Mining Ore and Leveling my Shaman.

I decided to play my Shaman for a little bit this weekend.  I had made 60 last weekend and figured I wanted to get to Outlands to do some questing but there were a few things that I needed to address first.  I do not like letting professions lag behind when I move along and being I was leveling so fast on my Shaman that happened.

While my mining was close to where I needed it to be my blacksmith skill was very far behind.  I could not quite go to Un'Goro yet being most of what is found there is Thorium and Rich Thorium.  Thorium is 230 skill and Rich Thorium is 255 and I was only at 220.  I took a few trips around Tanaris mining until I got it high enough to get into Un'Goro and then it was payday time.

Now I needed all the ore I was going to be getting so there was really no profit to be made here but for those that are looking to make money mining this is the place to be.  I spent 1 hour 45 minutes making circles around Un'Goro.  I was level 60 so was not picking up aggro anywhere and in that time only had to stop to fight 4 or 5 times at most.  Mostly because they were sitting on my ore so they had to die.

In less then 2 hours doing circles I minded 524 Thorium, got 32 assorted gems and enough dense stone to build a castle.  Now if you are looking to make money this is a nice way to go, less then 2 hours work and easily you have (depending on your server) 1500 gold or more in sell-able stuff.  Not really bad when you think about it for a level 60. 

For someone saving up for Epic flight could do this for a week, 1 hour per day, and have enough to buy the mount.  I really do hate when I see people say they do not have money to buy the mount and could I loan it to them.  Hey, not my fault you are lazy.  Go make your own money.

Back to the point.  I decided to mine it instead of buying it for a few reasons.  One, to save 1500 gold, 2 hours seems a lot cheaper then spending the gold.  The other was I needed to up my mining skill anyway.  By the time I was done my mining was about 320 and I had more then enough Thorium to catch up on my Blacksmith skill.

I smelted all the Thorium into bars and started making things.  Ran out of Mitril with about 20 skill levels to go before getting into Thorium items.  I had tow options there.  Go farm some or buy some.  I checked the auction house and they were around 2 gold per.  So it was better to buy then to farm.  Unlike Thorium in Un'Goro there is no place to farm Mitril that easily.  I bought enough to get up to where I needed to be and spent a few hundred along the way.

After a while of crafting the items I was all caught up on my skills and was Outland ready.  I am just burning through Outlands.  I am 63 already and not even done with Hellfire's quests yet.  I might even end up skipping most of them.

Level an Enhancement Shaman through that area after doing a Disc Priest through the same area shows me why I love leveling attacking characters.  While I do enjoy leveling my Priest I have to plan each pull a lot more and it takes a little bit of time to kill things.  With the Shaman I rarely even get to cast my full rotation before things are dead.  I fly up and land on something and a Storm Strike, Earth Shock and Lava Lash later it is dead and if it isn't it does not have more then a few seconds more to live.  Chain pulling with a Shaman is fantastic.  I use my proc build up to do a greater healing wave on myself as an instant being I really do not need the instant lightning bolt as I am killing things so fast and I just keep moving being I am never in need of mana or health.  Between Watershield and Shamanistic Rage mana is rarely if ever an issue, that and I get to the 5 proc I need nearly instantly it seems.

I do need to find an addon to follow my shields and procs however.  I notice I am missing a lot of procs and sometimes forget to put on a new shield being I am moving along so fast.  I'll have to take a look around for one.  I am sure one is out there.  Either that or I will just get more used to paying attention to the procs and shields.  Thing is, I hate having to look at my buffs all the time to follow these things.

I have noticed one interesting thing however.  Even if my Shaman kills things in a quarter of the time my Priest did my Shaman does not have the same survivability that the Priest did.  With the Priest at level 60 I could pull a 63 Elite and beat it no problem.  With my Shaman, no such luck.  Why is the healer better at soling elites?  The shield.  That is it, plan and simple.  The shield stops the spells from being interrupted.  If I need a heal it comes on instantly.  With the Shaman, if I need a heal, it better not be a hard hitting fast hitting mob or I am dead.  Happened to me with one Elite I fought.  At 1/2 life I started to cast a heal.  The heal never got off in time.  I was dead because it hit so fast my heal could never be cast.  It kept being slowed.  I have to work on a tactic for dealing with that situation when I do not have a 5 proc built up to throw that instant heal on myself.

I like seeing how all the different characters work and really try to do them all to the best of my ability.  I feel my Shaman still needs work if for any other reason then the fact I never leveled solo.  Up to 60 I always leveled with someone else and that is so different.