Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Levelling Alts

Having leveled my mage up to 74 already I know that I had very little rested XP last night, so I decided to level my hunter alt on Aggramar-US. I tried out some new addons to help me gather herbs to level inscription. I installed GatherMate, Routes, and GatherMate_Data. After playing around with the interface a bit on routes I was able to get a route setup for gathering herbs in the barrens, and I started running around collecting herbs. I tried enabling TomTom but it didn't seem to follow the route that I had setup so I abandoned it and just used the route on the minimap to navigate, which worked fine for me. I happened to level up (and burn all my rested xp) from clearing the mobs around the herb nodes. I managed to level my inscription from around 50 to 80, and got my herbalism to 96 after I finally realized it had been sitting at 75 for some time. I do love the GatherMate + Routes addons, and the ability to pick the specific herb types that you want to collect. It is much more productive than just running around the map and collecting the herbs that pop up on your map, although only maybe 50% of the nodes shown from GatherMate_Data actually had an herb at that location, and I came across 2 or 3 herb nodes that were not on the map.
I really want to look at the bigger picture here as well, it's clear to me that efficiency drives my efforts to level alts. I like to use rested xp as much as possible and having multiple characters that I can level at any time waiting with full rested xp bars. I originally created my alts after getting my mage to 70 during the BC era, in an effort to more fully understand the other classes to improve myself as a player. I now realize that having a level 20 or 30 alt only gives a small taste of the experience of playing a 70. Consider all the mage abilities that you don't yet have at level 30:
Mage Armor (and the improved mage armor at level 71)
Arcane Brilliance
Arcane Blast
Molten Armor
Ice Lance
Invisibility
Ritual of Refreshment
Spell Steal
Firefrost Bolt
Mirror Image
Portals
I realize there is a lot missing from my experience of other classes, and new surprises awaiting me as I continue to level my alts. So why do you level your alts? What drives you to create alts? Is it to improve your knowledge of other classes like me, or do you have other reasons?

Monday, November 24, 2008

Adding Item Links to your WoW Blog

If anyone out there is looking for a way to post item links in your blog. Here is the resource you need http://www.wowhead.com/?powered. This works with blogger.com and pretty much any blog where you can modify the html directly.

Levelling 70-74 and UI

I have now gotten my frost mage Eldren on Ursin-US up to level 74, and started replacing some of my gear with the nifty new rewards from Northrend. Before heading to Northrend, I was only lacking epic gear in three slots: neck, back, and wrists. Since heading to Northrend and hitting my first 4 levels, I have picked up a lot of new gear, most of which immediately got disenchanted to feed my enchanting profession, however I have replaced a few items with new gear for leveling. I am still hanging onto some older gear right now for instances, and I'll replace that as I find new gear with spell hit. Follow the links to the items to get quest info.
My neck piece: Brooch of Heightened Potential which I replaced with the Giant Turtle Collar
New cloak: Embroidered Cape of Mysteries which I have now replaced with Crackling Cloak
New wrists: Shattrath Wraps upgraded to Wraps of the San'layn
I also ashamedly have swapped out my beloved (and heard earned) Frozen Shadoweave Shoulders for the Shoulders of the Northern Lights although it's not really an upgrade just more stamina and intellect and less spell damage.
My Old Trinkets:
Terokkar Tablet of Vim
Vengeance of the Illidari
Direbrew Hops
The Lightning Capacitor
Some New Trinkets:
Warsong's Wrath
Horn of the Herald
Serrah's Star - I love this trinket since it basically triggers on it's own, however it seems to have a 45 second cooldown, so don't expect to stack the crit.
My old wand:
Nether Core's Control Rod
New wand:
Branch of Everlasting Flame

Overall I am noticing a lot of new haste gear, which I love. It's great for for mages, however most of the items that I have come across so far are falling short in spell damage compared to what I've got, and I'm left with a choice to go for spell haste or spell damage. Given what I know so far about spell haste it beats spell damage hands down.

UI
Some of the UI mods that I am using right now are:
GarbageFu: Although it is currently outdated
I have found a replacement called sellfish, that I have yet to try, but looks good.
QuestHelper: which is mentioned on almost every WoW blog, so I just had to put it here, and it really is an awesome mod
TomTom: which will put a big arrow on the screen pointing to the coordinates that you set, and it also happens to tie in to QuestHelper to point you in the direction you are headed for your current quest objective
LightHeaded: which pulls up posts from wowhead.com in the quest log for your quests (I use this for when QuestHelper has no info)
Auc-Advanced: does many auction-related tasks for you. What I like about it is the ability to query the prices for current auctions, and automatically post auctions to match/beat current prices.
Also of note, but not an AddOn in itself is WowMatrix. This program managed updates for your addons, and pulls down the latest versions for your addons. They are constantly updating their database of addons and adding new ones, so check it out.