Level-70
Latest
How I learned to stop worrying and love level 70
It all started on a lark. Some friends wanted to run BWL, but for whatever reason I said, "Hey, why not do Black Temple instead?" In my opinion, BT is one of the best instances in the game, with some fantastic architecture and art and really excellent boss design, both visually and in terms of what the designers did mechanically at the time. The Reliquary of Souls encounter is still fascinating to watch, and I'm kind of a fanboy for Teron Gorefiend. To be honest, I still find myself wondering if Illidan was being controlled by Gul'dan, considering that Gorefiend, Gul'dan's first death knight, ended up gravitating to the Temple. On our way to the Black Temple, as a lark, I asked if I could bring my level 70 warrior I'd started the week before Cataclysm dropped in order to test the new talent spec and leveling changes. Oh, and because I have a problem. I figured what the heck, I could maybe snag a couple of pieces of gear that would last into the mid-70s if I ever played her again. Six drops later, I'd locked her XP gain and run Hyjal, Karazhan, ZA and Sunwell on her, and I am probably going to do so again.
Recent hotfixes: goodbye, BC dungeon chests
Although it's no longer the first week after patch 3.1, when Ulduar nerfs and other hotfixes were coming almost as fast as we could post them, Blizzard is still fixing up the details here and there. Over the past week, a few hotfixes have gone in. Fortunately, as they have been doing recently, Blizzard has posted a nice list of what those changes are. It's nothing too earth-shattering, as far as I can make out. Some creatures associated with the Yogg Saron fight should load faster. A few items have had their stats buffed (Earthshaper, Valorous Siegebreaker Shoulderplates, and Conqueror's Siegebreaker Shoulderplates), while Leviathan's Coil had its armor cut roughly in half. Clever DKs can no longer cut their RP costs with items meant to cut mana costs, and a bug involving Leviathan MK II's Self Repair on Mimiron was fixed. Most recently, along with warrior buff shouts being made free again (as they should be) during preparation in arenas, Blizzard has seen the need to remove all non-boss chests in BC dungeons. They say this is "to resolve an exploit;" I assume it has something to do with people being able to farm chests too easily. It is disappointing when fixes like this happen. On the one hand, it's "only" BC content, and chests aren't going to make or break a dungeon. On the other hand, those dungeons are deserted and useless enough as it is, and Blizzard keeps telling us they think there is still entertainment value in the old zones. Hopefully they get the chests fixed up eventually,
Ask WoW Insider: Getting rid of leftover gear
We're a bit late this week, but we've got a good question for you readers from Hylia, a Shadow Priest on Arthas. If you have a question you'd like to ask the readers of WoW Insider, don't forget to send it to ask@wow.com.I've got a question regarding the level 70 epics I've been pilling in my bank. Since I just hit 80 and I`m changing all my gear now, I don't know what to do. The thing is: I don't know if I should just sell my old gear or if I should disenchant it. I have over 20 of those purple shards too and I'm not sure they would sell well.Thanks in advance for the help.HyliaIt's a good question that lots of us are dealing with as we make our way up to 80: what do we do with the old level 70 epics? Personally, I've just been selling most of it -- I have kept a few sets, such as my Tier armor and a crafted set I made and socketed, but I'm not an Enchanter, and, like Hylia, I don't know how old shards would sell now anyway.What have you been doing with the old gear? Vendor, disenchant, or is your bank packed with Gigantiques so you can keep it all?Previously on Ask WoW Insider...
Poll: Are you level 80 yet?
With the news last week that the majority of players are not level 80, and that Ghostcrawler considers you to be "hard core" (more or less) if you're at 80 already, the question that's come to my mind is: exactly how many people reading WoW Insider have hit the level cap already?I've only got one of my toons at 80. I suspect it's going to take over a year to get them all up to max level again. Not complaining, I just don't have the stomach to power level all my alts up like that so quickly. After playing the game since release I managed to get nearly every class to 70 before the release of Wrath, but that took...well...years.Gotta space it out and everything.But in our completely non-scientific and totally truthiness-ey poll, let us know. Are you level 80 yet?%Poll-23452%
First level 70 Death Knight on the realms
Odds are, I'd say, that we'll see our first level 80 sometime this afternoon (and probably in Europe, since they got a little bit of a time zone head start) -- we've had reports come in from one very obnoxious Paladin, but his claims to level 80 aren't actually true. But in the meantime, here's the first level 70 Death Knight we've heard of: Arello of Raptors Open Doors on Shattered Hand dinged 70 as a Death Knight in Northrend's New Agamand. The Armory doesn't have his character in yet, but this seems credible to us.We're not sure he's the absolute first, though, just the first we've heard of -- anyone else have proof of a Death Knight at 70 already? And we'll keep an eye out for (credible) claims of level 80 firsts -- the run from level 60 to 70 took about 28 hours the first time around, so unless Blizzard did things a lot different, we'll probably see it sometime today.
Gear Wishlist tells you where to go next
I've been looking around for something exactly like this -- while Kaliban's Class Loot is a great resource for figuring out what kind of loot to dress in right before the endgame, and our gearing for Karazhan guides are a great resource for good drops and pieces around that level (including the rep sets you can get for each class and spec), the next biggest question to answer is "what comes after that?" And Gear Wishlist, a site made and sent to us by Darrell Anderson, tries to answer exactly that question.After putting in your character and realm, you get a list of all the gear you've got equipped, matched up against a list of all the gear available at the item level you're looking at (you can customize exactly where the item levels come from, if there's a site whose estimations of the gear you value more), with yours highlighted. So basically, you get an up and down list of where to go from the gear you've got, and you can easily see where it all comes from and what kinds of stats it gives.Of course, this is still more of a guideline -- just because gear appears above yours on this list doesn't mean that it's better than yours for your class and spec. And attainability is a big factor as well -- if you're not in a raiding guild, your time might be better spent grinding rep rather than trying to suffer through with PuGs. But as an overview of the gear available to you, Gear Wishlist works great. Hopefully the site will stay up under our linkage, and if it doesn't, check back in a few days to see if it's slowed down.
New Death Knight starting screen and skeletal gryphon mount
Fresh from the new Beta build today: new Death Knight starting screens and our first look at the Death Knight flying mount – a skeletal gryphon! The starting screen pictured above is pretty cool. The Death Knight is standing on a terrace surrounded by Northrend. Neat. Be sure to click on the picture for a hi resolution image.The gryphon that we're seen, which is pictured after the break, is about the same size as a normal flying gryphon – but a complete skeleton. The actual name of the flying mount item is "The Winged Steed of the Ebon Blade." It is something that I'm really looking forward to picking up now, and I'm pretty sure most of you will be as well.Lots of great bits of information coming out from this beta patch – stay tuned for more
What's wrong with leveling?
This post isn't going to be about how to "fix" leveling or make it faster or easier or anything like that. Instead, I'm writing in defense of the leveling process. I actually enjoy it even though I'm having a hard time thinking of anyone else I know who doesn't just want to get it over with. I enjoy questing and I enjoy the charge I get when I learn a new spell or add a new talent point. When I hit level 70 I was quite disoriented without the XP bar to cheer me along. I can't get my head around the idea that I no longer need to log out at an inn because the resting bonus doesn't apply any more. In fact, I'm such a quest addict that I'm still doing leftover quests all over Outland. Everyone seems to want to get to the endgame as soon as possible. An entire dirty business of buying level 70s has sprung up around the idea that power-leveling is king. But for me, it feels a little bit like the endgame is the End of the Game. There is a shade of "now what?" flying through the back of my mind. No more content to experience, no more places to explore that I haven't already wreaked havoc through. One way to replace XP as a motivation tool is to work on gaining faction chits, I guess, and battleground marks. Sigh. What a grind; it doesn't have the zing that dinging a new level does, or even just seeing the blue bars fill up across my screen. On top of that, there are so many dang factions and rewards and things to collect I need an accountant to help me keep track of what items I should be collecting -- or even what gear, for that matter!I guess gold is my new XP since those epic flying mounts cost so much. Let's say that I decide to measure my success by my gold balance. I can do enough quests and sell enough stuff at the Auction House to get the 5000G eventually. Then what? I have this super-fast flying mount and no reason to do anything with it.
Poll: How many 70s do you have?
Drew sent us a question he wanted us to ask, and I'd like to know the answer to it as well: How many level 70 characters do you have? Blizzard has made changes to the leveling curve to make it easier to get alts up the ladder, but how many players are actually taking multiple characters all the way to 70?I'd also like to know, in the comments below, whether they're different classes or the same class -- I suspect that of the people who have multiple 70s, there are more folks who take the same class all the way up than we expect. And the other question is whether you're going to take all these 70s to level 80 or not -- will the Death Knight take up most of your time, or do you plan to get everyone at 70 up ten more levels in the future?%Poll-16003%
TurpsterVision : Oh and one more Ding!
Every Tuesday TurpsterVision is LIVE (kind of) right here on Massively! Take the 'T' from 'Tuesday' and the 'V' from 'LIVE', smash them together like its going out of fashion and you got yourself TV for TurpsterVision - the best video podcast LIVE right here on Massively! Welcome back, it's been two weeks too long - though I blame that on the fact that its been time to party! Forgetting that, today is a special post, its a game close to my heart, and it isn't a review. It's World of Warcraft folks; there is no need to review it, what do you want me to say? Honestly, it's THE World of Warcraft, there aren't any imitations that even come close, well, maybe one. So I won't bore you with a 5 minute long video reviewing what we already know, instead I have made a 9 minute long video showing off my mad PvP/PvE skills in my recent DINGSTRAVAGANZA! (An event which saw my Shadow Priest finally tip the scales and join the big boys at level 70) It is also a friendly plug/invitation letting you all know that I will be at the World Wide Invitational this weekend in Paris and if any of you guys are out there then I urge you to come seek me and my camera out and share the love!
Arcane Brilliance: Leveling your Mage, 60-70
Mages sometimes get a bad rap. Some say we whine too much, while others claim we stink at PvP, or pull aggro too often from the tank. Here at Arcane Brilliance, we ignore these people, because we know the truth. You see, it's a well-known fact that while people tend to like awesome, they simply can't handle too much of it. When people see Mages in the back row, flinging giant balls of flame and ice from their fingertips, landing ridiculously large crits on everything, or plucking delicious magical food out of the air before them, their sense of what is and what isn't awesome gets skewed, and this makes them feel weird. They don't like it. They fear it. The awesome that Mages bring to the table is just too much for most folks to handle. Remember this the next time you get yelled at over voice chat, or someone posts a nasty thread on the forums. We Mages are just too awesome. It's our curse. Luckily, we can remove curses.Last week, we hit level 60. A long time ago, this was the end of the line, the top of the heap. Once you hit level 60, your experience bar disappeared, and only by improving your gear could you continue to advance your character. That all changed about 18 months ago, when Blizzard introduced us to the world beyond the Dark Portal, 10 more levels of experience, and level 57 greens that were better than level 60 purples. Last week, we brought ourselves to the brink of level 60, to the doorstep of Outland, and this week we'll explore that vast and dangerous new frontier and see where it takes us. Join us after the break for a look at what to expect from the last ten levels of the current game.
The Light and How to Swing It: Levels 61-70
Hooray. Outland. Now this is the real home stretch. This, at least for now, is where most of your adventures will happen. After slogging through the first 20 levels, grinding up to the landmark 40, surviving the boring trek to 50, and eventually making it to The Burning Crusade content, the time has finally come to make that final push. You should probably celebrate a little, because from here on forth you will get new trainable abilities at every level so don't forget to pay your trainers a visit. Although odd-numbered levels usually have higher ranks of old, little-used spells, so it's not a huge deal to skip training between levels. Besides, the first few levels in Outland are such a breeze that you can hit a few levels without getting a chance to visit the old world.By this time, you really should be riding around on your pimpin' new mount. For Horde players, it's extra special because the Blood Knights get a tabard that's second in coolness only to the Tabard of the Shattered Sun, so there's every reason to complete the quest chain. If you entered Outland at level 58, questing in Hellfire Peninsula should get you past 60 in a very short time. The experience gains from quests are vastly superior to the quests in the old world, as well as gives heftier Gold rewards. This is important because you should be saving your money as early as now (if not sooner) in order to afford flight training.
Gamers on the Street: Thaurissan and transfers
Gamers on the Street logs onto U.S. servers to get the word from the front on what's going on in and around the World of Warcraft.This week there was only one choice for where to go and interview players -- the Oceanic realm of Thaurissan has been at the center of realm population issues in the last week, as Blizzard opened up transfers from PvE to PvP realms for the first time ever. I rolled a Dwarf on the Alliance side (where Horde reportedly outnumbers players at huge ratios) to see what things were like and if I could find some people with opinions on the transfers.Things seem to be better than they were before at first glance -- we'd heard reports that only double digits of people were playing during even prime time, but when I logged on (about 6AM server time), there were quite a few people in the /who list. Ironforge was far from bustling, but I saw groups running around the Isle of Quel'danas, as well as running Magisters' Terrace.
Announcing Turpster's Dingstravaganza, this Saturday on EU Sporeggar
I never thought it would happen, but I'm eating my words -- Turpster, of the WoW Insider Show (and Turpstervision over on Massively) is going to ding 70 with his Shadow Priest before the expansion. And in fact, he's giving you the opportunity to not only see it, but to take him down right beforehand.Yes, this weekend, right after our live show on WoW Radio (which starts at 3:30pm Eastern, or 8:30pm GMT), Turpster will be hanging out in the Gnome/Dwarf starting area of the European Sporeggar server, and right before he dings, he's giving you and all of the other Gnomes who show up the chance to try and take him out as a raid boss. He's even got a strategy posted, and trust me when I say he's got this all planned out as a real, chaotic, surely hilarious raid fight -- this will definitely be a sight to see. And there's loot in it, too -- if you're one of the Gnomes who drops him, you could nab a Tabard of Flame code or a few other cool prizes.If you're on the US servers, don't worry -- Turpster has written up a quick and easy guide to get you running on the EU realms (you don't have to redownload anything, all you have to do is make an EU trial account). Should be a lot of fun, and make sure to Fraps or screenshot it if you're there. Tune in on Saturday for the WoW Insider Show live on WoW Radio, and then join us afterwards on EU Sporeggar (roll a Gnome, so Turpster looks like a really big raid boss) to take down the T and then watch him ding 70!
The best of WoW Insider: May 27-June 3, 2008
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. This big girl is Onyxia, once the 40-man raiding terror of World of Warcraft, and yet this past week she was downed by just one person not once but twice. Poor Ony -- with the current max level of 70 (and Wrath of the Lich King pushing players up to level 80), it's tough times out there for level 60 raid bosses. Learn more about Ony and all the other NPCs in the World of Warcraft at Joystiq's sister site WoW Insider. Here's our most popular posts from the past week: News Druid solos OnyxiaOne Druid toppled a 40-man boss -- probably one of the first of many old raid bosses to be farmed for gold and items. SK Gaming releases Kil'jaeden videoLive the death of the last raid boss... vicariously through SK Gaming. Paladin lays the solo smackdown on OnyxiaNot to be outdone by a Druid, a plate healer also decides to crush the dragon that once took 40 people to drop. New exploits target FlashSome big Flash exploits could get your login and password in the wrong hands. Missing teen found after running away with 27-year old WoW boyfriendA 27-year-old ran off with a 14-year-old girl after they met in World of Warcraft. Features How many endgames have there been?After Kil'jaden was downed last week, we decided to figure out just how many times the game has been beaten. How to make 10,000 gold in a monthAdam Holisky lets you in on some of his best ingame monkey-making tips. Ask a Lore Nerd: You're how old?Our resident lore nerd answers your questions about NPCs and the stories of the Warcraft universe. Breakfast Topic: Do you pay attention to 25-man raiding progression?Should we care when groups like SK Gaming drop big endgame bosses for the first time? Tanking for BeginnersNeed a primer on being the meatshield? Here you go.
Breakfast Topic: The leveling curve (and bending it)
This forum thread talks about a person who dinged 70 while still back in Nagrand, and while I didn't finish off the run to 70 that early (he probably did lots and lots of instances), it is possible to bend the leveling curve a little bit, especially in Outland, where there are so many quests to go around.So how far have you bent the leveling curve? Early on, it's pretty clear where to go to level up -- there are only a few areas you can go into at each level, and while there are definitely more quests than you need to do (especially in the newer Dustwallow Marsh content), things are pretty laid out for you. In Outland, though, things get a little squished -- Blizzard really went overboard with quests, and so it's possible now to hit the last level without ever seeing one or two of the zones.Fortunately, any XP that you would have gotten at 70 is translated back into gold on a quest reward, so even if you've finished early, there's still lots of reason to go back and see what's out there (and there is some must-see stuff later in the game). But how off has your leveling been? Anyone hit 70 even before Nagrand?
-(425-x-319).jpg.cf.jpg)
How to get to level 70 without losing your marbles
In World of Warcraft, getting the thousands upon thousands of rotting bear carcasses and boar meat required to get from one to seventy was enough once. Doing it twice makes most of us want to slam our heads into a keyboard repeatedly. Perhaps it is time to log off? No, you must not log off. Quitters never win and winners never quit. Get that soda, get those chips, and put that headset on! Over at Eurogamer, there was someone who felt the pain and found a way to get the job done. A few useful tips and tricks were jotted down for you to make your leveling experience more enjoyable. Tired of killing gnolls? Go for a swim in the river and laugh at murloc screams. Need to run from Loch Modan to the Wetlands? Run over to the dam and jump off to get there. Can't keep track of all those quests? Tips for that too! For your mental sanity, if nothing else, navigate yourself on over there, park your toon in the inn, and read up. You will thank yourself for doing it.
The Daily Grind: Is endgame merely the beginning?
People who love MMOs tend to cite the fun of social, shared play as the reason. It's more fun to play together than alone. However, at the higher levels, when it becomes necessary to group just to stand a chance of completing a raid or instance, it becomes difficult to find a group of players of the same level as you -- unless you're already at the highest level you can attain. One thing to be said about reaching the ceiling is that you can stop worrying about leveling and concentrate on some good, solid 'endgame' content with a bunch of like-minded players.This begs the question: is all game content merely there to help you get to the endgame, at which time the fun truly begins? When you're bored with your top-level character, and you roll a new one, do you grit your teeth and sigh expressively through the lower-level content until you're back up on top? Once you've reached the heights, is the rest of the game still fun?
Tips for leveling Fishing past 225 at level 70
So here I am at level 70, back in the land where your mom is that easy and Chuck Norris is that cool: The Barrens. I'm not here to save the Crossroads from ganking Allies and I'm not here to run noobs through Wailing Caverns (so stop asking). I'm here to fish. Fishing is the one secondary skill I didn't work on because, well, it's boring. But now that you can make tons of cash with the new Fishing Dailies, I'm leveling up fish-catching skills. The problem is that once you get to 225, and finish that annoying quest with Nat Pagle, fishing gets even more boring than it was before. No matter where you fish, each skillup is farther apart and you have to hang out in places that are far below your level if you don't want to miss a lot.The first thing I did was search WoW Insider, because that usually does the trick and I found a great guide to Fishing and Cooking, but the advice for leveling to 300 says "may god have mercy on your soul because Blizzard won't." Not a good sign. I also found a link to El's Extreme Anglin' which is a fantastic fishing site, but I couldn't find any advice for making the trip from 225 any less painful. So I asked The Spousal Unit who has won the Fishing Extravaganza more than once and after some experimentation on my own, I'm well on my way past 265 and making a lot of cash at the same time.My tips are after the jump.
Blizzard tweaks XP at level 70
Our good friend Boubouille at MMO Champion has news of an XP change in the game, but not where you might expect. Blizzard has secretly changed the amount of XP earned... at level 70.But wait, you say, we don't earn XP at level 70! Ah, but we do -- after you hit 70, you actually continue to earn XP to level 71, but you never actually ding. And while before the patch, the amount you had to earn to "hit" 71 was about 814,700, now it's up to 1,256,500. Which makes sense -- while some folks are saying this might have been done to just fix a bug, Boubouille says it lines right up to the difference between vanilla WoW and the Burning Crusade, which means we'll need to earn about 50% more XP per level in Wrath of the Lich King.Of course, this affects a few other things in the game -- Mania notes that pet loyalty is based on percentage level XP earned, so Hunters at level 70 will now need to hang out with their pets for longer to earn a higher loyalty level. But Blizzard isn't nerfing anything here -- from what we can tell, they're just lining up level 70 to become the first level of the next expansion instead of the last level in the game.
