- Completed two quests at the same time, killing orcs and gathering scraps of wood and metal. This wasn't such a big deal, I was mainly picking baddies off one at a time using the two hander although a couple of times I got ads and had to flip to sword and board. This is such a valuble tactic, I am glad that during my levelling I experienced both retribution spec and protection spec (I'm still not sure how good holy spec is for fighting: there's a pally in my guild who seems to be able to self-heal while fighting but I'm not sure if he can do it whenever it suits due to his holy talents, I'll have to ask him). The only notable event was when I was fighting and saw a level 63 elite patrolling. He was coming closer and closer so I manouvered the fight out of his path. This is something I am more careful with in Outlands, being aware what is around me and being ready for adds (my old doom/quake circle straff skills come in useful).
- I think I've had more success with the two-hander than sword and board. Killing individuals quickly geurilla style means I can be in and out in 30 seconds where it might take a minute one-handed which makes it more likely for me to pick up a patrol. In terms of just white damage, the one hander does about 100 a second, the two-hander 500 every four seconds with maybe 250 yellow damage on top of that (these are the typical numbers I see, not crits, burst damage is for gamblers). The two hander is significantly more powerful. I am hoping I will get a much better one hander in a reward real soon but I would still only have seal of crusader and a sharpening/weightstone on it, judged seal is always Seal of Light for healing, nothing that would make it more powerful. I don't bother with sharpening or weightstones on a two-hander, they only add about 2dps out of 120 and I can't be bothered.
- I'm starting to be careful when meeting new mobs to find out how they fight. For example, I was fighting big armour plated guys with pet felhound things and naturally I went for the big guys first. It took me a couple of fights to realise that the felhounds were casting mana taps and gulping half my mana at a time. Attacking the felhounds first and stunning them to stop them casting the mana tap was much more effective as the big armoured guys were simple mele fare. Thinking now with hindsight engaged, I should switch to the combat log when approaching new enemies as that will say what's being thrown at me.
- The rewards from these quests were a very nice shield (2400 armour, mana dribble, stats etc) and enough experience to get to level 59. The quests here give about 10k XP compared to 5700 before so the levelling is much faster. I'm not sure why Blizzard have done this, I thought they wanted us to grind, unless they wanted lots of level 61's running around asap to make the rest of the 60's run out and buy the expansion pack?. The quest rewards are frequently a selection of nice pieces of armour with something for each class. I am grabbing anything that is plate and has a mana dribble as I suspect they are aimed at pallies. With devotion aura and the new shield my armour is now 7700. Nice. Reminds me, need another shield spike.
- I completed another quest, finishing off the servants of the boss monster I killed yesterday. I died once, I attacked a man working on a machine and the machine turned out to be a canon that started firing green blobs at me. I lasted a while but the surprise and the adds took their toll.
- I've made the local inn my hearthing home and am using my alt to do the buying and selling. His job this evening was to send my main a selection of healing and mana pots as these are being used up rapidly.
- Servers are down for maintenance this morning: I wish blizzard would give some warning and not waste my time trying to log on. They have downloaded a patch which loaded quite quickly for a change but doesn't do anything interesting.
- A commenter has asked my opinions on what stats I go for with my items. To be honest, the reason I haven't mentioned this much is because I haven't given it a lot of thought. At the lower levels these things seem to make a negligible difference and there hasn't been a great deal of choice so I haven't worried about it. For example, +25 defence makes 1% difference to your chance of blocking/dodging etc so if an enemy hits you a hundred times you'll dodge etc once more. The main stat I look for has always been +armour, after that I've preferred +strength, +stamina, +defence, +intellect and not worried too much about +agility. Now I'm at the higher levels items typically have +20 of a particular stat and I will need to pay more attention to these matters since a total of +100 is going to be more significant. My number one stat is still armour, I won't look at anything that isn't plate. After that I am grabbing all the mana per five second items (MP5 or what I call mana dribble) quest rewards I am offerred, four items giving 5 mana per 5 seconds means an extra 120 mana in 30 seconds which is the difference between bubbling and not bubbling. I try to be frugal with mana in a fight, I don't blast away with judgement spells, I only judge Seal of Command when the seal is about to time out. I may treat myself to one exorcism per demon and the Hammer of Wrath to finish them off. I use a few Flash of Lights between fights unless my health is really low when I'll holy light real quick in case I get attacked. I haven't been using the bandages so much recently, they are going out of vogue with me.
WoW Daily News Issue 65
Submitted by Peter on Wed Apr 04 2007 07:57
about 1 year ago
Peter's Moblog
