Attempting Heroic 3-drake Sartharion tonight. Pray for me.
Not if you’re Horde, which Burning Dog Legion is.
Ah, good point. I just read it as a general pro-Shaman post.
Now my human rogue, OTOH, took mining right from the get-go, and she’s got more than 70g saved up already at lvl 17. (Compare that to my paladin who, upon reaching lvl 30, had barely enough gold to pay for the beginning Riding skill. And then begged a couple gold off a guildie to buy a horse, and only after buying the horse discovered that paladins get a free, summonable warhorse at lvl 30 :smack: ) Granted, my rogue has benefitted somewhat from a small amount of seed money from my paladin.
The size + ranged is actually a big part of the problem. It seems half the time I get set up in a good position to shoot from, send my pet after the mob, and between then and the time I start shooting the mob has moved far enough that I need to turn, and suddenly my view is completely blocked by foliage, or the way I had to turn means that now my back’s up against something and so the camera has to move, and suddenly everything zooms in … it gets disorienting.
The camera zooming in and out all the time as Chim navigates through tunnels or other tight spaces gives me a headache (figuratively, not literally). This is much less noticeable with my smaller characters. I think the reason it’s so bad with the tauren is that he’s the only character with whom I have to zoom the camera all the way back, making him as small as possible on screen so that he isn’t filling the whole screen with his spaulders. So with the camera set as far back as it will go, the camera automatically rushes in closer every time he has any significant object at his back, whether a wall or a tree or a tent pole. Then as soon as the object is out of the way the camera zooms back out again … it’s like Chim is on a big rubber band.
Since the other races are smaller and much narrower, I tend to zoom in much closer on them to begin with, so the rubber band effect doesn’t come into play nearly as often.
She’s got her mining up to about 118 at this point, and hasn’t gotten much further because I’m having a hell of a time finding Tin nodes. But I spent most of the last couple days leveling and questing; I’ve got a couple more zones lined up to search for Tin. But yeah, she’s sold everything she’s mined.
What level is that available? Both of my priests are around lvl 10-11, and I don’t think either one has that spell yet. I could be wrong, though, as I haven’t played either one of them in a while.
Too late! I already have a lvl 18 draenei shaman! And yes, I’m really enjoying it.
Ooo, that sounds fun!
Really? How?
Truth be told, the only reason I’m even leveling a rogue is for the Lockpicking. My Alliance guild seems to be overwhelmingly composed of paladins, hunters, druids, and death knights. Rogues are probably the most under-represented class in the guild, and the few we have seem to never be on. So my paladin is accumulating a pile of lockboxes because she can’t find any guild rogues to open them. The one time I noticed a rogue guildmate logged on, we were both in SW, I had two lockboxes on my person, and I was standing right next to the guy. I waved. I jumped up and down. I whispered him. I hollered at him in guild chat. Either the guy was paying no attention whatsoever, or he was ignoring me, because the next thing I knew he ran off and hopped a gryphon out of the city.
But speaking of Lockpicking, I love the way they give you the skill at lvl 16 and then send you into an area full of lvl ~20 mobs to actually practice it so you don’t actually get the skill at lvl 16 :rolleyes:
New stuff:
Draenei vs. blood elves: Is it just me, or do the draenei seem to have a lot more personality than the blood elves? Maybe it’s just perception because of the way draenei are made out to be friendly and outgoing, while the blood elves are more cold and haughty. I was looking forward to playing with those sexy little elves, but meh, they just seem so … flat. That, and they yell everything they say. Since I’m often playing after my roommate has gone to bed, when I play a blood elf I end up feeling like I have to keep turning the volume lower and lower because the NPCs keep shouting every time I talk to them.
Paladins: You know what’s really broken the paladin class wide open for me? Two spells:
Hand of Reckoning: I can finally pull! And the mob animation that goes along with it — there’s a little head jerk — makes me see this spell as picking up a rock, chucking it at the mob’s head, and yelling, “Hey you! Big and ugly! Over here!” 
Hammer of Wrath: At last, a useful way to deal with mobs that “flee in fear”. A hammer to the back of the head that does enough damage to drop them in their tracks. So much more effective than Hammer of Justice (the stun spell). Hammer of Wrath has proved extremely handy in cases where I get adds in the middle of a fight. It lets me take down the first mob that much more quickly so that I can turn my attention to the second mob. And best of all, no bloody 1-minute cooldown! I can actually use it on two enemies in a row!
Interesting guild situation last night. I’ll be interested to see how much longer a certain new member of my Alliance guild remains a member. This player is a lvl 54 druid, and last night in guild chat a notification popped up that said, “Playername has earned the achievement [50 Quests Completed]!” Yeah, 50 quests. So a veteran guild member said, “Only 50 quests? How the heck did you level up?” And the new member replied, “Hax.” Then the other guild member said, “OMG! REPORTED!” Looking at my guild list, I see the guy’s still a member at this point, and I also see he’s gained three more levels since last night.
The useful and practical way is to use the mouse to turn and move it really fast.
The not quite as practical but truly instant way is to hold down the left mouse button and adjust the camera so it’s looking in the direction you want to turn and then press the right mouse button(while still holding down the left). Your character will now turn and move in the direction the camera is looking.
Level 6 is when the first rank of PW:S becomes available. You might want to check your spellbook and if it’s not there, your trainer.
Sorry, I forgot. :smack: Real Shamans are Horde, anyway. 
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
As for general Shaman advice, see my talents for what’s most useful in the Enhancement tree. Get Dual Wield and Stormstrike as soon as possible (level 40 & 41). You’re effectiveness will probably double once you have both. Until then, use a two-handed weapon with the highest DPS you can get. Imbue it with whatever enchant you got most recently, until you get Windfury (then always use it on your main weapon, and Flamestrike on your offhand). Shields are only useful when fighting fast-attacking melee opponents. I generally depended on killing fast to stay alive.
When you get to higher levels, I can give more advice on attack routines, but you’ll probably be able to figure it out by the time you get there.
I always use Water Shield, so I don’t have to worry about mana. If you don’t mind drinking, or are having trouble killing things fast enough, switch to Lightning Shield.
Stats you want to collect are, as an Enhancement Shaman, (in order) 1. Agility, 2. Critical Strike and Attack Power, 3. Intellect, 4. Stamina. Strength is helpful, but not worth collecting. Spirit is not useful–you should be using your Water Shield and Mana Totem to regenerate mana.
As for a totem addon, I don’t use one. I use the Dominos addon to create bars to show all of my totems at once. (If you’re interested, I’ll see if I can post a screenshot of my UI.) I can drop any totem in short order. I typical don’t drop totems unless I expect to be in one spot for a minute or more. Or fighting an extra tough monster.
If you need to flee a fight, drop Earthbind Totem and then instant-change into Ghost Wolf. Those two points in Improved GW pay for themselves many times. 
I don’t know about the quest achievements, but I know a lot of them started counting with the expansion. I have toons I haven’t played in a long time that don’t have some of the basic achievements because they did the stuff a year before achievements existed.
That said, I’ve been noticing a bunch of people lately who must have either paid a power-leveling service or just bought their toons: A level 70 human who asked where the bank was in Stormwind, a level 70+ who didn’t know what a potion was, a level 70 who asked how to get out Outland, and my favorite: a level 50+ shaman who asked in guild chat what a totem was and when he’d get them.
Someone in a LJ WoW community mentioned today that they use OPie to make nice, circular menus(one for each element). Looks pretty tight.
Booo - I can’t send mail to my Blood Elf Warlock from my Human paladin. Any way I can get around this?
I am Horde at heart but the guy I play the Pally with wanted to play as a Human so I agreed and to be honest it has been fun due to more people in the zones, I could go hours sometimes without seeing another player in the Blood Elf areas.
I am always short of money - I can’t even afford some of the spell upgrades at the moment. I have Mining (level 50 odd) but always sell the ore at a vendor, AH is the way to go I take it? What about Smelting? I can only play for 3-4 evenings a week and spend all that time questing.
In 3.1 Excorcism will work on any mob so another pull spell and it will also deal more damage.
You could use a neutral (goblin-run, not one in a capital city) Auction House to launder gold. Send both characters to Booty Bay or some place similar to use the neutral AH. Using your paladin, put a stupid, common item (say a gray-drop armor, something like that) in the auction house for a big amount of money - something you can pay on your BElf. Log out, log in the BElf, look up that exact item and double check the character name (in case someone else is doing this with the exact item!), and buy the stupid item. Your BElf has lost a lot of money on crap, the goblins running the neutral AH get a nice cut of the cash, and your paladin hits the jackpot.
If your warlock is good at making money, keep farming and transferring cash like this. Also, always double-check the regular AH to see if ore is more valuable as-is or sells for more if you smelt it into bars.
actually you can level up without ever doing a quest, it just involves LOTS of killing, and the xp gotten from entering a new zone=)
The quest achievements went through the list of quests you’d done. I was missing only two Nagrand quests for the Nagrand Slam achievement, for example. Otherwise it would have been impossible for any old characters to get Loremaster, since most quests can’t be repeated.
If you’d been to a dungeon waaay back when and it didn’t involve a quest to kill the bosses listed in the dungeon achievements, you don’t get credit for that dungeon without redoing it; if there was a quest and you did it, you get the credit. For example someone who’d gone to Deadmines but didn’t have the “kill van Cleef” quest would have Deadmines show as “unfinished.”
I think most of them should pop for you if you’ve already done them, even before the achievements were put in the game. Dungeon achievements won’t unless you happen to have a drop from the mob(s) in question in your inventory somewhere. I think holiday achievements don’t, either…you have to earn them post-achievements.
It USED to be that, at higher levels (when 60 was the level cap), grinding XP was quicker than questing. Outland and Northrend quests give ridiculously huge amounts of XP, so that’s not the case anymore.
Thanks that is helpful though neither of my chars have enough money to do that at the moment I hope they will in the future.
Oh my goodness, yes!
For ore and smelted bars, prices on the auction house will often be 200 times higher or more. That’s not percent, that’s times.
I just checked on my server. A vendor will buy a single copper bar for 10 copper. Currently on the auction house they’re going for 20 silver. A full stack of 20 copper bars is selling for 4 gold.
Vendor gray and white only. Anything green or better, sell it on the AH. Also auction anything that other players use for crafting: ore, bars, leather, cloth, gems, etc.
Things sell best as either single items or full stacks. If you have 17 copper bars, don’t auction them yet. Wait until you have 20. If you have 3 shadow gems, sell them one at a time, not as a group.
Right. Bugger. Wish I had known this before, I have sold about 10 shadowgems to vendors.
Even green magic items that seem utterly useless will sell for probably 1.5 x vendor price to some enchanter looking to up his skill.