- I decided that the auction alt should drop herbalism (since he never leaves Ironforge) and take up engineering so he can make Maevyn guns, ammo and scopes. I haven't seen any suitable engineer made guns in the auction house at all and there are no other decent guns available till level 21. She is still using a level 14 gun and I feel it is in need of upgrade. A Lovingly Crafted Boomstick would be nice. This gun fires lower damage faster for a reasonable average damage (aka dps) but each hit is less likely to take agro away from the pet and on to the Hunter. The auction alt can train engineering up to level 150 without raising his own player level which should see Maevyn as far as level 30.
- To this end I bought a load of Rough Stone to make Blasting powder, then copper and linen to make copper bombs and soon he was up to level 75. At this level he can start making Crafted Ammo which is 1 dps better than the vendor ammo which doesn't sound much but is about 10% more dps at this level. However, Crafted Ammo needs coarse stone and the price of this in the AH was outrageous, over 1g a stack and I wasn't going to be gouged. I put this off and decided to use the main to do some farming.
- I'm going to stick to chronological order so next objective was to get Maevyn from about level 19.5 to 20. I turned a few quests in and only had two quests left in Westfall, killing the defias messenger and the escort quest. I ran around killing things while waiting for the messenger to spawn but it was taking too long and I got bored. There were lots of people in moobrook and I think the messenger was being ganked repeatedly. Since the levelling guide had no better ideas I decided to grind on Murlocs. This went ok apart from one death (Maevyn, not Colin, usual story, agroed a camp) but did find a rare spawn murloc to kill for a green. It took about half an hour to get to 20. I got the messenger on the way back, as soon as I saw him I shot at him to tag him before anyone else could. I didn't bother with the escort quest.
- During this period I found out for the first time why hunters have a mana bar. I was using multi-shot a lot and this seems to eat the Hunter's mana, 25% at a time. It looks like the more you shoot, the more mana you use so there is ultimately a limit to how much dps you can expend apart from running out of ammo. Had to take a mana break! At least she's an alchemist and can knock up mana pots.
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To Stormwind double quick for Hunter training. Oh my, blizzard is a hunter:
- Disengage: when fighting melee, stops you fighting and reduces your threat making it much easier for your pet to take agro away from you so you can run back and start shooting.
- Frost Trap: freezes monster that walks over it for 6 seconds. Now I can learn kiting.
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Dual Weilding: what's your left hand for if not to hold another sword? I think total dps is about the same as having a two-hander but:
- it's still more dps than a one hander
- it looks cool
- paladins can't do it (or anything cool for that matter)
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Aspect of the Cheetah: OH YES increases running speed by 30% all the time it is on. It has a debuff that makes you more vulnerable to stun when running away so:
- need to remember to switch it off when fighting (should use aspect of monkey/hawk anyway)
- still need swiftness potions for legging it
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Bought a green sword for the main hand and moved the old white scimitar to offhand. Melee dps is looking more respectable. I have 30 levels in which to aquire dual Hanzo's
- Quick trip to Lakeshire to try new skillz out. They work. Colin and I mele'd a level 17 dragonling to death with reasonable efficiency. UPDATE: after reading BRK's latest WoWInsider post I feel I should mention that the dual weilding is mainly for defence when things go wrong. After suffering 63 levels as a paladin the BIG GUN is my main weapon. I still need to melee because I make mistakes and have to fight hand-to-hand. This is horrible, sometimes I even need a heal afterwards!!!
- Decided to try tackling Bellygrub the level 24 Boar. Fought valliantly but Colin had a hard time keeping agro as he is still level 19 (once his level matches his owner he stops getting experience: he only starts getting it and can start levelling again after his owner has levelled). Frost trap worked but forgot that damage breaks it. Disengage worked for a while. Got him to 50% health but died anyway. May try again when Colin levels and have got a better gun than a level 14. Oh and REALLY MUST remember to turn Aspect of the Cheetah off when I fight.
- Was getting hassled by whispers to join various guilds. I had been thinking of ending my antisocial period and joining Maevyn up to the Mercz so whispered floyd who is an officer and Maevyn is now a member (an initiate to be precise so better not cause any trouble).
- Morning, 5:30am argh can't resist this game. Decided to roll out the main and do some farming. As I recalled, coarse stone came from tin veins so to Loch Modan for Tin Farming. He picked up any copper he found too and in 20 minutes had over 40 copper ore. Not so much tin though. He came across three level 17ish elites I've never met before in all the time I've been there. Almost forgotten how to fight as a paladin. Where's Colin?
- A lap of Badlands but Iron Ore gives heavy stone and don't need that. Killed the level 55 elite buzzard for some nice level 50 plate boots. Decided to go to Westfall for more tin and to hit deadmines. With a level 63 this is a tiny bit one sided. I'm not sure his health bar ever moved. Must have picked up ten greens, two may be useful to Maevyn, one was a piece of the defias leather set which is overvalued on the AH, the rest can be disenchanted. Got as far as the cannon on the door to VC. Didn't have time to go in.
- May return with Maevyn for a proper run through so she can get some Blue Bind on Pickups (which, Dean, the main cannot pick up for her). Since many of the guild members also have alts (it's not only me that has found Zangarmarsh too uninspiring) we can swap run-throughs or go on a lowbie alt raid.
- The number of members of Mercz in the high sixties is getting.. can't think of a good expression that doesn't insult them as they were before. Anyway there are now a few >= 65. Pooky is being left behind. Problem is, even running him today for the first time in ten days, I am still more interested in running the hunter. Pooky needs a couple of days play to get Seal of Vengence, his first new fighting toy for a long long time. The Hunter is still getting new fighting toys every two levels. Unfortunately, I cannot resist new toys.
WoW Daily News Issue 91
Submitted by Peter on Thu May 10 2007 07:59
about 1 year ago
Peter's Moblog
