Well Ruadia is running in Outland leveling as elemental. It's a change from my previous enchancement spec, but it's cool, although a bit blant. Lightning bolt lightning bolt etc.... I'm also working on my leatherworking, will see how much I like it.

Entering Outland! Ruadia is 58 and ready to go to outland!

Well I'm back to the dilemma of wanting to heal instances in Northrend while I'm leveling, but not wanting to have a spec that does poor damage when I'm questing. Being Protection specked is awesome for grinding speed and completing quests where you just go to kill a bunch of mobs. But my heart still wants to heal :(. I tried a hybrid holy/retro build and did not like it at the end.

So the other night I downloaded the PTR and copied my paladin there. I then proceeded to respect into holy. I then went around killing mobs of my level to see my damage output. I tried it without using the exorcism since you can use it on all mobs now, not just the undead. Well after experimenting with different gear, that is trying the spell damage/intellect gear that I would use for healing, then trying my protection gear with the mace and shield. I finally found the best combination - I've put my prot/dps gear with a two handed weapon, and left a few pices to increase my intellect ( mostly rings and neck). And boom, there is a build you can level with.

Unlike all the other people who recommend for the holy build to rely on spell damage for the DPS, I say not so! It may be true for some great holly pally who is coming geared up epics from BC. I unfortunately only have the questing gear and stuff I can make with my Blacksmithing. So what i found is I don't need to buff my spell damage, it's going to be there automatically. If I add 600 spell damage the spell damaging spells will increase very slightly, but if I put my DPS gear with lots of strength and put my big two hand ax on, I got nice spell damage and a nice white damage from the ax. So it worked well on the PTR. I think today I'll try it on the life and see how well I can still quest with it. Here is the build I'll take, note that I'm putting 5 points into the strength talent so I can do more white damage.

Proposed holly build for questing/healing:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sEA0x0zhVuzxRx0xZVd

To my readers, I am planning to complete the getting my lock to raid at 80 series and will create the part 3 with all the trinkets, rings and etc.

Meanwhile I've been raiding a bit with my guild in Nax, although I've been so far very unlucky with drops. I know that this will change! :)

Well my warlock is almost 80.  Can't wait to get there.  Not because I want to rush to 80 but simply most of my guild mates are at 80 and are constantly running heroics and beginning to raid.  I really enjoy running instances with my guild and thus feel left out.  So I will focus on doing quests and focusing on leveling that last level ASAP.  Then i can slow down and continue doing quests to get more lore and help my reputations.

I really enjoy questing in Northrend.  The quests are beautifully tied into the lore that you get to explore.  Plus the mechanics of operating machines, guns, flying dragons etc are really cool.  My next toon to get into Northrend will start off in the other entry level zone so I can do all the quests there.

As far as my other two favorite alts, my AOE mage and paladin, I also want to get back to play them.  I think my goal is to get my mage to 50 so that I can level my enchanting for DE purposes.  Then I will work on the paladin.  I do want to havea  healer class in end game.  However, I did get tired oh my druid, who is now 49.  Druid healer was my original goal, but I think i might go with a paladin instead.  I love AOE grinding and questing.  It's just too much fun to pass up.

This is a follow up post to my previous entry regarding AOE and your Alts.  I've been AOE grinding with my frost mage and my protection paladin, and all I have to say is that AOE grinding is better then ever.  The Frost Mage is a lot of fun with the fact that Blizard now crits.  With correct talent (here is the talent build I am using), and the glyph that allows for extra damage to the MOB before they break out of frost nova, that blizzard will crit quite a few times.  In fact looking at some videos from the past of a mage a bout my level (mid 40s) grinding with AOE and Blizzard I can say that my blizzard does double if not triple damage now, thus killing the MOBs on the second wave.

Paladins are even in a better situation.  It is easier to manage seals and judgements, and do additional DPS.  Plus the change to Blessing of Sanctuary to move it from DPS to mana regenaration is great, I no longer run out of mana while I'm AOE grindnign and can use more DPS abilities that relie on mana.  Here is my build for paladin.

The conventional wisdom with all the recent patches is that it's much more productive to quest then to grind.  Even when it comes to AOE grinds, it's still better to just do the quest.  Perhaps that is true.  But what if you have an alt who you just use to DE things.  He's level 44 and you don't feel like doing quests which you've already done recently with two other alts.
Well if he's a mage, why not AOE grind.  I've tried this with my mage when I was in my level 20's.  At that point I did not like it at all.  In fact I hated the whole frost things.  Now at 44 and with tons and tons of rested XP, why not AOE a bit now and then and get to level 50, while I keep leveling my main through the Northrend, and take my time there to enjoy the quests.

So I've specked my mage frost AOE, and some initial AOEing proved to be quite fun.  It's soooo nice to have the ice barrier.  Before it, it was always a very close call when I did AOE.  Now it's much more practical and safer.  I will tweak the spec tonight, and will do some more murlock killing.

At the same time, it gives me an idea to about my other alts.  My paladin can also gain a few levels this way.  In fact he was my first AOE successful experiement, I leveled him and did most of the questing using a proteciton spec.  My biggest question is can I do the same with my druid.  I've read some posts, and it may be possible to grind him as AOE.  I should try feral, and balance perhaps to see which is more viable.

I've decided to pick up inscription on my druid.  My druid, who's my newest favorite Alt. is the second character I've created when I originally began playing WoW.  He fell out of my favor, and became my main banking and AH toon.  Originally he was herbalist/alchemist.  However, I've droped alchemy and leveled enchanting on him to DE my unneeded greens and do DE arbitrage in AH.

I was playing around with the idea of picking up inscription on my druid, since he had herbalism already.  The other day I was scanning the AH for the glyphs for sale, and after buying a couple, my decision was sealed.  Today I've droped enchanting ( I'll level it back up to a needed level to DE on anouther alt), and began my journey to gather some lower level herbs and level inscription.

The two glyphs I've picked up were:

Glyph of Rake

Glyph of Rejuvenation

Both glyphs are great and pretty useful for my leveling as a druid.  One will help with the runners when I'm in cat form ( most of the time), the other will help me during those times when you're almost dead, and throw a Rejuvenations on yourself before going back into cat/bear form to finish the mob off.

Right now people are making a lot of money with inscription, simply because it's new and market is not yet saturated.  People can charge what ever they want.  Also, the minor glyphs are not trainable, you have to discover them.  They are selling for ridiculous prices right now.  In the future Inscription may not be as profitable as it is right now.  However, at this stage of WoW, i have plenty of ways to make Gold in WoW even without a crafting profession.  So inscription will definitely will be useful in playing and leveling.

I hope that in the later game there will be glyphs that are discovery only or reputation, that will make this profession profitable as well.  So far, back to gathering peace blooms and silverleafs :).

I have not blogged lateley.  Mainly because of not palying as much, as well as playing Warhammer Online.  I'll write about Warhammer in anouther post.

Playing Beta, I'm beggining to really enjoy PVP with a premaid level 80 Restro Druid.  Resto Druids are a lot of fun.  It's almost like playing an afliction warlock only in reverse.  Hot Hot Hot.

I've began to level my druid, who has been my bank, and I'm actually enjoing it.  Druids are weared.  Either you love them or you hate them.  I'm starting to love mine.  Maybe my next alt.  But hey, they never survive past 45. LOL

Well see.

[caption id="attachment_72" align="alignnone" width="364" caption="My Pally at 41"][/caption]

My paladin is over 40.  I've been having a lot of fun gridning 2 to 3 mobs at a time in the Stranglehorn Valey.  Paley AOE is a lot of fun.  Now that I've got the Holy Shield and a new shield with a mithril spike on it, this will be even more fun.  Mobs drop like stones.  :)

I've been actually realy enjoing playing with my pally.  I think I will try to get him to 70 before expancion comes out.   Get's me invovled while we are all waiting for wrath to comes out.

The new patch 3.0 will come out soon, and i'd like to see how it will change my gameplay since it will have a lot of changes to pallies.

Now my goal is to outfit him with plate.  It seems that at level 40 many other paladings and warriors rush into the AH to get their plate, only to find out prices in the 20 and 30 gold range for basic plate green.  Just got to watch out for bargains and snatch them up.

My paladin, which is right now my favorite alt, recently hit 30. Besides getting my cool free mount, I've also decided to give AOE grinding a try. Up to level 30 I was leveling as Retribution. Having some nice gear from Shadowfang keep, which I ran with my level 70 friend, was decently fun. But, I was really curious about AOE after I hit level 30.

I've been leveling my Paladin a bit, and I'm quite enjoying him. He's already at level 28, and I can't wait to get my mount at 30. However, in this post I'd like to mention why I love pallys when I group with them.

Salvation - Can you say shoot without worrying about threat? As a decently T4 geared warlock I get spoiled with this pally buff. If I'm in a 5 man, or god forbid Kara without a pally, not having this buff really rally gimps my DPS because just by casting all my DoTs my threat jumps a lot. You should see me begging for this buff all the time.

Well, I don't have much to post on that comes to mind and does not involve too much time :). Presently I've got into a nice guild that raids a lot (by my standards). I've been doing Mag and Grull, and we even did some trash and got to first boss on Mt. Hijal. So it was fun and I got a nice clock from trash mob drop.

I've been also leveling my druid, who is my bank/enchanter. I want to get him to level 35 because i want to disenchant all those greens over 64 that i accumulated. They are becoming annoying in my mailbox "bank". I'm too lazy to find anouther Dissenchanter to DE them. Too many at this point.

I toyed with the idea of leveling my druid to 70. I respecked feral and was breezing through the mobs. My goal is that I want a end game healer. However, I don't know if I want to play my priest to 70 (currently in his high 30's). I find Druid Tree healing is really cool, but I don't find leveling druid pleasurable.

I've created a Pally and I think I will play with that character and level to 70. I find Pallys to be very self sufficient, and at the end of the game they can Heal or Tank. I think they will also benefit a lot from all the additional Plate gear with caster attributes that they will share with Death Knights. I find leveling them interesting - a new challenge.

My Mage who I finally learned how to play is gathering dust at level 41. I think I got to a point where it was too easy to play him now that he's a fire specked. I guess I want something different Endgame, and Mage is too similar to a warlock as far as gear/damage etc. Paladin offers different dynamics to learn. Plus I can Heal (I guess I'm a closeted healer).

I've been suffereing with my mage for a long time, trying to pick up playing with him only to get frustrated.  From the very beggining I named him Moroz, which means frost in Russian.  I inteded for him to be frost from the beggining.  I've tried so many time to respec him into pure frost frost and arcane and frost for AOE gridning.  Yet even after I started to have fun with the frost AOE, i got bored of that, and still got owned by a mob a few levels above me.

Finally, finally at level 30 i've specked into pure fire.  Boy-oh-boy.  Things are pretty easy now.  I don't run out of mana, and mob goes down pretty quickly.  Perhaps fire is the way to level a mage after all. :)

I've rediscovered Fishing. Now my fishing previously was at about 295, which I got there to get my cooking above 350. Then i kinda stopped fishing. I did not feel like going back to Azeroth to fish, and yet I found fishing in Outland a bit tedious since it would take 8-9 fish to go to the next level. Well the other day I wanted a different experience form WoW, so i logged in as Moramor, went to Cenarion Expedition's outpost in Zangarmarsh, bought some lure and began fishing. I actually found it fun.

After catching about 30 fish in open water, I started to run around and fishing in the pools that are sprinkled all around the water in that area. Well, let me tell you, it was actually fun, and profitable. I was catching trunks from the floating debris pools, including the Golden Darter, which sells very very well in AH in raw form or in the fish sticks, which grant +healing bonus. There is also a fish which is gray in quality, but sells for 6 gold!

Finally, I was also pulling out motes of water. These darn motes which when I was making my frozen set I needed so much. I used to kill tons of Water Elementals for those motes. I could have just fished, and got motes, fishing experience and fish for my troubles. Oh well. I am going to try now to fish the pure water pools to see how many motes I get there. Motes from fish and wreckage pools are uncommon, but still come pretty well.

It seems fishing is not something people level or bother with. Well from my recent experience, I would say that you should level it, and use it to get cools stuff and profit at the same time.

Here is a cool site I found related to fishing in WoW: El's Extreme Anglin' - WoW Fishing Guide

The the "world" in World of Warcraft is really that - it's a world.  The game is huge as far as the territories and places it contains.  With the addition of Outland and also the new Blood elf island it keeps getting bigger.  So what is you favorite zone?  What's the least favorite one?

When I just started to play WoW i used to love running around exploring new zone once I got to that level.  Since most of this was done pre-mount it took a long time, and was one of the reasons it took me forever to level my first toon to 70.  It was just so cool and interesting.  I do less of it now, since it's all about leveling quickly and efficiently.  Still, there are zones I like more and others that I like less.

Besides the different theme, each zone very often also has it's own theme music and it's own unique feel.  One of my favorite zones in Outland, for example, is the Zangarmarsh.  I love the colors, the theme, and the music it has. It's very calm and tranquil.

One of the zones that I enjoy looking at, but hate playing in is Ashenvale.  Main reason being that is so hard to get around.  You look at the map and it seems easy to get from point A to point B.  But then you find out that there are all of these terrain obstacles and you got to go around. And usually by running around in that manner you run into tons and tons of Mobs, usually beasts.  I get very frustrated in that zone.

What's your experience like?

I've finally got my troll priest to the same level as my human priest, that I've shelved for now. And just for kicks I decided to respec him into shadow to get the MindFlay. Well I ran around and tried it out, and I did not like it. I was much more happy with my discipline build, and I went right back to it.

Well my friend finally convinced me to come to the dark side. He is leveling his priest as a blood elf, and kept commenting that we would not be able to play together. So I gave in and created a Horse priest. I've decided to go with the troll because I've never really leveled a troll race, so the starting zone experience would be new to me. And of course the other biggest reason is the cool dance - can't beat Capoeira! Since i did capoeira for a bout a year, I would be doing capoeira vicariously. Hmm... Maybe one day I should actually go play some capoeira in the real world too :D.

I'm also planning to level as shadow. To many that would have been a no brainer. To me it was not. I was leveling my alliance priest as discipline. I've even convince my level 40 priest friend to switch from leveling holy to discipline. He loves it. I'll go shadow to level 40 and try it out. If I don't like it I'll switch to discipline.

The other day, I decided to create a brand new undead priest, and quickly level her to the same level as my human priest, who is almost level 20. After spending about an hour and getting the new priest to level 19, I got bored. Combined with being tired, and also Medivh server being extremely laggy, I logged off.

The realization hit me the next day. I love playing WoW, I hate leveling. What is the difference? One you do for enjoyment of the game. You play the game while you increase your experience and level. The other you do as quickly as possible to get to 70.

Well I hate leveling, even to catch to my friend level 40 toon, or to my own toon on opposite faction who's level 19. Leveling sux! Goes back to my post about life before or after 70.

I think I'm done leveling. I'm gonna play from now on, no matter how long it takes me to get to level 70.