Peter's Blog

Water, Water Everywhere

I ran Pook around tk forest for thirty minutes. I was slightly challenged through neglecting to stock up on water for mana so couldn't really enjoy the session, spent mainly in deep conservation. I think he may be more of a killing machine than he was before but I think I am going to have to bite the bullet and take the mana breaks that go with this spec. The experience sent me running back to Mae.

Raiding UBRS

Mae was pottering around Darnassus when she was invited on a guild raid of Upper Black Rock Spire (UBRS), at least I think it was that, I was summoned there and just followed the group around killing things. I didn't check the map, we could have been anywhere for all I was aware of. There were about ten in the group including many guildies that I'd never met in the game. There were three or four 70's, Mae was second lowest level member (55).

I did the raiding hunter best practises thing:

• made sure nobody minded me using Tiddles: she is 40% of my dps
• turned her growl off auto so she wouldn't annoy tanks by pulling agro
• set her to passive so she wouldn't run riot
• put pet on 'Eyes of the Beast' to steer her down big drops so she wouldn't decide to run along a route with a gentler incline, agroing groups of level 59 elites on the way. I don't dismiss her as it makes her unhappy: she looks like this: I don't use Eyes of the Beast much and I had to do an experiment to see if I can make her jump and I can. That makes me look like this:

It all went quite smoothly, the group didn't wipe, in fact nobody died, not even Tiddles. Either the tanks and healers were doing a good job (making it look so easy you couldn't tell there was an issue) or the high level dps members were pulling all the agro but Mae could pretty much fire at will. Even Tiddles didn't need a vast amount of healing from Mae, whatever she was hacking away on had bigger fish to fry. Mae did pull agro a couple of times but that's what Feign Death is for.

I had DamageMeters running and it picked up all group dps. Mae seemed to be slightly ahead of the tanks. One fight I have a snapshot of (my DamageMeters was showing per-fight results) had Mae at 8% damage with highest level mage (level 70, PvP Purplez etc) at 22%. By 8% I meant Mae plus Tiddles of course! I didn't see a way to split the dual-weilders into two scores so Hunter + pet is what I count. I'm happy with this, the way I see it, the level 70 Mage wouldn't say no to 36% more dps.

Tiddles wasn't always doing her fair share: because she was on passive she would run back to Mae after every kill and needed to be explicitly unleashed upon the next monster. Because her dash is on a thirty second cooldown she wouldn't go into the next fight particularly fast either. I really miss Beefy now His charge was wonderful. I have to wait for a level 60 plague swine to replace him The group had a warlock who's demon's charge was on a par with Beefys, instantly engaging the enemy.

My hunter training has taught me to target with the tab key and this was essential here. Start fight by targeting the main kill (marked with a skull by leader), after that was dead, tab through the rest looking for something that wasn't sheeped. I think someone kept complaining about someone breaking the sheep but I'm not sure who this was aimed at. I'm a hunter, damage breaks my freezing trap, I know the risks. I definitely wasn't spamming multishot: Mae is level 55, not a noob. Hey doubters, it pulls agro when soloing you know? (in fact sometimes this is useful if pet is getting too much attention, can pull a mob off to freeze or to let it bounce off the mail armour: multishot is also good against warlocks + imps).

The fights were all very frantic and I was only dpsing: I wasn't dpsing, off-tanking and chain-trapping at the same time. Elite hunterdom will have to wait, at least till the next rank freezing traps .

Was fun.

She picked up a nice blue necklace with +agility and +dodge, some boots with +agility and the recipe for Shadow Protection Potion. I tried to avoid the Hunter Loot thing but cannot resist any mail/jewelery with agility or pot recipes.

PASSING THOUGHT: if any guild officers are reading this, how about putting a list of the Raid Markers on the web site? Skull = death, moon = ???, etc. Apparently blue square is good for Hunter CC targetting...

Making an Impact

Level 55 gave Mae access to the level 55 bullets, Impact shots. These are NICE, about 8 more dps just from changing ammo. Mae plus Tiddles raw dps (character pane) is now over 200 combined. Still not buying a scope: 20g for 2 more dps is silly. Someone was offering to make adamantite scopes for just the mats, was tempted but pook has all the adamantite and couldn't be bothered.

Mae never uses her agility pots, situations are either too easy to need them or so dangerous that the pot would be wasted if she died. It's hard being mean, you miss out on a lot.

One Big Blur

Long questing session in Felwood and Winterspring. I'll run a list of highlights as there is too much to detail. I didn't use the levelling guide. Anyway:

• Went back into the Jaedfire hole and killed the bosses. I decided this would be good grinding and the quest turning gave me over 9000XP!
• Did whatever it was to enable me to use the corrupted flower buffs. One flower gave me +70 crit rating! Put my crit up to 17%! For an hour! Was hitting 300 dps! Amazing, better than any pot I've seen, even in outlands.
• Played some pipes in some ruins and ran an escort quest on a giant tree spirit. You don't do that every day.
• Wiped out a group of five in a camp using the kill-one-then-run-away-rinse-and-repeat method to complete a quest.
• Hit level 56. Found a hunter trainer in Felwood (handy) for the next ranks.
• Found 'Olm the Wise' a rare spawn and was tempted to train him but no Stable Masters nearby. Players seem to ignore him because his name is yellow and he looks like the many other big birds unless you spot his name. If you click him he has the grey shield on his portrait indicating that he will drop a crappy cloth green. I watched other players run past him, he doesn't stand out at all. He is brilliant white but only level 52 and don't really want to level him up. I'll stick with Tiddles for now, grab a plague boar at 60 and a Warp Stalker at 64 (can't beat something that teleports into battle!).

Winterspring Falls

Dinged 56. Went back to Winterspring and pretty much rocked the place, you may have heard the explosions. Ran through a few quests. Mae killed her first level 60, the same bear that Pook did to get that honour. I think pook may have been 55 but Mae at 56 did it much easier. She was killing pretty much anything non-elite in under thirty seconds, no two minute slogs for her.

Hit the Winterfall camp at 6am and for the first time found it free of competition. Did about three circuits wiping everything out. This completed a quest but I realised why people always seem to be there: you can cruise at 40,000XP with no rest bonus until you run out of bullets, you just keep going round and round killing, each mob gives over 300XP and takes twenty seconds to kill. She was in mana conservation mode and in the whole session she used just one mana pot, apart from after one fight that went tits up (decided to try outblasting a Shamen while Tiddles was busy with an Ursa: wasn't a good strategy).

When she was level 55 Tiddles was starting to struggle holding agro on mobs over level 58. It wasn't a big deal, just spam Disengage and back to work. This seemed to stop when Tiddles dinged 56, at least she could keep the attention of Patriarch Yeti's. I think she'll be needing next-rank Growl as soon as the trainer offers it.

Should hit 57 tonight, an hour and a half to go by Titan's estimation. Probably in the plaguelands. At 56 Mae should be able to tackle the Cauldron Lords.

Random Stuff

• 5000/21000 into Revered with Darnassus or 222 runecloth away from a Saber (Saber/Sabre bah English/American/Dwarven spelling, not sure). Going slowly. Keep forgetting to grow Morrowgrain.
• Alch about 323. Not done much as highest level recipes are either undesirable to me or need high level Outlands weed. I don't see any reason to powerlevel it, still making cash from Arcanite, can make myself Elixir of the Mongoose and will be plucking Felweed in two levels time. One problem: the recipe for next rank mana pot is only available to those that have run Scholomance a few times Have stacks of herbs for it, may just sell them and use the money to buy the pots.
• Cooking: I keep buying Tiddles roasted quail: she loves it, keeps her happy for fifteen minutes or more.
• Done no fishing for ages. Bad Bad Bad.
• First Aid: still running through my stock of 40 heavy mageweave bandages. Only need them now and then, no need to waste my precious runecloth on saving lives.

On a Roll

Set off to Western Plaguelands. First I went into the runined town to set light to four towers. The first tower had a level 57 elite inside but killed him anyway. Carried on blasting ghouls and was really rocking. Swigged an Elixir of the Mongoose and didn't look back. The next three level 57 elites all died in just under forty seconds each. I did pour everything into them: Bestial Wrath, arcane shots, multishot whenever the cooldowns were up. At the end of the fights Tiddles would need a bandage but Mae was ok: gave her a mana break before the fights and she didn't need one after.

Did the first of the cauldrons. While I waited for the cauldron lord to spawn I cleared everything else. Was running at 40000 XP/hr, the ghouls were low fifties and no challenge. When the cauldron lord appeared I dispatched him, took a sample from the cauldron and went for quest turnins. This didn't quite ding but discovering the next cauldron field and killing a mob there did and Mae was 57. 56 flew by.

Unfortunately the next field was occupied by mages AoEing so pretty much no chance of getting the next cauldron lord. Went on to Eastern Plaguelands but decided to park there the night.

No Dolly for Mae

Tried the quest to get three parts of a doll for a ghost girl. Picked up the first two parts but couldn't click on the third. After a while got annoyed and went back to Western Plaguelands. Here there appeared to be a pair of players attacking the cauldron. Not wanting competition I went back to Chillwind point and turned in two stacks of Minions Scourgestones. I then flew to Hopes Light Chapel in Eastern Plaguelands to buy more bullets and then on to collect termites. This again was a killing spree but as the monsters were further apart it wasn't as productive as the other killing sprees which may be why I didn't see anyone else there the whole time. I was only managing 15000 XP/hr which would take me nine hours to level.

My favourite monsters were the Mages: level 54 and very clothy, killed one in seven seconds. Pooky can't swing a two-hander twice in seven seconds. Most things fell quickly, even Stitched Horrors.

Got all the termites and used the ghost gryphon to go back to Darrowshire to try to get the damn doll. This time could only get two other parts of the doll. Had a shave (me not Mae) while waiting for parts to respawn but no joy. Abandoned the buggy quest in disgust.

Hunter Talents

Since getting the 41 point Beastmaster Talent, The Beast Within, I have been putting my points into the Marksman tree for extra ranged power. I've put five points in 5% more ranged crit (unbuffed crit is 12%, 15% with elixir of Mongoose) and I need six more points to get 'Aimed Shot' a nice powerful opening shot. To get to this talent I have had to choose between five points in 'Improved Hunters Mark' which increases Tiddles melee power to a mob under Hunters Mark or having more mana efficient Stings and Shots. I've ended up going for a compromise: share the five points between the two. I'm torn because mana efficiency is not a big problem at the moment and I don't always remember to put hunters mark on adds. I have tied hunters mark to pet attack with a macro so the initial Hunters Mark is automatic (damn good that macro). I can use the same macro during a fight to mark adds but it's something I usually overlook as I am busy fighting!

At level 70 I have the option of abandoning 'The Beast Within' 41 point talent and instead going 40/21/0 and getting the Scattershot from the Marksman tree. This is effectively a short range stun shot and sounds more useful than Beast Within. Beast Within makes Mae turn red, increases her dps by 10% and makes her immune to stuns. However, she rarely gets stunned, the 10% isn't a big deal and I don't really care what colour she is. Beast Within may be yet another PvP talent like all the others that are aimed at flag runners. 70 is a way off and it's just a respec or two to give scattershot a try. Don't worry: there's no chance of dropping the 'Beastial Wrath', I love my Big Red Kitty.

Todo List

Going out this evening and probably servers down tomorrow so little prospect of level 58 for a couple more days. I can finish off the cauldrons if I can get to them when they are not being farmed. There are odd chores to do in Eastern Plaguelands (freeing spirits and hitting the Undercroft) but I would really like to go to Silithus as it's the last area in Azeroth that is totally new to me (apart from lowbie horde areas). I have a feeling that one or two solid questing sessions in Silithus would pretty much see Mae through the Dark Portal.

Got more than enough cash for Mae's epic mount and could even buy the runecloth for a saber but far too mean to do that. Not sure what to do about the saber: still want one but don't want to work for it She's carrying enough runecloth and morrowgrain for about 600 more rep which still leaves about 15400 to go.

Hum, four or five more Arcanite Rod sales would buy the runecloth, fifteens days of transmuting arcanite, two weeks. Will she be sixty in two weeks? Unless I get an epic drop that gives Pooky a ranged weapon with 300 dps then YOU BETCHA.

Annihilation in Darkshore

Only had an hour or so to play on laptop before going out for the evening. Took mae to Darnassus to turn in a pile of runecloth and morrowgrain, then decided to continue doing lowbie night elf quests to get sweet with Darnassus. Right now I'm feeling that I really want to go for the Saber, it feels more of a priority than levelling. I'll make the most of this motivation while it is still there. I've made visible progress so the task now seems more achievable and I wouldn't want to have wasted the effort I've already expended.

The quests are easy on the laptop, the main problem is finding quest givers as there are no markers on them. I found some in Auberdine, enough to get me going. The time spent searching for where you're supposed to do the quest is the same at any level. Doing the quest is trivial, I found I could one-shot level 10's with arcane shot abd one-shotting saves bullets. I wasn't using Tiddles and she started getting unhappy about not being fed so I dismissed her, no point in her being there. I found it kind of sad the way these little grells would come skipping up to Mae and she would dispatch them instantly. According to DamageMeters she can kill a level 10 in 1.7 seconds.

Even found a rare spawn grell that dropped a level 12 cloth green. Mae is a rare spawn magnet.

Found an escort quest so here I summoned Tiddles, fed her and set her on aggressive, then the quest was like a stroll in the park with this guy while Tiddles ran all around killing golems. She'd run off, you see a 248 float up the screen and then she'd run back. She's so cute.

I made a good 2000 rep in the short session, each quest gives around 250 rep and I have 14000 rep to go so I need to find 52 more quests. Later on while thinking about this (when I'm not playing wow I'm thinking about it) I remembered that wowwiki has lists of quests available in each area so I can study that to help find more quests. It doesn't give the coords of the quest giver but at least I can see what is available.

Ultimately I will probably end up buying runecloth to finish this off. Yesterday it was 1g28 a stack minimum. I wouldn't want to spend any more than 100g on this and then only if the quests (or my motivation to do them) dried up. That would buy me about 6000 rep.

/Twiddles thumbs

Ok blog updated, servers down, over an hour till I get ready for work, now what to do? I think I'll join you and read about WoW. Damn game.

Darnassus Kinda likes Mae

Spent an hour or two running around Darkshore doing Darnassus quests. Was reasonably productive, combined with some morrowgrain and runecloth turnins, Mae is now half way through revered, just over 10000 rep to go until she gets exulted. I prefer to think of it as 133 stacks of runecloth or 172g at the very minimum. She has yet to start questing in Ashenvale but will get there soon and she may have missed some quests back in Teldrassil. If she gets really desperate she could do the human (you no take my candle) and draino lowbie quests for the 'spillover' rep that could bring.

Doing these lowbie quests has all the annoyances of the high level quests (running around trying to find whatever) with no challenge in the fighting. Once you find something you spend a minute killing and then it's having to go back to turn the quest in.

She had someone else 'LOL OMG' at her in Auberdine. They asked why a level 57 dwarf was knocking around those parts but accepted my explanation that she was after an epic saber. They asked where she got her shoulders from but I can't remember. Quest reward I think. They are huge Flash Gordon things, very 80's and a bit of a disaster.

Is it ironic that while I was one-shotting thistle bears my guild were downing a Fel Reaver? Disgraceful selfishness.

After some time I got tired of this and went to Winterspring to unwind with a nice killing spree. The Winterfall camp was occupied so did a few laps of the frozen lake. Could kill two or three ghosts a minute so was over 30K XP/hr. Rattled up a few bubbles of experience in less than an hour. The ghosts things dropped a little runecloth but not a useful amount.

Winterfall with Emphasis on the Fall

6am so hit the Winterfall camp while there is no competition. Spent an hour there killing relentlessly (apart from mana breaks: did need these). More sparse runecloth drops, still not worth farming these. I managed to hit around 40000 XP/Hr, it was up at about 55000 XP/Hr till the rest bonus ran out, and that was with no boost from quest turnins.

I got a couple of interesting things:

• a black lotus herb. These are apparently worth 20g EACH. Could be another reason there are always folk around these camps. A horde came and went while I was there, a 60 so he probably wasn't grinding XP.
• a blue drop Only it was the 'Ace of Portals' WTF? I would need seven more blue cards drop to make the set. Vendor trash?

Plaguelands

An hour of repetative killing was enough so I headed for Western Plaguelands to quest a bit and see if the runecloth was more plentiful. The ghouls weren't all that generous with it. I did the next cauldron and it was so easy. I remember doing it as pooky at about level 52 and it was a sword and board slog. At 57 Mae just stormed it. Still got about 7000 XP for it and two more cauldrons to go.

On to a lumber camp to let some termites loose. This was more fun, there were level 59's about and I think they may have been pally self-healers so I would either use intimidation to stun them before they could heal or save an acrane shot/multishot combo to blast them when their health got low.

Mae is currently shining but I can remember having the same feelings with Pooky at these levels. It's a good feeling, like you have wtfpowned Azeroth. None of this implies that Outlands will be easy.

Tools of the Trade

I've bought Mae a level 58 green bow in readiness. She hasn't held a bow since about level 40 and I'd like to get her skill up in case an epic bow drops. I figure that she can use it on the lowbie quests and skill up that way. It's a fast bow, 1.7 seconds (even faster when her Serpents Swiftness talent kicks in) so she will be using her arrows up in 68% of the time. I prefer guns (especially BIG GUNS). Fast weapons may be better for the higher crit rate and repercussions from that such as more Go for the Throat procs but I don't have that talent (yet). I'd rather my ammo lasted longer.

Also picked up a level 65 gun, the Gunblade, for 30g as it seemed like a bargain for an Outlands blue.

Strategy

Mae is an hour and a half from 58.

When Mae gets to 58 I am thinking of sending her to Outlands for a bit, long enough to pick up some nice Outlands gear. Then I think she would be better off doing Azeroth quests: Eastern Plaguelands, Silithus and maybe Burning Steppes. She'll be doing more pure XP grinding as she seems to be quite good at it. I think this plan has a few advantages:

• She gets maximum experience from Azeroth quests while the XP is still good
• The ridicuous XP rewards from the Hellfire quests will go towards getting her through the nasty increase in XP requirements that occur at level 60
• When she returns to questing in Outlands she will be a higher level and will find the quests there a bit easier.
• She will need fewer Outlands quests to get to 70. At 70 the rewards from the remaining quests are cash and she will be in need of a flying mount. At 70 Azeroth quests are grey.

Using this method she may not get to 70 quite as fast but she may have an easier time of it. It's not like I'm keen to start on Outlands, been there, done that, still hate Zangarmarsh and I've not been reading good things about Blades Edge Mountains. From my experience with Pooky I have a nasty feeling that a lot of Outlands is just a big pain. I think I'll stick in Azeroth while the game is still enjoyable.

If Outlands for Mae proves to be as tedious as it is for Pook I will have to review how I am spending my time and how much it all matters to me. Yes, Outlands is close and I'm already worried.

Darnassus Likes Mae About 1000 more

I ran a few more Darnassus lowbie quests. It's silly how you click on a Beached Whale, swim and dive and click on a giant turtle skull and are rewarded with 400 reputation points, equivalent to five stacks of runecloth.

The questing moved on to Ashenvale. I ran around for a bit one-shotting mobs but I did get a bit bored with it. Less than 10000 rep to go now.

Taming the Beast

I had a hankering to try taming Rak'Shiri a rare spawn saber in Winterspring. He is a nice looking cat and has Dash three and I really fancied the challenge of getting him. It's a Hunter thing. I read up on it and got some tips on how to approach it (thottbot ftw).

I flew to Azshara and knocked off a silly quest to click on a book, then on to Winterspring. At Everlook I stabled Tiddles and summoned the level 55 Winterspring Owl I had tried before. I headed north towards Frostsaber Rock. On the way I abandoned the owl and tamed another owl, a level 57 Winterspring Screecher as this has an interesting AoE ability, the Screech. The screech was an AoE debuff, knocking the enemies attack points. The only noticable effect it had was to accidently aggro passing owls which would otherwise have remained neutral. The Owl was a good pet as soon as it was tamed, on a par with Tiddles.

I got to the hill overlooking Frostsaber Rock but no sign of my target. So many cats all around, level 57-60 but not hard to deal with: could finish off a level 60 in under 30 seconds. The stalkers are nasty, they appear from nowhere and all seem to be level 60.

I spent over half an hour there, I had realised the cat wasn't around and he's on a ten hour spawn timer so there was no point in waiting. I spent my time grinding on the cats, managing around 15000 XP/hr and collecting stacks of tiger meat. Not a productive use of time but I think I have realised one thing: I enjoy killing as a hunter more than I did with the paladin. With the Paladin killing things became a chore but it's not as bad with a hunter, I never get that 'here we go again' feeling.

I did the sensible thing: logged off for the night and came back 6am next morning. I looked around from my hill top but still no sign of him. I decided to wander around killing cats till I got bored. After five minutes I found him on the minimap! It's always good when this happens, my heart started beating fast, the thrill of the hunt! I abandoned the owl. dropped a freezing trap and lined him up for a concussive shot when another cat came along and I had to lure it into my freezing trap it and run. I got way from the cat but lost Rak'Shiri. There is no way Mae could kill one of these with melee and I have no kiting practise, although kiting would still be suicide, would run straight into more cats.

Now I was in trouble: surrounded by ferocious cats, some level 60 stealthed and no pet! I searched for Rak'Shiri, continually agroing cats and having to feign death. Died to three cats, not much I could do. Did the corpse run and carried on searching. Alchemy is useful: res and swig a wildvine pot which gives both health and mana. Thought about taming a very temporary pet but decided against to keep myself ready. In these situations my biggest worry is that another player will come along and kill my target. I had done a '/who winterspring' and there were four other players around and one was named 'noobhunter' or something with hunter in the name.

I found him again. He was alone. I laid the freezing trap, concussive shot, he was trapped and I started taming. Another stealthy cat appears! Argh. I have to ignore it and carry on taming. Would the cat attacking me interrupt the taming? The trap breaks and Rak'Shiri is attacking me too, what hope is there? But it worked! He was tamed and started attacking the other cat. I was panicky now, I had him but he was very unhappy and needed feeding but he was fighting. I used an unusual tactic: I let Mae die, ressed at the spirit healer, summoned him and fed him. There was no point in struggling to get away, I was finished in Winterspring anyway.

When he was wild, amongst the other cats he stood out, he is shiny blue and has green eyes that glow in the dark. Once tamed he seems, well, average. He doesn't stand out at all, no more impressive to me than King Bangalash. I've got him, I rose to my challenge but ultimately I don't think I will keep him. I have Dash 3 to teach to Tiddles and I have the story to tell. Tiddles is still one of the more exclusive pets in the game.

UPDATE: In Darnassus Rakky looks like this:

Too damn good looking, argh. Do I need anything other than two cats? I've already called him Rakky, think I'm stuck with him, at least for now.

UPDATE2: Damn, more I look at this picture the more I like this cat. I think maybe I had been looking at Winterspring cats for too long when I made my initial judgement. Maybe Mae will be the Crazy Saber Lady with three Sabers: Tiddles, Rakky and Epic. Kinda fitting as all three would have taken some effort to get hold of. Now to wait for blizz to come up with an epic flying saber. How long would I grind rep for one of those?

See what I mean about the shoulders

Onwards and Upwards

Hearthed to Shattrath and hence on to Western Plaguelands to finish off the Cauldron quests. These weren't very difficult: the third Cauldron Lord spouted some bravado words to 'Cat' (haven't named him) but still died in nine seconds. Bestial Wrath ftw.

The turnins and a bit of grinding dinged Mae to 58.

That's the onwards part, upwards would be to Outlands, after all it is another planet which is pretty far up. But do I want to go there yet? I think Mae is ready, I'm impressed with how she handled the level 60 cats. However, I don't feel I'm in a hurry, she still has business in Azeroth, especially doing more Darnassus lowbie quests: only two levels to go to get that Saber! Right now there is probably more new stuff for me to do in Azeroth than in Outlands: done Hellfire Peninsular once, not in a hurry to do it again.

More Rep Grinding

Spent more time focused on rep grinding, specifically running around Ashendale Forest. There are two long quest chains there that involve running backwards and forwards: I'm not sure how the Night Elfs without mounts can stand it. The place is usually fairly deserted, I guess the wise Nelfs hot foot it to the Eastern Kingdoms pronto.

A Taste of Hellfire

Once I couldn't stand riding too and fro any more I hearthed to Shattrath, portalled to Ironforge, flew to Nethergarde Keep and made my grand entrance through the Dark Portal, then flew to Honor Hold. Ok I could have just flown from Shattrath to Honor Hold but I would miss some trivial quest bonus that way as well as missing one of the big occasions in the game.

First quest was killing orcs and gather wood and scrap metal. This was more challenging that what I was used to, not too bad but I seemed to be having to heal Rakky constantly. I died twice, both times to the same inconspicuous level 61 elite who roams the area. You think you are getting an add and don't care much and then BAM. However killing the orcs was such fun that I carried on grinding on them.

My first quest reward in outlands was a crossbow with 44 dps where my blue gun was 37 and that was good. This gave me a new challenge as my crossbow skill was one out of 290: Mae had never held one before. I didn't start using it in Outlands, not the best place to learn to use a crossbow.

Was invited into a group by guildie Brutusmarcus. After an embarrasing session looking for someone who sold bullets (nearest vendor was beside the Dark Portal, Outlands side) we attacked the four throwers and set fire to them. Then we went and killed an orc for a talisman. He had to go then.

I went on and ground 12 more talismans. I remember with pooky this took some time but it was faster this time around. Hellfire is definitely more tricky than Azeroth, the Hellboars have a big agro radius.

Next quest involved burning four towers. The first two went ok, the next one I died twice:

• game went into that funny mode where the monsters are not where they appear to be. Had one fight where Rakky was fighting an invisible monster 20 yards to the left and Mae was shooting at it 20 yards to her right. Anyway, soon lost track and died to a big group of skeletons.
• for the next death I was spotted by a floating eyeball and was suddenly surrounded by skeletons and fireballs. Ouch.

Finally reached the tower to find it was not the right tower Did the next two towers although I had to buy more bullets half way through: used a LOT of bullets and was down to six.

By now I was fed up with dying and decided to give it a rest.

Nubrs

Went on guild tour of UBRS. Not a good session for me. I'll list the noob errors I made here for reference: I will read them every time I raid with Mae.

• First fight the raid leader use blue square for a mob so I wasn't sure if I should blast it. Did anyway but blue square was sheep
• We had to jump off a ledge into the middle of an area surrounded by monsters. The others just jumped and I used 'Eyes of the beast' to drive Rakky over: only something went wrong and I push Mae over the edge instead. Rakky decided to trot around the long way and when he reached us he had about five elites behind him and this escalated to agroing every mob for five miles around. The ensuing fight is by far the biggest fight I had ever seen, we had a clutch of level 70 mages so it was dealt with and the only fatality was Rakky.
• I wasn't aware that the others were avoiding going near mobs but I discovered the hard way that I was a bit of an agro magnet if I strayed too far to one side. Was one-shotted twice I think, very quick deaths.
• In one fight I fired at a sheeped mob. This may have been because my baby daughter was on my lap and was banging the keyboard around the tab key but that's no excuse. Do the top raiding guilds raid with baby daughters on their laps?
• We wiped on the final bosses, not sure it was entirely my fault, there was a mix up in the order of killing them: skull was not supposed to die first this time. Did the corpse run back, ressed and followed some others back into the instance. Reached the same ledge I mentioned before and this time did the Right Thing and dismissed Rakky. By the time I had finished the others had run off and were nowhere in sight. I was left alone, not knowing the instance, where patrols may be etc. It was about time to finish playing anyway so I bade a farewell.

There may have been more screw ups, I can't remember. I'm not going to wallow in self pity or solicit reassurance. I'm documenting it for completeness.

More Rep

Bought a load of runecloth in the auction house, no more than 1g40 a stack. Did some more quests till I got fed up. Have only 1500 rep left to go.

Crossbow Skill

To level up the crossbow skill I started by one-shotting level sevens during the low level quests. One shot, one kill, one skill level. I decided to progress with my Azeroth questing, specifically scaring goblins with yeti's and exploring Silithus. I flew to Gadgetzan, scared a goblin, then on to Un'goro where I scared another goblin.

Then went across Un'goro killing dinosaurs with the crossbow. Tiddles held agro, Mae shot, wasn't worried how long they took to die but could still kill them very quickly, twenty seconds or so.

By the time we reached Silithus the crossbow skill was 270 and the crossbow was a useful weapon until I ran out of arrows and had to revert to the gun.

Silithus looks interesting, lots of creepy insect nests, amazing scenery of deserts and huge insect hives with insects buzzing around. Completed the first Silithus quest much more easily that Hellfire quests. Found the main quest hub and there seem to be many quests there. It may be like Hopes Light Chapel in Eastern Plaguelands where there are loads of quests but they are all for rep grinding. gathering bone fragments, savage fronds etc from around the globe. I didn't check any, flew back to Winterspring and picked up a mechanical yeti instead.

Mae dinged 59 in Silithus.

Darnassus is Impressed

Evening laptop session so more Darnassus rep grinding. Running backwards and forwards around Ashenvale. Finally it happened: ding, green flash, exalted in Darnassus. What? No songs of exaltation, no church bells ringing, no people lining the streets? Is that it? Went to Darnassus and sure enough the Saber vendor is willing to talk business. Have to wait till Mae is 60 tho. Could buy a low level saber to run around on for just under a level but a waste of 9g.

Can't say I'm impressed with the look of the epic sabers: want a snowy white one with black spots to match Tiddles but the only one like that is the standard model With a matching tiddles model it would look like I was riding Tiddles! It would be like those guys in Hellfire that jump off their dogs and the dogs attack you.

As it happens I still wasn't out of quests, hadn't finished the Tower of Anthraxx or some other quest that involved wearing a disguise made from Moonstalker pelts. I did manage the Raens Cleansing thing which involved turning into a furbolg. Furbolgs can't fight or mount I wanted to see a furbolg riding a ram Anyway, I could have saved money buying five or ten gold worth of runecloth but at least I didn't have to waste more time. I've learned one thing: the questing in Ashenvale from levels 20-30 looks like it would be an absolute pain without a mount.

Kinda useful to the Guild

Guild Master asked me to make some Shadow Protection pots since they were raiding Zul'Gurub. These turned out to be some of the worst pots to make. They need Shadow Oil and dreamfoil and I didn't have the recipe for Shadow Oil. It was in the auction house but it was a white recipe and therefore available cheaper from a vendor. I thotted it and the recipe comes from a little guy in one of the houses just south of Raven Hill in Darkshire. It's a limited availablility recipe so he only sells one every half hour. Anyway, went there, found the guy and got the recipe.

Shadow Oil is even worse: needs four grave moss and four fadeleaf! Grave moss is rare and expensive, fadeleaf is just expensive but I had a load in stock. The GM sent me some grave moss and I was able to make seven pots. I didn't really look at the tooltip before I made the pots but they only last two minutes! Worst. Pot. Ever.

One good thing: raised my alch to the dizzy heights of 330 so worth visiting the trainer to see what is next. Mae could do with a nice mana pot recipe. My herbalism is now 373! Nearly maxed!

Schoolboy Humour time: Ghoulies (he he he)

(For Americans in the audience, an explanation).

Morning and it feels strange: no need to worry about rep grinding or finding runecloth. Back to the plot, main priority: getting to 60. What to do? Plagelands, Hellfire or Silithus? Settled on Plaguelands for no good reason. Flew to Eastern Plaguelands and went to Corbins Crossing, officially to free darrowshire spirits but really to mindlessly grind ghoulies for pure XP and killing pleasure. I can't explain it, I feel content with pure XP grinding with the hunter, something I very rarely did with the paladin. I find a nice big camp or town where the monsters are not too far apart and do circuits of remorseless killing. Is it a gun thing? Hope not. Anyway I was also trying to use up the 1000 bullets I had left over from UBRS so I could go back to my BIG CROSSBOW. Mae and Tiddles were hitting 300 dps with the 37 dps blue gun. Once the bullets are used up the 44 dps crossbow will be her main weapon.

Ironically the Corbins Crossing guys dropped about four stacks of runecloth I'll sell it to some other mug who wants a saber mount.

Died once. In Corbins Crossing there are some ghost things that suddenly appear out of nowhere and Mae was suddenly attacked by, dunno, didn't count them but too many. Agroed a big bunch. Mae left Tiddles fighting them, gave her one last heal and ran. Couldn't run too far, things all around. Did a feign death to drop the last one and went phew. At about that time the group of things had killed Tiddles and had decided that Mae was next...

An hour or so of killing is enough for anyone so started questing. Went to Undercroft to get some guys head. The big fight here involved taking on four guys so decided on strategy. Laid a freezing trap, sent Big Red Tiddles after the guy who's head I required, targeted a different guy and pulled him onto the trap to take him out for 15 seconds, target main guy and fight on until all dead, finishing with the frosty one. Worked sweetly. If I did it again I would wait after laying the trap so that the cooldown was ready for another trap. Freezing traps are so useful for a bit of crowd control. So nice of Blizz to let hunters lay them during a fight, can't imagine how hard it was before, must have routinely had to lay them before every fight Just In Case.

Picked up quest scroll from floor, as I remembered all this from Pook. I had to kill a guy and free his soul but I knew where he was: in a tricky camp in the north east. Rode there and went into camp. There are two types of baddies to watch out for, the scouts who run for help as soon as you hit them and some others who turn you into a frog. Hit first scout who immediately ran to two others who did the frog thing to both Tiddles and Mae. Terribly messy fight. Tried Beast Within but can't do it in frog form. Anyway, eventually prevailed. It was only later that I remembered that Beast Within makes Tiddles and Mae immune to anything but death, it would probably have protected them from the froggy business so I should have used it earlier in the fight. I tend to save it for emergencies or premeditated stuff, I don't use it routinely.

On to where the target roams about with a load of other scouts and things. Decided to try to pull him out. First pull went pear shaped, agroed a scout and half a dozen others so Mae ran and summoned Tiddles out. Back in, this time did a nice pull on the target and another harmless guy. Quest done.

Mae is just under half way to 60 and should get there tonight at a stretch or tomorrow morning if the insomnia does its thing: and it hasn't failed me for a couple of weeks now, sleeping till 7am is a luxury

In a way it's hard to believe: I'll have two characters in the Sixties! And Mae is already more powerful than Pook.

A Question

A question for Mac users in the audience, and I know that some of you use Macs. Do you play WoW on a Mac because it is a great game or because it is one of the few good games that run on a Mac? I'm not having a go at Macs, I use PC's but only because my head ruled my heart last time I bought one. I'm wondering whether the population of WoW players is now 90% Mac users and all the PC users are off playing Lord of the Rings Online?

More Ghoulie Grinding

Did some research on Wow Wiki about Eastern Plaguelands. I had always thought that there ought to be more quests there than I have found and sure enough, there is a quest giver hidden on the western edge, up the river a ways. He has three quests that involve killing vast numbers of Plague Bats, Carrion Eaters and Plague Hounds. Ideal hunter prey. Eastern Plaguelands is alive with all these things and normally they are an annoyance as they are always in the way but now they were good grinding fodder. Spent a good couple of hours on this, especially the Carrion Eaters (giant maggots) as I had to collect drops of their meat and the drop rate was very low. Did spend time going through the big plague town killing ghouls and exploring the far west of the map. I found Terrordale where the Plagued Swine are, the highest level boars in the game. They are level 60 and I plan to train one when Mae reaches 60. They are smaller than I imagined and not as ugly looking: the gaping wounds on their sides don't gape too much.

Was wandering round and found an odd red blob on the ground that I could click on. Duly clicked and a level 60 elite appeared and killed Tiddle and Mae. Surprise! Ressed and decided to tackle her properly. She killed tiddles and went for Mae. It was very close, the elite was down to a tiny bit of health but she still killed Mae. I really need to learn to kite! Had a third try but messed it up at the start so ran off. I gave up then, I was wasting time and I wanted to get to 60. In retrospect I should have laid a freezing trap ready in case she got to Mae. She was nasty, she gave a debuff that stopped Mae running fast, Mae had to feign death to get rid of her.

Turned in the three quests for a nice 5800 XP each and got a follow up quest to get a hammer from the Undercroft. Went there and clicked on a grave and five guys appeared and proceeded to kill Tiddles and Mae. Not good. Tried again and died again. The problem was the guys would stun tiddles, then overrun Mae. Not much I could do about it.

Two bubbles from 60, how to get there? Grind. Went to Corbin's Crossing and ground Ghouls till bullets were running low, went to Hope's Light Chapel, rearmed and flew to Western Plaguelands. Turned in a quest there but the follow up was a group quest so just ground ghouls in the ghoulie town.

Ding.

Crazy Saber Lady

What more can I say:

It was worth it, all the running around Ashenvale, grinding ghouls, every bullet, every piece of runecloth (and the grinding has yielded eight stacks). She went for the Storm Saber and was glad she did: it's dark blue with lots of shiny metal bits. These screenshots never do justice, this cat is the best.

When the Storm Saber runs it has a big lolloping stride and Mae bounces up and down: it's at the same time fun and nauseating. Please bear in mind, Pooky had a paladin horse for a while, then a standard ram, then Snowy the epic ram and Mae has had her unnamed ram for twenty levels. I'm sick of rams!

When you press the space bar while stationary it does a big roar, if you flip the camera view you can see right down it's throat. The rams rear up on their hind legs. UPDATE: it's not a roar, it's just a yawn. I was playing with the sound turned off so I wouldn't wake the house up.

It's name? Cuddles.

Level 60 Goodies

Bought some pretty pricey level 60 Hunter Training, over 4g a pop! All next ranks but pretty major ones: Arcane shot, Serpent sting and most importantly the 20 second freezing trap: now I have no excuse for not chain-trapping. There was a new thing on offer to dispel 'frenzy' effects on a target but I don't think it's worth having, I prefer to keep blasting.

Still looking forward to 61 where Mae gets Aimed Shot. Tempting to respec for it now and ditch the Beast Within: killed over thiry plague bats and their fear spells weren't so bad that I bothered with the immunity that Beast Within gives.

Attack Power

Some research led me to an interesting discovery: attack power buffs effect Hunter ranged attack power! I had assumed that 'Attack Power' was for melee and 'Ranged Attack Power' was for ranged but it seems an attack power boost will increase the Hunters ranged attack power too. By pure coincidence a random passing paladin gave Mae the Blessing of Might and I watched her dps display as it timed out and it was equivalent to a 10% dps boost.

I was led to all this by the mention of a trinket that you can get in Outlands merely by killing a level 63 elite. It boosts attack power and crit by some ridiculous amount and has low cooldown. It sounds like something both Pook and Mae could do with. According to Thott, Hunters can solo it by kiting the level 63 to the nearby town but that is either BS or beyond me. I probably need to find a guildie to help me. Twice. Pretty please

TBH Mae really needs to learn kiting. Without the pet she is absolutely helpless, it's just pathetic, her melee is simply feeble. She may have reached sixty but she's just starting to L2P.

Another Serving of Bacon

For the evening session I decided on something a bit different, a break from level grinding. I wanted another piggy so back to Eastern Plaguelands for a plagued swine as that is my only option. The bug/feature that allowed you to train a pet while one was dismissed seems to be a memory now so I dumped my cats in the stables at Ironforge and flew to Hope's Light Chapel. First job was to get a temporary pet so grabbed the first plague bat I saw. It was level 55 but I only needed something to tank a bit in self defence if I got ganked on the way. I immediately fed it and trained it in highest level growl I could. The bat happened to know Cower rank 5 so I took the opportunity to learn that: I had to send it in a fight then make it cower, automatic cower wasn't enough. Cower is a way to make the pet drop agro, not useful in soloing but maybe useful one day and maybe is a good enough reason to learn it.

The bat was an ok pet except it had huge wings and it seemd to fill up half the screen, it was like have the bags open all the time. It tended to glide everywhere, it's wings stretched out wide, it didn't flap but it was still annoying. Having no dash/dive/charge it glided into battle, very slow, like it wasn't keen to get there. The bat only eats fruit and fungus but my grinding in EPL had left me with a stack of tasty mushrooms. Boars eat anything.

Ran to the Western end of Eastern Plaguelands and Terrordale. Had to clear some stitched things to get to the Plagued Swine then just tamed, fed and trained Growl. Came with high ranks of Charge and Gore. I tried out the charge right away and it's still a fantastic thing: it takes the boar about a second to engage the enemy It is on a 25 second cooldown so I only get it approximately every other fight if I'm in grinding mode but that is better than nothing. Tiddles/Rakkys dashing is lethargic by comparison, though not as bad as the bat. As someone pointed out on Thott, with Charge you can choose where you want a fight to happen: I always pull with concussive shot to give myself time to assess the pull and as the target walks towards me (he's concussed and doesn't run) I can send the pet in just as the mob gets where I want him, away from his mates but still in firing range. You can do this with Dash but it's not as precise. I've never seen anyone else mention pulling with Concussive Shot but it works for me.

I decided to call my new boar BeefyII in memory of my much missed Beefy. The warcraft font makes this look like Beefyll though His face is pretty ugly, you can see his skull through the skin (servers down now, no screenshot). He is definitely on the team ONLY for his talents, not his good looks (three Sabers is plenty of good looks).

Something to mention: the pet can pick up as many as three nasty debuffing diseases at a time in Eastern Plaguelands but I use Improved Mend Pet rank 2 to cure them as I can't stand the thought of them suffering. I do this even if the pet is at full health. I don't have Improved Revive Pet to bring them back to life faster, I use Improved Med Pet to keep them alive! Stoneform cures Mae of anything she picks up.

I now have three pets, maximum capacity. Right now I could not train another temporary pet for next rank talents without abandoning one of the three. If I had to drop one it would be Rakky. Rakky keeps reminding me of my shame in UBRS which doesn't help his case. BeefyII is destined to be replaced with a warp stalker at 64 as the 'Warp' talent is even better than Charge and Warp Stalkers aren't so ugly, just a bit silly looking (like a crocodile with a teddy bear face). In Shattrath I see some strange floaty flying pets, I don't know what they are but they look nice.

Reminds me: I saw horde on FLYING LIONS. Must investigate. What do you have to forsake to become forsaken? UPDATE: looks like horde only Wyvern Mount. Sniff, although TBH they were a bit manky looking and not up to Mae's high standards.

Revenge

Since I was in Eastern Plaguelands with a shiny new boar, albeit diseased, I decided I would have another go at the graverobber guys at the Undercroft that I struggled with in the morning. I had been thinking about my strategies and decided I wasn't going to give up. I figured all I really needed to do was to kill the head guy and just run away, then creep back and loot his body. Nice straightforward underhand cowardly tactics. So I clicked the grave, summoned the guys, sent Big Red BeefyII in, blasted the main guy (doing a feign death when the three others came for me) and kept blasting. When he was dead, turned and ran. I then summoned BeefyII out when I was clear. I looked back and the guys weren't following me so I returned. Hum, now they were down to three so, what the hey, I killed them all. Three is managable.

I looked for the red blob that spawned the level 60 elite (blood of heroes?) but couldn't find it. She'll have to wait.

Kiting 101

I didn't try kiting as I had a teething baby on my lap that kept trying to bang the keyboard and needed some restraint. I think kiting will require two hands. I could handle the undercroft but not kiting. However I watched some videos on youtube as I have never even witnessed l33t kiting. Very impressive but I was left wondering how many 'takes' these videos went through? They don't post the twenty times they failed miserably. I'll defy convention and thoroughly document every miserable failure. Pity you can't kite lord Kazzak to Stormwind any more

I'm wondering whether it is possible to kite three guys at once using multishot.

I like the trick where you lay a freezing trap, agro three guys, trap one, feign death, let the others return, then kill off the frozen guy. It's a useful set piece and a more honourable strategy than running away. Dare I try this with Chief Winterfall (level 59 elite) and his two cronies? Hunter's certainly get a nice box of tricks. And BIG GUNS.

STOP PRESS

UPDATE: only just noticed on armory: MAE is 375 Herbalism!

Can't.. Stop.. Killing

Went to Eastern Plaguelands to progress my only quest chain that didn't need a group. I had to visit some hamlet and find a 'Symbol of Honor'. I arrived at the place and there were a couple of ruined huts but the area was full of two kinds of annoying enemies: Lady Singer Ghosts with fear spells and Eyeless something ghosts that would appear from nowhere, sometimes three at a time. I should be careful what I write in this blog as when I say things like the plague bats fear spells weren't a problem, the game always bites me the next day. Just about every fight with the Singers had either Rakky of Mae being feared, normally Rakky was feared and the Singer would attack Mae. I still didn't use Beastial Wrath for fear immunity as it seemed a waste of a good cooldown for just a one-on-one fight.

I ground these things for a while, annoying as it was, going in and out of the huts looking for this symbol of hope. After a few laps and clearances I gave up and thotted for it. The Symbol of Hope is a flag at the bottom of a pond next to the huts! You only need to kill a couple of level 57 pussycat water elementals to get it!

On my way back to turn the quest in I passed a camp with some plain ghouls, levels 57-60. I couldn't resist and started killing the ghouls. Before I knew it I had wiped out two camp fulls and I had to tear myself away to turn the quest in before bedtime. Killing the ghouls was easy and each kill gave maybe three runecloth, a scourgestone and some cash. By the end of the session Mae had ten stacks of runecloth and fifty invaders and minions scourgestones. I didn't expect the hunter to make this kind of grinding fun and it's a nice surprise.

I turned the quest in and got 6800 XP, nice. The follow up sent me to Caer Darrow, just outside Scholomance and gave me another 6800 XP. Next step in the quest chain is inside Scholomance itself. Dare I go in?

Bag Administration

Running around with ten stacks of runecloth in my bags made me decide to reorganise. Bit the bullet and splurged 25g on another bank slot (typical herbalist, bank is stuffed full of herbs). Filled it with a 16 slot bag and filled said bag with runecloth and herbs so bank is still full.

This left Mae with enough inventory space to try a new concept: using a quiver instead of a bag! Losing 16 general purpose slots and equipping a 12 slot quiver she got as a quest reward in Duskwood, many moons ago. The quiver increases firing speed by 11% and put Mae's raw ranged dps at 139 (compared to Pooks 120 something) with Rakky at about 100. These days Mae doesn't have bag fulls of fish and various meats, she sticks with roasted quail for the pet and mushrooms for herself (since they drop all over the place in EPL she has a stack).

I only need the runecloth now for bandages. Already made a stack of runecloth bandages, first aid skill is in the 290's but only use them rarely.

Unfinished Business

Decided to start on Kalimdor: Winterspring for Chief Winterfall, Tanaris and Un'goro to progress the Linken's Boomerang series, finishing in Silithus, ready for the next session.

I reached the Winterfall Camp and nobody was around so spent a while.. you may guess.. grinding. Did a few laps of the camp killing the Winterfall. Mae has rest bonus but was cruising at 65000 XP per hour which is good since you need 480000 XP to get from 60 to 61. There is one good thing about these big XP requirements: the rest bonus lasts longer. With all this grinding she still hasn't used up her rest bonus. I was hoping that the increased dps from the quiver would mean she didn't need to arcane shot and serpent sting in every fight and hence wouldn't need a mana break every ten minutes but TBH I couldn't really tell the difference the quiver made so may well go back to a normal 16 slot bag. The natural progression of using up ammo and replacing it with loot is irresistable.

Tackled Chief Winterfall and his two chronies. Tried splitting them with a freezing trap and failed miserably: iced the wrong guy and didn't manage to reset them by feigning death: should have put pet on passive! Doh. Anyway, I did do one thing right: I set the inital freezing trap, then waited for the cooldown so I would have another ready. In the fight I took out the Shaman Healer first, then froze the Ursa a second time (chain trap!) while blasting the Chief Himself (elite 59) with everything. By the time I had just the Ursa to finish off I was out of mana but it didn't matter by then. Job done. This and a silly follow up quest in Felwood netted about another 13000 XP.

Stopped in Tanaris to tackle Aquamentus for a few thousand XP, then un'goro to turn in the next stages of the Linken's Boomerang quest for a few thousand more. I'm not going to bother with the final elite in this series as I don't think Mae could solo it except with amazing kiting skills that neither she nor I posess thus far. I think if I tried it the result would be the fire elemental booting the pet off the mountain and Mae struggling to lose agro. I couldn't stand seeing one of my babies booted off a mountain.

Went on to Silithus and examined the plethora of quests available. They fall into four categories:

• Soloable: there were eight of these! Woo hoo, something to do.
• Group Quests: a couple of these to skip
• AQ25/AQ40 quests with epic rewards: amazing to think that at one time Mae could have been doing 25 or 40 man (make that person) raids. Zippo chance these days.
• Rep grinding quests... pass.

I'm still not half way to 61: just grinding would take me five or six more hours of play. I could definitely do it faster in Hellfire as the mob kills and quest rewards give more XP but I'm saving that up for later UPDATE: would my grinding time be better spent on the Hellfire Orcs? Probably.

Making Money

I haven't been mentioning money-making much recently. The main earner right now is Arcanite Rods: Mae bought ten arcane crystals for 10g (sheesh, don't people know what they are worth?), Pook can mine ten thorium in as many minutes, enough for three rods. Threes days of transmuting and a rod goes on auction house for 35g bid, 50g buyout. Income from this is maybe 10g a day. Don't make too many arcanite rods as they don't always sell but since Pook doesn't have to buy three arcanite at 7g a bar to make the rods I can undercut heavily and still make good money. Could also make money thorium farming as it seems to be going for 20g a stack but I'm a bit bored with that so don't do it often, only when I need it myself.

When Mae gets back to Outlands she can start making serious cash (flying mount!). She will be herbing like crazy and the quest rewards are more lucrative. Heck, even the vendor trash is worth gold.

Mae is now a 375 Herbalist which is good considering she has only spent a few hours in Outlands and has picked maybe three flowers there.