.
...particularly where the plans for my little group are concerned.
After reading about bringing low-level characters to zones such as Stratholme and Scholomance for power-leveling, I wondered if my group would benefit from this. The minimum level to enter these zones is 45, and my group was almost 47. I decided that I would give Scholomance a shot. But first I wanted to complete a couple of quests in the zones that I'd been leveling in. So off I went to Uldaman, where I made it to the room where you get the quest The Platinum Discs. Unfortunately, they were about 5,000 experience points short of the level required to start the quest, so I had to run them back to areas that we had skipped, in order to find mobs that would provide the experience they needed. With that out of the way, they completed the quest line and wound up about 15-20% into the level.
Then I returned to the Sunken Temple and cleared it, which provided the group with their next level (48). This allowed them to use their Essence of Eranikus to initiate and complete the quest bearing the same name. I got them their next set of abilities and logged them out in Undercity to soak up rested experience overnight.
Saturday morning I rode the group through the Western Plaguelands and into Scholomance. Having soloed a small portion of the zone before, I knew that I would be able to handle the trash, as well as Rattlegore. I didn't know how well I'd handle the rest of the zone, but I assumed that I could clear it, especially with the group there to provide heals if needed. During the early clear, I had both the paladin and priest's best heals on separate keys. Binding them to the same key provided me with synchronized heals in the 2200-2500 range, non-crit. Not only is this a significant amount of healing in this context, but splitting it between two characters allows me to keep aggro pretty low (although that is not as issue as yet). I may spec the paladin to holy until I start Outlands instances, though I will keep enough points in protection to keep Blessing of Kings available.
There was a near wipe as I cleared the first large room, when the warlock's pet was feared away by a mob. The pet aggro'ed two additional groups, which I managed to kill without any deaths in the group. Then a sloppy pull on my part brought the Blood Steward of Kirtonos along with two groups. I killed all of those without losing anyone, but I started being more cautious about pulls. With the level of my group and the propensity for some mobs to run at low health, I knew it would be a matter of time before a wipe. Until now, there was little danger of my group members dying from mob aggro, but that had changed.
With that settled, I cleared the early bosses with no incident. I used an old trick with Jandice Barov-- I kept the group far enough away to avoid aggro, but close enough to get credit for the kill. I ran into a couple of problems in the final room (where most of the bosses are) because I'd forgotten how the trash pulls worked. There is one room where you will get six or seven slow-moving mobs on a pull. These mobs constantly do a small AE as well as melee damage, and trying to stand in one spot and tank them all down was a bad idea-- this ended with a wipe. Lesson learned-- kite that group! I pulled the group again and ran back and forth along the hallway, jousting and nuking them as I ran through the group, then healing myself once I had gained sufficient distance. That worked fine.
After clearing the upper rooms, I started on the trash in the lower rooms. Assuming that the trash for those rooms was like most trash in the instance, I pulled three mobs from the room where The Ravenian is. Bad idea! Designed to be single-pulled, they hit moderately hard but very fast. I was forced to cast an emergency heal with my healers, which caused the mobs to kill them very quickly, after which they wiped the rest of the group. Casting a heal through the constant pushback was pretty much impossible. Lesson learned-- Pull those trash mobs carefully! I made sure to pull them one at a time after that, and things went smoothly again.
Both The Ravenian and Lady Illucia Barov went down without a hitch. As with Jandice, I kept the group far enough away so that they would not be a factor in the fight, but close enough to get credit. I decided I would take no chances with Lord Alexei Barov, and used my shaman's earth elemental pet to tank his group while I DPSed them down. The pet held aggro the whole time and required only one heal (and it's possible he would have survived even without it). I actually killed Illucia last, because she was in a large room. I could bring the group into the room without aggroing her. After she died, I had time to get my group coordinated before engaging the final boss of the zone, Darkmaster Gandling. He appears in the central room in that area after the three lower bosses are defeated.
Gandling presented a potential dilemma-- the group would probably not be far enough out of range to avoid entering combat, and Gandling has a habit of teleporting random party members into one of the surrounding rooms. When he does this, the door to the room closes, and a single level 60 non-elite mob is spawned. The player that is teleported into the room must quickly kill the mob in order to open the door and rejoin the fight. If any of my group beside the shaman were teleported into a room, they'd almost certainly die at the hands of a mob 12 levels higher. If my shaman was teleported, I'd lose one or more group members before I got out of the room. I figured that I'd probably get the kill pretty easily, but the group members would all die. Ah well, nothing I could do about that! So I buffed up and charged in...
Gandling went down as easily as I anticipated. It seems that most of his damage is spell-based, and I resisted nearly every spell. His melee is very weak, which is understandable considering the way the event is designed. If he hit like a "real" boss, he'd be nearly impossible for a standard level 60 group to take down. He only attempted to teleport a group member once, and for some reason it didn't work. I don't know if he tried to cast on me and had it resisted, or if he tried to cast on another party member and it failed somehow. He died shortly after the teleport would have been cast, but I don't know if that was it. The door to one of the rooms did close, and a level 60 mob was spawned inside, but no one was teleported in. Oh well, no complaints there! The group survived, the paladin and mage got some gear (that they cannot use for 6-8 more levels!), the paladin got his skinning to 320, and the priest had enough runecloth for almost 50 bolts of cloth. They also got to friendly with the Argent Dawn, for what it's worth.
So it looks like Scholomance will be a viable leveling area for them for some time. Good experience (they're at a ceiling now, 556 per mob, rested), good drops (lots of greater eternal essences and some large brilliant shards), and decent amounts of coin (especially on trips where I don't wipe the group!). I will also try Dire Maul before long, as a change of pace. Stratholme should also be an option, but getting a group of level 48/49 characters to the entrances might be more trouble than it's worth, due to mob aggro. But I'll be there before long anyway!
Monday, March 24, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Slow going...
.
The team is level 46 at the moment, and three bubbles from level 47. The guild I am in has grown a bit and there is more to do with my main character with other people, and since that is what I prefer to do with my play time, it has left little time available to level the alts. This is not a bad situation, but it does mean that leveling will slow down quite a bit from here on out. I'm looking at a level per week or so, though two levels per weekend are possible under the right circumstances.
Playing them once a week means that they'll almost always be earning experience at the rested rate. After getting them to level 45 by running Uldaman a half-dozen times, I led the group to the Swamp of Sorrows and had them set their hearth at the inn there. Later, a guildmate provided them with a portal to Shattrath City and they set their hearth to the Scryer inn. My shaman is Aldor-aligned, but for now the factions don't matter, and the Scryer terrace is much closer to the ground than the Aldor terrace, which means fewer deaths if I happen to miss the elevator. This is a distinct possibility, because running four instances of WoW on one computer works just fine... until I am in Shattrath City. Then my characters lag pretty badly at times while moving through the city. But for normal zones, other cities, and instances, everything works just fine.
Anyway...
The Temple of Atal'Hakkar (aka The Sunken Temple, hereafter ST) sits in the center of the Swamp of Sorrows. It is a fairly large and somewhat complex dungeon, with what amounts to three separate wings within the same instanced area. There is one level where you can activate some statues in order to spawn a boss below. There is another area where you must defeat six mini-bosses, which allows access to another room below and the boss that is inside. Finally, there is an area crawling with dragonkin and their bigger brothers and sisters. Most mobs are level 48-50. One boss, the Avatar of Hakkar, can only be summoned after following a quest line. As much as I'd like to do that, it's not really an efficient use of my time, especially now.
Getting to level 46 did not take long, as the group was about 40% of the way there already. I cleared the two circular hallways, allowing me to summon the first boss and unlock access to the second. The group hit level 46 while I was clearing some of the early dragonkin packs, and at that point I called it a day, having killed only the first boss.
A week later I returned, ready to see if I could clear the zone. This is a matter of time, as my shaman can kill anything in there with little fuss. But I tend to take my time as I work my way through the zone, carefully looting and managing drops, etc. To make a long story short, I cleared the zone and got the group from around 2% of level 46 to 85%. It was all rested experience-- a full clear won't be worth a whole level to them. But it would've been easy enough to reset the instance and go again until they'd gotten level 47, or simply kill the trash that had respawned. Trash mobs in ST respawn pretty fast. I'll try to get levels 47 and 48 next weekend.
The first boss (Atal'alarion) is a pretty straightforward fight. The only thing to keep an eye out for is his ability to knock you very high into the air. I took about 50% of my health in damage when I finally landed. He still died pretty fast. Jammal'an the Prophet was a concern for me, because he can mind-control players in the group. If he managed to successfully mind-control my shaman, I'd wind up tearing the group to pieces. So I worked on keeping the group far enough away to avoid aggroing any mobs, but still close enough to soak up experience. This worked just fine, and the boss died just as he was about to try to mind-control me. His partner in crime was practically a footnote.
After that, I carved my way through the four lesser dragons that fly around in pairs once you have killed Jammal'an and his buddy. Those were pretty trivial, even though I clumsily pulled the first pair by having them aggro the group as I was running around. But no one died and finally I was faced with the final boss, the Shade of Eranikus.
The Shade was a concern because of his ability to sleep his current aggro target, effectively removing them from the fight for a short duration. Having him sleep my shaman and turn on the group could be a disaster. Again, I parked the group far enough so that the boss treated this as a solo attempt for aggro purposes, but close enough for them to get credit for the kill. I summoned my fire pet just in case, and went to town. I don't know if he attempted to sleep me or not, but after a few seconds he was dead.
My current short term plans are: Get the group to level 48. This will allow me to complete the quests in the final room in Uldaman (the ones with the discs, which requires level 47 to access) as well as the quest using the Essence of Eranikus. This should provide a considerable chunk of extra experience for the group. I will also look for any other quests that I can complete there. I do need to turn in a side quest in the Hinterlands as well, which may open up further quests for ST. I will then run ST and Zul'Farrak until at least level 50, and perhaps through to level 52 before I head on towards Blackrock Depths. I expect BRD to be their home until level 55 or 56, at which point I'll hit Stratholme and Scholomance and perhaps Dire Maul. Getting them to the mid-50s is the big short-term goal, since it opens up so much variety for me.
In the meantime I'd like to continue to level their tradeskills when I am able to. My shaman is a blacksmith and enchanter, and my other level 70 character (a rogue) is my gatherer-- he is max'ed in mining and herbalism. So the idea is to get the alts to cover for any tradeskills that I'd like to have. Engineering is out, since I plan to put any efforts at mining into jewelcrafting. My warlock is currently only at 101/150 in JC. The priest is at 260/300 in tailoring, and will continue to level it as I move on to mobs that drop runecloth. Bonuss, the paladin, is at 312/375 in skinning (this is the reason that I wanted the portal to Shattrath City for the group). He should get pretty far just from continuing to skin the endless supply of dragons and dragonkin in ST. I have a large amount of both low/mid-level leather and herbs, and just need to decide who will learn leatherworking and who will learn alchemy.
It's almost frustrating that things are getting so busy now, because I'm getting close to a really exciting and fun period for the group. But it's one of those problems that anyone would want to have, and it's nice to have as many options for grouping with friends as I do these days.
The team is level 46 at the moment, and three bubbles from level 47. The guild I am in has grown a bit and there is more to do with my main character with other people, and since that is what I prefer to do with my play time, it has left little time available to level the alts. This is not a bad situation, but it does mean that leveling will slow down quite a bit from here on out. I'm looking at a level per week or so, though two levels per weekend are possible under the right circumstances.
Playing them once a week means that they'll almost always be earning experience at the rested rate. After getting them to level 45 by running Uldaman a half-dozen times, I led the group to the Swamp of Sorrows and had them set their hearth at the inn there. Later, a guildmate provided them with a portal to Shattrath City and they set their hearth to the Scryer inn. My shaman is Aldor-aligned, but for now the factions don't matter, and the Scryer terrace is much closer to the ground than the Aldor terrace, which means fewer deaths if I happen to miss the elevator. This is a distinct possibility, because running four instances of WoW on one computer works just fine... until I am in Shattrath City. Then my characters lag pretty badly at times while moving through the city. But for normal zones, other cities, and instances, everything works just fine.
Anyway...
The Temple of Atal'Hakkar (aka The Sunken Temple, hereafter ST) sits in the center of the Swamp of Sorrows. It is a fairly large and somewhat complex dungeon, with what amounts to three separate wings within the same instanced area. There is one level where you can activate some statues in order to spawn a boss below. There is another area where you must defeat six mini-bosses, which allows access to another room below and the boss that is inside. Finally, there is an area crawling with dragonkin and their bigger brothers and sisters. Most mobs are level 48-50. One boss, the Avatar of Hakkar, can only be summoned after following a quest line. As much as I'd like to do that, it's not really an efficient use of my time, especially now.
Getting to level 46 did not take long, as the group was about 40% of the way there already. I cleared the two circular hallways, allowing me to summon the first boss and unlock access to the second. The group hit level 46 while I was clearing some of the early dragonkin packs, and at that point I called it a day, having killed only the first boss.
A week later I returned, ready to see if I could clear the zone. This is a matter of time, as my shaman can kill anything in there with little fuss. But I tend to take my time as I work my way through the zone, carefully looting and managing drops, etc. To make a long story short, I cleared the zone and got the group from around 2% of level 46 to 85%. It was all rested experience-- a full clear won't be worth a whole level to them. But it would've been easy enough to reset the instance and go again until they'd gotten level 47, or simply kill the trash that had respawned. Trash mobs in ST respawn pretty fast. I'll try to get levels 47 and 48 next weekend.
The first boss (Atal'alarion) is a pretty straightforward fight. The only thing to keep an eye out for is his ability to knock you very high into the air. I took about 50% of my health in damage when I finally landed. He still died pretty fast. Jammal'an the Prophet was a concern for me, because he can mind-control players in the group. If he managed to successfully mind-control my shaman, I'd wind up tearing the group to pieces. So I worked on keeping the group far enough away to avoid aggroing any mobs, but still close enough to soak up experience. This worked just fine, and the boss died just as he was about to try to mind-control me. His partner in crime was practically a footnote.
After that, I carved my way through the four lesser dragons that fly around in pairs once you have killed Jammal'an and his buddy. Those were pretty trivial, even though I clumsily pulled the first pair by having them aggro the group as I was running around. But no one died and finally I was faced with the final boss, the Shade of Eranikus.
The Shade was a concern because of his ability to sleep his current aggro target, effectively removing them from the fight for a short duration. Having him sleep my shaman and turn on the group could be a disaster. Again, I parked the group far enough so that the boss treated this as a solo attempt for aggro purposes, but close enough for them to get credit for the kill. I summoned my fire pet just in case, and went to town. I don't know if he attempted to sleep me or not, but after a few seconds he was dead.
My current short term plans are: Get the group to level 48. This will allow me to complete the quests in the final room in Uldaman (the ones with the discs, which requires level 47 to access) as well as the quest using the Essence of Eranikus. This should provide a considerable chunk of extra experience for the group. I will also look for any other quests that I can complete there. I do need to turn in a side quest in the Hinterlands as well, which may open up further quests for ST. I will then run ST and Zul'Farrak until at least level 50, and perhaps through to level 52 before I head on towards Blackrock Depths. I expect BRD to be their home until level 55 or 56, at which point I'll hit Stratholme and Scholomance and perhaps Dire Maul. Getting them to the mid-50s is the big short-term goal, since it opens up so much variety for me.
In the meantime I'd like to continue to level their tradeskills when I am able to. My shaman is a blacksmith and enchanter, and my other level 70 character (a rogue) is my gatherer-- he is max'ed in mining and herbalism. So the idea is to get the alts to cover for any tradeskills that I'd like to have. Engineering is out, since I plan to put any efforts at mining into jewelcrafting. My warlock is currently only at 101/150 in JC. The priest is at 260/300 in tailoring, and will continue to level it as I move on to mobs that drop runecloth. Bonuss, the paladin, is at 312/375 in skinning (this is the reason that I wanted the portal to Shattrath City for the group). He should get pretty far just from continuing to skin the endless supply of dragons and dragonkin in ST. I have a large amount of both low/mid-level leather and herbs, and just need to decide who will learn leatherworking and who will learn alchemy.
It's almost frustrating that things are getting so busy now, because I'm getting close to a really exciting and fun period for the group. But it's one of those problems that anyone would want to have, and it's nice to have as many options for grouping with friends as I do these days.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Ding 40, time for some horsies!
.
And hawkstriders as well!
As ever, the plans I (loosely) made for the group underwent some changes. Once they got to level 37 I picked up the quest to kill the final boss in Razorfen Downs and completed that, and then got them to level 38 shortly thereafter. So I decided early one morning to get them a few flight paths that I had not gotten yet. An hour or so later, with only two gankings to slow them down, the group had flight paths for Tarren Mill in Hillsbrad Foothills, Hammerfall in Arathi Highlands, Gadgetzan in Tanaris, and most importantly for the moment... Kargath in the Badlands. I cleared Uldaman for them, then picked up some of the quests and completed them over this past weekend. Along with a few additional clears, this was enough to get them to level 40 and allow them to purchase their mounts.
The next part of the plan will go into effect sometime this week, with a trip to the Swamp of Sorrows to pick up the flight path at Stonard. In the meantime, I expect I will take a few trips through Zul'Farrak and see how far that gets the group. Zul'Farrak and the Temple of Atal'Hakkar should get the group through levels 40-50. I will also need to remember to do the handful of quests for the outside area in the Hinterlands, which provides a nice quest reward or two, including a cloak with spell damage and healing. I run the group at limited times now (early on weekends mostly) to avoid gankers slowing things down. There are additional benefits to the limited schedule- they usually have 50-75% rested experience (or more) now, and it doesn't feel like such a grind. Clearing instances repeatedly gets pretty boring, even though it's relatively quick. There's just no challenge at the moment.
Once they get to a level where I need to get them actively involved, it'll slow things down but the challenge will add to the fun. The next patch (version 2.4.0) will apparently increase the experience gained from all quests in Outland zones. When the time comes to level up in those zones, there will be bonus experience waiting for them. This is a very very good thing! My plan is to take the group to Outland at level 58, do the early quests for some nice gear upgrades, then head back to Scholomance/Stratholme/Dire Maul to level to 60. At 60 I'll run Outland instances exclusively, and between the experience gains from instances and the added experience from quest rewards, the road to level 70 should be relatively short. This also means that I'll have lots and lots of outdoors questing to do once they hit 70, which means more gold.
Which is a good thing, since the cost of land and flying mounts will be borne by my shaman until then. Ouch...
And hawkstriders as well!
As ever, the plans I (loosely) made for the group underwent some changes. Once they got to level 37 I picked up the quest to kill the final boss in Razorfen Downs and completed that, and then got them to level 38 shortly thereafter. So I decided early one morning to get them a few flight paths that I had not gotten yet. An hour or so later, with only two gankings to slow them down, the group had flight paths for Tarren Mill in Hillsbrad Foothills, Hammerfall in Arathi Highlands, Gadgetzan in Tanaris, and most importantly for the moment... Kargath in the Badlands. I cleared Uldaman for them, then picked up some of the quests and completed them over this past weekend. Along with a few additional clears, this was enough to get them to level 40 and allow them to purchase their mounts.
The next part of the plan will go into effect sometime this week, with a trip to the Swamp of Sorrows to pick up the flight path at Stonard. In the meantime, I expect I will take a few trips through Zul'Farrak and see how far that gets the group. Zul'Farrak and the Temple of Atal'Hakkar should get the group through levels 40-50. I will also need to remember to do the handful of quests for the outside area in the Hinterlands, which provides a nice quest reward or two, including a cloak with spell damage and healing. I run the group at limited times now (early on weekends mostly) to avoid gankers slowing things down. There are additional benefits to the limited schedule- they usually have 50-75% rested experience (or more) now, and it doesn't feel like such a grind. Clearing instances repeatedly gets pretty boring, even though it's relatively quick. There's just no challenge at the moment.
Once they get to a level where I need to get them actively involved, it'll slow things down but the challenge will add to the fun. The next patch (version 2.4.0) will apparently increase the experience gained from all quests in Outland zones. When the time comes to level up in those zones, there will be bonus experience waiting for them. This is a very very good thing! My plan is to take the group to Outland at level 58, do the early quests for some nice gear upgrades, then head back to Scholomance/Stratholme/Dire Maul to level to 60. At 60 I'll run Outland instances exclusively, and between the experience gains from instances and the added experience from quest rewards, the road to level 70 should be relatively short. This also means that I'll have lots and lots of outdoors questing to do once they hit 70, which means more gold.
Which is a good thing, since the cost of land and flying mounts will be borne by my shaman until then. Ouch...
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
35, and a peek down the road.
.
Yes, the group is level 35 now, which means they've earned 10 levels in approximately two weeks. If that pace seems slow, it is. I normally play them every few days, allowing them to accumulate 30-50% rested experience. Levels 33, 34, and 35 were gained over the weekend. Having come close to level 33 entering the weekend, I ran the group through Razorfen Downs. Once they had level 33 under their collective belts, I got the quest to kill the four bosses in the Scarlet Monastery, a quest which provided them with 7200 experience as a reward. Prior to the recent patch that increased quest reward experience while reducing leveling experience amounts, quests in this range typically gave 2500-4000 experience as a reward. Many quests at level 60 used to provide 5000-6500. I will need to keep instance quests in mind as I level the group.
A friend told the guild about his attempts at soloing Scholomance with his level 70 mage. He was able to kill all of the bosses he attempted (which was all of them save for Jandice Barov). This led me to thinking. From the start, I had assumed that I could solo through the pre-40 instances without any problem, and that I'd want to have the rest of the group participate once I reached zones such as Uldaman and Zul'Farrak. But I decided I'd give Scholomance a shot just for the sake of it. There were other considerations, as well. My shaman is an enchanter, and Large Brilliant Shards are a nice way to make (or spend!) gold. To make a long story short, my shaman had no problem clearing to Rattlegore, and the boss went down on a second attempt very easily.
Therefore, it's possible that I will not have to get the group involved at all until the level 58-60 dungeons (Stratholme, Scholomance, Dire Maul), and even then they will only be required to a limited degree. I would mostly need the heals from the paladin and priest, since my DPS is high enough to down the level 61+ bosses pretty quickly. Many of them have around 30,000 hit points and won't be able to do enough damage to me to make me concerned, what with two healers behind me to split the aggro.
In any event, they are level 35. My plan is to run the Scarlet Monastery (with the exception of the graveyard, which is lower level and populated primarily by non-elites) and Razorfen Downs until the group is level 40. At this point I will get them mounts, and run them to a number of flight paths, including the ones at Tanaris, the Badlands, and the Swamp of Sorrows. Being on a PvP server, getting to those flight paths can be a painful experience (well, the latter two anyway, Tanaris won't be bad). The faster I can get to them, the better.
Once there, I will have Uldaman, Zul'Farrak, and the Temple of Atal'Hakkar (ie, the Sunken Temple) within easy reach. I will look for any related quests, and start clearing a path through those zones. I am actually eager to head to Uldaman; my past experiences there as I was leveling up weren't all that pleasant (with server instability at the time being a major culprit) and so I was only able to reach the final boss two times, perhaps three. The Sunken Temple may present some interesting challenges. Having my level 70 shaman get mind-controlled could be very very bad for the rest of the group...
Yes, the group is level 35 now, which means they've earned 10 levels in approximately two weeks. If that pace seems slow, it is. I normally play them every few days, allowing them to accumulate 30-50% rested experience. Levels 33, 34, and 35 were gained over the weekend. Having come close to level 33 entering the weekend, I ran the group through Razorfen Downs. Once they had level 33 under their collective belts, I got the quest to kill the four bosses in the Scarlet Monastery, a quest which provided them with 7200 experience as a reward. Prior to the recent patch that increased quest reward experience while reducing leveling experience amounts, quests in this range typically gave 2500-4000 experience as a reward. Many quests at level 60 used to provide 5000-6500. I will need to keep instance quests in mind as I level the group.
A friend told the guild about his attempts at soloing Scholomance with his level 70 mage. He was able to kill all of the bosses he attempted (which was all of them save for Jandice Barov). This led me to thinking. From the start, I had assumed that I could solo through the pre-40 instances without any problem, and that I'd want to have the rest of the group participate once I reached zones such as Uldaman and Zul'Farrak. But I decided I'd give Scholomance a shot just for the sake of it. There were other considerations, as well. My shaman is an enchanter, and Large Brilliant Shards are a nice way to make (or spend!) gold. To make a long story short, my shaman had no problem clearing to Rattlegore, and the boss went down on a second attempt very easily.
Therefore, it's possible that I will not have to get the group involved at all until the level 58-60 dungeons (Stratholme, Scholomance, Dire Maul), and even then they will only be required to a limited degree. I would mostly need the heals from the paladin and priest, since my DPS is high enough to down the level 61+ bosses pretty quickly. Many of them have around 30,000 hit points and won't be able to do enough damage to me to make me concerned, what with two healers behind me to split the aggro.
In any event, they are level 35. My plan is to run the Scarlet Monastery (with the exception of the graveyard, which is lower level and populated primarily by non-elites) and Razorfen Downs until the group is level 40. At this point I will get them mounts, and run them to a number of flight paths, including the ones at Tanaris, the Badlands, and the Swamp of Sorrows. Being on a PvP server, getting to those flight paths can be a painful experience (well, the latter two anyway, Tanaris won't be bad). The faster I can get to them, the better.
Once there, I will have Uldaman, Zul'Farrak, and the Temple of Atal'Hakkar (ie, the Sunken Temple) within easy reach. I will look for any related quests, and start clearing a path through those zones. I am actually eager to head to Uldaman; my past experiences there as I was leveling up weren't all that pleasant (with server instability at the time being a major culprit) and so I was only able to reach the final boss two times, perhaps three. The Sunken Temple may present some interesting challenges. Having my level 70 shaman get mind-controlled could be very very bad for the rest of the group...
Monday, January 14, 2008
Zzzzzzoom!
.
I had decided on my leveling path when I saw a forum post (on the WoW General Forum) about a paladin who had been power-leveled by a friend. As I had not really done any long range planning, it hadn't occurred to me to do anything aside from take their leveling path at face value. So I dutifully slogged my way through Razorfen Kraul from levels 20-24 and intended to get to 25 there before moving on to the Scarlet Monastery. Then I happened to do a quick check and realized that you can zone into SM at level 20! This changes things...
Mind you, RFK is not a bad instance to grind out with my small group, but the Scarlet Monastery provides a change of pace and a nice dash of variety. It has four separate wings, and each one is short and linear. And since the group can zone into all of the wings, the experience is excellent. The graveyard is the poorest in this regard since many of the mobs are non-elite. But it's also a very short and very quick clear. The relatively poor exp, small selection of useful loot drops and fast respawn on trash makes it likely that I will not spend much time in there. But there are three other wings.
A full clear of the four wings and a second run through the library got the team to level 25 and about 30% shy of level 26. I will run SM a few more times and then give Razorfen Downs a shot just to mix things up, and perhaps even run Blackfathom Deeps once or twice. BFD is in contested territory and the instance portal is inside a winding and confusing series of tunnels, so I am not sure it's worth the potential headaches just for a quick run or two. RFD may give me the opportunity to experiment with involving the whole group in the fights. But I get the feeling that I won't really have anything to worry about until the group is in the low 50s.
I will try to remember to get some screenshots of the team. I would also FRAPS a movie or two but I think I'll wait until I can get the entire team involved before doing that. Otherwise it's just a video of a level 70 enhance shaman plowing through instanced zones that are 30-40 levels lower than he is.
I had decided on my leveling path when I saw a forum post (on the WoW General Forum) about a paladin who had been power-leveled by a friend. As I had not really done any long range planning, it hadn't occurred to me to do anything aside from take their leveling path at face value. So I dutifully slogged my way through Razorfen Kraul from levels 20-24 and intended to get to 25 there before moving on to the Scarlet Monastery. Then I happened to do a quick check and realized that you can zone into SM at level 20! This changes things...
Mind you, RFK is not a bad instance to grind out with my small group, but the Scarlet Monastery provides a change of pace and a nice dash of variety. It has four separate wings, and each one is short and linear. And since the group can zone into all of the wings, the experience is excellent. The graveyard is the poorest in this regard since many of the mobs are non-elite. But it's also a very short and very quick clear. The relatively poor exp, small selection of useful loot drops and fast respawn on trash makes it likely that I will not spend much time in there. But there are three other wings.
A full clear of the four wings and a second run through the library got the team to level 25 and about 30% shy of level 26. I will run SM a few more times and then give Razorfen Downs a shot just to mix things up, and perhaps even run Blackfathom Deeps once or twice. BFD is in contested territory and the instance portal is inside a winding and confusing series of tunnels, so I am not sure it's worth the potential headaches just for a quick run or two. RFD may give me the opportunity to experiment with involving the whole group in the fights. But I get the feeling that I won't really have anything to worry about until the group is in the low 50s.
I will try to remember to get some screenshots of the team. I would also FRAPS a movie or two but I think I'll wait until I can get the entire team involved before doing that. Otherwise it's just a video of a level 70 enhance shaman plowing through instanced zones that are 30-40 levels lower than he is.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
A new instance, the same old plan.
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The crew is level 21 now. Once they got to level 20 I left SFK and WC behind and zoned into Razorfen Kraul, a large and relatively linear instance with small groups of mobs and a handful of bosses. My shaman can still tear through the zone quickly and safely, and I expect this to be the case for a while. The downside to this is that my characters do not get to increase their weapon or defense skills, but this is mostly a concern for the paladin. Once we get to the point where I will have him tanking, I'll probably need to spend some time getting his skills raised to a point where they're useful. But that is still a ways off.
One nice thing with a group this diverse is the various means of debuff removal and crowd-control available. The shaman, paladin, and priest can remove poison and disease. The priest can remove magic effects. The mage can remove curses. And between the priest, mage, and warlock, I can crowd control beasts, humanoids, demons, elementals, and undead.
Point-blank AE abilities will probably be of limited use, and targeted AEs even less so, since I have to go to each window individually with the mouse. I'm still working on macros and am a long way from having a finalized and effective set of them. The hope is to be able to bind each classes' macros to a specific set of keys that allow some synergy. The ideal setup will allow the group to focus DPS on each target in turn, while the paladin keeps the mobs occupied and the healers provide enough healing to keep aggro manageable.
Another area where I will have to learn as I go is talent points. Talent specs that work for a solo character, or for a character in a group/raid, may not be as useful for a class that is being run as part of a multi-box setup. And since they're not really doing anything but standing still and soaking up experience, the expenditure of talent points right now isn't guided by anything aside from what I think may be useful in the future. My paladin has his points in the Protection tree, since I intend for him to serve as the group's tank in the future. Plus for now, the Blessing of Kings buff is very useful for the shaman. The others have points invested primarily in trees that promote DPS, with a focus on any talents that allow their spells to stun a target (to make up for the limited mobility of the group and make it easier for the tank to reacquire mobs that switch targets due to aggro changes). I figure that once they get to 50 or 60 I'll have a better idea of how to spec them for my particular needs.
Getting to level 25 in RFK looks as if it will require six or seven runs...
The crew is level 21 now. Once they got to level 20 I left SFK and WC behind and zoned into Razorfen Kraul, a large and relatively linear instance with small groups of mobs and a handful of bosses. My shaman can still tear through the zone quickly and safely, and I expect this to be the case for a while. The downside to this is that my characters do not get to increase their weapon or defense skills, but this is mostly a concern for the paladin. Once we get to the point where I will have him tanking, I'll probably need to spend some time getting his skills raised to a point where they're useful. But that is still a ways off.
One nice thing with a group this diverse is the various means of debuff removal and crowd-control available. The shaman, paladin, and priest can remove poison and disease. The priest can remove magic effects. The mage can remove curses. And between the priest, mage, and warlock, I can crowd control beasts, humanoids, demons, elementals, and undead.
Point-blank AE abilities will probably be of limited use, and targeted AEs even less so, since I have to go to each window individually with the mouse. I'm still working on macros and am a long way from having a finalized and effective set of them. The hope is to be able to bind each classes' macros to a specific set of keys that allow some synergy. The ideal setup will allow the group to focus DPS on each target in turn, while the paladin keeps the mobs occupied and the healers provide enough healing to keep aggro manageable.
Another area where I will have to learn as I go is talent points. Talent specs that work for a solo character, or for a character in a group/raid, may not be as useful for a class that is being run as part of a multi-box setup. And since they're not really doing anything but standing still and soaking up experience, the expenditure of talent points right now isn't guided by anything aside from what I think may be useful in the future. My paladin has his points in the Protection tree, since I intend for him to serve as the group's tank in the future. Plus for now, the Blessing of Kings buff is very useful for the shaman. The others have points invested primarily in trees that promote DPS, with a focus on any talents that allow their spells to stun a target (to make up for the limited mobility of the group and make it easier for the tank to reacquire mobs that switch targets due to aggro changes). I figure that once they get to 50 or 60 I'll have a better idea of how to spec them for my particular needs.
Getting to level 25 in RFK looks as if it will require six or seven runs...
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Ding 18! 18! 18! 18!
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The team is level 18 now, and leveling at a nice pace. There's a good side and a bad side to power leveling them. The good side is that I can run instances quickly and repeatedly, which means that they are highly likely to get the drops they need from any of the bosses I kill. The bad side is that I get pretty much no experience actually playing the classes. This isn't entirely bad since none of them is going to replace the shaman as my grouping/raiding main character. And once I get to a point where the group is taking a more active part in instances, I'll get something of a crash-course on their abilities and how to best apply them in my particular circumstances.
Multi-boxing a varied group like this does lead to a large amount of inefficiency, since there are so many abilities that I won't use often or perhaps at all. Then again, that's not entirely surprising, the game is designed around each character in a group being controlled by a separate player.
My leveling path was to get the four characters leveled via quests as a group until level 8, which is the lowest level at which they can zone into Ragefire Chasm. I ran RFC until they were 14, at which point I skipped Wailing Caverns and ran Shadowfang Keep. Wailing Caverns is very long and very confusing and visibility in some areas is poor, which means I may miss a mob or two, which won't aggro until one of the low-level characters gets too close. So I skipped it until recently, when I did a couple of short runs to complete the quest to get 20 Deviate Hides, which provides the characters with 10-slot bags as a reward.
Shadowfang Keep, on the other hand, is perfect for power leveling. It is a short and linear instance with mob groups that are relatively densely packed. So you're not really getting cheated on exp and loot just because it's short. I did all of the quests for Ragefire Chasm, but none for SFK and only one for WC. The run-throughs give good experience to the group, and many of the quests require a series of prerequisite quests that I'd just as soon skip.
The team is level 18 now, and leveling at a nice pace. There's a good side and a bad side to power leveling them. The good side is that I can run instances quickly and repeatedly, which means that they are highly likely to get the drops they need from any of the bosses I kill. The bad side is that I get pretty much no experience actually playing the classes. This isn't entirely bad since none of them is going to replace the shaman as my grouping/raiding main character. And once I get to a point where the group is taking a more active part in instances, I'll get something of a crash-course on their abilities and how to best apply them in my particular circumstances.
Multi-boxing a varied group like this does lead to a large amount of inefficiency, since there are so many abilities that I won't use often or perhaps at all. Then again, that's not entirely surprising, the game is designed around each character in a group being controlled by a separate player.
My leveling path was to get the four characters leveled via quests as a group until level 8, which is the lowest level at which they can zone into Ragefire Chasm. I ran RFC until they were 14, at which point I skipped Wailing Caverns and ran Shadowfang Keep. Wailing Caverns is very long and very confusing and visibility in some areas is poor, which means I may miss a mob or two, which won't aggro until one of the low-level characters gets too close. So I skipped it until recently, when I did a couple of short runs to complete the quest to get 20 Deviate Hides, which provides the characters with 10-slot bags as a reward.
Shadowfang Keep, on the other hand, is perfect for power leveling. It is a short and linear instance with mob groups that are relatively densely packed. So you're not really getting cheated on exp and loot just because it's short. I did all of the quests for Ragefire Chasm, but none for SFK and only one for WC. The run-throughs give good experience to the group, and many of the quests require a series of prerequisite quests that I'd just as soon skip.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Some changes...
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I've taken a slightly different approach than planned. The multi-box group now consists of the following:
Bonuss- Blood Elf Paladin
Cannee- Orc Warlock
Xannee- Blood Elf Mage
Zannee- Blood Elf Priest
I'm going to use my main character, a level 70 orc shaman, to powerlevel them through instances. Depending on how that works in terms of leveling speed, I may also take them around to do quests. For a group, quest experience is a very large chunk of your leveling, since killing mobs in a group grants less experience per kill. Although you kill faster with a group, and may have a better ratio of experience-per-hour, when you are questing you're likely to be killing the same number of mobs. Thus the effect of questing with a group is cumulative-- you complete your quests faster and get the bonus experience when you do your turn-in. Questing also breaks the monotony of grinding for me. Simply chain-killing mobs might allow me to level faster, but it's boring and not fun.
I leveled them to 8 as a group, which is the lowest level that can zone in to the Ragefire Chasm instance. From there, I grouped them with my main and slaughtered the zone. Ragefire Chasm is relatively short, so I can plow through it quickly. At level 8 the group seemed to get about 2/3 of a level's worth of experience (I didn't bother to track it, but I should have). A second run will get them to level 9. At level 10 I will get all of the quests for the zone (about five, if I remember correctly). The experience granted by the quest turn-ins should get them to level 11 by itself.
My intention is to work this way until I'm at a point where it's more efficient to work the group in a more conventional manner. The paladin will be the tank, the warlock/mage/priest will be DPS and crowd control, and the shaman will be the healer. He is sitting at almost 1800 +healing in his healing gear and will be a viable main healer all the way to level 70. Assuming I can actually manage a team this diverse, it should be able to work its way through normal instances all the way to level 70, but that's a long ways off. For now, they'll accumulate experience and instance gear with little work on their part.
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I've taken a slightly different approach than planned. The multi-box group now consists of the following:
Bonuss- Blood Elf Paladin
Cannee- Orc Warlock
Xannee- Blood Elf Mage
Zannee- Blood Elf Priest
I'm going to use my main character, a level 70 orc shaman, to powerlevel them through instances. Depending on how that works in terms of leveling speed, I may also take them around to do quests. For a group, quest experience is a very large chunk of your leveling, since killing mobs in a group grants less experience per kill. Although you kill faster with a group, and may have a better ratio of experience-per-hour, when you are questing you're likely to be killing the same number of mobs. Thus the effect of questing with a group is cumulative-- you complete your quests faster and get the bonus experience when you do your turn-in. Questing also breaks the monotony of grinding for me. Simply chain-killing mobs might allow me to level faster, but it's boring and not fun.
I leveled them to 8 as a group, which is the lowest level that can zone in to the Ragefire Chasm instance. From there, I grouped them with my main and slaughtered the zone. Ragefire Chasm is relatively short, so I can plow through it quickly. At level 8 the group seemed to get about 2/3 of a level's worth of experience (I didn't bother to track it, but I should have). A second run will get them to level 9. At level 10 I will get all of the quests for the zone (about five, if I remember correctly). The experience granted by the quest turn-ins should get them to level 11 by itself.
My intention is to work this way until I'm at a point where it's more efficient to work the group in a more conventional manner. The paladin will be the tank, the warlock/mage/priest will be DPS and crowd control, and the shaman will be the healer. He is sitting at almost 1800 +healing in his healing gear and will be a viable main healer all the way to level 70. Assuming I can actually manage a team this diverse, it should be able to work its way through normal instances all the way to level 70, but that's a long ways off. For now, they'll accumulate experience and instance gear with little work on their part.
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Multi-Boxing, prologue
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This blog will contain posts relating to my attempts at 5-boxing a group of characters in the World of Warcraft MMORPG, specifically on the Bonechewer server. But first, a short piece on my first attempt, a group of 5 shaman on the Hyjal server, which I leveled to 23.
The easiest way to multi-box is by broadcasting keystrokes (ie, pressing a key on your keyboard and having multiple instances of WoW, on one or more computers, receive that input concurrently). Therefore the simplest setup is to have five characters of the same class, with the same talent spec and the same button bar setup. That way, you can target a mob, press a button, and all of your characters will perform that action. The shaman class is ideal for a few reasons:
Armor: Shaman start out able to wear leather armor and eventually mail armor, but they can also use shields from the start. This allows them to mitigate a fair amount of melee damage even at low levels and with less-than-ideal armor ratings from the rest of their gear.
Damage: Shaman can damage mobs from a distance via spell-casting, or up-close with melee attacks. With a group of five shaman whose actions are synchronized, you can unload a lot of damage before a mob reaches the group, and can continue to do decent damage once it gets within range. They have weapon buffs that add to their melee damage, as well as instant-casting damage spells.
Heals: Shaman can heal both via spells and with their Healing Stream totem after level 20. What's more, the Healing Stream totem's effect stacks. Five of them on the ground at level 20 will return 30 health to the group every two seconds. At later levels they can cast Chain Heal, which is great for dealing with situations where more than one character in the group is being damaged (multiple mobs attacking, or casting AoE effects).
Totems: Shaman totems provide lots of utility. With five shaman in a group, you now have the ability to stack totems of the same or varying types. As I said above, Healing Stream totems stack. While many other totems of the same specific type do not stack, you can place various totems of the same element for a very useful synergy. For example, you can place your five Healing Stream totems in order to provide health regeneration. Or you could place four Healing Stream totems and one Mana Spring totem, to provide both health and mana regen. You could place a Stoneskin totem (to reduce melee damage taken by the group), an Earthbind totem (to slow the movement speed of mobs), and three Stoneclaw totems (which cause mobs to attack it instead of you, and can occasionally stun the mob that attacks it). The Stoneclaw totems "stack" in that the mobs will destroy one of them and then move on to the next one. Searing totems also stack, and can provide a nice bit of added DPS during a battle.
With the recent change that allowed items with +healing to also provide additional +spell damage, a group of shamans in gear that is primarily itemized for +healing can also do respectable spell damage as well. The extra healing will make their Healing Stream totems more potent, while the extra spell damage will allow their fire totems to do more damage. This is in addition to the obvious benefits (more damage from spells, more effective heals).
My experiences
I ran with five Draenei shaman, because my friends on Hyjal were alliance characters and because it would allow me to see an all new area and quests. Things went well because nearly all outdoors quests in World of Warcraft are designed to be completed by a single player. Therefore the capabilities of the mobs are such that a team of five shaman can dispatch them with no trouble, often with a single volley of spells.
Instancing at low levels was easy but somewhat tedious. With my main character, I am always running instances or raids with a group of friends, and we can interact and have fun. Talking, joking, discussing the instance or raid... the social aspect makes the game a lot of fun. Soloing five characters means I'm missing out on that aspect. But also, because I have to be more careful when pulling and killing groups of mobs in a dungeon, it also takes longer to complete the instance. For relatively short instances like Shadowfang Keep, this is tolerable. But long instances like the Wailing Caverns... *shudder*
Anyway, if I got that far, why re-roll?
Well for one, I had created this group on the Hyjal server where some friends played, but they no longer play. Most of my friends play on Bonechewer, so it makes sense to re-roll the group on that server. Yes, it's a PvP server and I'm sure that my little group will make a tempting target for higher level alliance gankers, but that's okay. The group is a diversion and I'm not under any pressure to get them to level quickly, so I can log off when things get too painful for them.
I am also creating a more diverse group. The group will consist of the following:
Bonuss, a paladin
Cannee, a warlock
Dannee, a warlock
Xannee, a mage
Zannee, a priest
They are all blood elves. I went with that so that I can have them all level together from the very beginning, and because I haven't done the quests in their area very often, so it'll still be relatively fresh. I might have gone orc or undead, but neither have all of the classes I was looking to use.
This group will require a bit more coordination and careful setup of macros and keybinds. Being primarily a caster group, it'll be easy enough to run some basic attacks (ie, have everyone cast their primary damage spell by pressing "2"). But being able to have the paladin keep a mob's attention while the priest keeps the paladin healed and the others do damage should be an interesting and fun experience. This really isn't much of a problem until I get to the level where I am running instances, though.
I don't know how often I will update this blog, since I don't know how often I'll be playing the group. They are, as I've said, just a diversion. I have a level 70 shaman that I play most of the time and there's enough to do with him to keep me busy most of the time that I'm logged in. But I'll try to keep this updated as they reach any milestones or go through any humorous situations.
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This blog will contain posts relating to my attempts at 5-boxing a group of characters in the World of Warcraft MMORPG, specifically on the Bonechewer server. But first, a short piece on my first attempt, a group of 5 shaman on the Hyjal server, which I leveled to 23.
The easiest way to multi-box is by broadcasting keystrokes (ie, pressing a key on your keyboard and having multiple instances of WoW, on one or more computers, receive that input concurrently). Therefore the simplest setup is to have five characters of the same class, with the same talent spec and the same button bar setup. That way, you can target a mob, press a button, and all of your characters will perform that action. The shaman class is ideal for a few reasons:
Armor: Shaman start out able to wear leather armor and eventually mail armor, but they can also use shields from the start. This allows them to mitigate a fair amount of melee damage even at low levels and with less-than-ideal armor ratings from the rest of their gear.
Damage: Shaman can damage mobs from a distance via spell-casting, or up-close with melee attacks. With a group of five shaman whose actions are synchronized, you can unload a lot of damage before a mob reaches the group, and can continue to do decent damage once it gets within range. They have weapon buffs that add to their melee damage, as well as instant-casting damage spells.
Heals: Shaman can heal both via spells and with their Healing Stream totem after level 20. What's more, the Healing Stream totem's effect stacks. Five of them on the ground at level 20 will return 30 health to the group every two seconds. At later levels they can cast Chain Heal, which is great for dealing with situations where more than one character in the group is being damaged (multiple mobs attacking, or casting AoE effects).
Totems: Shaman totems provide lots of utility. With five shaman in a group, you now have the ability to stack totems of the same or varying types. As I said above, Healing Stream totems stack. While many other totems of the same specific type do not stack, you can place various totems of the same element for a very useful synergy. For example, you can place your five Healing Stream totems in order to provide health regeneration. Or you could place four Healing Stream totems and one Mana Spring totem, to provide both health and mana regen. You could place a Stoneskin totem (to reduce melee damage taken by the group), an Earthbind totem (to slow the movement speed of mobs), and three Stoneclaw totems (which cause mobs to attack it instead of you, and can occasionally stun the mob that attacks it). The Stoneclaw totems "stack" in that the mobs will destroy one of them and then move on to the next one. Searing totems also stack, and can provide a nice bit of added DPS during a battle.
With the recent change that allowed items with +healing to also provide additional +spell damage, a group of shamans in gear that is primarily itemized for +healing can also do respectable spell damage as well. The extra healing will make their Healing Stream totems more potent, while the extra spell damage will allow their fire totems to do more damage. This is in addition to the obvious benefits (more damage from spells, more effective heals).
My experiences
I ran with five Draenei shaman, because my friends on Hyjal were alliance characters and because it would allow me to see an all new area and quests. Things went well because nearly all outdoors quests in World of Warcraft are designed to be completed by a single player. Therefore the capabilities of the mobs are such that a team of five shaman can dispatch them with no trouble, often with a single volley of spells.
Instancing at low levels was easy but somewhat tedious. With my main character, I am always running instances or raids with a group of friends, and we can interact and have fun. Talking, joking, discussing the instance or raid... the social aspect makes the game a lot of fun. Soloing five characters means I'm missing out on that aspect. But also, because I have to be more careful when pulling and killing groups of mobs in a dungeon, it also takes longer to complete the instance. For relatively short instances like Shadowfang Keep, this is tolerable. But long instances like the Wailing Caverns... *shudder*
Anyway, if I got that far, why re-roll?
Well for one, I had created this group on the Hyjal server where some friends played, but they no longer play. Most of my friends play on Bonechewer, so it makes sense to re-roll the group on that server. Yes, it's a PvP server and I'm sure that my little group will make a tempting target for higher level alliance gankers, but that's okay. The group is a diversion and I'm not under any pressure to get them to level quickly, so I can log off when things get too painful for them.
I am also creating a more diverse group. The group will consist of the following:
Bonuss, a paladin
Cannee, a warlock
Dannee, a warlock
Xannee, a mage
Zannee, a priest
They are all blood elves. I went with that so that I can have them all level together from the very beginning, and because I haven't done the quests in their area very often, so it'll still be relatively fresh. I might have gone orc or undead, but neither have all of the classes I was looking to use.
This group will require a bit more coordination and careful setup of macros and keybinds. Being primarily a caster group, it'll be easy enough to run some basic attacks (ie, have everyone cast their primary damage spell by pressing "2"). But being able to have the paladin keep a mob's attention while the priest keeps the paladin healed and the others do damage should be an interesting and fun experience. This really isn't much of a problem until I get to the level where I am running instances, though.
I don't know how often I will update this blog, since I don't know how often I'll be playing the group. They are, as I've said, just a diversion. I have a level 70 shaman that I play most of the time and there's enough to do with him to keep me busy most of the time that I'm logged in. But I'll try to keep this updated as they reach any milestones or go through any humorous situations.
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