Well, it cost me a weekend of almost non-stop play, but I finally got it. Level 80. I dinged when I turned in The Reckoning, which seems appropriate. Total played time of 14 days, 14 hours, 43 minutes, and 30 seconds to get there.
I feel like I made it to the ‘end’, but I’ve just started the rep grind with Sons of Hodir, I want to find a raiding guild who’ll take a rank newb, and then start to gear up for Icecrown Citadel. Woof. I haven’t even really decided which specs I want to go with; I figure that’ll have to wait until I find a guild. So freaking much to do.
Unless you know someone in the guild and have an “in”, you need to do some work at 80 to be considered by a raid guild. A good raid guild will want, at the very least, you to have (a) chosen a spec/role and (b) have geared as much as possible in the content you have access to. Do enough pickup groups of instances to try out your various roles and figure out what you want to do. Then gear for it - run pickups until you get enough drops and badges to be geared enough for early Uldaman (it is very possible, if you bite the bullet and do some pickup Naxx, particularly). Once you’ve gotten some gear and gemmed and enchanted it properly (including at least Sons of Hodir honoured rep shoulder enchants, if not Exalted), THEN look for a raid guild. Of course, that assumes what you want is serious raiding; if you’re looking for something more casual, requirements will obviously be, well, more casual.
Oh yeah, definitely. I’ll be doing what I can to pick up gear on my own. I actually went and tanked for a Headless Horseman group tonight. I was severely undergeared and hadn’t actually tanked for a 5-man before, but they couldn’t find anyone else, so we made do. I kept losing threat, even after the team lead reminded me to put Righteous Fury on, but we only had one death in five summons.
I got lucky and nabbed the Horseman’s Horrific Helm, my first ilevel 200 item. Obviously not the best item there is even in the 200 bracket, but better than my current helm, and the laugh is awesome.
Ran my (now level 27) pally alt around today, picking up lots of candy and also tanking a pug through shadowfang keep and getting the last ingredient for his Blood-Caked Ranseur. One of the players in the pug was a classic pug moron; a druid who kept shifting out of cat form to cast a couple moonfires and then just kept hitting the target with his stick, running ahead and drawing aggro, sometimes went into bear form for no apparent reason, and then of course needed on everything, which really annoyed the shammy who was along and healing for us when he grabbed a caster leather piece, and then me when he needed for a ONE-HANDED mace. Bleurgh.
Other thought: Wow is pally tanking ever easy. Just spam consecrate, and drink a lot.
I’m missing the Horseman achievements because my stupid ISP (I’m at the uni) has decided to throttle MMO play even though it’s allowed by the contract and there’s no coverage for mobile internet so I can’t use the “backup ISP” either.
QuasiSFGcovered LFG\M as good as ever so I’ll assume that done.
Tried questing in Nagrand last night, what a beautiful zone that is where even the music is a pleasure. Plus, as before, the gear is awesome I still feel dizzy when nearly every quest hand in gives an upgrade. New shield and Libram to look forward to on Wednesday hopefully. How much easier are the Nesingwary quests with a flying mount? I almost enjoyed it.
It’s my first Hallow’s End holiday too. Now us Brits do not take as much interest in this holiday as the US but if they handed out wands that turned you into skeletons or candy that can buff you we might start to.
Didn’t play too much this weekend but did pick up the Master of Arms achievement by beating up Grove Walkers down below Dalaran. Technically, just beating up one of them. I kept my shield up and he kept self-healing so I fought the same mob for about 40 minutes to get my dagger skill from 395 to 400. With my new Spectral Kris, courtesy of the Black Knight in heroic ToC. I’d still rather have Eadric’s mace, but this is a good substitute.
Ran HH yesterday also. The rings are useless for me - pretty much equivalent to what I’m wearing - but I did get a Broomstick mount. Unlike last year, when the mounts only lasted 10 days or something, they appear to be permanent items now: but only usable during the Halloween holiday.
Since I already have the helm and pet from last year, really the only reason for me to keep doing the daily is to try for the mount. I ran HH almost every day last year and never even saw it drop, however, so I’m not sure if I’ll bother. Especially considering my dismal luck with the Brewfest mounts (saw 9 drop; won 0).
I got a cheap mount as a reward for the “save the town from the HH” quest - the reward package that I got included a 14-day duration, walking speed “rickety broom”. We’ve seen a bunch of regular brooms drop off HH, and best yet, they adjust to your riding level and the conditions, so you can use them as ground mount or flying mount as able.
I did HH yesterday with a few of my level 80s, and out of maybe 20+ kills, no horse mount droppped.
That’s why you run with your guildies, you’d have better luck if every time you saw it only 2 or 3 are rolling on it:) hinthint
BDL should try to get nightly horsemen groups this week. (esp with all the alts) I hope to see people on tonight.
After an afternoon of my friends and I having absolutely horrible luck on getting wands to drop for any of our alts, my main is as of last night… The Hallowed! Only a handful of Winter’s Veil achievements until my gorgeous garish protodrake.
You can **go through **the portal, but everything will be much too high-level for you still. There won’t be any quests you can get, and most enemies will kill you pretty quickly.
I fell off the side of the damned thing once when I was… hell, I don’t even remember what I was doing. Had to run my ass all the way to the other side. I think I went on autorun and AFK’d.
Chillwind Camp is the WPL (Western Plaguelands) flightpoint for Alliance. The EPL (Eastern Plaguelands) flightpoint is at Light’s Hope Chapel. LHC is aaaaaall the way on the eastern edge of EPL, about midway between north and south.
Generally speaking, if you’re mounted, you **can **make it through packs of enemies. They’ll still chase you, but you can run faster than they can. However, if one of them stuns you, **that **will knock you off your mount.
The problem is that Blizz got us all nice and used to roads being “safe” areas for zones–you’d run into fewer patrolling mobs when you ran or rode along them. Theeeeeen came the plaguelands… where roads often lead straight into cities full of Undead. :smack: So when you’re in EPL or WPL, keep an eye out ahead, and if you come up to a big group of enemies, go around instead of staying on the road. Andorhal in WPL is a biiiiiiig pain this way, as is Coren’s Crossing in EPL.
Woohoo! And boy, are you going to be raking the cash in at 80. Most dailies get you over 13g apiece, just from the quest reward.
Woohoo! Grats x 80!
You won’t be able to really start gearing up until you figure out what spec you want to be. So do that first. You can build more than one set at a time, but you need to know which one you’re going to focus on. Healers tend to be the most in demand; tanks are also needed, but the weird thing is that it’s often hard to find a spot as a tank, because guilds tend to hold on to theirs for a loooong time. Ranged DPS are usually needed more than melee DPS. Overall, though, pick the spec **you **enjoy rather than the spec you think someone else will need: it’s a game and it’s supposed to be fun, which it won’t be if you’re stuck healing when you’d rather be DPSing, or DPSing when you’d rather be tanking.
[ul][li]First thing, you’ll be able to start dumping all that lovely money you’re making into BOE ilvl200 epics.[/li][li]Run as many Heroics as you can. You’ll get gear upgrades + badges you can spend on even better gear, plus experience.[/li][li]Start grinding your rep ASAP. Figure out which faction has the head chant you need and wear their tabard first. (E.g., Ebon Blade has melee DPS and Argent Crusade has the tanking one.) While you’re doing that, grind the hell out of your Hodir rep. Buy and turn in Relics of Ulduar if you have to–they’re pretty cheap these days.[/li][li]Start doing research on raid bosses. Go to YouTube and search for Tankspot: they have excellent videos up for every current raid boss. (Don’t let the name fool you–their videos are a great resource for every role, not just tanks.) WoWWiki’s strat pages for each boss are also useful, as are the pages and comments sections of Wowhead.[/li][li]Once you have a basic idea of how the bosses work, start looking for PUGs. Start with Naxx and OS. I know this isn’t the new, exciting stuff… but to be blunt, as a fresh 80, you aren’t anywhere close to having the gear or experience to run Ulduar or ToC, and you’d be hurting any raid you joined. In terms of badges-per-hour, you’ll actually get much better gear from running Heroics, but what Heroics won’t give you is experience in raids. Working in a group of 10 or 25 is much different from working in a group of five, especially for healers or tanks.[/li][li]If you’re having trouble finding PUGs, check your realm forum on the official WoW forums. You might find a thread there that lists some regular PUGs, or you could start a thread explaining that you’re a fresh 80 who wants to get into raiding and is looking for a group to run with.[/li][li]When it’s time to raid, be prepared. Come with buff food, flasks, potions (health, mana, or other effect as appropriate), and bandages. Have your gear properly gemmed and chanted. Even if it’s a blue piece, at least put a crappy chant on it to show you’re trying.[/ul][/li]
Flying mounts make everything better. So, **so **much better.
See, you have one due to you! (FWIW, I think the Horseman’s mount is less than a 1% drop, but more than 1/1000.)
No, the **best **part about the broom mount is that it’s instant cast. Trust me, you will cry when its duration is up and you have to go back to using your regular mounts.
Wait… it flies? Are you sure? I was riding around the tournament grounds yesterday and even hit the spacebar to jump over obstacles but it never took of. But I didn’t try to steer ‘up.’
I’ll be on tonight, Bird. I won’t run it without you
If it’s a HH drop, blue-name, Magic Broom then yeah, I’m very sure. I got them on two or three of my characters and have been using those instead of my usual flying and ground mounts. My husband thinks that his broom, when summoned in Dalaran, was stuck in “ground mode” because he summoned it in a no-fly zone, so he resummoned it on the Landing and it flew just fine. Did you summon it in a similar “no fly zone” perhaps? (Just don’t try this maneuver when it counts - try for a vertical takeoff to confirm that it’ll actually stay up in the air, before you plummet from a great height.)
My mage doesn’t have fast flying but has the regular kind, and she flew her broom out to the Netherspire from Area 52 up in Netherstorm, to snag that candy bucket - I leveled her fast and was missing that FP so I had to get her out there with regular flying.
Sadly, it would seem they nerfed it this year, it’s no longer instant cast
Right now I hoping I’ll get the damn Sinister Squashling on my druid this year, last year I got three Hallowed helms, but no Squashling.
So far this year I have one Squashling on my shaman, one on my bankalt who has trick or treated once(!), but still nothing on my druid. I really hate those luck based achievements. :mad:
[ul][li]First thing, you’ll be able to start dumping all that lovely money you’re making into BOE ilvl200 epics.[/ul][/li]snip a looong list
[ul][li]When it’s time to raid, be prepared. Come with buff food, flasks, potions (health, mana, or other effect as appropriate), and bandages. Have your gear properly gemmed and chanted. Even if it’s a blue piece, at least put a crappy chant on it to show you’re trying.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
But hey, no pressure and have fun, right?
I appreciate the advice about deciding on specs first. I’m used to joining more social groups and filling whatever needs they might have at the time, rather than looking for a guild that needs what I have. I love Retribution to death, but it’s a soloist thing. I may end up going Holy/Prot, since as you say melee DPS is on the low end of the totem pole. (Poor Rogues are so unloved.) I should still be able to do my solo stuff as Prot.
All the prep is about making sure that not only are **you **having fun, but everyone else you’re grouping with is having fun, too.
Yeah, unfortunately that’s less do-able when you’re raiding, because to be of any use, you have to be specialized in your gear and your spec.
“Low end of the totem pole” doesn’t mean “unwanted.” Especially with the CC that’s needed for some fights in Ulduar and ToC, Ret can be useful (for Repentance), and Pallies of **any **stripe are almost always welcome because of their wide array of buffs (both Blessings and Hands, and let’s not forget Judgements). If Ret is what you really love… stick with it! Remember, this is about doing what **you **enjoy and what **you’re **best at.
Oh, and something I forgot to mention: AddOns!
[ul][li]Get a bossmod (either Deadly Boss Mods or BigWigs)–this one is not optional, because you have to know what’s going on in the fights[/li][li]Get Omen[/li][li]Recount is optional; can be useful for testing your own rotation against dummies[/li][li]As a Pally, you should for sure get Pally Power and Decursive[/li][*]Your play style may be different, but I find HUD-type addons that throw info up right in front of my eyes to be useful: IceHUD, MikScrollingBattleText, ClassTimers[/ul]
and there’s no coverage for mobile internet so I can’t use the “backup ISP” either.
We’ve seen a bunch of regular brooms drop off HH, and best yet, they adjust to your riding level and the conditions, so you can use them as ground mount or flying mount as able.
