Instance Demands

The all Shaman crew is moving along quite well yet I can feel myself approaching a wall. They've been leveling so fast their gear is rapidly getting behind. Plus I've been dorking around in Zul'Farrak. The Enhancement Shaman is only 53 so if enough mobs are ganging up on her, it gets nasty. Especially when a ranged mob decides to run…

This is good though. I've had it pretty easy outside questing so far. There's been no reason to put together any real synergy. Yet instancing in the Outlands is going to require it, so it's time to start looking at what works. While it's highly amusing to open with Chain Lightning I find that it's not wise. In ZF specifically, I find a solid lightning bolt volley against Blooddrinkers was good to open. After the first cast I drop a set of Grounding Totems then a set of Stoneclaw Totems. Then I go back to finishing off the melee in range while the casters waste their mana.

Though I had two embarrassing deaths, I never wiped. Did the whole Troll Nation encounter without a problem and Ghazrilla dropped so everyone has their Carrot on a Stick now. Managed to get all the other collect quests done, too. Even though it was a ton of Troll Tempers, the quest experience has been very worthwhile.

Let Me See Your Bracers...

Spent time leveling Enchanting on Shaman1. I plan on doing a bit of instancing so there's bound to be plenty of items that would go to waste if I didn't have an enchanter in tow. Ended up following this guide for most of it since it had a good list of materials and some alternatives. Had to stop at 245 when the materials became obscenely priced on the AH.

Used at least thirty stacks of spare Silk to tailor a number of Green Silken Shoulders to disenchant. Once everyone is up to 260-265 First Aid, I can start making White Bandit Mask with spare Mageweave to see if I can get some higher level mats rolling in. Might have to find something in Rune cloth. Going to need tons I'm sure. *sigh* Swore I would never level Enchanting again but oh well.

Priest Review

The next time I'm forced to spec Sloosh healing I'm going to give this this 10/51/0 spec a shot. I hate not having Inner Focus and Meditation, but the new Surge of Light and Guardian Spirit sound pretty fun; haven't been that deep in the Holy Tree forever. Divine Providence seems focused on spells I wouldn't use as much, so I might trade it for Serendipity and two points in Test of Faith. Twin Disciplines is of dubious worth but it's better than the nerfed Unbreakable Will.

If I ever manage to get back to PvP I'm going to start with this 56/5/0 spec. It's a really big departure from the routine to skip on Mental Strength and Power Infusion. I don't like the PI change so I went for Improved Divine Spirit. The way it reads, I also liked Enlightenment over Rapture even though Disc is classically horrible at mana efficiency. Penance really didn't interest me but the last point I had wouldn't really fit anywhere else so I'll try it. Will have to watch some high rated priests for additional insight.

I'm currently raiding with a 5/0/56 spec. Having three points in Shadow Affinity is probably overkill with the built-in 30% threat reduction of shadow form, so I may be trying Psychic Horror or Improved Shadow form when I can. It's frustrating having a Raid Spec and PvP spec so close together because I would trying PvP Shadow. Yet if I have to respec anyway, might as well stay with Disc.

Totems Done

Got a lot of maintenance done on the Shaman today. They were all 33 but still didnt have mounts or their Air Totems so was time for a visit home. Had my banker send 450g for deposit into their guild. After grabbing each a Gray Elephant, I spent time individually to get rid of some flotsam from their inventory then level their First Aid to 150. Going from 80 to 150 seemed to take around seven stacks so I exhausted the bank supply on the final shaman. Had to switch over to another pack rat alt to find the last few stacks.

The shaman have leveled so fast that they've completely outgrown their gear. I'm a horrible twinker so I'm always thinking I should gather this or make that. I'd really like to make them a full set of Big Voodoo gear for novelty's sake. Yet now that it's for FOUR characters, I'm not so eager. I refuse to pay the AH prices for 112 Thick Leather and 64 Flasks of Mojo. Farming them would take forever. Definitely not worth the five or six days they'd wear them. I did take the time to put together Golden Ring of Powerx4 since rings tend to last a while and they were still skill-ups.

Revised my keyboard layout a little. I've move the assist with the primary actions buttons to the Bottom Left button bar where I have everything bound on Shift keys. Most of my characters use that bar in the same way, so it's going to take a little retraining of my brain. Thinking it will be best to keep keys 1-6 un-broadcasted for whatever the main needs.

The Shaman on my Main account had to sit out today while made some SM Library runs. Thought about using the Mage as I've seen suggested yet Decimate really isn't that well geared. Aenara isn't that much better but she's done very well tanking in the past. With the 3.0.2 change to Swipe, she's now godly.

In Bear she has over 13k Life so I decided to see what my maximum pulls was. Turns out that casters will leash if you take them around more than two or three turns. So I would stealth all the way up to Doan, aggro the two monks in front of the library, then hoof of on back to the entry. I would swing into the alcoves along the way so I would end up using Frenzied Regeneration by the time I hit the Huntsman Cloister. The flurry of death is always so satisfying.

Doan was very cooperative. After six runs, I had a Robe of Doan, a Mantle of Doan, and an Illusionary Rod for all three shaman. Only happened to get two Hypnotic Blades but I'm sure I'll pick up more while using the Ehancement Shaman to run the Shaman on the Main account through.

Was kinda funny too. Finally have Chain Lightning so I threw down a few while clearing—going to be so deadly. These greedy Shaman have been stealing lots of gold from my Mains so I made sure one each run one of them would fill their bags from the piles'o'corpses. There was enough crap to sell that they'll hopefully keep up with their spell training costs. Thankfully I was being thorough because on the way out of my final clear I noticed an unlooted corpse that was holding a nice blue Cobalt Crusher.

The RAF program continues to be amazing. Have the Druid boost the three slaves through means the fourth Shaman isn't getting any experience. So I'll be using a number of the Level gifts to let her keep pace effortlessly. Wish the Character Transfer was going to I could do some strategic character relocation. Oh well. The experience is still wonderful. Doing the totem turn-in alone was 8700xp (+5800raf). I'm currently using the summon to my great advantage. My Main is summoning each character to the various Inns in Outland for the seasonal Candy Bucket quests and all Flight Paths. *snicker* Those little 34 Shaman are sure getting around.

After the Novelty

On Dual-Boxing.com's wiki entry on Boosting I noticed a link to their forums entitled: 1-60 in 1 day 10 hours. Basically it was commentary around a message on the WoW forums that began with

Gundude < Grizzly > Destromath

This hunter at lvl 61 - 1 bar from 62 has 2 days / played. Normally I get to 70 just under 4 days slash played. If really trying I'm sure it would be possible to hit 60 in 20 hours and 70 in 2 days 20 hours slash played.

The secret?

Simple.

Make your way to lvl 8 then go to RFC or Deadmines. Invite a full group (for full xp bonus) then have your lvl 70 mage friend AoE it. Enjoy lvling every 10-15 mins.

At 20.... go to SM Cath/Arm (switch between them and reset) Continue this process until lvl 40. Enjoy lvls every 30-45mins. (Use a mage with mana absorbtion to AoE it, keep a full group for full xp bonus)

At 40....go to ZF. You need to learn the pulls if using a 70 mage to AoE. LoS big groups then AoE. Make sure you have healers to in your party to heal the mage - lvling past 40 requires healers to be in the group. ALSO IMPORTANT - Bring a class such as a Druid to moonfire healing totems the trolls drop, this must be done or you will die. Enjoy lvling every 40-55mins.

At 50...go to LBRS. Now use a WARRIOR*** Warrior smashes the instance with a 2 hand and flexes. Bring a full group with healers. I perfer to bring a feral druid to say in feral form so the warrior gets 5% extra crit and heals himself. Shamans for heals and WF totem will increase your speed at clearing the instance as well. I do a set route and skip much of the instance but maintain a very fast lvl pace. Enjoy lvls every 50-60mins.

At 55....go to Ramparts. Still using a warrior - aim for the same group setup (leader of pack/WF totem/heals). Rampart runs should be 20-25 mins long and at 120k+ a hour xp is wonderfull. Enjoy lvls every 50-70 mins.

60+ I stop power lvling and enjoy questing in the outlands. Your call. Ramparts will still give 110k+ xp an hour up until lvl 64.

I don't really see the warrior happening in LBRS. The Feral druid in the group is an interesting idea. Still, there's no knowing what classes you're leveling; it's totally possible to not have a healer at all. That hole aside, his post generated eleven pages of feedback that was mostly “I want to do this!” or “the real question here is have you ever touched a snatch in your life” yet there was one handy expansion by Felsik of Drenden:

Frost shield up, rank 1 arcane explosion keeps them on you. Use mage armor instead of ice armor, you don't want frostbite procing all over the place and freezing those lowbie mobs behind you.

The easy dungeons, like RFC through to about SM armory you can do massive pulls with this style, just make sure the lowbies being powerleveled stay close, since you'll be moving very far through the instance with alot of mobs on you.

Usually there will be caster types, so when you want to 'stop' to perform the mass AOE kill, you LOS the group just around a wall so casters are forced to chase. Thats when you frost nova, cone of cold, and start spamming max rank arcane explosions for the kill.

While I'm having a lot of fun running the pack around on my own right now, I could see doing this for a second team. Since my main account is full I could use Decimate to run instances for four new ones on the other accounts. Will probably want a stronger machine to handle that level of pulling.

There were also suggestions that a Prot Pally could pull the whole armory. Favor doesn't have the gear but it might be fun to look into. Even just once it might be fun to see that level of destruction. At level 80 I'm sure it would be trivial.

Level 15 Wasn't Progress

Guild raided BT so I wasn't able to spend much time with the Shaman. Had the pouch with the torch and transport orb all ready when I did switch over. Went over to the island in the extreme South West of Azuremyst then used the orbs to pop back to the turn-in elemental. Wasn't too bad getting Fire Totems done.

Got the guild formed. I ran the charter down to the Mages in Elwynn forest yet when they tried to sign the charter, it said they had already signed. Guess that signatures are account based. *sigh* Ended up sitting on the Stormwind Bank steps and begging in trade with 5g a signature as incentive. Took about twenty minutes.

Still staying pretty hung up on gear. I've always been bad about twinking so I waste time making things. Like I had the Druid farm 150 pieces of light leather along with hides so I could make Moonglow tunics and four other pieces of leather. That was time better spend questing and killing, so I'm going to stay focused going forward.

Decided to try a different resolution. The wide screen is nice yet I figured I could do a higher resolution if I did the standard 4:3 ratio. Settled on 1152x864. Was still able to run the four clients without much difficulty. Also, I didn't bother to drag the slaves onto the other screen. I kept all four stacked on top of each other. Used the mouse and the task bar to switch between clients and it worked really well.

Despite less time I still managed to get all but the last slave up to Wool bandages (80)—damn that took a lot of linen cloth to do. Did the Kessel Run just because. *snicker* I took screen shots of them all on elephants yet something about having the clients stacked or the new resolution was unhappy. The screenshots I got were of characters other than the one that had focus. Annoying but an interesting quirk.

Been reading more and I'm going to want to try a mixed group eventually. Spec'n my Druid as Balance would be really great for the aura. Also thinking I could use the Pally to tank while the shaman throw down the damage. I would really like to work out a mixed group though. Priest and Druid for buffs along with the Pally to AoE tank. Only two DPS at that point but I but a Mage and Shaman would round it out perfectly. We'd have all the major buffs, too. Something I will think on.

Tomorrow I do think I will try five clients. I have a Hunter at 18 that I'd like to get a few levels on. Hoping that the RAF bonus extends to all party members.

The Hand of Argus has a pretty convincing Blood Elf costume going. Hell, one is even Male now!

Level 14 Already

Didn't really get a lot of play time in yet finished up with all four shaman at fourteen. The RAF bonus is incredible with quests. I did play around with focus some even though all I used a the blast-n-assist keys. I keep the assist and focus macros on the bottom right bar so I can click on whatever I want, letting me use 1-5 for blasting or healing.

The most complicated macro I came up with was:

/cast [target=focus, nodead, harm, exists] Lightning Bolt; [target=focus, nodead, help, exists, combat] Healing Wave; [target=focus, nodead, help, exists] Healing Wave

Really didn't use it at all but had fun testing it. One they hit Level 20 I'll substitute the first Healing Wave for Lesser Healing Wave. Basically it throws a Lightning Bolt on the focus target if it's a live enemy. Otherwise it will heal a friendly target quickly if in combat or huge if out-of-combat. Figure it will work well for watching a tank or multiple targets.

One huge problem is losing a slave. There have been many a time when I get to my destination only to notice one of them has been left way behind. I noticed the 3.0.2 interface does have a “Fade if Out of Range” option for unit frames, but apparently it only works on the pull-out raid frames. Stupid. I think I'm going to use Grid on the Master since I'm used to ranging people on it.

Had to work in a Lightning Shield key. Though Water Shield will be more effective, it's very fun to see four cast at the same time. I'm sure the Innkeeper appreciated it.

“Mom” dropping in to check on the recruits.

Flapping across the river to the snake totem. Was really fun watching four pair of wings working in unison.