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18 observations from a leveling healer
I've been leveling a goblin priest for something I call the Low-Level Tank Project, which is a count on the class representation he sees among tanks in the Dungeon Finder. Between the goblin and my restoration shaman (who reached 85 about two months ago), I've had two healers leveling mostly through dungeons recently, and a few commonalities have emerged. This is sort of a spiritual successor to 20 observations from a leveling tank, if you'd like a more tank-flavored look at leveling groups. This outing is a more generalized approach, possibly because I take a more observational role in my groups whenever I'm healing, like Jane Goodall among the ungemmed and unenchanted chimps. 1. DPSers are enormously indifferent to aggro in early dungeons. You're not healing one tank -- you're healing four. Five, if nobody bothers to stomp the mob making a beeline for you. 2. Early dungeons aren't necessarily good training for everyone involved. I wouldn't go so far as to say they're a terrible experience, per se -- they're quick, easy, and a good way to build confidence for new players -- but the usual mechanism by which players are encouraged to behave themselves (ugly death) is a remote possibility at best.
Lichborne: Outland leveling Supplemental: Professions and Dungeons
Two major questions remain from our Outland Leveling advice column from last week: Is it worth it to run Dungeons, and is it worth it to level a Profession? In both cases, the answer is: It depends. I know that sounds like a bit of a copout, but it is true. You can pretty much level straight to 70 and even 80 without ever touching a dungeon or learning a profession and do just fine. That said, there are certainly advantages to delving into dungeons or putting your Gnomish Army Knife to actual use. Let's take a look.
Brew of the Month for October: Autumnal Acorn Ale
Apparently that 200 tokens I spent on the Brew of the Month club was well spent -- I got my second Brew in the mail this week, and it's a good one. Autumnal Acorn Ale is not only tasty, but it'll make you smell like Autumn Acorns, too. Drinking it will get you drunk and call Woodland Squirrels up to show you a little critter love (or hate). I sipped it for the first time last night during a Slave Pens run, and at one point I had three cute little squirrels showing their affection. Apparently they'll also throw acorns at you, though I missed that in the chaos of the instance last night.Plus, it's an unlimited use item after 3.0.2 (14 day duration, though BotM members can buy more in Ironforge), which means you get as much alcohol as you want, and every time you drink one, you get an "empty brew bottle" to throw with a glassbreak bang. Very fun.If you didn't round up enough tokens to become a BotM member, you're unfortunately out of luck -- I originally thought you could buy the brews in Ironforge even if you weren't subscribed, but no dice, and the brews you get sent are soulbound. You'll have to wait until next Brewfest to sign up for your monthly beer. Can't wait to see what shows up next month!
15 Minutes of Fame: 10-boxing Karazhan, Part 2
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.Last week, 15 Minutes of Fame visited with multiboxer Nixi of team Absolute Power-H of Archimonde to bring WoW Insider readers his 10-boxing strategy for Karazhan. This week, we'll step back for a look at Nixi's hardware setup, his top five tips for new multiboxers and a broader look at why he's a 'boxer.Catch up with 10-boxing Karazhan Part 1, then join us after the break for an inside look at Nixi's 10-boxing team.
Breakfast Topic: Are you achieving?
So, recently we learned that Blizzard would be doing everything they could to reward achievements retroactively. Besides the obvious rewards for exploring, they will also look at your quest logs and gear and give retroactive rewards out for dungeons and raids based on what they find. Still have your Stormrage Legguards tucked in a corner of the bank? Congratulations, you'll get the Molten Core achievement. Turned in Hard to Kill 2 days after the dungeon went live? You'll automatically have the Magister's Terrace achievement come Wrath. It's a pretty cool idea that'll help us old vets feel like we've accomplished something with these years in the game, and I'm all for it. It's also been sort of fun to look at my transferred characters on the Beta servers and see what I have and haven't run, or what I have run but am not credited for. What's occurred to me though is that I could go back to the live servers, run a few dungeons, finish a few quests, tuck a few pieces of random loot away, and come out of the gate on Wrath release day with a whole bunch more shiny achievement points. You know, if I could actually tear myself away from the Beta servers. But anyway, the idea is tempting, if only because it's a constructive thing to do with my characters before Wrath hits and the grind to 80 starts for real. After all, no matter how often they up the level cap and add new dungeons, they'll never take the Slave Pens achievement away from me. Are any of you out there working at racking up what achievements you can preemptively? If not, are you considering it?
Midsummer Festival Quest - Shards of Ahune
We love to give here at WoW Insider. We're just givers. We provided a guide to the Midsummer Fire Festival, including a level guide, instructions on how to steal the opposite faction's fire, a walkthrough and a loot table for conquering Lord Ahune, and a guide to most of the other festival quests. Now we present a quick guide to getting your very own Tabard of Summer by completing the Shards of Ahune quest.After you've taken down Lord Ahune in the Slave Pens, loot the Ice Chest he drops. If you get an item called Shards of Alune, you can right-click it to start the quest. Um, then the rest is ever so tough. You just trot yourself over to Luma Skymother, a female Tauren in the Slave Pens and complete the quest with her. She'll give you 20 Burning Blossoms and your choice of tabards -- either with Flames or Skies. Note that you need to be at least Level 66 to obtain and complete this quest.That's all there is to it! Well, except for making it through the Slave Pens alive and defeating Lord Ahune and some junk. But hey, who knows, maybe when you get yours, it will show this elusive mystery tooltip when you inspect it. A prize inside, just like Cracker Jacks!
Around Azeroth: Death chamber with a view
An unidentified reader sent us this ceiling shot of a hole in the last chamber of the Slave Pens. Who knew Quagmirran enjoyed a sunroof is his demense? Well, a water roof considering the whole thing is under Coilfang Reservoir. But wouldn't that flood the whole place? Oh well, it's scenic and that makes it the selection for today's Around Azeroth.Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? Because we'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next! Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned.%Gallery-1816%
Get exalted with Sporeggar
If you fancy the new Tiny Spore Bat pet, then Sporeggar is the faction for you. While the reputation grind can be daunting and mind-numbing, becoming exalted with the Sporelings is one of the easiest and quickest rep grinds out there. Mooire of Ferocious Bite, a drood blog, has recently posted a guide to gaining Sporeggar rep, just in time for all the non-combat fans to make a quick grind. After all, if you need one, you simply need it to be had on patch day. How will we co-ordinate with our flying mounts otherwise? The "Bring me a(nother) shrubbery!" quest is undoubtedly the easiest way to gain reputation, provided you can get into a group for Underbog. Mooire found that each run can yield 20-30 sanguine hibiscus, and at 750 rep per 5 turned in, that's up to 4 500 reputation per dungeon run. If you have the herbalism skill, Mooire points out that many of the mobs will shed sanguine hibiscus. For rogues and droods, some of the plants can be gained without the aid of a group by stealthing through the dungeon. Reaching exalted with Sporeggar may bring fashionable benefits as well. After all, what blood elf male doesn't secretly long for the pinky-purple mushroom tabard?For those of you who are still leveling, or who have seriously neglected this particular faction, then there are other quests and turnins to be done before locking into an Underbog group.
For great (Badge of) Justice!
The other night my guild stepped into a heroic instance for the first time. Now this isn't great news for those of you who already spend your weekend nights huggling Gruul, but it's a great accomplishment for us. Since we all have the Coilfang Resevoir key we started with Slave Pens, and I must say it was a joy to have challenge in that instance again. It felt like I had been given the instance back, as it were. If I were to walk into Slave Pens at the normal level I would feel little interest since it's tuned for 62-64. I finally understand the method behind the heroic dungeon concept, to allow level 70 players to have fun going to those dungeons again. But what I'd really like is heroic dungeon settings for the old instances in Azeroth. Can you imagine what Van Cleef would be like at level 70? It makes me giddy just to think of it. We only got as far as the first boss, and then the trash beat us to a complete pulp before exhaustion forced us to quit. I really was surprised how the tides shift with heroics. I have a hard time reconciling trash mobs who are impossible to kill and bosses who are manageable. Either way I am excited to have such a novel experience added to our game play. Whoever came up with the concept of heroic dungeons was brilliant. I have my first Badge of Justice, now. Only 112 to go.
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Revenge of the pugs
New five-man instances can only mean one thing -- the return of the classic source of amusement and frustration, the pickup group. It's especially interesting when raiders, who are used to perfect coordination and military-like precision, end up running an instance with, say, a priest who they hate from a rival raiding guild, a warrior who forgot his shield in the bank, and a warlock who clearly bought their Tier 3 character on eBay and is having difficulty figuring out that Searing Pain is not the greatest spell to spam. Such people often overestimate the coordination of their teammates -- like my mage friend who got us all a free trip to the graveyard while attempting to master something he called the "Flamestrike Pull" in the Blood Furnace. Since I've mostly been running with said mage friend, who is in a different guild than me, our instance runs have been semi-pugs -- someone from his guild, someone from my guild, someone we found by spamming general chat all stuffed together. It took the raiders among us some time to get used to the five-mans again. Wait, we can sap and sheep things? A pet can off-tank? We can pull without a hunter? Ooh, a chest -- wait, do we have a rogue to open it? Plus, the bosses usually only drop one item, and someone who's been through Naxx is probably not psychologically prepared to die to a lot of orcs AGAIN. Nevertheless, most of my pugs have been good. I've met old acquaintances on new characters and made mental notes of people I'd like to group with again. We had a group today that was so good we went straight through Slave Pens and the Underbog, and were preparing to go through the Underbog again when we realized that we were all sick of fighting spore bats and agreed to meet up later. It's also dang satisfying to see gear drop that people can really use, without a giant fight over class priority and DKP, and watching as everyone slowly replaces their epics with blues. Well, except the tank in Dreadnaught. Those shoulders are way too cool to replace. What's your pug experience been like so far? Do you hate doing instances without strategies and Vent, or are you welcoming the new content?
