The Big List

Okay okay, I stole this idea from Alts Etctra's Big List.  Thanks for the idea, been a long time since I listed my characters and where they are in terms of leveling.  I am at work now so I am going to basically play this by memory and many of my low level characters will not be mentioned unless they happen to be ones I am currently working on, as I might have forgot them.  While I do not have as many alts at max level as Lyrestra does I am definitely no slouch either I would say.

Yes, I have multiple accounts and yes the server is merged.  That is how I have so many characters on my main server.

My Main Server:

Night Elf Hunter Level 90
Night Elf Hunter Level 90
Night Elf Hunter Level 85
Dwarf Hunter Level 85
Orc Hunter Level 80
Orc Hunter Level 17
Human Death Knight Level 90
Human Death Knight Level 90
Gnome Death Knight Level 71
Troll Death Knight Level 68
Night Elf Druid Level 90
Worgen Druid Level 37
Gnome Mage 90
Pandaren Monk 90
Draenei Paladin 90
Human Priest 90
Worgen Rogue 90
Draenei Shaman 90
Pandaren Shaman 90
Human Warlock 90
Dwarf Warrior 90

+ some other lower levels horde side.

My Role Play Server:  (I intend to have these all at 90 by expansion end.)

Night Elf Hunter 90
Human Death Knight 70
Night Elf Druid 27
Worgen Mage 90
Draenei Monk 35
Human Paladin 57
Human Priest 41
Worgen Rogue 33
Draenei Shaman 29
Gnome Warlock 27
Human Warrior 41

Horde Server: (New one I just started)

Blood Elf Death Knight 59
Troll Druid 15

Other Notables:

Tauren Hunter 90
Gnome Priest 90

Not listed but notable:

I have a horde server with 10 of the 11 classes but it is on an inactive account at the moment (pre mists which is why it does not have all 11 classes) and I have no intention of activating it at the moment.  That account also has a few 85 hunters floating around as well.  I also have hunters on various other servers at various other levels from 1 to 80.

I'll Get Back to Dungeons Later, I'll Level Now

I did not do any dungeons this week.  Even if I have two characters that need gear and they do seem to be pretty easy even for pug people for the most part because there are fewer instant wipe mechanics I just do not have the desire to do them.

Perhaps it is not so much the desire to do them that is keeping me from doing them, it is the feel that I need to do them that is keeping me from doing them.

My main is still working up his reputations and is capping valor easily in three or four days without ever even stepping into a dungeon, raid, scenario or challenge mode.  When I am done with my reputations I might decide to do some dungeons.  But as of now, it seems like a waste to run them.  Sure I can get gear but if I am valor capped I am not getting valor, so I feel as if I am losing out.  They need to remove the valor cap, weekly and total.  There is no need to restrict people from playing the game.

Because of my lack of desire to do dungeons, for whatever reason, it has given me the option to level up now.  While the first few days of the week I go daily crazy on my main once I cap I only do shadow-pan and august celestials because they are the only two factions I am not yet revered on.

Once capped,  I start to do play the other characters.  I only have one other 90 right now but that one I go on and do my farm and fishing dailies.  That is it.  I have absolutely zero intention of working on reputation with that character until they fix it.  There is no reason I should need to do a grind for gear on that character when I have already done it.  If I opened valor gear on my main it should be open for all my characters.  So it sits around doing nothing but farming and fishing and occasionally tanking when someone needs a tank for a quick queue.

So basically my refusal to run dungeons because I am already capped on my main and refusal to run dailies on my other 90 because I refuse to do that reputation grind again to open stuff I already opened means I have one thing to do.  Level.

This is not a bad thing at all.  Do not think I am complaining.  It has actually started to work out well.  I have many characters I wish to level and this actually makes me have the time to do that without feeling I need to sacrifice from my 90s to do so.

In the time it takes me to level all those other characters perhaps they will notice they need to make a few changes and they will have time to implement those changes.  They need to remove the valor cap, they need to add more items you can get with valor, and they need to make reputations either easier to get up on alts or account bound.  Simple as that, until then I keep as I have been and when I cap my main I level my alts.

I've even already mastered my leveling process.  Usually only takes one run through and then a second one to fine tune it before I have it all set up and that is exactly how it worked this time as well.

When leveling I start off on the starting quest of course.  I work the quests as they lead me which gets me to exalted with my new sister faction in the new world and usually leads me to my training basically.  At that point I hit 86.

Once I hit 86 I waste no time. I might finish off any quests I have that are super easy and fast and go turn in any of the quests that send me to speak to someone and then I abandon everything else and head over to the valley.

Once at the valley I do the quest line as it comes to me.  Every quest along the way, even if there are a few you can skip.  I open my farm, which is important for all my characters and it is the only thing I make sure to log in every single day to tend to on all my characters.  I follow the storyline to stoneplow and up to take my training further by breaking some boards.

By the time I am done with that quest I am now 87.  When I return to stoneplow from my training there will be someone there that gives me a quest to head up the stairs and speak to two people.  Well isn't that special?  Even if it were not for that quest being given to me that was exactly where I was heading once I hit 87.  If he did not give me that quest there is a guy at the bottom of the pass that would have given it to me anyway.

I grab the fight point to the stairs, which I made sure to pick up as I passed it while questing there, and run up the stairs.  I do those two side quests there, because it will be required most likely if I want to keep my timing up unless I have a gathering profession that will get me a little extra experience as I go.  Trust me, take them.

I then continue up and when I take the boat across I grab the fight point first and foremost.  Then I grab all the quests right there and turn in the two ones that had lead me there.  I finish up those quests and then head to open up our little camp there.  Once I open the camp after a little quick quest and all the people appear there I make sure to grab the flight point.  This is important as I will be coming back here to continue questing after I go off on a side quest right now.

After I get the flight point I head to the white tiger and do the quest there.  I open the gates, turn in the quest at the golden pagoda, and head to the main city to get the flight point there and set my hearth there.

Now I have my new home and I fly back to the camp I helped open.  I do those quests there, up to and including helping with the yak wash, doesn't everyone love the yak wash?  I know I do.

After doing those sets of quests there I had over to the wall in the nook to start on shado-pan stuff.  Once in the wall I head to the top and grab the flight path, don't you always do that first or is that just an old school thing?  I do all those quests and basically play follow the bouncing panda from that point on going northward and doing all the panda related quests as many of them will give you shado-pan reputation.

Notice that I did not go to the wilds ever.  Even if at three points in the valley I was given quests to head in that direction.  There is no need to ever go to the wilds while leveling.  It offers nothing worthwhile.  There is no reputation to be gained there, the quests just end up sending you back to the valley anyway and quite honestly if I followed it all the way through I would be in the steeps before I would be returning to the valley and basically wasted all of the summit yet would have still be forced to do it and thus increased wasting my time.  I am not a big fan of wasting time.  No reputation and lower quest rewards in the wilds means you are better off ignoring it and moving on to the summit from stoneplow.  If by chance you are not 87 yet when you return to stoneplow do the messingwary quest line and that should get you to 87.  Do not go to the wilds and waste your time.

Back to questing for the shado-pan.  If all goes well you will follow them up the mountain doing quests, getting reputation, and better quest rewards than wilds as well as more experience per quest than wilds and by the time you are done with that big battle at the wall you will hit 88 and continue your quest through the opening in the wall into the steeps.

Once in the steeps stay with our rotund friends and keep getting what little shado-pan reputation you can.  You will finish up their quest line and some other side stuff and hit 89 in seemingly short time.  The pandas will then send you to the bugs and you will enter the wastes and meet the klaxxi.

While I have heard horror stories about the 89-90 from some people I am left to wonder what drug in the world they are on.  Yes, that first time there without knowing where to go it was hard because you got lost and it seems there are fights to be had everywhere and in huge packs.  Second time through should be a breeze and the second time through you should have rested unless you made the stupid mistake of running dungeons and wasting all your rested there.

I open up as many of the bugs as I can, doing all the quests and I make sure to let myself get side tracked to do some searching for chen which will net me with a couple of 450 items, so while they do not offer reputation they do offer something of real value.

Before you even open all of your klaxxi's you will see some dailies and if they are close you can do them, if not you can leave them, either way you are now 90, or pretty damn close to it, shortly after hitting 89 and basically just one long quest line in the wastes and one side track quest line to do it.  Like I said, if you were on rested it should be super fast, nice and easy.

So I only get to level for a few hours on weekends, instead of grinding dungeons or something, even if I should be, but at this rate, with a pattern now set out fully, getting all 10 classes, and soon 11 when I start a monk, to level 90 should be nice and easy and mostly painless.

The biggest stress to leveling are those first two levels.  85-87 seems to take forever even with rested and seems like you get nothing worthwhile from it, not gear wise and not reputation wise.  Once you hit 87 and go to the summit they should just let you press a button that says instant 90, because if you really worked on it 87-90 goes really fast and smooth and thanks to some streamlined questing that seems worth it based on rewards and reputation gained, 87-90 is mostly easy.

For me, what makes questing so enjoyable this expansion compared to last is that I have options, like skipping quests and choosing my own path as I laid out.  It is like back in wrath where I used to always joke that once you hit 76 they should just award you 80 because it was so perfect while others always said it took forever.  They just never knew how to maximized your time and effort to reward like I did then and I do now.  Cataclysm never gave us that option, their on rails questing was do this or do nothing and that was horrible design.

I could stay in the forest longer, I could go down to the wilds, I could complete all the valley quests or even anything in the center of the summit but I choose not to.  The only zone I will get the zone achievement on when leveling is the steppes.  As much as I like it, that area does not seem to have enough quests.  Even with rested I barely make 89 before finishing it.  But you know what, I do make 89, and that is all that counts.  It works out perfectly.  Just like good quest design should.  It gives me the option to do it the way I do it or to spend a little extra time in other places.

Thank god for the return to intelligent quest design instead of the lead you by the hand on rails questing of cataclysm that never let you feel as if you were deciding to do things but that you were required to do things.

Just like I am capping valor doing quests now which is keeping me from running dungeons for now, I have options now to everything I do, even leveling, and I like that.  I still worry how the characters I am not very good on will do going through them, but at least if I have problems I have options, I can always go back and do easier quests and take my sweet time with it.  If the steppes or wastes is too hard on my warlock for example I will still have the forest mostly undone, wilds completely undone and lots left to do in the valley and summit which would be easy enough to get me to 90 without doing the zones that might appear harder for people that are not very good, like me on my lock.  Options, we have them, and I love it.

I'll get back to dungeons later, I'll level now.  It is just too much fun to ignore.

People keep talking about the choices in the game we have now at max level but they seem to forget a huge part of the game is getting to that max level and we now have choices to get there too.  That rocks.

Ding! Level 90 Hunter

The opening bell rang and we were off on a new adventure.  The adventure to waste our time leveling to get back to max level where the real game begins.  But wait, whats this?  Leveling felt like an adventure?  There was a real sense of peril?  There was a real sense of exploration?  This is not something I am use to folks.  Leveling that first time through was fun and for someone like myself that loves to level it was a very welcome addition to the game.

I am not exactly sure how fun it will be on my characters that follow the lead but I can tell you one thing for sure, having to travel by ground was a fantastic idea to make people feel like they are actually part of the environment again.

From the not-so rare rares out in the world, solo killed 19 of the 21 I came across while leveling, two others I tried for a few times and decided to come back later, to the hovering packs of mobs everywhere to the return of the runners, leveling seemed more like it was meant to be part of the game and not just a means to an end.  Kudos to blizzard for bringing back the joy of questing.  Having a connected continent again really helped a lot as well for the feel of a whole new world and there is nothing anyone could say bad about that.

There is one thing I do worry about however.  There were many points it was not easy.  Mobs took a while to die, it was not three shots and dead and even if I loved it I can see a fair deal of players having issues with it.  There were more times than I can count where I was working on a pack of three and another pack of three joined and then one more snuck up from behind.  Hey, I am a hunter, MD the three and trap the one with an over the shoulder trap before he can smack me in the back of the head and lay the smack down on those baddies.  Thing is, not everyone is a hunter and many of the hunters aren't even good at it.  I can see a fair deal of players having issues with it.

I worry about some of my characters.  My lock for instance, without a suitable pet like my hunter that can tank like a champ I can not go around mowing down packs with that sort of efficiency.  Or my mage, I doubt there is any way I would be able to deal with fights that lasted that long in such a condensed area where I can't kite or I would have even more mobs on me.  Or my poor priest that has never seen the outside of the light, how can she level as disc?  Will it even be possible?

Good questions but also goes to show you that leveling is not some joke this expansion like it was in the last.  I never worried about anything last expansion.  I even landed on a rare mob with my shaman in healing spec and healing gear and beat it in cataclysm.  I do not see me even thinking of doing something like that with the 21 rares I have encountered so far.  Even the few super easy ones I ran across would destroy my shaman in that case.

The launch was smooth, the launch was fun, and it took me twice as long as I expected it would to level to 90 and four times longer than it would have on beta.  Good call on making it take longer blizzard.  It will give people more chances to see the beauty of the world and it is beautiful.

Mists has just started and it is already well up on cataclysm.  Even venturing through the dread wastes I felt it was more menacing than anything deathwing ever threw at us.  Could the game finally be giving us a story again?  A feeling of immersion again?  A feeling of fullness?  Only time can tell but I just hit 90 yesterday and I have a lot of exploring to do.  Not to mention two rares to seek out revenge on when I get better gear or work up an effective strat for them.  Word to the wise, if you are not a hunter, get a friend to help on many of these.  If you are a hunter and have any issues you need to practice your hunter stuff, you will need tanq often, and spec slienceing shot for sure, all your tools that make you a great class will be used.  Also, hunter note, DO NOT use stampede as a DPS boost, use it defensively.  They taunt and if your pet tank goes down calling them and casting  FD will give you more than ample time to get your tank back up.  See, just because I killed 19 while leveling, most in the high levels, doesn't mean it was a push over, you needed to use your toolbox and hunters have the biggest one in the game.  Too bad all they drop is the occasional bag of goodies and BoP items that 17 of the 19 were useless and the two that were for me were the same thing.  I did get two cool toys from them however.  So give them a shot if you want, but I would caution against it for most classes and most people, at least not until you are 90.  I spent nearly as much time rare hunting as I did leveling it felt like, and I loved every minute of it.  It made me feel like a... hunter.

Welcome to mists, this isn't cataclysm any more, thank god.

Are you Good or is it Easy?

We all hear people saying that the game is getting easier.  I've even often complained about how fast leveling is and that it is too easy now and doesn't teach anything.  The fact is, while things have been made a little easier and a lot faster they are not always as easy as we all make them out to be.

As proof I could offer one thing, what your eyes can see, so open your eyes.  

Look at the fact that it has been said that around 50% of the player base does not even have a max level character.  Look at the fact that, even with the now 25% nerf, a fair deal less than 10% of the total number of players have even completed DS on normal.  Look at the people in your random dungeon that can not even pull 8K DPS at an item level of 380+.  We like to call all these players bad players but the simple fact is they are not bad players, or at least not as bad as we make them out to be, they are just not as experienced as we are.

While I will still argue that leveling has been made way to fast it is not as fast as I make it out to be.  I've leveled a hunter in 1 day 18 hours and could have done it in less if I had not messed around doing nothing a couple of times.  I did it without any refer a friend for triple experience either and no rested, being I basically did it straight away and had no time to build up any substantial rested.  Just heirlooms and guild bonus.

The thing is, that was my 6th level 85 hunter.  I've been playing hunters since I started playing the game.  I love hunters and I love being a hunter.  I know the class better than any other class in the game.  With that type of experience in the class and having done all the quest what seems like a million times I knew what to do, where to go, how to do it and more importantly, the fastest way to get it done.

For someone new to the game, even if they pick it up really fast, they have no prayer of doing it that fast.  They will not know which quests to hold on to because they can piggy back them with another one that comes a short time later so they speed up their leveling.  They will not know what areas are best to quest in with good, tight hubs.  And more importantly, they will not know where everything is and how to get there, that alone will eat up a fair amount of their time while leveling.  So it will take them longer, much longer.

So that begs the question, is leveling that fast because I am good at it or because it is easy?

It is that fast because I am good at it.  Yes, it is easier then it had been, but add the fact that I am good at it to the fact it was made a little easier and that is why I am flying through it fast.  Some people can still take 20 days played to get to level cap because it is their first time.  They don't know where everything is and they have to find their way and experience everything for the first time whereas for me it is old hat.  I know where everything is already.  Heck, just finding a certain vendor somewhere could waste a new players time to the tune of an hour or two.  I remember my first time in stormwind and getting lost there for at least three hours while I tried to find where everything was.

It is fast for me because I am good at leveling, not because it is really that easy.

Now let us take a look at the dungeons.  When cataclysm was first released and people entered the dungeons we could all tell who the raiders were and who the non raiders were instantly.  The first time that guy pulled you in when doing blackrock caverns the raiders switched to the chains and then ran out, the non raiders kept attacking the boss and died instantly because they did not run out.

That is just one example of is it easy or are we just good.  Raiders, people that are not raiders but have game experience, anyone that read it before hand, they all knew what to do because they had all seen it before.  They did not know how to do it right because it was easy.  They knew how to do it right because they knew it.

Corla and her beams were, and still are, a random killer.  Any players with some experience even not knowing the fight might get caught off guard by it and mess it up the first or second time but once they had it they had it whereas others still just could not get it.  Does that mean it was easy?  Nope, it just means the people that have raided before understood how mechanics like that worked so they picked up on it instantly and the players that were new or never raided just could not understand it because they have never seen anything like that before.

I could go on and on with fights and their little mechanics, the ones where you would see people rage in the random, "it is so easy, just step in and out", but the thing most people don't seem to grasp is it is really not as easy as it seems to me and you.  The only reason it is easy for us is because we are good.  We already know how to handle things like that so it is easy for us.  Just because it is easy for us does not mean it is easy.

So dungeons are not easier than they used to be, they are actually harder.  The issue is that raiders and regular players have the been there done that feeling to everything so they adapt quickly, it is because they are good, not because the fight is easy.

Raiding is the absolute perfect example of good vs easy.

Look at tier 11 raiding.  It was awesome on so many levels but it proved that it was not for everyone.  It was the perfect example of good vs easy.  It is why nearly every server in the game experienced the massive pug lull in the game during this point, it was not actually easy, it was a lot to handle for people that where not raiders with experience.  For some people it was easy, the raiders with experience, but it was not really easy, it was because they had a fair deal of game experience and they where good at doing those things because they had done them all before.

Elemental monstrosity is the perfect example and in my opinion the most pug unfriendly fight in this entire expansion, right ahead of omnitron defense system, because of the amount of things going on for that fight.  There were basically five bosses with five different sets of abilities.  You needed to stand near someone when you had one buff, run into something when you had another debuff, switch targets, interrupt, kite, pick up one buff for this and another for that, you name it and this fight had it.

Go in there with a group of people that have been raiding for an expansion or two and even if you had to bang your head against the wall for a few wipes you got it done because everyone had experienced every single one of those mechanics before.  Oh yeah, this is like the thing from ToC that when I get it I have to run to the other snake, so I will run into the fire when I get it, now I understand.  Stuff like that.  A good player was only good because they picked it up faster and they only picked it up faster because they knew how to do it already, they learned somewhere else and just had to do it here.  New players can learn it, but new players can also be overwhelmed on a fight like this with a lot of stuff going on a lot faster than someone with experience would.

A pug group of people that never raided before and that fight turned into a nightmare.  Even ODS could very well be a nightmare in a pug because of the target switching and mechanics of two things at once and four things they needed to remember.  For people with raiding experience, it was easy to understand that two different sets of mechanics out of four possible ones where going on at the same time but for someone new, the idea of one set of mechanics is enough to drive them insane never the less remembering four sets of mechanics and having one set active on a mob you are not even targeting.  It could make new players really confused and fast. 

For many guilds ODS was easy, because it was a whole bunch of easy mechanics and stuff we have seen a million times before but for new guilds or people that where new to raiding this could very well be a massive road block in teaching people how to monitor a few things going on at once which is information over load to people that are new to raiding which made this fight extremely hard for them.

I know where everyone is coming from.  I have been there.  I have said that.  I have felt it, the stress, the how can you not know how to do that feeling.  All because I felt it was easy.  It was not easy, it is just that I already knew how to do it before I did it, if you get what I mean.

Things like the poison boss in ZG come to mind as good examples.  First time in there I saw the pattern it puts on the ground and noticed it was always the same.  I never got caught by it.  That is something that someone with experience notices, that is what makes it easy for me and others, we know how things like that work.  Others died from it, others, even if they understood what to do, always found themselves caught because they did not realize it is the same pattern every time.  It was them learning so the next time a fight like that comes up they will be the ones saying, this is easy because they already did it before.

So I present to you my observations and point out that the game is not getting easier, you are just getting better at playing it.

The real issue here is that they keep designing the game to try and be a little harder but there are always new players coming in and those new players will always start at the beginning of the learning curve and as they keep adding more mechanics to make it harder on us, the ones that have been there and done that, they are making it so much harder for the new people to learn when they first start.

The next time you see someone die to something and think, how could you die to that, it is so easy, remember that it is only easy to you because you have done it a million times.  It is not easy to someone that is new.

If anything, I say that the game, from the raiding and dungeon standpoint at least, is harder than it has ever been in the history of the game.  It just does not seem like that to us because we have all been there and done that.

While it is true, to raiders, dragon soul is the easiest raid ever it only feels that way because for us, the raiders, because it didn't offer us anything new.  It was actually correctly designed to let new people come in and raid too.  We might think it is easier but if anything, it is correctly balanced if the game wants to keep luring new people in and turning them into raiders too.  Actually, if anything, it could even use being a little easier when we consider that still less than 10% of the player base has actually killed the last boss with a 25% buff.

The game is not getting easier, you are just getting better at it.

That is what it really comes down to.

A Hunter is Born: Starting New Again.

I decided to roll another hunter because the end of the expansion blues are getting to me.  Of course it will be another hunter but I am going to do things a little different this time around.  I am going to attempt to take my time.

Leveling being as fast as it is this expansion has really ruined the fun of the whole leveling alts thing and I do nothing to help myself really.  I will accept an invite from a level 25 guild, because of the bonuses.  I love the reputation bonus.  I love have group.  The bonuses are more quality of life for the most part.

Depending on if the guild has anything worthwhile in the bank I love being able to carry the guild bank around.  Not to mention, sometimes when you are questing and run out of bag space having the guild bank that you could at least throw some of the stuff people have a use for in is not a bad thing, it is better than just throwing it away.  Boar meat is better there don't you think?

The experience gain boost is over kill.  Leveling is fast enough as it is.  If you have that it is even faster, if you happen to have heirlooms it is even faster.  So fast you have to think what is the use of leveling anyway, just give people an option to go to 80 instantly and let them level only in the current expansion.  It is not like leveling is teaching them as it should.  If leveling is not going to take time, leveling serves no purpose.

But back to task.  I am on a server I have no characters on so no help to myself, from myself.  No heirlooms, no bags, no gold, I'll be doing it all on my own.  I will also take my time.  I will stop at every fishing pool.  I will get two gathering professions and make sure to gather everything I see.  I will draw it out some.

This is supposed to be something to pass the time while waiting on the new expansion.

If anything, I think that is the biggest loss with leveling being made so fast now.  An alt you play just for fun once in a rare while can now find themselves at a high level without even trying.  It used to be nice that it took time to level.  Even in wrath I had alts I would pop onto from time to time and they never made it anywhere really.  They remained low.  Now, you sneeze and you gain 10 levels.  Sad really.

So my hunter is going back to basics.  I am going to level beast mastery.  That is something I have not done all expansion.  All my new hunters this expansion have leveled survival and being it seems BM might be the way to go next expansion I figured I might as well relearn the spec and get the feel of it again being it has changed some and I have not played it at all this expansion.

I am guessing starting new with no boosters except the guild one which I can't avoid if I want to be in a guild and stopping for all fishing and gathering nodes I can easily extend the leveling time to at least 5 days played to max which would be a lot better than my standard of 2 days or less for hunters.

The more I think about it the more I believe that the biggest problem with bad players at the end game has to do with the leveling system.  I want to see the return of the days when people reached max level and they had 30 days played, not 3.  It would make for a better game.

It would also make for those alts like this that are made just to pass the time to pass more time.  Let the huntering begin.  I love starting fresh on a new server sometimes, except for not having any bag space.  Oh how I dread that.

I know I say I am going to take my time, but I know me, I get into a grove and go.  I'll bet next week I will have another hunter at 85.

Tips & Tricks for the Reroll and New Player at the End of the Expansion

These are mostly standard rules and do not only hold true for the end of the expansion.  However, around this time of the expansion a lot of players start to reroll, sometimes on a new server, and for those that are experienced they might need a little refresher on what it is like to be new.

So for the new player, or the player starting new on a different server, here is a small list of things that you might find helpful to leaving yourself in a good position when you hit max level.

1) Professions:

First things first.  Get your professions ASAP.  Look for the profession trainer, each area (except gnomes) has a professions trainer in the starting area.  It does not show on the tracker, just hover over everyone until you find it.  You can train professions at level 5.  Do it.  Don't hesitate.  Don't procrastinate.  Just do it.

The professions you choose really make a world of difference when you are starting new or rerolling.  While the experienced players all know that things like jewelcrafting and enchanting seem like no brainers for the end game, when you are starting fresh on a server it is likely not the best idea to go with one of them at the start.

Enchanting is the worst profession to pick when rerolling or starting your first character.  Not because it is bad, quite the opposite really, it is a great money maker.  It is because it will hinder your making money while leveling.  Something that is very important when going through things your first time.

With enchanting you have to disenchant everything you get to have materials to level and this cuts into your gold flow.  Not to mention, some of the things you need while leveling enchanting can be very expensive on the open market meaning you spend a lot while leveling instead of making it.

Without enchanting if there is nothing you need from a quest you can choose the item that sells for the most and vendor it.  Do that, do not take enchanting.  Save that for the third character profession.  Maybe even second.  Not first.  If you really want it on your first, wait until later to do it.  You will see how easy you can do it later when this is done.

Another thing that is common is for people to pick paired abilities.  Skinning and leatherworking, mining and blacksmith, mining and jewelcrafting.  This again is a bad idea.  While it is true you can get by with it, all of those things would require you to spend extra time farming materials and less time questing and enjoying the game just to keep up with the crafting profession.  Save crafting for a second character or something to go back and get once you are max level.

So what should you do?  Gathering of course.  Skinning, mining and herbalism.  Pick any two and run with it.  I suggest skinning as the number one thing.  Take skinning and one of the others, your choice.  The reason for skinning is that leveling the crafting half, which is leatherworking, requires insane amount of skins which means that leather more than anything else has a fantastic resell rate all the time.  Add to that the new transmog world and there will always be people looking for those lower leathers to make some gear.

Skinning is king in the world of professions to have on a reroll or a new character.  Skinning, for the most part, will usually keep up with the speed of your leveling.  With the exception of a worgen, which oddly enough has a skinning bonus, all races have enough wild life to keep you moving on.  Herbalism and mining might need you to hang back a little as you will level faster than your skill level moves.  At least with mining you can smelt whereas herbalism you are sort of screwed.  All you can do to catch up is pick an area with lots of grass and hope it sprouts some herbs.  Make it an area with lots of bears and beasts too, hoping that you are a skinner as well.

TL;DR: Pick up skinning and either mining or herbalism as your professions.

2) Secondary Professions:

Lets go over them one at a time.  First up is fishing.  Pick up this profession for a few reasons.  One being now you have a daily fishing quest you can do.  Another being that fishing can make you a boat load of money at all levels, including low levels.  This is something rerollers seem to forget.  And lastly, fishing makes leveling cooking much easier.

When you start off grab a few of the things that boost your fishing level when doing the daily.  It might not seem like much but it will pay off in the end.  Use the fishing skill increase things every time you plan to fish for the fishing quests as they do not mean fishing in pools.  In the outside world you will only ever fish in pools, so no need to carry any on you.  Pools are a 100% no junk catch.

When out in the world fish in every pool you see.  You will see a fair deal of sagefish pools and as you get higher greater sagefish pools.  Save every single one of those fish.  Also, save the ones you get from the fishing daily as well.  Fish are a cheap way to level cooking and all fish have their stages.  In the case of the sagefish and greater sagefish they can get you as much as 60 skill points each when you get to that level.  Can't beat that with a stick.  This will also allow you to sell the meats you get when leveling because you will be using your fish to level cooking in many spots and meats do seem to sell better.  More on that later.

Now for the reroll person, the one that might have forgotten about fishing, let me remind you of some simple facts.  Fishing can get you leather, bolts of cloth, coins, patterns, and the weather beaten journal which will teach you find fish.  Fish in every pool.  All that stuff adds up and will all be incoming funds which you will need while leveling a new character, reroll or not.  Just because you have experience does not mean you will not need money.

Now to cooking.  It has an easy daily for experience, that alone should be reason enough right?  Pick it up and make yourself some spice bread.  You can get a good few levels off of this and the supplies are usually near the trainer.  Make sure you buy any and all recipes that you can while you travel and learn them. The most important ones will be the ones that require fish to make, like the ones for sagefish and greater sagefish, sound familiar?

Whenever you get some items that you can make stuff with, make it.  When you reach the sagefish level cook all your sagefish and keep cooking it until you can not get any more skill points from it.  Same goes for when you reach the greater.  Just keep up with your cooking and fishing together and you will be fine.

So why are we leveling cooking and fishing?  Because cooking is a huge money maker later on and no one likes going back to level it.  End game food on many server can go from 5-20 gold per when cooked thanks to people not wanting to level cooking themselves.  Three cheers for lazy people making you money.

Also if you are leveling cooking you are more likely to remember how important fish and meat is.  More on that later.  While fishing you could always level later because you always catch a fish from a pool even if you have a level one skill it is just better to do it as you go.

Next up is first aid.  Don't bother.  You can go back and level it if you want to.  However, if you are a reroll or a class that can heal, you will never find yourself in a situation where you need it really.  And you will have lots of food to eat between battles because you are leveling cooking right?  If you are brand new and your class does not have a heal you might want to pick it up but it is not entirely needed for the most part.

Now for archaeology.  Don't even bother training it.  It is a waste of coinage when starting.  You will never be able to effectively level it until you have flying, faster flying at that.  Save it for something to do when you are max level and bored.  There is no real need for it in the game anyway.  It is a for fun only secondary profession and there is absolutely zero fun trying to level it while leveling your character because of the random placement of dig sites and quite often all of them being in areas you do not have access to yet.  Again, do not waste your time with it.

TL;DR: Pick up cooking and fishing and avoid first aid and archaeology.

3) Bags:

For the reroll this could very well be the reason you hate rerolling.  We are all used to having space and even with all 26 slot bags we always find ourselves with no space what so ever.  So the first thing a reroll does is spend everything they can on bags.  Try not to do that, it is really not worth it.  There are ways around it and I am here to help the rerolls and the new players out with that.

Unless you are on a server that has really cheap bags on the auction house it is not worth buying them.  If you are dead set, find out what they are made from, buy or collect the materials and tip someone to make them for you.  It will, in some cases, be a quarter of the price they sell for on the market that way.

Lets start with the basics and these basics are the same for the entire time you are leveling.  Every time you see a place to sell off stuff, sell off stuff.  It might sound simple but people forget that.  Even if there is only one piece of junk to sell off, sell it.  Never pass a vendor of any sort without selling stuff that can be sold.  Remember, many innkeepers have an option to sell stuff to them.  Use that option too.  There are enough vendors around that you can easily go without ever needing to throw stuff away, even with smaller bags, if you are good at emptying your bags every chance you get.

In every starting area there are a few rare spawns that are not exactly rare.  They seem to have 10 minute spawn timers and while doing your starting quests you are bound to come across at least one of them.  Beside the fact that they are amazing experience they all drop a six slot bag.  Kill that baby and claim your bag.  If you really want to you can wait for it to respawn and get another bag or two or three if that is your style.  No need to waste even a few silver on starting bags when you can get them, and a boat load of experience, for free.

When it comes to moving up in the world of bags, never trust the auction house.  Bags are always expensive there.  Even those ones that look cheap like one gold can usually be purchased from a city vendor for 60 silver.  So keep away from the auction house for bags, it is a bad idea for your bottom line.

So how do we get you some decent bags for leveling you might ask.  6 slot bags are not exactly going to last long.  Well, there are a few cheap and easy bag options.

First ones comes from reputation.  Every main city sells a 16 slot bag when you reach revered with their faction for around 1 gold.  This means that you can get 6 per side as there are 6 races per side.  This also means the value of a 16 slot bag is roughly 1 gold.  Never pay more than that.  If you see them for 5 gold on the auction house it might be worth it, but not 20 like they are on most.  Just not worth it.

Sure, one or two reputations will be easy to get to revered quick while the others take time but there is one more cheap 16 slot bag you can get along your way, as long as you make a pass through Hillsbrad Foothills.

The Alterac Valley vendors sell the old hunter quivers there for the low low price of 50 honor.  The thing is the old hunter quivers now are normal bags so that 16 slot quiver is now a 16 slot bag.  For 50 honor.  Are you insane?  I think I might be.  Even if you are not a PvPer just join one battleground at any given point.  Run with the pack, kill anything and even if you lose you can easily get 50 honor to buy the bag.  Even if you hate PvP isn't it worth it for a free 16 slot bag basically?

So with two revered reps and the PvP bag you now have three 16 slot bags while you are waiting to get the other reps up.  That should be more than ample for leveling.  Not great of course because the more space you have the better you are, but that is more than serviceable.

TL;DR:  Get 16 slot bags from race vendors near flight points in major cities once revered and one PvP 16 slot bag in Hillsbrad Foothills.

4) Auction House:

A reroll might be tempted to buy everything.  A new player might not realize it is even there.  Both seem to forget you can sell stuff there as well as buy stuff there.

Seriously folks, there is a world of wealth to be had and starting fresh means you are going to be in need of every cent you can get.  As the saying goes, one mans garbage is another mans gold.

All those things you might consider vendoring when leveling, sell them.  Meats, fish, eggs and assorted spider parts you no longer need to level cooking because you passed their level?  Sell them.  Cloth you do not need because you are not leveling first aid?  Sell it.  Oddball things like thick spider silk, elemental water, and things like that you might over look?  Sell them, people buy it.  Trust me.

Everything can sell but you need to remember that you just want to make more than vendoring it.  You do not want to get filthy rich off every single sale.  So you might see it going for 30 silver on the auction house so it is not worth selling.  Wrong.  If it sells for 9 copper and you can get 30 silver you would be a fool for vendoring it.

What if I put that a different way to better explain it?  Something vendors for 9 silver but you could sell it on the auction house for 30 gold, would you still vendor it?  Of course not.  9 silver to 30 gold is the same as 9 copper to 30 silver.  It adds up, sell everything.

Oh, and remember, you are a skinner and another gathering profession right?  Sell all that stuff too.  Never leave a beast unskinned, an herb unpicked, a mine uh... unmined.  All of that is money just waiting to fill your bags.

If you can sell it on the auction house, sell it.  If not, vendor it.  Along with making sure to empty your bags often like I mentioned before, auction often.  This is a huge key to making money and as a reroll or a new player you will need it.

TL;DR: Everything that can be sold should be sold.

5) Quests:

I don't know how much I can stress this.  It is my answer to everything when it comes to leveling.

What is the fastest way to level?  Questing.  What is a good way to get faction rep?  Questing.  What is a good way to make money? Questing.  What is an easy relaxed way to play?  Questing.  What is a fast paced way to play?  Questing.  You get the idea.  Questing rules.

Questing, aside from offering the best experience to time ratio in the game has so many benefits for the reroller or the new player.  Questing means you get reputation for everything you do.  Reputation for the main cities that gets you those 16 slot bags.  Questing means you get some coin for doing the quest and sometimes an item as well.  If you need none of the items it offers, choose whichever sells for the most and take that and sell it for even more coin.

Questing means you are out in the world killing things.  Which means as a skinner you get more skins from killing more beasts.  You also get cloth from all humanoid mobs.  Not to mention the coins from various mobs.  You run across more herbs and mining nodes while questing too.  The more you quest, the more you run across.

You get the chance at rare drops that can sell for a fair amount.  You get meat from spiders, bears, wolves, crabs, kodo, you name it and that stuff sometimes sells for a very good price.  You get recipes, crafting items, and assorted other goodies that sometimes might seem like junk that sells.

The basic idea is to loot everything, gather everything, always take the highest priced reward and remember to empty your bags as often as possible.  In the end, the questing route is the best and you will not regret it.

TL;DR: Just quest.  Trust me.

6) Hitting Max Level:

Once you capped out you can look back at everything you did.  You will probably have all 16 slots bags, unless you got into a few pugs or quests that got you some better bags.  You will most likely have anywhere between 15K-35K gold, depending on the server economy, from selling everything along the way with your two gathering professions, your fish and your food sales.  And you will be in an excellent position to start the end game on your new character or rerolled character.

Even on the low end, 15K, you can now decide to change your professions to what you really wanted.  It would be more than ample to power level anything.  If you plan to drop one of your gathering professions for something you will need that material in leveling it, go crazy gathering first before you drop it so you will have most of what you need already.  You can now get yourself some nicer bags too with that added gold.

In the end you have yourself those better professions for the profession bonus and money making potential.  You will have better bags.  And most importantly you will have learned one hell of a valuable lesson.

The lesson is, you might want tailoring and enchanting or jewelcrafting and blacksmithing but that is what you want for end game.  While working your way up, do not think about end game.  Think about leveling and making money.  When you get to the end, you can have anything you want because you set yourself up in a good position by doing the right thing.

New players get distracted by thinking they do not want to level a profession just to drop it.  Rerollers get distracted by thinking they need two other professions for the end game.  Don't get distracted.  Leveling is about leveling.  Just take care of that.  Make some money along the way following my suggestions and when the time comes at the end you can do anything you want basically.

TL;DR:  Don't worry about the end game when you are leveling.

So for all those new players that might be starting now or people looking to reroll on a new server these things could help you out a little bit.  At least until the crafting professions are sped up to match the increasing leveling speed, it is just better to level this way.  It is less stressful and quite frankly more fun if you ask me.

So jump into the game and have some fun with it.  Rerolling can be fun and starting new doesn't need to be stressful.  You just need to do it right.  Have fun.

I would also suggest to all those that have never been horde or never been alliance, at least level enough to go through dustwallow marsh on the other side of the fence.  It has always been one of the best designed questing areas in the game from the start of the game up until now.  It was left mostly untouched from the cataclysm.  So roll it from the side you never saw it on before and enjoy, for the last time most likely, the experience of leveling in one of the best zones before it is changed forever.

Looking Forward at Leveling Plans

Having taken my hunter to the beta level cap (87) and done every quest I am capable of (2 still undone because of bugs) in just a little over 5 hours I am left to believe that unless something changes that leveling in Mists will be even faster than leveling in Cataclysm was.

If all stays the same I am sure that I'll have every class already in the game to 90 faster then it took me to get every class to 85.  Who will be the second 90 is a fun thing to think about.  My hunter will be first of course, as that is my main, but what comes next is any ones guess.

After my little story time I will give a few tips for people that have many alts they plan to level to 90 and want to do it a little faster.

At the end of wrath I was using my druid for tanking and priest for healing and it was my intention to level them up to get one of each role to max as fast as I could but somehow my rogue managed to become my second 85.  How that happened I have no clue and I am the one that did it.  I hate being a rogue.  Not sure why it worked out that way.

So I will not plan ahead like I did last time when it comes to who I want to level second.  Who knows, my second 90 could very well be a hunter as well.  I have so many 85 hunters as is.  I even have three of them on my main server.  I might even do it based on professions.  Over the three 85 hunters I currently have they have herbalism, alchemy, skinning, leatherworking, inscription and jewelcrafting.

I think I have an idea of what might end up being the way I go, level gathering characters second, after my hunter.  If history does indeed repeat itself, gathering the first week of an expansions release is always a gold mine.  I remember the first day of cataclysm on my hunter.  I managed to gather over 2000 heartblossom while leveling in deepholm.  Heck, I never even went looking for it, I only picked what was where I was at the time.  By the end of my leveling process on my hunter I had gathered nearly 5000 herbs.  Gathering that first week is always amazing.

With good 'ol Hemet back you know that leveling a skinner will be paradise right there.  Which leaves me a few options.  I have a paladin skinner, a rogue skinner, a hunter skinner and a druid skinner on my main server.  All but the druid skinner are at max level.  The druid I do have at max level is mining and jewelcrafting.  That does not mean the other druid will not be 85 by then.  I could get it there if I wanted to.  That druid is a pure gathering character, herbalism and skinning.  That would most likely make for an amazing combo with a new expansion when it comes to getting materials, even more so seeing all the green lands and animals all over the place.  It means there will be lots of skins and herbs to be collected.

In the end, I wish to have my main, and all the characters with professions I will need, at max as soon as possible.  This means I need an alchemist for flasks, which is no problem as that is my main.  I will also need a jewelcrafter and an enchanter.  Which means, my druid and my priest.  The same two I had intended to get to 85 first after my main in cataclysm.  Yet somehow my rogue managed to take the second 85 spot.

If you are new to the world of alts and leveling many characters during a new expansion here are a few tips when it comes to choosing which characters you want to level up next from your stable of alts.

Log on to all Your Characters -
If you are at cap and a new expansion comes out it seems like you will not get any rested experience unless you log in first.  Even if you log in and out right away, do it.  So the ones you are not working on now can at least start building rested experience.

Level Enchanting and Jewelcrafting -
If you want to make a crap ton of gold, level these two professions.  Many people just power level and go back for professions.  Many people will also need these when they start heroics and raids and might not have them ready to go, so they will pay through the teeth to get them.  It also works the other way.  If you do not want to pay through the teeth, you should level these to save money.  Whenever new content is released with new gear these two professions make a boat load of cash, and a new expansion is new content.  Start the expansion filthy rich and make sure you level them quick.

Switch Characters -
Most alt-o-holics like myself tend to get caught up on one character and work it until it is done.  Others know how to multi task.  This is one of those cases it is better to multi task.  If you are leveling alts for support professions, or just to get a few classes up, you are better off rotating.  Play each until their rested is done and then switch to the next. 

This will speed up the over all leveling process amazingly.  If you level your main first, even if you are a fast leveler, all your alts should have at least a reasonable amount of rested to start out well.  If you have many characters, rotating between them all, even if you are a heavy player that plays 5 hours a night, you will never be on a character that does not have rested and as anyone that levels a lot knows, rested is king for fast leveling.

Multi Task -
Speaking of multi tasking, make sure you make catch all characters.  For stuff you do not want to sell that you might need to level professions.  Usually this will end up being the first person you have leveling that specific profession.  But keep your professions up while level, send materials to the people that need them, keep track of who is where when it comes to questing and professions and maximize what you get into what you can get out of it.

Handling a lot of characters leveling at the same time and paying attention to all their professions and what they need can be a daunting task but it will also be a rewarding one in the end when everyone is capped at level and professions at the same time.

Do not fall into the common pitfall of trying to level three of the same crafting professions at the same time either.  Make a designated first to max person.  Send everything to them and when they pass a level of needing a certain item then can send it to number two on the list.

Don't Forget Dailies -
For alts that are not part of the current leveling process, or used their rested only the day before, do not forget to at least pop on and do their dailies.  They add up, and they are quick and easy.  There is no reason you should not be doing them every day.

Don't Let Rested Cap -
If you are going to be leveling 15 or so characters at the same time like me after my main is done or even if you have less, it is easy to let some characters get capped on rested.  Any time you sit around capped is wasted experience.  Get the most out of your experience, use your rested.  Even if you only log in for 15 minutes and go on a killing spree.  That can give you lots of experience because you are getting double per kill and it can eat a small chuck of that rested up so it is not wasted. 

If you happen to be a gatherer then make it work for you.  Skinners make sure you go on your killing spree with animals you can skin.  Miners make sure you go on a killing spree near mountain sides. Herbalists make sure you go on killing sprees in the grassy areas.  Everyone else, kill humanoid mobs only, cloth is the gathering choice of the non gatherers after all.

Let Yourself Fall Behind -
If you happen to fall behind on your leatherworking, alchemy or blacksmithing do not worry about it.  Once you reach 90 and can fly it will make farming a breeze, you can easily go back and catch up on them later with your gatherers.  Spending extra time looking for nodes is just not worth it.  If anything, use your "over rested" skinner/miner/herbalist as the one that gets you the stuff you need.  Do not waste your own time.  Not to mention, once leveled up you will start to get stronger making gathering even easier.

Have Fun With It -
Part of leveling alts is the fact it is fun.  Just because you are trying to get to max fast does not mean you can't have a little fun with it.  While we all will make our routes for what works best for us to level fast some characters might have an easier time in some areas and some gatherers might find some areas better to farm.  While sticking to a set questing path is a good thing, be willing to compromise your plans and remember to have a little fun with it too.

No Dungeons -
If you are looking for speed, keep away from dungeons.  They are great the first time you do them with all the quests in them.  They are great if you have full rested and that one dungeon is all you have time to do.  Any other time, they are a waste of time better spent elsewhere.  You will get more materials, more gold, more gear, more reputation, more everything questing.  Even if some people like to justify that you get better gear from dungeons people need to face the facts that anything you get leveling, from a reward, a drop or a dungeon, is going to be replaced faster than you can imagine.  The better dungeon gear while leveling is just not worth going out of your way to get it.

KISS -
Kiss stands for Keep It Simple Stupid.  We are getting new talent trees.  If you are a good player you can figure out what is best for you and roll with it.  Leave the theory crafting for level 90.  Just because you think a new rotation might work, don't worry about taking the time to maximize your leveling DPS, it just does not matter.  Does the mob die fast enough?  Are you never in danger of dying yourself?  If the answer to both is yes, you do not even need any of those new skills, so don't waste time with them yet.  Have a few simple abilities bound and that is all you will need while leveling.  Keep It Simple Stupid, use the kiss method.

Well, that's all for now.

I wonder who will be my second capped character this time around.  Any bets?  I sure hope it is not my rogue again.  I still wonder how the hell that happened.

Fight Length: What is too long or too short?

Have you ever felt like a fight seemed so anticlimactic when it was done that it was not even worth doing?  Then the length of the fight was too short.

Have you ever felt so defeated after a few wipes and you see that 2 hours have passed already and you start to think if it is really worth it?  Then the length of the fight was too long.

We all have our own points where we start to think things are too short or too long.  We also have four completely different thresholds for what it too short or too long when it comes to fights.

The four major fight lengths are for PvP, leveling, dungeons and raids.  The following is my personal opinion of what I think are the perfect length of times for fights to make to feel comfortable.  For me this is how I define comfortable.  Long enough to make the fight feel as if it was a fight worth fighting and short enough to make you willing to do it again because it never felt like it dragged on.

PvP Fight Length:

When PvPing I think that two good players should be able to act and counter act each other enough to make the fight fun but not so much that it makes the fight take forever.  Yes healers and your 20 minute fights, I am looking at you.  My opinion of a good one on one PvP match is 1 minute.  Anything longer than one minute seems like you are dragging it out and anything substantially less seems like it was not even a fight worth fighting.

The one minute number also translates nicely into arena in my opinion.  A two on two fight should be two minutes.  A three on three fight should be three minutes.  A five on five fight should be five minutes.  While my arena experience is limited to only a few hundred matches I can say that it is rare any arena match ever falls in that range.  My team either sucks and gets destroyed faster or my team is better and destroys them faster.  Usually when we are well matched, the matches go a little longer then the 1 minute per person that I think is best.

Leveling Fight Length:

This is something I think is wrong with the game right now.  Even without heirlooms the average fight length is three globals at best.  Five would seem better if not even more.  I think for leveling fights should be between 10 and 20 seconds when one on one.  Not the 3 second kills they are now on many characters.  My disc priest is the other end of the spectrum, some fights are 40 seconds to a minute each, which feels way too long. 

I understand that balancing would be hard and if they made the fights harder so DPS actually lasted more than 1 shotting many mobs it would make my disc 2 minute fights instead but leveling disc is a choice for me.  Leveling should be balanced around DPS leveling and those fights should be 10 to 20 seconds each in my opinion.

Dungeon Fight Length:

I'll break this into two different things, trash and boss.  Trash should be no more then 30 seconds to clear.  Trash is trash and should never be time consuming.  The hardest of hard trash should be 30 seconds.  20 seconds for three DPS and a tank to handle 4 or 5 mobs would be reasonable.  If trash packs ever reach the one minute mark I think things are way the hell out of hand.  It is trash and should never take that long.

For boss fights I would say one and a half to two minutes would be ideal.  Last boss, maybe two and a half to three.  No more, ever.  These are dungeons, they should be long enough to be a noticeable battle but not so long that it feels like work.  Anything less then one and a half minute makes the boss seem more like really annoying trash and not really a boss. 

Sure, I love going into the original heroics now with a guild group that is geared and seeing how fast we can down a boss.  17 seconds might be really fun to laugh at but that is exactly what it is, a laugh.  But we out gear it by a huge margin so we are not a fair assessment.  My numbers are based on gear appropriate times.  In this case, with everyone wearing 329 item level gear, it should take 2 minutes max.  Do you recall some of the epic battles you had in randoms when everyone was 329 item level?  I bet you hoped and prayed and wished the fights where only 2 minutes.

Raid Fight Length:

For me, again at appropriate gear level, I think raid boss fights should be around 4 - 5 minutes.  Last boss, maybe as high as 8 minutes.  Anything less makes it feel like you over gear it before you even start which is nice sometimes but does not really give that "we beat a challenge" feeling and anything more feels like you are banging your head against the wall asking "when is this guy going to freaking die already".

The longer ones become worse when you wipe.  There is nothing more annoying then doing a 10 minute fight and wiping just at the end.  It feels like you wasted 10 minute of your life for nothing whereas if it is a 4 minute fight and you die after 3 minutes you feel like you can just run back in there and get back at it. 

I understand for most people it is different but for me I would rather wipe at the 2 minute mark 100 times than wipe at the 10 minute mark 20 times even if the time investment is the same.  The two minute mark makes you feel like you failed but you are jumping right back in with both feet whereas the 10 minute mark makes you feel like you invested all that time for nothing.  Again, my opinion only.

I could have went deeper with the too long and too short of things.  What is too long for a rep grind?  Molten core maybe.  What is too short of a rep grind?  Anything you can throw on a tabard for and never really work for rep. What is too long to travel between questing areas?  The old 25 minute flight between darn and tanaris.  What is too short?  Instant portals to where ever you want to go.  For the time being however, I am just voicing my opinions on fight length and those where them.

We all have our own thresholds on what we think is too long or too short, what are yours?

A New Leveling Model.

In my previous post I mentioned why I felt the process of leveling, as in 1-85, was outdated.  In this post I propose a new type of leveling.  It would serve the same purpose as the previous leveling experience, but in a different way which would allow people to level as an end game.

For this system to work everything would have to be gear based.  Gear has been the end game way of leveling in WoW and every MMORPG ever and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.  Once you reach max level the only way to level, for lack of a better word, your character is to get better gear.

The idea for this would be to allow questing to be a viable way to get gear and putting questing, dungeons and raids all on the same level.

Questing would be for the solo progression, dungeons for the small group progression and raids for large group progression.  This would take away from the "if you don't raid you suck" mentality many people seem to have as all three forms of progression would be equal for the most part.

You could still quest to level your character, gear wise, which is what the end game is all about.  Instead of using the dated model of questing to get to the end game, make questing part of the end game and not just a way to get to the end game.

Quests, just like dungeon access is now, would be unlocked based on gear level.  What is currently a 1-10 area would be for starter players just gearing up.  The 11-15 areas would be a step up as they got more gear from those quests and so forth and so on.  Each new expansion would add its questing areas as an additional step up.  Each step up would also be harder, designed to be a challenge meaning the game is always moving forward and never stepping back at the beginning of each new expansion to let new players catch up.

All areas would have three types of quests.  Standard quests, which once done are done but are always there.  Floating quests, which are story specific to the expansion and once the expansion is over they are gone.  Daily quests, which you would need to complete the loremaster for that area to open up.

The daily quests would also be expansion specific.  Each new expansion, even if you have the loremaster from the previous one, you would need to do a quest line to open the daily hub, the same one that someone getting there for the first time would need to.

Using daily quest hubs would also open up a whole new world for PvP.  In Elwynn forest the horde have no quests but being all areas will have quest hubs for both sides, the horde side quest hub there would all be PvP based.  No need to worry about horde PvPing in a low level alliance area as there is no such thing as a low level player any more.  Just lesser geared.  These such areas would be the areas that would unlock shops that you can purchase PvP gear.  More on shops later.

Each zone would have the standard quests opened up by an item level, just like they are opened up now by a character level.  So they would progress just as they do now.  It would also allow people to sometimes skip an area entirely if their skill level allowed, otherwise they would be forced to step back and get better gear and possibly even learn to play their character better.

Each quest area will be harder then the previous one.  While a level 84-85 zone might have the same collect 12 bear meat as the level 1-10 zone does, the level 84-85 zone will be massively harder do to mob ability, life, density in the area, etc.

So while you can easily get to the end game without ever doing a quest, if you wanted to, you actually had to work to level your gear with quest leveling.

The gear gained through questing, dungeons and raids will be exactly the same now with one minor difference.  The only difference would be gem slots for all the end game gear, quests gear would have 1, dungeon gear would have 2 and raid gear would have 3, but they would all be item level 397 for example and the same base stats.  BoEs, drops, crafted, whatever, would always have no slots what so ever.

Being the quests would be progressively harder based on area level, the same could be done for dungeons and raids meaning no need for nerfs on anything, ever.  The entire game would be coded for the current expansion, always, and each expansion would get progressively harder without nerfing the previous expansions before it as those previous expansions would still serve as part of the leveling up process because you will always still need the gear from it while moving up.

Questing, where it would lack in gem slots, would also offer specific rewards not available through raiding and dungeons.  Each area in the game would always have its own quest hub.  As such, each hub will offer its own unique goodies.  PvP shops would be opened in areas where your quest hubs are for PvP content, as mentioned before.

For example you can trade in 200 darkshore tokens for a darkshore pet.  Raids would offer the top gems, like they are doing this tier and dungeons would offer something like valor points to fill in the gaps but valor gear would be like BoE gear, no gem slots.  So all three would offer their own special thing.

Another example is something like opening the darkshore shop for purchasing gear.  Lets say darkshore had the top non dungeon or raid hunter back and I wanted it on my hunter, I would have to have done 250 darkshore dailies to be able to buy it.  This would work as a gold sink as well as making gated progression, the same as raids are now.

Raids add new levels of gear progression with each raid.  Questing could do the same.  When the new level of gear comes out, there will be a new cloak for me at darkshore that now requires me to have done 300 dailies.   Unless I went and kept doing them after I got my last one at 250, I need to start working toward a new one again.  If there are 5 dailies I can do there then that means at best it would take me 10 days to get my new cloak.

With every area in the game having dailies, it is likely that I would have switched to another area to try and get their shop open.  Or lets say the new hunter cape is in duskwood and I never did anything there, I would now need to work up to 300 there.  So while not raiding, I am still working on my characters progression though questing alone.

This would make for a massive amount of content, contently refreshing content.  For questers as well as for raiders and dungeon runners that need to fill in a spot here or there or just want to get pets, mounts, etc.

The daily counter would of course need to be reset each expansion as to not let later people be at a huge disadvantage, but for achievement purposes they would easily keep track of darkshore quests this expansion and darkshore quests total for when it comes to opening a shop.  Just like you need 7250 honor points this patch to buy a weapon, you would need 250 darkshore dailies, this expansion, and reset it as needed each expansion to reopen the shop.

You can truly level your character through questing.  You do not need a level number to be hung up on like 85 any more.  You are at the end game as soon as you start and begin to work on item level, the one true thing the game is based on.  Item level (gear score) had replaced level number a long time ago already.  So why waste your time leveling from 1-85 when once you get there 85 means nothing any more.  Let people level in the only way people know.  Level through gear.

With this design there would be many good side effects as well.  As every area in the game would now have a daily quest hub the likelihood that people will be out in the world will be much higher meaning more chances for world PvP and in my opinion, world PvP is the greatest part of the game when it comes to PvP, but remember, I am not really a PvPer so maybe that is why I like it so much, no organization needed, just mass slaughter, but that is for another post all together.

Being each new tier of gear and each new expansion means more reasons to do quests in all areas of the game it makes no area empty as there is something for everyone in every area, always.  With a gear reset each expansion as they might be planning to do with the squish idea, that means that even at the end of the expansion, the starter areas will actually still be current content, always.  While it might be easier, like questing in TB is now while in 397 gear is, it will not be as easy as going through ashenvale in 397 gear.

Gear leveling is the way to go when to comes to leveling.   The trip from 1-85 is no longer needed when the real trip doesn't even start until you reach 85 and start looking at item level.  I need 329 to get into heroics, 346 to get into zuls, 353 to get into HoTs, 372 to get into looking for raid, 380 before I can get into a DS pug, etc.  Those are the real levels.  You are not a level 85, you are a level 390.  Why not make the leveling process be all about the only level people seem to pay attention to.

There is one major fault with a system like this, the fact it could easily be faked.  Someone could start a new character and deck them out in all BoEs and crafted items to instantly be a decent item level.  Oh wait. that already happens.  Just like one of the rogues I mentioned in the previous post that was only rolled because the person wanted the legendary daggers did.

He hit 85, put on all his BoEs he was saving, spent a little on the AH, made a few crafted items, and finished it off with two PvP pieces, went into a LFR, got lucky and then went and bought a spot in a DS just to pickpocket for the daggers and win a few more items.  393 average item level in less then 6 hours after hitting 85.

So the system already works just like that now.  The only difference is, he wasted a few days play time to level now and would not have the other way.  Leveling from 1-85 is basically just a waste of a few days play time for someone like him and trust me, there are many like him.  For them level is a waste, nothing more.  It is time for a new leveling model so why not make questing, for different reasons, the new leveling model.

With this model the person that starts the game today is on the same level as everyone else.  They just need to earn their gear and not earn their levels just so they can earn their gear.  New players would not be scared away by the idea they need to get 85 levels before they can play because lets be honest, even as quick as they have made leveling, 85 levels does seem quite imposing to a new player and can scare some people away.

It would be a lot more attractive to a new player if they can create an account and start raiding the second they first log in, with of course the easiest raid made for beginners.  They can then level just through raids, each one getting pregressively harder as they build up their gear.  They can level through dungeons.  They can level through quests.  Either way they choose, the second they start the game they are right in the heart of the game, no need to look at the trek to 85 which from the perspective of fresh eyes looks like a very long trek.

Also, with a system like this, people can level their character so many different ways and as fast or as slow as they want to.  You can do everything, one thing, or a mix and match.  It is all there for you, it is all made for you, at any level you are, it is all accessible.

Could you just imagine doing older raids like AQ 40 or ulduar while leveling and it actually be meaningful content because it is an upgrade for your gear as opposed to what it is right now, old content for 60 or 85 that you do to blow through after you reach 85 for achievement sake only?

The way leveling is now you blow right past 60 and 80 you would never think of doing that content at level but if you are progressing based on gear only and not level you might actually do them because if their gear is an upgrade it will help you unlock new questing areas, new raids, and new dungeons.  This means it is wroth doing now, and not just something you go back to later, for the hell of it.  All content is meaningful content.  Always.  Nothing will ever get outdated by new expansions that easily.

I guess this really seems like gating content which I know most people would be against, but to me it seems more like progression on a personal level.  It would still take time for new players to get to the current end game but unlike now where they look at it and say I still have 20 levels to get before I can start gearing up they will look at it only as I am 20 item levels away until I can do the new raid and there is something about being 20 item levels away that seems more as if you earned your way when compared to 20 more levels before you are allowed to do it.

Don't get me wrong, leveling with levels and leveling with gear would basically be the same thing but it is the feeling surrounding it that would make the biggest difference.

New players would feel as if they are right in the game, in the heart of it and if they want to burn the midnight oil so to speak they can get to end game quickly by questing through all the areas.

Old players can come back at any time and not think, crap, I have not played since BC I have to catch up 15 levels, they can just go and move right into it. They can pick up questing or start off at the last level of dungeons and raids there where at when they left and continue directly from there instead of being forced to get those 15 levels.

People that want alts can still roll their alts and still experience all the content while getting loremaster on the new alts without feeling as if they are out leveling content before it is done, as you can not out level anything any more, if you want to finish the area that is up to you, enjoy the story, no worries about the quests being gray because it does not matter, you have no levels to gain anyway.

The skill level of end game would be better too.  No nerfs needed.  Being the whole system is always getting harder every step of the way, people will be leveling based on skill as well as gear.  If your skill stalls you at the black temple, you will not get better gear then that to move any further.

If you choose to quest your heart out to get some higher level gear, you will be noticed as having quest gear (1 slot) or BoE gear (no slots) and not raid gear (3 slot).  You can then use your actual skill, with lesser gem slots, to earn your space into a regular raid but it would be known that you are not a raider on that character.

Gear leveling just makes so much more sense now.  A lot more sense then a new player looking in at the game and seeing they have to make 85 levels before they can even start playing.  A lot more sense then making the leveling process so easy no one learns anything.  Gated content, people will complain, but gated by gear, gear you earn for your true level, item level, now that is a much better leveling model if you ask me.

Maybe it is time for a change.  I doubt they are going to go back to long and hard leveling, they are just going to make it shorter and the shorter it gets, the less reason there is for it to even be there.  Something will need to be done some day because I know damn well if I where to start now, I might look at 85 and think, screw it, that is just way to much playing catch up to do.

Way to much when there are so many other games out there with less levels to get, better graphics, newer, and fresh.  Letting people jump right into the real game instead of making them level 85 levels first can only be good for a game that can no longer say it has no real competition out there.

Is The Leveling Model Dated?

I know there are many that disagree with me and in a way I disagree with myself on the matter but I think that leveling is really no longer of any use in the game.  While the fact remains true that I love leveling characters, always have and to some extent still do with the redesign of the old world even if it is not as much as I used to.

Outside of being a nice way to break the monotony of the end game grind, be it PvP, raids, dungeons, what have you, the end game is a series of repetitive tasks and while leveling can get repetitive as well it is not the same old same old.  This is why I still have fun leveling even if I do not like the redesigned questing and the super fast leveling speed.

The speed of the leveling however has taken a big chuck out of what I enjoyed about leveling alts.  If I made an alt and played in once in a while it would take months to level up.  Each day playing it was an adventure.  It was always faster once you knew what you where doing, where the good quests are, how to piggyback the quests to maximize experience gained for time spent, which quests had horrible drop rates or spawn rates so you knew to avoid doing them, etc. but it still took some time.  The time factor was the main reason I liked leveling alts.  As I said, it gave me something to do.

Just before 4.3 was released I decided to level another hunter.  I went through the leveling process at record speed.  Not such a bad thing for me.  I started it right before the release of 4.3 and wanted to get it done before it was released so it never occurred to me how wrong that was.

This weekend I decided to level yet another hunter.  Can you tell I love playing a hunter?  Working on hunter number 6 to make it to 85.  That hunter, the one I was hoping to just waste a little time with here and there, now that my valor grind is done on the majority of my characters, is already 62.  Yes, 62 in less then 1 day play time.  Much less then 1 day play time.

It seems the record time from my last hunter leveling, which was only a few weeks ago, is going to be shattered once again.  Entering BC content I was looking forward to the quests I normally knock out early for maximum experience gain.  There are plenty of elite quests there.  They give me a sense of challenge, a feeling of accomplishment, and a nice chuck of experience to boot.

It is with a sad heart I say that all those quests seem to be gone.  They where there only weeks ago when my last hunter went though there.  All those elite mobs are just normal mobs now.  One that I used to always have to wait until I was 62 or 63 I destroyed in seconds at 59 because the mob was no longer an elite.

Why did they do this?  I understand that the leveling process is only there to make your way to the end when, as some people say, the real game begins.  So I see why they want to make it faster but at what point does it make leveling useless?  Does leveling even serve a purpose any more?

If leveling does serve a purpose perhaps I am missing it.  As I have at least one of each class at max level I have at least a serviceable knowledge of every class.  While some I might not be very good at I know more than enough to make leveling any class easy.  Perhaps that is why I see no challenge in it.  I am tainted.  I've been there and done that.  I can not give an objective view that someone who is leveling for the first time would have.

It is from hearing everyone else around the net saying it and people in my own guild saying that makes me think it is not my tainted perspective that is saying leveling is too easy, it really is in fact that easy.

Being max level used to be a task in and of itself.  When you saw someone running around at max level you knew at the very least they put in some serious time and effort to get there.  Even in wrath that was the case.  Just that short time ago I would hear people say they did not want to level again because it was hard and took to long.

The most recent updates to leveling have removed the hard word, now people just say it takes too long.  Leveling is easy but it takes too long.  I hear it all the time and I disagree wholeheartedly.  I think leveling is way to quick.

Maybe if they made people actually work to get to max level people would not be rolling flavor of the month classes just for the hell of it.  I personally know of 11 people that leveled a rogue as soon as the rogue legendary was mentioned.  They leveled it in the spare time, no power leveling, and it still took them no time to level it.

If it were like it was even a short time ago in wrath I bet you not all of them would have.  If it where like it was back in BC I bet even fewer would have.  If it where like vanilla I can assure you that all 11 would have said, screw that, I am not spending months leveling a character I might not even like.  Not to mention, even with power leveling, there would have been no way to get to max level in less then 4 game days played.

If leveling does not mean anything, why is it there any more?

Every aspect of the game has its own level of progression.  Progression is not a word just meant for raiding alone.  You can make personal progression in many aspects in the game, the first we all come across is leveling.  That is our first gauge of personal progression.

People complain when raids are nerfed, when heroics are nerfed, when rep gains a nerfed, when they worked for something, they earned something, and everyone else gets the easy route but none of them can hold a candle to the nerf that leveling got.

No raid has ever been nerfed as badly as leveling has.  Even LK can still wipe some 85 groups in all 378 or better gear and it was both nerfed and now heavily outgeared.  So do not cry to me about raids being nerfed.  Raids can not hold a candle to the nerf that leveling has gotten and continues to get.

If leveling keeps being nerfed to make it easier and easier then I am left to wonder, why even have it at all?

I've got an idea for an alternate leveling model that would make it more attractive to most players and allow people the ultimate quick start if they do not want to actually level. 

In effect, the game starts at the end game in my model.  I will post it tomorrow.  It is leveling, but leveling in a different way, which would allow people that like to level, like myself, the ability to do so and people that they keep nerfing leveling for, so they can make it to end game faster, the ability to start a new character and be end game instantly.

As leveling is right now, I do not think it serves any purpose, other then to waste a little bit of time.

The Second Hunter

Not exactly my second hunter, maybe my 15th, but it is the second hunter on my main alliance server.  It was created with a thought in mind.  I want to get it to max level so I have two end game hunters.  Yes, it remains true that finding pugs for hunters are few and far between but on the rare occasion there is one I would like to bring my main hunter into them and have a second hunter that I could use for guild stuff.

At the beginning of the expansion I rarely got to use my hunter because I was always needed to heal or tank for the guild and I never pugged with it because I always kept it open should it be needed.  When it comes to my personal ability I am a far better hunter then I am with any other class and that probably comes from the fact I like playing it.

Because of that, and the fact my server is still not capable of pugging T11 content for the most part, my hunter still needs three bosses from T11 to have finished everything.  I need chim and nef in BWD and council in BoT because the only times I have done those three I have tanked or healed them.

A second hunter is going to make sure that never happens again.  My hunter is my main and as such it is the only one I actively care about completing content with.  When I get my second hunter to 85 it will play a vital role in my game play.  It will be part of my main hunter and not really a second hunter.

If raid night comes and I can run my hunter my main hunter will go with guild.  If I am needed to tank or heal then my main hunter will pug the current content on the weekend and I will leave my second hunter to play back up, should it be needed when we continue the raid.

This way I never have to go two months without stepping into a raid on my main again.  Sure, I hate pugs, but when it comes down to it I would rather pug with my hunter then not play it at all.  It is my main and as such it is the one I enjoy playing most and I just want to play with it.

Not to mention, there is the rare occasion that I was asked to come join a pug from some of the top guilds on the server and I always needed to say no because I was saving my hunter in case it was needed for the guild run.  I will never run into that problem again.  I can now run with it and not have to worry about not having a hunter available for the guild runs.

My second hunter might never get close to the gear my main has but based on my ability as a hunter I can still perform quite well even when I have slightly lesser gear so it would not he hurting anyone.  While gear plays a much larger part of the equation now I've routinely done well even if I were a few item levels lower then those around me.

I've been having a great time leveling my second hunter.  Made it a night elf as well, I want it to be a like my current hunter, if I can, with the exception that I made the second one a female and with different professions.  I imagine them as brother and sister.  Yes, I have back stories to my characters even if they are not on an RP server.

I've leveled many hunters but this is my first night elf hunter since cataclysm and I can say that things really changed since I first went through the starting area.  One day I might post about the changes since the last time through there some years ago but that is another story.

I almost forgot what fun it was to play a hunter at low levels being I have been playing with other alts for such a long time.  Starting a new hunter is even better now with the pet before level 10.  Having a pet before level 10 really is over powered.  It seems like they balanced the characters and then added the pet as an after thought.

I kill everything before it gets to me, my poor kitty cat has a taste for blood and it never even gets to attack anything.  Like I said, it is balanced for me to be able to kill it.  Not for me and my pet to be able to kill it.

I think my cat got his first taste of blood around level 12 or so when I pulled two mobs and could not down both before they got to me.  Not like the second one lasted more then 1 second after it did get to me.

My baby hunter is now 21 and still everything is dying before it gets to me.  My cat is starving, it needs to eat, I have started sending it in first just so it could have some fun killing too.  I felt bad for it running back and forth and never getting to do anything, I had to let it have some fun.  What type of pet owner would I be if I never let my pet have any fun.  Not to mention, sending it in first is the right way to play the class when solo.

Sending in pet, concussive shot, stuff like that is what good hunter skills are all about but with the super easy leveling, things being balanced around the hunter only, and well spread out mobs to prevent accidentally pulling to many, the basic skills of being a good hunter get lost in the leveling process now.

For me it feels like a loss, for new players it makes it easy.  I guess it is a toss up.  A new player might still need to do the little things because they do not know any better.  So while I dislike it, maybe I can understand it a bit.

Hunters are like gods when it comes to questing, they always have been.  When it comes to quest grinding hunters are made for that type of work.  I've always said for 90% of the basic grinds out there you can not find a class better than a hunter to do it.  A lot of that has to do with the pet.  Some of it has to do with CC.  The rest is just all the stuff in their little bag of tricks, and trust me if you have never played a hunter they do have a huge bag of tricks.

I think cataclysms redesign of the old world has made hunters even more powerful when it comes to leveling.  As I mentioned earlier, it seems as if all mobs where balanced around all classes being able to beat them and the classes only.  This means the pets damage is all extra, it is bonus, it is not part of the balance when leveling.

Not sure if you can chalk it up to the changes, my experience, or a combination of both, but leveling as a hunter really seems OP.

I guess that is good in a way if I want to get to 85 ASAP.  This is why they made leveling so fast, for people that want to get to the end game as fast as possible.

I feel bad for the new players and the people that like leveling alts.  The changes are great for me leveling my hunter because I want my hunter to get their as fast as possible.  The changes suck for all my other alts I want to have fun leveling with.

The joy of leveling and the learning from leveling.  Both where sacrificed, just so I can power level my hunter.

Not sure that was a good trade off.

Either way, I wonder what will happen first.  Me getting bored of leveling my second hunter or me hitting 85.  Less then 5 hours in so far, level 21.

I might have to side track some, I leveled so fast I out leveled my skinning so I have to go back to killing some mobs I get no experience from just to play catch up.

That is the worst part of fast leveling.  Your skills seem to get left behind.

I figure I can throw a few hours at my hunter a week and see what happens.  I doubt it will get to 85 before the patch and I get distracted on my main doing all the new stuff, but at least I now have something else to have some fun with on my main server.

Maybe I can turn that one into an achievement hunter as well.  Like I said, hunters are the best for most of that stuff.