Ding - Another 80 to the Mix & Refer-A-Friend Rip Off from Blizzard

Well, this extending weekend and an unfortunate ending to my refer-a-friend keeping me from working on my warrior gave me the time I needed to work on my Shaman some.  I was going to forgo working on my Shaman this weekend to finish up my refer-a-friend that was ending.  It seems however that my refer-a-friend ended a bit sooner then I expected.  Not only was it 3 months like I expected, but it was actually 90 days.

Refer-A-Friend story first.  I started it June 5th, so 3 months (in my mind at least) would mean it was good until September 5th.  I was wrong.  It ended on September 2nd.  Now even if I had remembered correctly and considered it to be 90 days and not 3 months it should have ended September 3rd.  I don't know about you but feel free to bust out a calender and double check my numbers.  The way I see it, September 3rd is 90 days after June 5th is.  At least then I could have got all my granted levels from the Refer A Friend character.  Now, I got nothing, lost it all.  All because Blizzard can not do math.

A word to warning for anyone that wants to use Refer-A-Friend.  Blizzard fails at math.  90 days really means 89 days.  They count the day you start out as your first day, so you lose a day.  Example for those that do not understand.

I signed up June 5th.  On June 6th I have had the account 1 day correct?  Nope, according to Blizzard that is 2 days.  The second you sign up it is counted as 1 day.  So 10 minutes after you sign up it is considered 1 day and 10 minutes.  You catch the drift?  Blizzard fucks you out of one day.

Some might say one day is no big deal and they would be right.  But when it is that one day between getting your granted levels and losing everything you worked for then that one day means a lot.  My Refer-A-Friend and I were going to run over the extended weekend being we both had the time.  All fine and dandy we lost the time to level, but on Friday night I could have at least still gotten my granted levels.  If only Blizzard knew how to count.  Blizzard, in the infinite wisdom ended the Refer-A-Friend on Thursday, exactly 89 days after sign up.  Thank you very much Blizzard for screwing me over.  If anything, I can only blame myself.  I should have checked sooner to see when it ended and I did think it was 3 months to begin with.  Either way, I am still pissed at losing the levels on my Warlock, which is where I was going to put them.

Back to the happier story, my Shaman hitting 80.  So with the Refer-A-Friend shot to crap I decided to work on my Shaman.  I was only sitting at 30% rested and I always like to work on rested but it was the only character I was really interested in working on at the moment so I figured I would go for it.  I was level 76.  My Favorite level because once you hit level 76 it is all easy street from there on. 

I love it because it is one large quest group followed by another.  They are all close together, offer good experience, few kills (meaning rested goes longer) and nothing that would be considered hard even for a first time player.  Anyone that tells you those last few levels are the hardest is either one of two things.  1) A first time player, because yes, not knowing the quest lines makes it harder to find them. 2) A complete and total moron.

So I went along questing, checking on my rested a bit here and there. 77 before I even finished the nessingwary quests.  78 I had the Argent Tournament stuff started and went as far as I could. 79 I finished up the Argent Vangard area to open up that flight path and the Ebon quest line to open up the Shadow Vault flight path.  So here I was at 79 and a little and I went to do the Hodir quest line.  Finished that one up and was only a hop, skip and a jump from 80 so I went to Frosthold and did that little quest line to open up the flight path near the Snowdrift plains (always forget the name there) and hit 80 during that quest line. All that, and I still was at 3% rested before I hit 80.  Which means, with proper quest management you can get from 76-80 on fully rested with only 30% rested to start with.

So I was not 80 and it was time to run my first random heroic.  Thing is I was not able to get into any with BoA gear on, quest greens and a few dungeon and quest blues.  I had a BoE on my bank character I could use and another one in the guild back I could use.  With those and two rings I bought from the auction house for 11 and 14 gold (cheaper then making them myself) I was able to query for a heroic.  I ran two, did 1450 DPS in the first and 2100 DPS in the second.  Not bad for a first day.

When I hit 80 I respeced from my leveling build to a raid build.  Thing is, at this low of a gear level my mana is gone after nearly every fight so I better stock up on potions, drinks and make liberal use of Shamanistic Rage every chance I get in dungeons until I get better gear.  Either way it was a nice little run.  Complete leveling time, 4 days 16 hours.  Not bad at all.  Mind you, that was my first Refer-A-Friend character and I did level mining and blacksmith along the way with it too. 

Mining is sitting at 445 now.  Need those last 5.  They will come in time.  Hopefully before my Warrior (54) and Paladin (41) make it to 80.  I guess it all depends on how much I play it.  At least now I can gear up my DK without having to buy stuff off the market.  Those 5 points I need will be 5 items I make for my DK.  I love having multi purposes to doing things.

So my first Refer-A-Friend character hit 80 on the weekend my second Refer-A-Friend was supposed to hit 60 and I was going to use all those levels to get my Warlock to 60 as well.  So not Warrior at 60, no Lock at 60 but my Shaman is at 80.  For as much as it sucks on one hand I must say I am happy on the other.