- I decided Maevyn needed a new gun as her gun skills were being left behind. When I looked I was surprised to see she was using a level 36 bow, four levels out of date. Seems only yesterday I bought it... There don't seem to be any level 40 guns so I bought her a level 39 sniper rifle and a stock of level 40 Accurate Slugs to go with it. It is a slow weapon, 3 seconds firing rate, but was noticably more powerful than the bow. I normally buy about two thousand bullets/arrows at a time, they last her for about a level.
- Following yesterdays inspiration re armour helping the pet I bought more mail and it indeed beefed Tiddles' armour up by about 10%. I also tried out a stoneshield potion (+1000 armour for two minutes) and that effects the pet's armour too. Nice to have a way to buff the pet. I bought Maevyn a mail tiara thing that had stamina and agility. When she put it on her ranged crit went down from 6.7% to 6.1%! The old leather head band had intellect and stamina, I had no idea that intellect effected ranged crit, thought it mainly effected the mana pool. I was under the impression that agility effected crit. I'm going to have to do some homework.
- She visited the Darkmoone Faire and spent the Vibrant Plumes she ground in Thousand Needles on two greens and a bag. She has three or four spare bags (insert female stereotype comment here).
- The levelling guide had left me in Badlands with the instructions to grind until I got to level 41 which was just less than half a level. I remembered a quest that the guide hadn't told me to do, one that involved killing whelplings until one dropped a heart. I went off and did that, the quest reward was a firey enchant for a melee weapon, not a big priority to a hunter that only melees when the threat management and crowd control have failed but doing any quests at all is more interesting than aimless grinding. On the third or fourth Whelpling I was pleasantly surprised when a Dark Whelpling Pet dropped. In the auction house these things go for 100g, it's potentially the most valuble drop I've ever had. I'm in two minds about selling it, on the one hand it's a unique pet but on the other I don't like whelplings, they killed my pally too many times for me to think they are cute (ranged fireballs are a problem for pallys). I'm going to wait till the weekend, till peak times and see how the whelpling market is. Mae now has three rare(ish) pets, Praerie Chicken, White kitten and Dark Whelpling. ARGH tempted to farm Un'guro for an oozeling.
- Carried on killing whelplings, levels 41-43, not very difficult at all, mindless fun. It wasn't boring, the Dark Whelpling drop put me in a good mood. It took nearly an hour for the heart to drop and I was ten minutes from level 41 according to Titan Panel so I decided to turn the quest in and take a stroll, gunning down any wildlife I came across. Titan panel is really useful like this, the XP/hour display and the target time to levelling help keep me motivated. While I was killing the whelps I was maintaining about 30,000 XP/hour and thats with no rest bonus and no quests done. The author of the levelling guide was pleased with himself for maintaining this kind of rate so I'm doing no worse than him.
- While killing I had a look at Maevyn and Tiddles' dps figures. Maevyn (with Aspect of the Hawk up) was 60 dps but Tiddles was 65! That's a total of 125 dps. My level 63 pally is 125dps when holding a two-hander with no seals running. What gives? Am I doing something badly wrong with the pally or is a dps class really that much more powerful? I'll look into installing a damage meter, see how well each can do when they are actually fighting rather than just raw white damage. I don't want to get into a numbers war, I just want to optimise the paladin to make levelling him as fun as it is with the hunter.
- Killed wolves and things and finally arrived at the ogre camp in the south west corner of Badlands, the hardest one. Did some nice pulling with concussive shot to take out two guys on the side, then killed the two left in the camp, going for the shaman first (death to casters). It was surgical. Had to kill a few more ogres to ding 41. Titan Panels prediction of levelling time was correct to within one kill.
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Something else a hunter can do while pet is fighting
- Hearth
- Spent some time doing administrative chores in Stormwind, cleaning inventory, organising bank etc. Vendored thirty Whelpling Tongues I had accrued. Had big piles of silk so made it all into bandages and got the first aid up to 210 and read the mageweave bandage book.
- One other Titan Panel feature: whenever I visit a vendor who can fix my armour, Titan automatically hassles me to repair everything: I like this, it stops me overlooking my durability. I don't recall Maevyns armour ever breaking, then again it's the pet that takes the flak. Now I come to think of it, pet hasn't died for a few levels. Last time Mae died she was running away and fell off a cliff. Reminds me of a pally point I noticed: Pooky can run around Loch Modan like he's immortal, killing everything with Consecration but he is just as susceptable to falling damage. He was busy making patterned bronze bracers after a fall took 50% health and a level 16 started healing him!
- Morning and levelling guide takes me to Booty Bay for some fun and games. After a while I realised I had abandoned a pretty important quest, one that appears to open up three more quest lines and I had to waste about ten minutes flying to Southshore to talk to some guy. After that I could assasinate 'Pretty Boy' Duncan and get Catelyns Blade which yielded the follow up quests to gather fifteen loads of snuff and some guy's eye. I'll be doing that tonight, if I can maintain 30,000 XP/hr for two hours I'll be level 42 and I can make a reference to the eighties band of the same name for the second time (oops just made one now).
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Other projects to contemplate:
- Artisan Fishing: fishing is 195, if I can get it to 225 while I'm in Stranglethorn I can pop over to Theramore and pick up the Artisan Fishing quest that involves catching fish from four different areas of the world. Some of these areas are covered in the levelling guide so I can pick the fish up on the way.
- Artisan cookery: was killing naga this morning and they dropped clams so I picked up ten Zesty Clam Meat which I can save for the artisan cookery quest in Steamwheedle port. Just need some cheese and some giant eggs.
- Only 19 levels and Maevyn will be needing an Epic Mount. Better sell that Whelpling and get going on the Arcanite Transmutation.
WoW Daily News Issue 109
Submitted by Peter on Tue Jun 05 2007 07:56
about 1 year ago
Peter Says:
Tue Jun 05 2007 12:41 about 1 year agoI didn't get the fishing rod but I got the Whelp. All balances out in the end. Or so probability theory would have you believe.
Peter
Have Your Say
I welcome constructive comments or questions but I reserve the right to delete any comments that displease me.
Peter's Moblog
You know, I farmed those whelps from lvl 38 to 44. Mining/Skinning for mega $$, I never saw that whelpling drop. I know I killed a couple thousand whelpings easily.
It's just not fair I tell you.