At Last - Almost

Almost there, Level 69 and 67% complete. Tonight should see Bob attain the long awaited goal of losing that XP bar.

I have been toying with the idea of putting Bob into semi-retirement, but there still seems too much to do. I have only just started questing in Blade's Edge Mountains, which means there are still 2 more areas to explore. There is the small matter of getting all my skills up to 375 especially Leatherworking. This will lead to the need to farm motes for a long time. So not just yet, but maybe soon. The lure of the Flying mount may keep my interest for several weeks.

Nagrand Revisited

Epic mounts and reputation, are a recurring theme at the moment. As a Dwarf the natural mount is the Ram (or Llama, affectionately known as Flossie). In my opinion they are the least aesthetically pleasing of all the Alliance mounts. Exalted status with the 5 main races is difficult and would mean farming cloth or backtracking looking for quests that were missed out on the ascent to level 70.

I have had my eye on a Frostsaber to go with Bobcat, but the thought of doing any questing in Darnasus fills me with dread. Farming cloth for the Alliance would be so dreary.

My next favourite would be to gain Exalted with those fine fellows the Kurenai - who offer all manner of Talbuks. Slightly more sexy than a sheep in my opinion. http://www.wowwiki.com/Talbuk_(Mount) & http://www.wowwiki.com/War_Talbuk

Reputation with the Kurenai mostly involves killing ogres. So far so good, and they drop Obsidian Warbeads which give 500xp for 10. The problem is the sheer quantity required. BRK did a calculation of the number required to go from Revered to Exalted, a total of 12000 rep.
http://bigredkitty.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-to-get-pink-war-talbuk.html
The calculation comes to an earth shattering 800 ogres. This may be one for doing over time, much like fishing. Anyway how to get up to Revered in the first place.

The list of quests includes both the Zangarmarsh and Nagrand areas http://www.ampwow.com/wow/viewReputation/Kurenai.php#startContent.

Most of the quests are of the hack/maim/slash variety. My personal favourite was the Corki chain. The useless son of the Kurenai leader Arechron

• HELP!
• Corki is Missing Again
• Corki's Ransom
• Cho'War The Pillager

Corki constantly ends up in a cave awaiting is fate - 3 times you need to rescue him and 3rd time requires the impressive fight with Cho'War. Not so much difficult as quite fun, long and he uses dirty tactics.

So all quests completed and only 10000 rep to go - might be some time yet.

Sunken Temple - Sunk

Instance raiding is not something the Bob had the opportunity to do on his rise to level 60.
The Deadmines were tackled late due to PuG's nose diving, when attempted early.

The Stockades involved a fair share of greed, and needed 3 attempts to complete. In fact one group of 4 in the stockades performed better when 1 member jumped ship half way through.

Shadowfang Keep, became a favourite haunt, and many attempts at group and solo have only resulted in 2 completions of this instance. The full bags of Greens and leather make for a satisfactory 30 mins.

This was the extent of the instance runs until the many trips in Scarlet Monastery, Uldaman, and Zul' Farak.

Sunken Temple quests were collected and dumped when a lack of interest, post TBC caused a disinterest for the higher level guildies. Only one quest was completed, which was the Hunter level 50 quest, which was like a badge of honour, and must be completed or else Bob was not complete. The Green Drakes was a gift of kindness from 2 high level friends.

In recent weeks Bob had a yearning to see what he missed, an aborted attempt in BRD resulted in a net collection of about 100 xp with no real understanding or completion of any quests. However when the call to arms, came to assist Flim, Rhienne and Fuzzy in their endless quest to the Outlands, Bob was portalled immediately to Stormwind and went in pursuit of the quests.

Jammal'an the prophet / Shadra Alor, The Hinterlands / The Atal'ai Exile

The exile is at the south end of Shadra Alor, the troll city in the center of the Hinterlands.

Quest chains

In search of the temple / Stormwind, Dwarf Quarter / Brohan Caskbelly
This chain sends you to the Hinterlands, to Feralas, back to the Hinterlands, back to Stormwind, and eventually to the Temple to collect items.

Muigin and Larion / Un'goro Crater / Muigin (horde has the same chain, but starts with Larion)
Starts in Un'goro, continues in Feralas, back to Ungoro, on to the temple. Do the Feralas stage at the same time you do the Caskbelly series Feralas step.

The prophecy of Mosh'aru / Steamwheedle Port / Yeh'kinya
You should have started this sequence when you did Zul'Farrak. If not, head back to Zul for tablet collection.

The Sunken Temple / Feathermoon Stronghold / Angelas Moonbreeze
This is a fairly short sequence. You might be able to skip the Feralas opener and just go directly to Marvon Rivetseeker in Tanaris due south of Gadgetzan. He sends you to Ratchet, then back to his camp, then on to the Temple.

The party had some worries about completing this Instance with only a 4 man party and a slightly unbalanced one at that. Level 54 - Hunter, Rogue, Druid, Level 67 Hunter. The major emphasis would be on Bobcat to Tank and Bob to hit hard and fast with DPS.

The addition of Ventrillo made organisation easier and besides some early teething problems we settled into a nice rhythm. Dragonkins aplenty were hitting the dirt and mana was being recovered during the lengthy process of Bob skinning the Dragons of their Rugged Leather and Dargonscales (Skinners Heaven).

Statues were activated, haze and tablets collected. The original plan was to complete the Instance in 2 attempts but progress was so swift that Eranikus was brutally murdered, Green Drakes were dispatched with a flourish, Jammal'an was left bereft of his head.

Hakkar was an interesting fight, but with a good set of instructions about working out of the corners and dousing the braziers, killing the guys trying to stop the summoning. All in all a very long but controlled fight. Much fun was had all round, and just enough time to hand in the quests and off to bed.

Snakes on Planes

As a big fan of the Stranglethorn Vale safari quests, I have been looking forward to visiting Nagrand and Nesingwary. Nagrand is a beautiful area, with lush green fields, purple swirling skies and big lumps of land floating in the air. The canyons and waterfalls are a fantastic setting for an area of mass carnage and destruction. The first 3 quests in the safari series are:

Talbuk Mastery
Windroc Mastery
Clefthoof Mastery

Kill 30 of each and return. This is bread and butter for a Hunter with Skinning (90K xp for the kills) 60 (Knothide/strips/Clefthoof leather) (30K xp for the quest completions).

Talbuk Mastery (2)
A Rare Bean

These two run together take about 30 mins - with plenty more Knothide to show for your troubles.

Clefthoof Mastery (2)

The Clefthoof Bulls are a bit more ferocious, and even attack you if you get too close. Lacking the same numbers as the lesser Clefthoof, there is a need to find multiple spawn grounds to bag your 30.

I invited a couple of friends to help the Group parts of:

Talbuk Mastery (3)
Clefthoof Mastery (3)

I am not sure that these are really a group quest, but maybe it was just made to look too easy with aid of 2 level 70's. I will tackle the Windrocs when I run out of more interesting quests.

66 - The Number of the Beast

Another landmark reached - Level 66 achieved whilst pottering around Zangarmarsh. Armed with a new Epic Mount (White Ram), Bob was able to cover ground at a fantastic rate. I always assumed that Epic Mounts were something that people bought because what else did you spend your money on at Level 60. I was able to make the plunge after picking up the first Blue item from the Outlands. The Fist of Reckoning http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=31139&locale=enUS;source=live is a mace, one of the few weapons not usable by a Hunter. Allakhazam values it at 70G, but from experience these things never normally reach the asking price, leaving the seller footing several large AH bills. Eventually the mace sold for 50G quite quickly - probably to a AH scavanger looking for a profit.

Recent nights have seen a rotation between Zangarmarsh and Terrokar in attempt to avoid quests turning Green. Terrokar in my opinion is a little bit more disjointed than Zangarmarsh and Hellfire, although I have collected some nice quest items.

Zangarmarsh quests cleared up last night:

Ango'rosh Encroachment
Overlord Gorefist
Daggerfen Deviance
Wanted: Chieftain Mummaki
Balance Must Be Preserved
Menacing Marshfangs
Now That We're Still Friends...
Secrets of the Daggerfen
Stinger Venom


The best of these was Secrets of the Daggerfen and Wanted: Chieftain Mummaki, which is indicated as a group quest or (bring a friend). After reading comments on Allakhazham it was obvious that this was soloable. The Chieftain and the Book required for Daggerfen Deviance are located in the same tower. It is difficult to work out why one is solo and one is a group quest.
Bob was able to sneek the book out without disturbing Mummaki, but why would you do one without the other. Bob rested, popped some buffs, and prepared for a fight with Mummaki and his 2 bodyguards. Bobcat went for The Chieftain and turned Red with Bestial Wrath, Bob fired a couple of shots off and that was it. Game, Set and Match, not even a scratch on the cat.

The second part of Daggerfen Deviance is the potion that is a random in the village, I checked for some known co-ordinates and went in search. After a few fruitless minutes and several attacks from Daggerfen Assassins, I decided to switch from Track Humanoids to Find Treasure. Several yellow dots appeared and it transpired that the Potion is trackable to the Dwarf community and there are several in the village.

The other interesting quest was the Balance Must Be Preserved chain. Bob swam from the North as recommended on the forums, and popped a scuba diving potion, and went to explore the large structure in the middle of Coilfang. Although the co-ordinates were known it was still difficult to find the entrance, even with the bubbles gushing from the vent.

So Honored with Cenarion Expedition, and lots of nice new Leatherworking recipes to grind up for. Time to finish Zangarmarsh and Terrokar and move onto new pasture, looking forward to meeting Nesingwary again!

Gone Fishing

In Real Life, angling is certainly something that does not appeal to me. In WoW, I have been, torn between the fantastic rewards that people have written about and the reality of watching a bobber for several minutes/hours.

As a Hunter, there is a symbiotic relationship between the Hunter and Pet. This is further complicated by the need to feed your beloved Pet on a very regular basis, this takes up very valuable bag space and requires the need to find bigger and better food to keep the hunger pangs away for longer periods. Cooking is the natural answer to the Hunters problem. You are killing Beasts on a regular basis why not feed the surplus to your closest friend.

The problem with cooking is the best way to level up to 300+ was by cooking fish, which have no need for elaborate spices, just requiring a roaring fire. The best way to get raw fish is to go and dust off your fishing rod and do the deed yourself. The first 75 skillups are no problem with a ratio of 1 per fish, this gets gradually more difficult until you reach 1:8. Most of my fishing was conducted whilst on the docks waiting for boats between continents, to avoid downtime.

From personal experience I had no issue with this until hitting lvl 225 and then trying to complete "Nat Pagle, Angler Extreme" http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?source=live;wquest=6607&locale=enUS.

This is the worst quest I have completed by a mile. Not only do you need to fly to 4 different zones, but the droprate is terrible and most of the zones are sat next to Horde camps or Nasties like in Stranglethorn Vale. Thankfully I am not on a PVP server. The result was several hours and 100+ raw fish in my heavily laden bags and no skillups for my trouble. I can safely say that I never wanted to fish again. My cooking however was easily skilled up to 300 by grilling Spotted Yellowtail.

So many moons roll by and Bob dug out the fishing rod whilst at the Cenarion Circle in Zangarmarsh. Fishing is by no means any more exciting but there is a whole bunch of new things to catch, and all of them come with buffs when cooked. It was time to get that skill up to an acceptable (275) so that I could read "Master Fishing - The Art of Angling" .

In an attempt to do this and make some money I decided to read up and see if there is any sensible way to this. El's Extreme Anglin' http://www.capsu.org/wow/ was a very useful resource. Bob portalled back to the Old World and ended off to the old stomping ground of Hillsbrad. Just behind Tarren Mill there is a whole series of Sagefish Schools. Over 2 nights Bob travelled the circuit once each night and topped off the final skillups by travelling to the Alterac Mountains, to fish for some Greater Sagefish.

The fish were distributed amongst the Alts and then a Hearthstone back to the Outlands. 2 nights spent/wasted, with no XP, but with the prospect of more fun filled evenings fishing in Zangarmarsh.

Hopefully with the new patch 2.1:
- The fishing timer has been reduced from 30 to 20 seconds and it now takes less time to fish.
- The fishing timer can no longer run through its duration without a fish biting.

Then fishing might become slightly more enjoyable/easy

Reputations At Stake

"Grinding for Rep" - a statement guaranteed to drive fear into the heart of most WoW players. For the first 50 levels you play as you like, take a quest don't take a quest, learn a proffesion, sit down for an hour fishing. Then life takes a dramatic twist for the worse.

My first experience of Reputation was for the Timbermaws. I was running a quest series for the Linken Sword, and suddenly discovered the need to spend many hours killing the same beasties for 5 or 15 rep each. Every session would result in a calculation of how many Deadwoods it would take to get from Unfriendly to Neutral with the Timbermaws. As part of the original endgame it was designed to draw out the game interest for a bit longer. The result was parties of people camped out in certain areas killing anything that spawned immediately. After the release of The Burning Crusade, these areas became ghost towns.

The Timbermaws took 2 nights play and then after the jolly trip through Timbermaw Hold to discover that the process starts again in Winterspring there are more Repeatable quests and lots of slaying. I managed to get to 1502/3000 Neutral, and then drifted over to the Outlands.

So it was with a sense of dread that I discovered that I needed to get Reputation everywhere in the Outlands. However, I have started on the road down to getting friendly with the Sporeggor. This proved to be a cakewalk, a few collections, a bit of killing and there was a happy race, willing to talk to me and offer more crazy quests for more reputation. The main driving force was for the Survivalist's Pike http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?witem=27751&locale=enUS;source=live .

Bring on the rep, because this time I am ready for it.