Category Archives: Levelling

Cataclysm : a new heaven for altoholics

Shared topic: Leveling 1-10

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Inspired by SAN leveling, Guthammer suggested Blog Azeroth Shared Topic for this week :

A while ago Blizzard came out with the stat that 70% of its accounts don’t ever make it past level 10. While I am sure that Blizzard can put in some great analysis of their game, I am also sure that they would love to hear more player feedback on the new level experience.

Zahiou leveled 10

My leveling experiences varied a lot depending on the class between level 1 and 10. The easiest and funiest class at low level is without any doubt the warlock. You get your pet really fast, and the moment you have it your Imp can just kill the mobs alone if you want it. The only “hard” part is the quest to get your Imp⁽¹⁾. So it is easy, but it is also fun as you use multiple spells : you got your main pewpew spell and immolation at level 1, then you get corruption, curse of agony and life tap before leaving the starting zone. That’s a lot of buttons to hit while fighting mobs so you’re kept busy, and life tap allow you to keep going without any mana problem. If you’re undead, you won’t have any downtime.

Some other classes get to level 10 pretty easy, but are boring. That’s the case of paladin for example, that only have one spell to hit. In fact, you don’t even have Judgement until level 4: until then, you just kill things with you auto attack \o/. It doesn’t stop by level 10 by the way, paladins keep being boring until you hit level 40. But leveling a paladin is not hard. Mobs die at a decent rate, you don’t run out of mana (how could you? Your only spell cost 6 mana and is on a 10 seconds cooldown), you’re wearing mail armor so you can afford taking damage before you’re in danger.

But some classes are (or were) really hard to level to 10. I remember the last priest I leveled, it was a bit more than a year ago. I buy her lots of mana potion, heirloom shoulders and some other greens from the AH to make leveling less painful. But still. I couldn’t just kill 2 mobs in a raw using smite in the strating zone. If I didn’t finish the mobs with my little mace, I was almost oom when they died. And I was human. How did the priests who hadn’t the spirit bonus? By now leveling a priest should be easier with the adjustment they made in the mana costs of the spells and the mana regeneration at low level. When I leveled my baby shaman in SAN my mana was back to full as soon as I was out of the five seconds rule.

Some classes are ok, but are just missing something essential. What about rogues with only one weapon? What about hunters without a pet? What about a druid who can’t shapeshift?
Worse, I recently realised hunters only had a mele attack at level 1! No wonder why there are so many mele hunters out there. I completely understand that new players could get confused and think Raptor Strike is the main hunter attack.

But these considerations are from a confirmed player point of view. That doesn’t answer the question : why does so many account don’t make it until level 10 ?

Even if some of these account could be trial accounts from wow players, I suppose some of them are completely new players. When I remember my first hour of playing, the time it took to kill something was the least of my worries. Wath bothered me was way more basic. This experience will depend on each player previous experience. As wow is my first game, you can understand that I didn’t care at all that my rogue was only wearing one weapon (why bother with 2 weapon by the way? Managing one is hard enough! ). I was just trying to get were I wanted to go, and attack what I wanted to attack. When I did that right, the stuff died, and it was ok for me. But often it was : “Why the hell did my character stop attacking? “, “You are facing the wrong way”, “Wait, I’m trying to turn my character but that’s not that easy! “.

That’s how I felt in the strating area. The difficulty hadn’t nothing to do with the game: moving was my biggest problem, my boyfriend explained the game mechanisms to me.

The level 6-10 were a little harder. You begin facing fleeing murlocs. Do you imagine how it is to try and run after a fleeing murloc when it is already hard to just run in the direction you want to run? And you need to fight Princess with her 2 bodygards!
The zone is way bigger, and you absolutely don’t know where you’re going. At this time, there weren’t points on the map showing me where I needed to go. And I barely knew how to use a map. I remember getting lost when looking for a quest, and being surrounded by Defias 5 level above me.

Some of these difficulties have been dealt with. It’s now easier not getting lost, if you know how to use the quest mapping feature. The discovering experience is not that great with this feature, but leveling is being made easier and this can really help players going past level 10. Most named monster are also easier to kill. Princess has now only one bodygard, and most elite mobs are not elite anymore (except Hogger) and can be easily soloed.

But there are some other changes, meaning to make the low level game better, that could not reach their goal. For example, all monsters in the strating zone are now neutral. It makes the strating zone easier. But quest in there weren’t hard. Now, you don’t need to kill stuff to level, you earn less experience, and you could find yourself leaving the strating area at level 4. It’s very very low and that’ll make your questing in the next area much harder than it should be. Moreover, you haven’t learnt how to handle aggressive mobs, and it’ll be even harder to handle aggressive and fleeing murlocs.
When Cataclysm goes out, hunters will have a pet at level 1. Leveling a hunter from 1 to 10 will be way more interesting for sure, but handling a pet can be difficult when you’re just discovering the game. When I first played a demonist, managing my pet wasn’t easy, and it was already the 3rd character I created.

And you, what do you think about the changes on the low level game ? Do they improve your leveling experience? Do you think they will improve beginner players’ experience?

⁽¹⁾ I just discovered the quest to get the Imp at level 1 didn’t exist anymore, you can just buy the spell now. That’s a bit sad, it was great to have a warlock quest that early in the game. And the mobs warlocks had to kill must feel quite alone now…

Zone review: Ghostlands

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While leveling my alts in SAN, I’ll write zone reviews for each zone I visit. I don’t pretend to be exhaustive. I won’t describe all the quests in each zone either, but I’m going to list the particularities of the zone : at which level to go there, what are the attraction points, which quest you absolutely don’t want to miss because the reward is so awesome, etc.

Dreanei and Blood elves leveling zones are in my opinion the bests. The quests are better chained together and don’t require you to run in every directions, you don’t have level gaps as you could have in other zones if you don’t have Bind on Account gear, and you’ll acquire sensibly better gear, especially if you’re a caster: you’ll have quest rewards with spell power, attack power or crit rating in there !

As I was a bit in a pain with Zahiou without any Bind on account gear, I head toward Ghostlands after finishing Mulgore quests. You can begin Ghostlands at level 11-13. Depending on the way you’re leveling, if you’ve got rested xp or if you’re doing instances, the quests in there will bring you to level 20-22.

When going there, stop at Fairbreeze village and take the quest Missing in the Ghostland from Magistrix Landra Dawnstrider. You’ll hand this quest on your way to the Ghostlands, just before entering the zone. Do the following quest, hand it, and then you can finally entre Ghostlands for good with nice bracers and a new 6 slots bags.

The quests in the Ghostlands chain together pretty well, you shouldn’t have any problems finding what to do next. Here are the specificities of the zone :

Tranquillien reputation

The quests in Ghostlands will give you reputation for Tranquillien. When your reputation increases, you’ll be able to buy nice gear. You’ll get to exalted if you follow all the quest in the zone. If you want to get exalted earlier, there are 2 repeatable quests you can do when you hit level 15 : Rotting Hearts and Spinal Dust.

Rare spawn

If you’re a caster and need a wand, I suggest you to check the Ziggurats each time you can. Dr. Witherlimb can spawn in there, and gave me a nice wand each time I killed him.

Sylvanas’ Necklace

Lament of the Highborn While doing the quest Retaking Windrunner Spire, kill mobs until you get the The Lady’s Necklace. This item starts a short quest line where you have to bring the necklace to Lady Sylvanas in Undercity. When you hand the quest, Lady Sylvanas will summon banshees and start singing. Make sure you have the sound enabled, and wait until the song is over, this animation is quite nice! This
quest is one of my favorite because of that song. If you like the song, you can hear it again with this macro :

/script playSoundFile(“Sound\\Music\\GlueScreenMusic\\BCCredits_Lament_of_the_Highborne.mp3″)

Group quests

There are 4 group quests in Ghostlands :

Anok’suten:
you get this get on your way to Suncrown Village. It is pretty simple to solo this quest,
just use everything you’ve got at your disposal: cd, potion, etc.
Knucklerot and Luzran: You get this quest on
the wanted placard on the inn. Depending on your class, it could be possible to solo this quest if you wait until you’re level 20+ before doing it. But you can do it earlier by grouping. This quest will give you a nice ring. Both abominations patrol the zone, beginning at one of the Ziggurats. You can wait for them in the dead scar between the two Ziggurats, if you don’t want to miss them.
Kel’gash: You get this quest on a wanted poster in
Farstrider Enclave. Like the previous one, you can do this alone if you are level 20+.
Dar’Khan: This one is the end of a questline beginning with The Farstrider Enclave, a quest you can get in the Sanctum of the Sun. For this quest, I highly suggest you to group. But you don’t need to be 5 as announced in your questlog, you can do it at 2 or 3 depending on your class. The quest The Twin Ziggurats will give you a sword or an Off-hand as a reward. Using this item to kill Dar’Khan will make it easier. So, take the one you can actually equip, and keep it! Unless you need your 2-handed weapon to kill stuff, I also suggests you equip this item before entering Deatholme : sooner is best then later. (a 30 seconds cooldown starts when you equip it)

Zone review : Mulgore.

Single Abstract Noun

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I joined for a week now the blogging community guild created by Kumquat alias the The Artist Formerly Known as Tamarind from Righteous Orbs.

At first, I didn’t know what class to choose. I already have at least one alt of each class. Finally, I choose a troll shaman, Zahiou (Zahia was already taken grrr !)

Did you know you could jump directly from the Valley of Trials to Ratchet ?

My first impression when I joined is that the guild is actually very nice. Each time I log in many members are online, and most of them are very chatty. As i often level my alts in ghost guilds, having actually an active guild chat is nice ! Even if I don’t participate a lot in the chat yet. It’s my first time on an English server, and it’s like discovering the wow language again. It’s a bit awkward not knowing anymore how to say “Hello” or “Good bye” to the guild. In my french guild I’d often say “Plop” (or even “poulpe”¹) and “A +”, but I’m not sure you’d understand.

Levelling a new alt on a new server is a kind of new experience too. Money-wise it’s ok (thanks to the bags from the guild bank !). But levelling without any Bind on Account gear is another story. I thought levelling had became easy since a few patches, but the awesome Bind on Account gear had a lot to do with this impression.

Despite my full grey set and having found myself at 1% xp from level 10 with only one red quest left, I managed to hit level 12, and went to the Ghostland to get the awesome gear you find there. But yesterday, I finally transferred a forgotten alt who had Bind on Account Shoulders (shame on me !) and could craft Mooncloth Bags.

⁽¹⁾ Poulpe is the french word for octopus. In french servers we sometimes use french words that have about the same pronunciation as the specific wow or English name (but generally a completely different meaning). Like for example Poule (= chicken) instead of Pull, or Boeuf (= cow) instead of buff. Here Poulpe is used to replace plop.

Healing as a Retribution Paladin

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I healed in a raiding environment as a shaman, priest and druid. The only healing class I never had at max level was a paladin. I tried to level a paladin. A lot of times. I must have 4 or 5 lvl 20 paladins. But before WotLK, levelling a paladin was soooo boring.

But now, retribution paladins have been heavily buffed, and with some bind on account gear leveling a paladin has became incredibly easy and fast.

Thanks to these changes I finally managed to get past the level 20 with a paladin and I’m proud to present you Naohmy :

WTF ? I have a lvl 50 paladin ??

I’m glad the retribution spec is very fast for questing, but in instances, I like healing. And you know what ? Healing as retribution is a lot of fun ! Here is how I do it :

My spec :

Naohmy has a full retribution spec. At the moment, it’s a 0/0/41 spec. I think it’s a pretty common levelling spec. I just didn’t pick Improved Blessing of Might because increased running speed is great while leveling.

I picked first the talents that can help me healing : all talents which increase critical chance, Art of War, Judgement of the Wise, and I will pick Sheath of Light as soon as I can.

As you can see, the retribution tree as a lot of tools to help you while healing :

You’ll always have a lot of mana if you judge thanks to Judgement of the Wise
You have instant Flash of Light if you crit in melee.
You have a lot of crit. (Last time I healed, I was with a boomkin and a feral druid. I was at 20% spell crit and 23% melee crit on my judged target. That’s A LOT at low level. A lot of instant and critical Flash of Light.

For the glyphs, I have glyph of Judgement and glyph of Holy Light. It was the best available when the slots unlocked. If you are ready to change glyphs when you switch from questing to instancing, you can take Glyph of Judgement and Glyph of Exorcism (replaced by Glyph of Vengeance when you learn the spell) for questing, and you can choose between Glyph of Holy Light, Glyph of Flash of Light and Glyph of Seal of Light.

My Gear :

Of course, I’m not healing in retribution gear. As I love my alts, I get all the available bind on account gear. In my healing set I have the cloth shoulders and dress (it has spirit on it but my demo use it too), the healing mass, and the spell power and haste trinkets. As long as I can judge and melee things, I can’t go oom. Thus I just pick whatever gear has the most spell power for the other slots.

How to ?

First of all, you want to choose the right seal and the right judgement. Generally, the best is to use seal of wisdom and to judge Light. If there is another (reliable) paladin who judges Light, you can judge wisdom. You can also pick Seal of Light if you have the glyph and you don’t have any mana problem. But beware, if the tank takes heavy damage and you have to cast Holy Light, you can go oom pretty fast.

Then, you want to judge the tank target and stab it with your heally weapon. Thus :

you’ll get plenty of mana
the tank and the dps will heal themselves without you have to do anything. That’s especially great to heal the splash damage on the dps.
you’ll get instant Flash of Light to heal the tank without having to stop autoattacking.

There are some case you don’t want to be in melee range though. For example, if the mobs has some high damage aoe spell, or if you’re on the drakes in Sunken Temple that put to sleep some random melee target. In these case, judge the tank target and go back at max range asap.

There are some cases where you’ll have to heal more than with just your judgement of Light and Art of War procs. Prefer the use of Flash of Light if the damage is light. It is fast and cost very little mana. But if the tank health start dropping faster, cast Holy Light as soon as you can. It is a long cast, thus don’t wait until the tank is at 5% health to start casting !

Of course, don’t forget all your paladin tools :

Use Hammer of Justice to interrupt healing or if the tank take heavy damage, and repentance to stun a mob for a longer time. (Great if you grab aggro while healing).
Have Hand of Protection, Hand of Salvation and Divine Protection ready when you or one of the dps takes unwanted damage. Keep your Lay of Hands and Hand of Sacrifice for the tank if he is dying.

Well, I’m only level 50, and I don’t know if healing as retribution is still viable in Outland, but for now, healing with instant Flash of Light while stabbing stuff and jumping is a lot of fun !
That, and the recent post from the Bossy Pally about tanking with a retribution spec, and we could say that retribution is the best spec to do anything you want with your leveling paladin !