Busting Leveling Myths

Indeed one of my favorite TV shows and day-off activities, is debunking persisting myths about subjects that interest me. As it is, for me, World of Warcraft is a paradise for old preconceptions that may or may have been true at one time or another. Not surprisingly, once put into circulation, they almost never die. Even after long periods of time, you can guarantee someone, somewhere is still convinced they are true.

This time, I am focusing on leveling guides. Zygor anyone? I was actually an avid user of Zygor for a long time. I thought there was nothing as good in the world, at the time, than Zygor that helped me level easily and quickly through the dry content. However, recently, after not using it for some time have come to question my old logic.

Is using a leveling guide, even as advanced as Zygor really necessary? I do not believe it is. One of the selling points of these products is that they promise it is possible to level at incredible speeds. I believe someone level from 1 to 80 in no more than a week. This may or may not be true, I am not even convinced it is, since there is very little convincing evidence to examine, but even if you work under the hypothesis that it is, so what?

The requirements for leveling at that speed are mind boggling and certainly, the part of a leveling guide plays very little in that role. More than likely, what you really is two or more characters, armed from tip to toe with heirlooms, dual-boxing with recruite-a-friend bonus, and nonstop playing from day to day.

However, this is outside the capability of most average gamers, which the World of Warcraft population is mainly made of. It is true, leveling guides have streamlined the quests that are best for leveling, and the order in which to accomplish them. However, recently leveling various classes, as well previous experience, tells me that this streamlining provides only a marginal benefit.

This is simply because your time is mainly consumed by the quest mechanics themselves - namely by those quests that require you to kill X-type mobs for Y times Z drops. Sometimes these are easy, but often times the drop rates are so low, or luck not your side, that you end up killing dozens for just a few of the items.

Believe it or not, this is the single reason that questing takes a long time. The rest of the factors are controllable with some practical reasoning. The only real tool, I believe everyone needs, is just Questhelper or a similar helper addon that provides the direction and location of the quest objectives. My own favorite is Carbonite, especially now that it is free. While Zygor provides this function, it is not enough to justify paying for it in my books.

Here are some of simple guidelines that I follow when leveling. They are easy to remember and represent just simple commonsense.

1. Get yourself a quest helper addon.
2. Arm yourself with as many heirlooms as you can. Not only do they provide total 20% XP bonus, but also act as blues of your level, raising your performance.
3. Always start by locating a zone of your level, preferably one where your level is at the bottom of its level bracket.
4. Locate a major quest hub within that zone, pick all the quests you can get, filter out group and dungeon quests, check your quest helper and mentally picture a route across the map that you can take which lets you complete them all.
5. Make your route, return to the hub, return all the quests, and just rinse and repeat.
6. Keep in mind that in vanilla WoW, there are two zones for every level. Some zones even have overlapping level brackets, so you can quest in several zones to avoid the quests that would be particularly difficult for your current level.
7. An occasional dungeon is not a bad idea. Gives you an opportunity to gather better gear, other than what the AH has to offer, and also lets you complete a rare dungeon quest

Finally, do not forget the fact that we are not all born equal. It is wrong, yet a reality in World of Warcraft. Some classes level more easily and quicker than others. A case of study can be found in my warlock and mage characters. I am currently in process of doing the same quests on my warlock that, not too long ago, I completed on my mage.

However, playing my warlock is just so much more easier. I can kill more mobs, with less effort and less downtime, than I could ever with my mage. Hunter and shadow priests fall under this same sentiment. Death knights, particularly if specced DPS in the blood tree, are also a joy to play because of the amount of self-healing and no need to drink for mana.

Does not sound complicated does it? That is because it isn't and yet, still just as effective as using a leveling guide. If anything, for me, it seems leveling guides just remove the necessity of thinking for yourself. Helps people, without skill, level more without actually acquiring the skill and knowledge they later need at top levels.

I am not saying everyone has to be an elite player at max level. But a lot of people overlook the fact that leveling provides valuable practice for beginners to learn the mechanics of the game. Even such simple things as flight points, boat routes, and portals are not obvious to some. Even worse, automated game play produces people who think too much for granted. Like people who sit in Stormwind and spam the trade channel for stockade boosts because they are too lazy to do a few quests that would provide the same effect, in the same amount of time they wasted in futile complaint.

Principles of Farming

Since I spent my last article bashing the gold guides as neigh much else than farming guides, except far behind in upgrades, I thought I best also give something back in exchange to what I bashed. Farming is also one of the jobs I myself enjoy doing the most, or at least compared to the other means of making gold.

The principles of farming are very simple; go out, kill or gather materials that other people wish to buy. Essentially, you are providing a service to the many thousands of people who are not keen on having the patience to farm and gather the things they need and instead, they buy them. The only thing remaining is to know what the materials are that people are willing to pay for.

The gold guides usually always enjoy the talking about rare blues, pets, and other items that randomly, but share the common factor of having an extremely low drop rate. Take the Tiny Crimson Whelpling for example. It drops from mobs in the Wetlands, with a drop rate of one in a thousand kills. These are what I call sexy targets because they make people oogle and oooh but in truth you can spend hours upon hours killing the mobs and not see this item drop.

To me, this is marketing trick, letting people think there is an easy 1,000 gold to be had if you do it this way. Instead, you will probably only waste a day trying to get the item. I much prefer to farm for materials, rather than specific objects. Materials have the benefit of being universal, always needed for both old and new products.

Mining is a great profession to have because of this, as people will always need even the simplest of ores, copper, bronze, iron to level their blacksmithing and jewelcrafting. It is no coincidence that the one, most produced item in the game is the saronite bar. Of course, other gathering skills also deserve a mentioning, herbalism and skinning, both which can be used to gather valuable goods.

Combined with a useful crafting profession, say herbalism and inscription, you can also gather the materials, turn them into specific goods and then sell them. One of the most powerful selling items, at the moment, are the darkmoon cards, some which can sell from one thousand to five or even six thousand gold.

The possibilities are endless and in my personal view, a lot more meaningful then spending a day farming for an item that you might or might not get. It all simply depends on how aware you are and is a matter of trial and error. Observe the auction house, try to find items that seem to sell for decent prices, then go out and check wowhead, wowwiki, and thottbot where you can best find them and go out hunting.

As always, it all depends on yourself. Nothing ever comes for free and as you start out, it will require research and effort to get you going. But the rewards are good and guarantees that you need to a) not buy gold from sellers and b) never feel wanting. Trust me, this is a way with which people spend tens of thousands on flying choppers and traveling mammoths.

Exposing Gold Guides

Gold continues to plague a lot of World of Warcraft gamers, particularly new and less experienced players. This of course, has spawned a series of gold guides, many which are easily available and read on discussion forums but another series can be found on private web sites and sold for real cash prices. These usually come in the form of digital documents, like pdf (readable with Adobe Acrobat), although some are nothing more than text files done with doc or rtf files.

The guides often advertise each other with colorful, long single page sites, giving anything between 20 to 50 reason why the guide signifies nothing less but the end of your financial problems in-game, not far removed from hail mary.

If you have ever tuned on the TV-shop channel, you should have a good idea what to expect when venturing to these sites.

This morning, browsing the mmo-champion forums, I can across a poster inquiring about this very topic: are the gold guides worth it?

On this, I can speak with some level of experience, for this was actually one of the first topics I had in mind for this blog. Back in the first days of playing, when it began to dawn on me just how much gold it takes to play this game effectively, I also bought a gold guide, with another two at a later date for testing purposes.

So let me share you a valuable lesson from those days; no, the gold guides are not worth it.

The simple reason is, you do not need their help and in actuality, they are not real guides, but inventories of valuable items and materials. While that might sound like useful information, it is not because the guides are all hopelessly behind in time. Some have not been upgraded since the TBC and a majority of what you buy will be useless, alas the merchandice moves ahead with each patch. What was valuable yesterday, has now become absolete.

In the end you will goes through your guide, page by page and by the time you finally get to the back cover, you realize there was hardly anything worth-while inside. Certainly nothing you could not have figured out for yourself, and definitely nothing worth 30 dollars.

Argent Daily Guide - Part 2

As you fly from the west, land immediately in 12 by 28. The area is riddled with targettable, small trees, the source of lumber for the Argent Tournament. Yes, you will anger some treehuggers, as you chop them down but they are just a small irritation. Usually I see people just going from one tree to the other and not even kill the guardians.

If you got the Sewer Stew cooking daily, follow the river east to around 28 by 39 and start picking carrots. You need four and if you were smart, bringing the chilled meat with you, the daily can be cooked on site.

If you got the Shifting Sun Curio jewelrycrafting daily, head just slightly north, beyond Crusaders' Pinnacle and lay waste to some scourge there until they yeld you a Scourge Curio. Easy and quick.

Chipping Stone

No rest for the hero, as we mount once again and fly to the Storm Peaks. If you do not have an epic flyer, I suggest you port to Dalaran and take a flight path to Frosthold. It will be quicker, but otherwise, just fly over yourself.

Your objective is the valley that hosts the Engine of the Makers, where you will see odd pieces of architecture laying around in the snow, just like discarded rock from bigger assemblies that look like they broke off from somewhere a century ago. Blow them up and pick 15 stone blocks for your goblin employer.

The great thing about this spot is that it is a dream for jewelrycrafters, since half of our dailies can be completed here. There are proto dragons flying around 44 by 59 for Intricate Bone Figurine, revenants at 41 by 61 for Bright Armor Relic and plenty of iron dwarves at 37 by 64 for Wicked Sun Brooch. There are additional iron dwarves in 27 by 67 and the cave there.

From there, simply head back to the tournament grounds and collect your bounties. If you choose all cash rewards, you are looking at around 120g for line of dailies that take barely half an hour to complete. I do these quests almost everyday, simply because they are so rewarding and take so little effort to complete.

Of course, remember to also return the jewelrycrafting and cooking dailies to Dalaran. If you are feeling enterprising, do not take the flight path, but fly there yourself, following the mounts on Icecrown's eastern border, for they are riddled with saronite. You will pass two valleys on your way, both sitting on your western side, all good spots as well, so circle around and pick easy materials.

I usually also pass through Crusaders' Pinnacle on my way, because the valley there, controlled by the scourge, has a high concentration of saronite nodes, and of course, any saronite node can also spawn a titanium node. I almost never run out of titanium by just simply doing these small rounds on my way to from A to B.

That ends the guide this time. Naturally, if you have a question or comment, leave a note and I will elaborate on any parts that were unclear.

Continued from: Argent Daily Guide - Part 1.

Argent Daily Guide

Surprisingly, I have been giving tips about completing the Argent Tournament dailies to a few people in the past couple of days. The biggest problems seem to be the jousting fights, against both the scourge and champions, with many wondering what the good tactics are. So, instead of repeating myself, figured it was worth typing it down. Here, I will give you a brief tour of my morning daily run, however, remember that it assumes you are both a miner, jewelrycrafter, and of course able to do the champion dailies. So, if you are not, just skip those parts.

Journey starts at Dalaran, where I quickly pick up my jewelrycrafter and cooking dailies - with luck, it is a quest I can complete on the way. Next I hitch a ride to the tournament grounds where I pick up the following daily quests:

• A Chip Off the Ulduar Block
• Jack Some Lumber

• Threat From Above
• Taking Battle to the Enemy
• Battle Before the Citadel
• Among the Champions

First things first, arm your lance, pick up a steed, and head to The Ring of Champions. The simple rules of jousting is to knock your opponent's shield down with throwing spears, while keeping your own up. Once he is down to one or less, charge him. Of course, never start a fight without full health and your own shields up to maximum.

If you are used to fighting valiants, know that against champions you have to maneuver a lot more. They are faster and hit harder, but the same pattern still exists. Essentially, they will give you chase, periodically breaking off to a distance, from which they will throw spears and quickly charge you. However, they are slower than you, so keep your distance before they break off, evade and throw your spears a couple of times. This should bring their shields down and you can charge yourself, either when they prepare for their own, or before.

The best tactic is actually charge them right before them and remain in close quarters, while buffing your shield and preventing them from charging at all. Couple of seconds after, they will abandon their tactic and give chase again. Repeat four times and your first daily is done.

The Dead Dragon

Next, mount your gryphon and head west, to around 45 by 31, near the Shadow Vault. Follow the mountain range towards the location and pick up any ore that you happen across. The mountains have a lot of nodes, so do not discard it. On site, you will take down the flying, undead dragon. This can actually be soloed, if you have some gifted gear, though if you are unsure, do a quick shoutout in General chat, you should rarily have trouble finding a friend or two who are on the same quest.

In a group, you do not need a tank, or healer. Just two DPS can engage the dragon and burn him, and his henchmen, down. When soloing, I briefly buff with some food, blow my Horn of Winter, and as the dragon is coming from around the corner, summon my Army of the Dead. Do not be ashamed to burn cooldowns, it is what they are for, and in the end, the fight is very brief.

Paladins should have no trouble soloing the quest with their bubbles and healing spells. I have also heard of non-plate wearers being able to do it, including shadow priests and mages, but since they are not my forte, cannot provide help how to accomplish it, and like I said, if you are unsure, get a group. It is a social game after all.

From there, head south to 45 by 49. You will see ghostly, humanoid enemies here, moving in packs and under the leadership of scourge spellcasters. Engage them and quickly dispatch 15 of them, and you will have complete both Threat from Above and Taking Battle to the Enemy.

The Citadel

The next battlefield will be just south of Corp'rethar. This time, follow the eastern mountain slope south on your way, because there are several spawn points near each other. You will find a small Argent Crusade post just after the horrow gate, so equip your lance and grab a horse, it is time to lay waste to the enemy. Kill the flying gargoyles on your left and right as you ride south. You will need to spear them from the air, however do not bother with a shield; they will knock it down and still do almost no damage.

Next, you will see death knights, both commanders and lieutenants, on a slightly sloping ground. I highly advice to fight them one by one, although the lieutenants are the easiest. Do not even think about the foot soldiers. They will fall if you as much as cough in their direction. As always, engage with a full shield and health. Anything less, is probably stupid.

The lieutenants go down fairly easily; begin the fight with a charge and immediately escape to a distance before they can react. Be aware not to run into additional forces, or you will be overwhelmed. Quick turn, throw spear and continue to evade him. Repeat and after a couple of spears, the lieutenant goes down.

The commanders are tougher and unlike the last one, start off with your spear, at max range. Before the spear lands, retreat from him, keeping at a distance, running back and around him. Turn and throw another spear as soon as possible and charge when his shield is in one or less. The fight is faster phased than the champions and you are best simply evading him. Do not bother to buff your shield in between throws. You might even aggro a scout, but do not panic.

I have had three scouts on me and still being able to burn the commander down. Simply evade and charge him. When you are not charging, you should be throwing spears, always on the move. In the end, the fight should go smoothly after some practice. You need to kill one commander, five lieutenants, and ten scouts, before you can call it a day.

By now, you have completed all the quests that reward champions seals. So, if you have no cooking or jewelrycrafting dailies, nor felt like taking the goblin tasks, you can now fly back to the tournament and return the quests. For me, the journey continues to the Crystalsong Forest.

Continues: Argent Daily Guide - Part 2

Get Started with Gear

It isn't a rare case when I meet people who are stuck in their gearing phase, desperate to make a break into raiding but are hindered by others when they do not have whatever achievement or are not all glad in sexy purples. It is a vicious cycle, there is no doubt about it, since you cannot get the gear and achievements without raiding,and cannot get into the raids without the goods.

Those of you who read my blog regularly (yes, amazing isn't it? *grin*) know how I feel about this so I will not bother to reiterate my disgust, but instead of ranting I decided to put together a small guide of how I personally solved the issue.

First of all, do not bother with progression guilds. Yes, they might take you in and might even gear you up, but personally I would feel like a bag and most still will not bother with you. This is understandable, so don't take it personally; a player with such outstandard gear and experience just simply does not bring anything to a guild so far ahead.

Casual guilds however, they should be your first home. You will find other people in very similar situations and a lot more opportunities to evolve than you would anywhere else. Yes, it is not sexy the way progression guilds are, but if you're poor, can't drive a jaguar. Casual guilds are good places to make friends and get people, who are willing to over-look your lack of awesomeness, and get into doing heroics.

Start from the easiest and work your way up, developing your skills and getting experience. It may not feel like it now, but some heroics are in fact harder than a full naxx10 clear. Also, get yourself the Atlasloot addon and browse all possible drops. I did this back in the day, with the help of notepad to remember what pieces I wanted from whichever boss.

While on it, you will have a chance to earn a lot of emblems and also reputation with various factions and these are actually extremely important. You should aim to get exalted with all major factions in northrend, for they all sell valuable gear and enchants that you will continue to use, even after heroics. So visit the emblem vendors in dalaran, write down the pieces you need and get the tabards for the faction you wish to start with.

Here are a list of the faction quartermasters and the respected list of goods they offer:

• Argent Crusade
• Kirin Tor
• Knights of the Ebon Blade
• Sons of Hodir
• Wyrmrest Accord

Rules for grinding reputation are very simple; a) always wear their tabard (if available) to heroic dungeons, b) do all normal quests associated with that faction, and c) continue with any daily quests that become available. It takes a lot of hard work and you will be doing the dailies once a day, everyday, but it pays off.

Another good place to find good gear is the Argent Tournament. Get in there, earn the rank of a Champion and you will be able to use your racial quartermaster, on site, for some exciting blues, or even purples. Plus the Crusader titles look good on anyone *wink*

Next place to get good gear, is to actually craft it. Here again the presence of a good guild pays off, because your guildies will likely have the designs and plans needed, so you only need to get the materials. To find available pieces, ask and look around what the various armor pieces have; titansteel for plate armor, arctic fur for leather, and frostweave for tailors. There are craftables for everyone, so look them up.

At this point, a lot of people tell me they cannot afford to craft the items, costs too much. While it is true that a frozen orb can cost up 80g, a titansteel bar up to 100g, making gold at max level is extremely easy. The best gold comes from quests, so you should make a nice buck just by grinding your reputation. Next off, search for daily quests. Doing 20 or more of then a day, can earn you an easy 300g a day. Practice selling the materials you collect on the way, or go out of your way to farm them, can make you two or three times that.

But it all takes the effort and you will not find anything for free. World of Warcraft is a game you need to spend time playing and there are very few short cuts along the way. The more you spend earning your success, the more people will infact respect you. It is a mark of a good and dedicated player when they know how to enchant and gem their gear, when they have factions on exalted, and display the experience of working through content and not just jump from first heroic to Naxxramas.