Hellfire on Fire

Hellfire Peninsula has been slow going for Bob. Ok, I have bashed out lots of quests and gained 2 Levels, killed more Deranged Hellboar than you can shake a sharp polearm at, but last night Bob was on fire. I completed 13 quests in a 4 hours averaging 50K xp per hour. The quests in no particular order were:

Digging for Prayer Beads
The Exorcism of Colonel Jules
Trollbane is Looking for You
Invasion Point: Annihilator
Deadly Predators
The Longbeards
The Arakkoa Threat
Rampaging Ravagers
The Path of Glory
The Temple of Telhamat
The Pools of Aggonar
Cleansing the Waters
Looking to the Leadership

I was impressed with this performance, but others might want to know what I have been doing with my time in the Outlands.

Hellfire is rich in quests, but in my opinion still has crazy respawn times due to the initial mass appearance of thousands of Level 60's finally let off the leash. In particular I am thinking of "Invasion Point: Annihilator " - which I part completed by Slaying Arix'Amal, taking the Burning Legion Gate Key, but not having the time to step in the Portal to find out how to close it, before Arix'Amal and all his buddies are back and ready to pound on my head. I received some help in the form of a minder from my guild - Lifebane, who bought me enough time to deactivate the portal. I am still unsure exactly how I did it because I was so busy left and right clicking buttons whilst moving around looking for a cog to appear. This was not a very accomplished performance but a very easy quest with help.

I had the same respawn problem previously with Cursed Talismans and Warlord of the Bleeding Hollow Level 58 and 60. I can imagine on Day 1 of The Burning Crusade that there were more Alliance than Orcs in this camp, but now you are more likely to be on your own.

Also I have spent several hours grinding on Hellboars and Ravagers. Hellboars due to the close proximity to Honor Hold and Ravagers for the Ravager Flesh to make tasty Ravager Dogs. So, large amounts of cooking, skinning and leatherworking and not much questing.

Back to last night, in researching this piece (WOW readers are normally very pedantic about facts and opinions) I noticed that my methodolgy for completing The Exorcism of Colonel Jules was a little unusual. The correct method seems to be using the Prayer Beads to kill the slime/pea soup vomit. I on the other hand was fortunate to have Bobcat and Explosive Trap for AoE. I can safely say I had no idea what was going on, and the lesson learned is Allakhazam is my best friend.

This is also true for Cleansing the Waters, and without the co-ordinates I might have been going round Aggonar all night slaying Terrorfiends and Slimes looking for some bones which I never actually found.

The only downside of the night was my search for the Longbeard Dwarves. In trying to be smart and riding around the edge of the ravine I was mobbed and killed twice by the Stonescythe Alpha/Ambushers which is a terrible confession and then a further slaughtering at the hands of the Haal'eshi Windwalkers/Talonguards. In hindsight it may have been easier to take the Ressurection Sickness and start again.

Profile

21st March 2007 - The wild ramblings of a WOWhead.

As an introduction to myself and my WOW addiction http://armory.wow-europe.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Anachronos&n=Bobflintston

A level 62 Dwarf Hunter with no special knowledge to pass on, just an attempt to document my WOW activities.

I am still a relative Noob to the game having played for about 9 months now. Bob is my main with a handfull of Alts setup, to help distract me from the task of fully leveling in the shortest time. There are hundreds of ways of playing this game, and mine is about trying to round off my Toons with as many skills as possible. I originally setup enough characters to master all the trades/skills and this can be a time consuming activity, spending hours at the postbox and the AH.

My first Toon - Dumpyrustnut was the simplistic Warrior - charge - crash - kill or be killed variety. I dragged him to the low 20's and then created Bobflinston. I read about the Hunter having a pet and thought that this must be a bit more challenging. My wife who is not usually interested in Computer Games - took an interest and also created a Hunter - Wilmaflint.

The Roster soon looked like this:

Bobs Team
Dumpyrustnut - Dwarf/Warrior - Mining/Blacksmith
Bobflinston - Dwarf/Hunter - Skinner/Leatherworker
Greatboo - Gnome/Rogue - Engineering/Enchanter
Buffster - Human/Lock - Herbalist/Alchemist

Flim's Team
Wilmaflint - Dwarf/Hunter - Miner/Engineering
Flimsystone - Night Elf/Hunter - Skinner/Tailor

This created a nice created a nice little production line where nothing went to waste. As a Noob, I wanted to do everything inhouse, not realising that this is where a good Guild comes in very handy.

It was Flim who discovered the joys of a good leveling Guild, and Bob was soon drafted in to enjoy the banter and the free assistance/gifts that came with the Guild. was one big happy family, and Flim was starting to get as addicted as Bob to WOW.
The biggest problem was that we were sharing one computer and fights were starting to breakout in the Bob household. After 4 months of this unhappy situation it was decided that a second computer might not be such a bad investment.

During this time Flim became a serial - grouper and Bob became a lonely solo hunter (In my opinion this is how the Hunter should be played). Flim also suffers from Altism, which is a most debilitating disease, affecting the ability to level the main Toon.

Bob and Flim remained 10 levels apart for several weeks and so grouping was not so much fun for Bob, playing the minder. Being a Noob and a solo Hunter, I tended to only do the instances when Flim was ready, this of course meant easier quests and less XP.

When Bob hit Level 50 - The Burning Crusade was released. The mass exodus of Level 60's who had previously been helping people to level, doing endless instances, disappeared overnight. Bob discovered that Felwood, Winterspring, Western Plaguelands, Un'goro had become deserted. The Noob was left to grind his way up - leveling every 3-5 days.

When I finally hit 58 whilst doing the quest chain for the Fallen Hero of the Horde, it was too late jump through the portal. So off to bed on a high, with a day at work to read about what awaited me in the Outlands.

In the end I rushed home from work, jumped through the portal, ran to the Gryphon point, flew to Honor Hold, obtained the Master levels for Skinning/Leatherworking/Cooking and flew back to Azeroth to level up to 60.

My logic being that everybody else had gone at level 60 with Tier armour and weapons and that a Noob 58 Hunter was just cannon fodder for the Legion and the Horde. Having been squashed several time by a Fel Reaver I was probably right to do so.

Anyway up to date, I am now Level 62 and just about to complete most of the solo quests in Hellfire. It's time to find some friends/guild/PuG to bash the Horde into oblivion.