armor is GOOD. It's our primary tanking stat. A good number to shoot for when gearing up is at least 20k to start. More is better.

Stamina: Armor doesn't really do anything against magic damage, and bears will be eating more crushing blows than other tanks, so a good amount of STA is important. Aim for at least 12k health self-buffed.

Defense/Resilience: Since there are some decent bear pieces to be had with Resilience on them, and since Defense isn't as useful for bears as warriors/pallies, I'm including it here. With that in mind, Defense is still a bit better for bears. With Survival of the Fittest, 415 Defense will make a bear uncrittable. That's pretty attainable, but while gearing up, you can use some Resilience to bridge the gap.

Dodge: A bear's only avoidance stat. Dodge Rating and Agility gives us dodge. I'd advise stacking Agility as it gives Crit as well as Armor, and gives a bit more Dodge than Dodge rating. (.07% per point of AGI vs. .05% for Dodge.) Starting out, aim for about 25% Dodge.

Crit: Crit is nice because it gives us free rage through Primal Fury, and some free ability uses from Omen of Clarity. Don't bother with Critical Strike Rating, though, just get it through Agility.

OK, on with the list:

HEAD:

Stylin' Purple Hat (Crafted) No reason not to get this one, as it's a crafted item with pretty easy materials.

NECK:

Mark of the Ravenguard
(Quest) Nice high STA neck with Defense. Easy to get quest reward.
Strength of the Untamed (Cenarion Expedition Rep - Revered) Less STA but adds in Dodge Rating. You'll be going for CE rep anyway, so may as well grab this one.

BACK:

Thoriumweave Cloak (Mechanar Drop) 390 Armor and 35 STA in one slot, 'nuff said. Easy farm.
Bogstrok Scale Cloak (Slave Pens Drop) Get this early and it will hold you over for quite a while.

SHOULDERS:

Gladiator's Dragonhide Spaulders: (PVP) If you like to PVP, you should grab these. Even if you don't like to PVP, these are pretty easy to get, only costing 11,250 Honor and 20 AB badges. Even if you don't plan to get any other PVP gear, if you're not downing HKM yet, the lack of tanking shoulders makes these a good investment.

Shoulderpads of Assassination: (Sethekk Halls Drop) Best blue drop shoulders. Not quite as good as the PVP shoulders, but very nice.

CHEST:

Heavy Clefthoof Vest (Crafted) Seriously, no excuse not to get this vest. You can go with other options that give better offensive stats for tanking five mans, but for heavy duty tanking, this is your best choice.



WAIST:

Manimal's Cinch (Quest) Remember those greens I was talking about? Here's one. Get it.

WRIST:

Umberhowl's Collar (Quest) Same questline as Manimal's above.
Veteran's Dragonhide Bracers (PVP) Pretty easy to get from PVP, a bit better than Umberhowl's.

LEGS:

Heavy Clefthoof Leggings (Crafted) Get 'em.
Ash Tempered Legguards (Quest) HUGE Armor on these, pretty easy to get. Can use while gathering mats for/saving money for Clefthoof.

HANDS:

Wastewalker Gloves (Shattered Halls Drop) Not sure on drop rate on these. I've run a ton of SH and haven't seen them drop yet though.
Verdant Gloves (Quest) If you don't get lucky on drops, or just don't like farming Shattered Halls, these are solid.

FEET:

Heavy Clefthoof Boots (Crafted) Get 'em.
Veteran's Dragonhide Boots (PVP) A bit better than Heavy Clefthoof.

RINGS:

Iron Band of the Unbreakable (Old Hillsbrad Drop) Not unique, can get two of these. If you're getting your Violet Signet, you can just farm one.
Wind Trader's Band (Quest) A really quick quest for a druid, nice STA and tanking stats to hold you over until you get two good armor rings.

TRINKETS:

Mark of Tyranny (Quest) Still one of the only Armor trinkets in the game. Still great for bears.
Smoking Heart of the Mountain (Crafted, BOP) Ditto.
Badge of Tenacity (BoE, World Drop) Probably the Holy Grail for tanking druids since patch 2.1. Hard to track down, but worth it.

Once you can do heroic CE instances, you should hit Underbog for an Argussian Compass. I know this is a pre-heroic gear list, but it's worth mentioning.

WEAPONS:

Earthwarden (Cenarion Expedition, Exalted Rep) Get it.
Braxxis' Staff of Slumber (BoE World Drop) Grab one of these as soon as you hit 64, it will last you until you get your Earthwarden. Usually can be had fairly cheaply at the AH.

GEMS and ENCHANTS:

I'm not going to run down the whole list. Generally, go for STA first, then AGI.

As a general guideline, good choices for gems are:

Red: 8 AGI
Yellow: 4 AGI/4 Hit Rating (Hit Rating is hard to come by on bear tanking and PVP gear)
Blue: 12 STA

However, use common sense and adjust to what you need based on the rest of your gear.

If you want to go over a comprehensive list of bear tanking gear, go here. As with all my guides, I tried to keep the options limited to what's easily available to a casual player, but Emmerald's list is a great resource if you like browsing for gear.

Note: Emmerald's list is not up to date with current S3/Vindicator's gear, though it does provide a good guideline for lower gear levels.

How to Pick a Grinding Spot

Some people make a distinction between the terms "grinding" and "farming." I don't make that distinction. Grinding simply means continuously killing mobs. The goal is to minimize downtime and maximize kills. Whether you are killing for experience, crafting materials, or to make cash, you will want to apply the same basic principals to picking a good grinding spot.

While some classes are more efficient at grinding than others, by following a few basic guidelines, you should be able to pick a spot that suits you.

1. Ease of killing. This will vary between classes and specs. The key idea is to pick mobs that you can kill quickly and without taking too much damage. For low DPS classes, this usually means green con mobs. For casters, this usually means melee-only mobs, which are easy to kite, or simply kill before they reach you. For melee DPS classes without heals, this means mobs with low armor/health, to minimize downtime for recovering health. The best way to find out if the mobs you want to grind meet this requirement for your character is to simply go kill some. See how many you can kill between downtime, whether that means drinking to refill mana, or eating to regain health. A good number to shoot for is 4-5 kills between breaks.

2. Mob Density. The ideal grinding spot will let you continue to kill so long as you can do so. You want to find a spot that lets you quickly move to the next kill without running the risk of unwanted adds coming and ruining your fun. (In fact, if you have movement impairing abilities or spells like Judgement of Justice or Curse of Recklessness that prevent running outright, you should use those while grinding.) Ideal mob density will vary according to your class, and your ability. For AOE grinders, such as Mages or Protection Paladins, very tightly packed groups that are easy to round up en masse are ideal. For slower killers, runners become a problem, so you want a bit more breathing room between mobs.

3. Respawn Rate. You don't want to move between camps of mobs if you can help it, since movement time takes away from killing time. You'll want to find a spot where the mobs respawn at a rate that matches the time it takes you to clear their camp. If you kill fast, you'll want a fast respawn timer, if you kill slow, you want to avoid mobs spawning on you while you're fighting. Mob density and respawn rate are closely related, as they will be determined by your killing rate. This varies highly between individuals, and even over the course of a character's progression, so the best way to find an ideal mix is to experiment.

4. Player Traffic. You want to avoid competition if at all possible while grinding. Even the best grinding areas can only support 2 to 3 players at most and allow for optimal grinding. It's good to have a back up spot to go to if your primary location is busy. The amount of traffic in an area varies greatly by server and by time of day. Also consider teaming up with someone else. This is especially helpful if you're grinding for reputation, less so if you're grinding for experience or to make money. Sometimes a person is in area simply to complete a kill quest, and will welcome the company. By helping someone finish a quest (kill quests are about the most boring type), you might make a friend, as well as get your area back to faster.

5. Type of Mob. If you're grinding for a specific drop (many recipes fall into this category, dropping only off of certain mobs in certain areas), then your choice is made for you. However, if you're grinding for experience, reputation, money, or crafting materials, you can often maximize your efforts by choosing mobs that yield two or more things you need. For example, if you're grinding to level, you'll notice most grinding guides point you toward humanoid type mobs. This is because humanoids drop cash, cloth, and have a higher chance to drop useful (green or blue quality) items. The benefit here is that you get cloth for bandages or for sale. Bandaging is a huge downtime saver, and cloth is always a good choice for the Auction House. Cash is obviously spendable and doesn't take up bag space. Green or blue drops may be used or sold on the Auction House. Here's a short list of mob types and expected drops.

Humanoid: A favorite type to grind on. Drops cash, cloth, higher chance to drop green/blue quality items. The only downside to Humanoids is that their abilities vary greatly, and some humanoid mobs can be too tough to make grinding them worthwhile. Most humanoid mobs run in fear when at low health, which can increase the chance of getting unwanted adds.

Yetis: Yetis are humanoids, but they don't follow the normal rules. Yetis drop cash, but not cloth. Instead, Yetis are skinnable. In addition, Yetis always live in mountainous areas and caves. This makes Yetis the ideal mob to grind for characters that are Miners and Skinners, a great money making combination. They do not flee in fear, which makes the chance of attracting adds lower.

Beasts: Beasts can be skinned, and drop various body parts, which are gray "vendor trash" items. They generally have a lower chance to drop green/blue items (though this is not always true) than humanoids. Most beasts do not run in fear at low health levels. (Plainstriders and some Raptors are two exceptions I can think of offhand.)

Demons: Demons will fall into either the Humanoid or Beast categories above as far as characteristics. Generally, biped demons will have humanoid loot types, and animal types will be skinnable and have animal type loot. Floating heads follow humanoid guidelines. Demons don't flee in fear at low health.

Dragonkin: Dragonkin are essentially like Yetis. They are skinnable but otherwise have humanoid type loot tables. In addition, several types of dragonkin can drop Whelpling vanity pets, which can go for quite a bit on the auction house. (These have an insanely low drop rate, by the way.)

Giants: Generally follow the same rules as Humanoids. Most giants running around are elites, and not closely spaced enough to be worthwhile grinding, even if you're capable of grinding elites at a good pace. Elite dragonkin are always a better choice.

Elementals: Elementals drop cash (even though they have no pockets), have a small chance to drop green/blue quality items, and drop high value vendor trash as well as specific types of crafting supplies that sell on the Auction House for good money. These latter will be either white or green quality items with a name such as Elemental _____ , Essence of ______, or Mote of _______. (The blank will be Earth, Air, Fire or Water depending on the type of elemental.) Which one an elemental drops will depend on the level of the elemental. Currently, Motes, which can be combined into Primals, are the highest value. Rock Elementals in the Badlands are a favorite mob to grind for people saving for their first mount, as the vendor trash value is high, they have good density, don't do high damage, and don't have any particularly annoying attacks to deal with.


6. Location. When picking a grinding spot, you'll want to also have a good location. That means easy access to vendors (to sell trash drops, which add up), a mailbox (to mail salable items to an auction house alt). It's also nice if you're fairly close to the nearest graveyard. Although mobs should be easy to kill, sometimes accidents happen. Another consideration for location is the availability of resource nodes if you have a gathering profession, such as mining or herbalism. Since you'll be in the same spot for an extended period, you'll be able to get in a good amount of gathering if there are a couple of resource node spawns nearby.

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Sango's Journey Part 5: Ashenvale and the Zoram Strand

Joana's Guide takes Sango to strange shores for a quick level.

I took a few days off Sango, and while I'd like to claim it was a clever ploy to maximize my rested experience, I was really just farting around PVPing with my 70s. Another reason for the procrastination was that I really didn't want to take the hike across Ashenvale to the Zoram Strand.

This was another short section of the guide, designed to go from level 21 to 22, and to get you the Splintertree and Zoram Strand flight paths. Once again, I found myself in contested territory. I merrily went on my way, killing spiders and bears and wolves, oh my! Then SPLAT, level 64 ally Warrior. (Yay for Armory spying.) Unfortunately, my Druid was pretty far away, so no retribution was in store for my little Gnomish friend. Oh, but it will be, yes, it will be. So, after a bit of punitive killing in Astranaar, I was on my merry way.

The Zoram Strand part had me do Vorsha the Lasher, which was one of the quests that Joanna suggests you can come back and do around level 24 if you can't complete it at 22. It was a pretty simple quest, helping an NPC kill two waves of three mobs each, then a hydra with a pretty cool paint job. At 22 this was pretty simple for a Warlock. I think with the talent points and spells available at this stage that Sango is catching up in solo power to an even level hunter, so the guide should be pretty easy to follow going forward.

I only varied a little bit from the guide this time around. I ran into one of the mobs for The Ashenvale Hunt, Ursangous, so I killed him. He was a hair bear, and a scary bear, but I unpacked my DOTs and it all turned out well. I flew back to Splintertree for an easy 1950 experience before hearthing back to the Barrens at the end of the section. I'd say it was worth it. I don't think chasing roaming mobs is on the schedule for the guide, so doubt I'll be told to track the three beasts in Ashenvale down later, but if the opportunity arises to pick one off, my advice is to go for it.

Total time played to 22: 1 day 4 hours 35 minutes

Time played 21-22: 3 hours 20 minutes