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Saturday, October 27, 2007

Joana's Guide Thoughts and the End of Sango's Journey

Sadly to say, I've decided to put off leveling my Warlock to test Joana's Guide. I've got other projects that are demanding the majority of my time over World of Warcraft, and I don't really need a sixth high level character.

The guide works, there's no doubt about it. Class really does not seem to matter at the early levels, and after reading through the guide, there's nothing most classes can't solo later on, and the experience gain is going to be more than enough after patch 2.3 to allow you to skip a few of these quests if you can't do them.

If you want to go with a strong solo class, my recommendations are as follows to get the best use out of a solo questing guide (whether Joana's on Horde side or Brian Kopp's on Ally side):

1. Hunter. The guides were written for them, and Hunters are still king of the soloers.
2. Warlock. Once you get sufficient talent points, anything a Hunter can solo should be doable just as easily with a lock.
3. Feral Druid. One of the best classes for soloing tougher content, out of sheer brute force and survivability.
4. Frost Mage/Other spec Mage. Frost mages are great at soloing any non-caster mobs, and have the easiest time IMO when caster mobs come into play. Other mage specs kill fast and still have a decent number of options for kiting.
5. Rogue. One of the classic fastest levelers. They lack the survivability of the above classes in soloing PVE stuff, but really not by much.
6. Everyone else. Every class can solo fairly well, and although I believe the top five classes are going to have the easiest time completing the questing schedule in a leveling guide, with some creativity and knowledge of the class, any class can do well with the guides.

Friday, October 26, 2007

E-Z Epics in 2.3 WoW Patch

If you've been paying any attention at all to the upcoming patch, you'll have noticed that in the upcoming patch, quite a few obtainable epics are being made available. If you go to www.mmo-champion.com, you'll be able to find some lists and screens of these. There are quite a few new heroic badge rewards, as well as upgraded PVP epics, and the addition of Season One Gladiator sets becoming buyable with honor and battle ground marks.

If you've bothered to check in here lately, or just glanced at my post dates, you'll realize that I haven't been all that active on the old blog. This blog is largely a reflection of my WoW activity, which means I also haven't been playing a whole lot lately.

With an expansion pack on the way, meaning all of my factions and current equipment being made obsolete rather quickly following its release, my attention had waned. Patch 2.3, however, has done a fiendish job of dangling a big fat carrot in front of my nose, so now I find myself grinding out battlegrounds and hitting Heroics for gear. (By the way, in 2.3, you'll only need Honored rep for heroic keys.)

Will all of the goodies patch 2.3 also become obsolete when the Wrath of the Lich King comes out? Certainly. However, leveling up my Warrior with the PVP epics and Season One gear will be easier than the crappy DPS blues I'm wearing now. Likewise, some of the best Paladin Ret gear in the game post-Burning Crusade has always been the PVP gear, so getting a full epic set of Ret gear in case I feel like being able to actually kill something in a timely manner while leveling up is another temptation. Heck, I'm bored with healing anyway, so running instances and raids Ret (which is getting some nice changes in 2.3) may be a pleasant change of pace. My Mage is pretty decently set up, but a few more PVP epics will help wash away the ugly blue stains on his character sheet. And, of course, my Druid will be going for the Season 3 Gladiator set, as he's my current main, and all I do with him is PVP with the occasional heroic instance tossed in.

Ok, it's AV weekend, so that's enough blogging for now. I have honor to grind!

WoW Paid Name Changes

Yesterday, Blizzard announced a new paid name change service. The roll out will be in phases across the realms, and the fee for the name change will be $10.

For a mere ten dollars, you can get rid of that goofy name you put on an alt that you ended up enjoying and playing.

For a mere ten dollars, you can get rid of your reputation as a ninja or general malcontent.

It's not the end of the world, or the best thing since sliced bread, but it presents interesting possibilities and problems.

I'd much rather see a faction betrayal quest ala Ever Quest II. They said renames would never happen, though, and this is just one in a long list of "nevers" that has come to pass, so who knows?