Tobold's Blog
Monday, April 24, 2006
 
WoW Journal - 24-April-2006

I played several different characters in World of Warcraft over the weekend, but mainly the lower levels. With my level 60 priest and warrior I only did short dungeon trips, one into Scholomance, just killing Rattlegore for some shaman quest, and one into BRD, just visiting the forge at Incendius for somebody to smith dark iron at. I also grinded to honored faction with Thorium Brotherhood for Raslebol, which is a horrible carpal tunnel syndrome inducing click-feast.

So I had more fun with the lower level characters. My paladin leveled to 26 in the Wetlands. I tried to access the Wetlands by a new way, jumping of the Thandol Span dam, over all the waterfalls. Unfortunately there were too many jumps, and I ran out of physical damage protection spells, and died on the last jump. But it was kind of fun anyway, I don't like running through the winding tunnels and mountain paths much. I then proceeded to kill different gnolls and murlocs. Seal of Justice, with its judgement that prevents monsters from running away, is highly useful against those.

The one thing I'm not sure about my pally is whether I should stick with blacksmithing, or whether I should abandon it and switch to engineering. Smithing was useful up to now, making a lot of lower level armor for myself, and earning money selling daggers. Unfortunately I'm stuck in it now. The next armor to smith is made out of iron, and iron is only found in places guarded by level 30 mobs, still a bit too high for me. But if I wait until I have level 30, the armor will probably be outdated by then. Plus in these levels there are more dungeons to visit, and blue gear from dungeons is generally better than most smithed items. Switching to engineering might be a good idea, because I could still keep my mining skill. And with engineering I could produce bombs, mines, and grenades, which would address some functional shortcomings of the paladin class: ranged attacks for pulling, damage dealing, and area of effect damage. But maybe I'll still get my smithing to 180 first, and make myself a green iron hauberk, unless just buying one is cheaper.

Waldin, my shaman on Runetotem leveled to 38 this weekend. I had done several levels without questing, just grinding yeti and ogres in the Alterac area, where killing mobs goes well together with mining iron and mithril. But that gets boring after a while. And because I still hate Stranglethorn, I moved to Desolace for questing. Good choice, as it turned out. I had been in Desolace often, but mostly with Alliance characters, so I still found some Horde quests I didn't know. And then I always had helped the Gelkis centaur to kill the Magram centaurs, so this time I did it the other way round, and also got quests I hadn't done yet. One centaur-killing quest was too hard for me, level 42 elite, so I got my wife to help me with her level 48 warrior. Pretty cool, you have to blow into a huge horn, shaking the ground and summoning the khan of the enemy centaur clan, who attacks your position in several waves.

Now both of my lower level characters have used up all of their rest xp bonus. Which is good, because I'm traveling this week, and won't be able to play them (nor blog) before the weekend. Not being able to play WoW is easier if you know that at least you are accumulating xp bonus. :)
Comments:
I was going to say - if you do drop Blacksmithing, make a Green Iron Hauberk for your Paladin first. That armor will see you through until you can start wearing Plate at 40.

Personally, I think Blacksmithing (Weapon or Armor) is one of the more thankless professions in the game. As a Weaponsmith, dropped weapons are often equivalent if not better than crafted ones. And the "good" crafted recipes (maybe Sageblade?) are extremely rare and resource-intensive. Armorsmithing at least produces more useable items that are in demand, like Enchanted Thorium pieces or the Imperial Set. But even there, it'll cost you a lot in resources, time, energy and grinding - especially if you go after the reputation recipes, like Thorium Brotherhood.

At least Engineering gets you fun tricks and teleporters to Gadgetzan and Everlook. If I hadn't already gotten my Paladin to 300 Swordsmithing before I stopped playing him, I would have seriously thought about dropping the Blacksmithing for Engineering.
 
To help with that nasty Carpal Tunnel inducing turn-in on the Thorium Brotherhood, try this UI mod:
http://www.curse-gaming.com/mod.php?addid=1996
 
You will look back fondly at the "carpel tunnel syndrome-rep gaining hand ins" for the Thorium Brotherhood. Just wait until you see what's involved when you try to move from revered to exalted with the Thorium Brotherhood.

Come to think of it they should call themselves the dark iron brotherhood, but then that would make people think they were in league with the Dark Iron Dwarves. What a dilemma. Anyway you have to hand in Dark iron bars for rep gains past revered, and 1 dark iron ore does not equal 1 dark iron bar.

I don't think that getting exalted with thorium brotherhood was something that Blizz intended for someone to do solo. You kind of need a guild behind you and making you there dedicated blacksmith in order for the profession to be worth it.

As for engineering with Paladins, yes its great, also nice to be able to use your gnomish net-o-matic so people can’t run from ya.
 
Post a Comment

<< Home
Newer›  ‹Older

  Powered by Blogger   Free Page Rank Tool