One of the big new things they introduced in Wrath was Heirlooms. Basically it's a piece of gear your alt will never have to replace while levelling from 1-80. The item is equippable at any level (given you meet the armor/weapon proficiency and all that) and scales as you level up, with the stats being slightly better than the best blue item you can equip at that level.
But the main reason people use heirlooms isn't because of the convenience, it's the fact that they give experience boosts. Heirlooms shoulders and chests EACH give a 10% xp boost which stack. So if you were levelling an alt who had heirloom shoulders and chests, you could level 20% faster than a non-geared alt.
With the launch of cata came two new types of heirlooms - capes and hats. I don't believe anyone out there has obtained the hats yet since it requires guild level 20 (guild xp gains are capped per week), but the capes are attainable at guild level 10. At 1200g apiece it's a bit pricey, but they give an additional 5% xp boost! The hats, when they are actually available, will be adding another 5% xp boost.
In addition to just armor, there are a whole slew of weapons (melee, caster, ranged) and even trinkets (physical/magical). Given that you don't even get a glimpse of trinkets until level 45-50 or so, the heirloom trinkets are very nice to have, if not for the stats themselvs, then for the sake of not having empty item slots.
The Pros:
Obviously, the vastly increased pace of levelling. While the combined bonus of the chest, shoulder, and cape add up to 25%, in reality the levelling speed is much greater. Obviously it's not something I have actually measured since levelling speed depends so much on your play style anyways, but you can definitely FEEL that it's way faster than 25%, especially in the early stages of the game.
Why? Think about this - a freshly created level 1 character starts out with what? A few basic pieces of armor and a weapon.
Now in comparison, what does your uber-pimped out alt have? Chest armor, shoulder armor (the lowest level non-heirloom shoulders are equippable at level 15), a weapon (2 if you can dual wield), ranged weapon, cape, and 2 trinkets.
So while Mr. Noobsauce over there is taking 10 seconds to kill that level 3 boar, you're mowing through, one-shotting boars left and right. While Noobsauce has to carefully fight one-on-on, you're pulling 2 or 3 at a time. When Noobsauce accidentally falls off that rock and dies, you easily survive the fall with your high armor and hp. When that tough quest mob kills Noobsauce, you're yawning as you take him down with two clicks of the mouse.
The Cons:
I know, I know, what can possibly be bad about heirlooms? Well, in my opinion it sort of ruins the levelling experience. Don't get me wrong, if your goal is to powerlevel to 85 ASAP and start raiding because you've seen and done everything already, by all means mow through the content. But I play my alts purely for fun. All of my energy and focus for raiding is spent on my main, and when I log onto my alts, I just want to do some fun little quests, maybe actually see the storyline unfold in a particular zone I've never been in, level some new professions for fun, etc etc. And of course, squealing with excitement at gear upgrades. But when you're decked out in heirlooms, there's no such thing as a gear upgrade. You can't really fully experience a zone because you level through content too quickly. There's no real challenge in fighting anything - elite mobs, group quests, whatever. You know you'll just two-shot it.
Of course as you get into higher levels, the discrepancies between a non-heirloom and an heirloom char become lessened. At level 60 you will probably have only a slight edge compared to Mr. Noobsauce, who has by now acquired almost full blues from all his dungeoning endeavors. You will still have that permanent 25% boost, but you're probably not mowing through mobs like you did back in eversong woods.
I use heirlooms because I like to have my characters wearing the best stuff they can possibly get. The levelling speed is a bit too quick, but I still try to take my time to enjoy the questlines in new zones and once in a while actually reading the quest text. I also put time into my professions, even secondary ones like cooking and fishing which most people simply ignore on their alts. Once you get to 85 there really isn't much to do besides raiding end-game content. While that's very fun at times, it's nice to stop and smell the peacebloom once in a while too.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
It's all about the cash money
Have I mentioned that I am now quite wealthy in the world of warcraft? It's hard to say exactly how wealthy I am because it's not as if people go around touting how much gold they have all the time (although one guy did...he had the max limit you were able to have, which was something ridiculous like 2^32g (blizz uses 32-bit integers for their money programming, hence the power of 32).
Currently I am sitting at ~50k. Before I bought that epic chest I had even more, somewhere around ~62k gold. How did I get to be so rich? The best answer is Cataclysm. When a new expansion or even a new major patch hits, the prices for the new herbs, ores, leathers, fish, and other crafting mats skyrocket. Within a few months they drop to 1/10 the price, which is why it's important to get your share of the pie early on! I remember when the last lich king patch hit, I was able to sell a primordial saronite for ~1500g. By the time cata was about to hit, they were going for ~200g.
I've been primarily making money off of my alchemy skill. Sadly, as awesome as enchanting is, it is not really a huge money-maker at the moment. Whatever dusts and shards I get from DE'ing quest rewards doesn't get sold, but instead used to level my enchanting. At least I'm not spending insane amounts of levelling a profession, but there's no profit either. Though I do have some grand designs to make a killing with enchanting...stay tuned!
How does alchemy boost my finances you say? It's all about the transmutes, baby! The two huge money makers so far have been shadowspirit diamonds and truegold. I can take 3 each of the low level green cata gems (so 18 total) and make that into 2 shadowspirit diamonds. I have a jewelcrafting alt who can prospect the gems for me, so I simply buy stacks of obsidium ore (~50g per stack), which nets around 6-8 various gems per stack. So 3 stacks of ore will usually give me enough gems to transmute two diamonds, which go for 150g a pop. Thus I've just earned double what it cost me! Huzzah!
Throw in the fact that occasionally I get a rare blue gem during prospecting (~3-5% of the time) and the occasional proc, I'm making a pretty little profit here. Sometimes when ore prices drop to ~40g a stack, I buy them all up and hoard them. Conversely when diamond prices are low I hoard them until they go back up.
Truegold transmutes are also awesome, but they have a 24 hours CD so I don't get to make as many as I want. The starting mats are pyrium bars (purchaed from AH or smelted with my mining alt), 10 each of volatile fire (fished in Hyjal), water (gained through fishing), and air (transmuted from volatile life through alchemy). For about ~60g worth of pyrium bars, I can sell a truegold bar for ~700g. That's over 10 times the profit folks!
Truegold is annoying though in that I have to spend some time farming it. Plus the volatile air transmute is on the same CD so every 2-3 days I have to waste my CD on that as opposed to truegold. Although lately volatile air prices have dropped a lot, so maybe I'll start buying them rather than waste a valuable CD.
My next project is to either buy/prospect a lot of ore to get stacks of cheap greem gems. My JC alt can turn those gems into green rings, necklaces, and even fist weapons, which I will DE with my main and sell the dusts and shards. My calculated average costs are:
net cost (stack of ore) = 50g
gems per ore = ~7
items produced per stack of ore = ~2.5
hypnotic dusts per item = ~3
price of hypnotic dust = ~12g ATM
gold earned from dust = 90g
net profit = 40g per stack!
Not too bad. And that's not even considering that fact that occasionally you get 1-3celestial essences from DE'ing, which are worth even more $$! PLUS as I mentioned before, prospecting yields rare gems, and sometimes you will get a blue item from JC as opposed to cheap green ones. Those I will just sell for ~100g a pop as opposed to DE for dusts.
I bought up a lot of cheap ore just the other night, and I'm planning on putting this plan into action as soon as I have time. We'll see what the payoff is soon enough!
Currently I am sitting at ~50k. Before I bought that epic chest I had even more, somewhere around ~62k gold. How did I get to be so rich? The best answer is Cataclysm. When a new expansion or even a new major patch hits, the prices for the new herbs, ores, leathers, fish, and other crafting mats skyrocket. Within a few months they drop to 1/10 the price, which is why it's important to get your share of the pie early on! I remember when the last lich king patch hit, I was able to sell a primordial saronite for ~1500g. By the time cata was about to hit, they were going for ~200g.
I've been primarily making money off of my alchemy skill. Sadly, as awesome as enchanting is, it is not really a huge money-maker at the moment. Whatever dusts and shards I get from DE'ing quest rewards doesn't get sold, but instead used to level my enchanting. At least I'm not spending insane amounts of levelling a profession, but there's no profit either. Though I do have some grand designs to make a killing with enchanting...stay tuned!
How does alchemy boost my finances you say? It's all about the transmutes, baby! The two huge money makers so far have been shadowspirit diamonds and truegold. I can take 3 each of the low level green cata gems (so 18 total) and make that into 2 shadowspirit diamonds. I have a jewelcrafting alt who can prospect the gems for me, so I simply buy stacks of obsidium ore (~50g per stack), which nets around 6-8 various gems per stack. So 3 stacks of ore will usually give me enough gems to transmute two diamonds, which go for 150g a pop. Thus I've just earned double what it cost me! Huzzah!
Throw in the fact that occasionally I get a rare blue gem during prospecting (~3-5% of the time) and the occasional proc, I'm making a pretty little profit here. Sometimes when ore prices drop to ~40g a stack, I buy them all up and hoard them. Conversely when diamond prices are low I hoard them until they go back up.
Truegold transmutes are also awesome, but they have a 24 hours CD so I don't get to make as many as I want. The starting mats are pyrium bars (purchaed from AH or smelted with my mining alt), 10 each of volatile fire (fished in Hyjal), water (gained through fishing), and air (transmuted from volatile life through alchemy). For about ~60g worth of pyrium bars, I can sell a truegold bar for ~700g. That's over 10 times the profit folks!
Truegold is annoying though in that I have to spend some time farming it. Plus the volatile air transmute is on the same CD so every 2-3 days I have to waste my CD on that as opposed to truegold. Although lately volatile air prices have dropped a lot, so maybe I'll start buying them rather than waste a valuable CD.
My next project is to either buy/prospect a lot of ore to get stacks of cheap greem gems. My JC alt can turn those gems into green rings, necklaces, and even fist weapons, which I will DE with my main and sell the dusts and shards. My calculated average costs are:
net cost (stack of ore) = 50g
gems per ore = ~7
items produced per stack of ore = ~2.5
hypnotic dusts per item = ~3
price of hypnotic dust = ~12g ATM
gold earned from dust = 90g
net profit = 40g per stack!
Not too bad. And that's not even considering that fact that occasionally you get 1-3celestial essences from DE'ing, which are worth even more $$! PLUS as I mentioned before, prospecting yields rare gems, and sometimes you will get a blue item from JC as opposed to cheap green ones. Those I will just sell for ~100g a pop as opposed to DE for dusts.
I bought up a lot of cheap ore just the other night, and I'm planning on putting this plan into action as soon as I have time. We'll see what the payoff is soon enough!
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
To loot, or not to loot
Ah, loot. Let's all be honest here and admit that loot is the reason why we all get so focused on this game. Heck, any kind of RPG type game that involves character customization is centered around collecting better and better gear.
It's hard to put into words why loot is such a desirable thing. Yes, the obvious answer would be that better gear makes you more powerful. But once you're at the end-game stage of raiding, a few points of upgrade doesn't really impact your numbers. I mean, when you're facerolling through heroic bosses already, is it really going to make your DPS THAT much higher to have 5 more agility? This is basically what happened at the end of wrath - I joined a great guild after ICC had been out for over 6 months. By that point I'd farmed up pretty much the best gear available. Sure, I got a couple pieces here and there, but towards the end of it all I didn't even bother rolling for things that were an upgrade. Why spend ~500g getting new enchants and gems when it won't really matter?
This is the mentality I'm trying to adopt as we progress into Cataclysm. I try not to get fixated on gear. I try not to spend too much time farming or pugging in the hopes of getting something. I know that once patch 4.1 comes out, there will be all new raid content, and the current top-end gear will be obsolete, and there will be even better stuff for me to get fixated on.
Alas, I am only human (or should I say a Troll), and when an awesome upgrade drops during a raid, my heart can't help but skip a beat. Yesterday after we downed a boss, one of the best-in-slot agility trinkets dropped, and yes - I felt my pulse skyrocket. My hands were trembling as I typed in /roll.
My roll was pretty good, but in the end a hunter got it. I felt just a little twinge of that familiar sensation - the agonizing, soul-crushing, heart-wrenching disappointment of seeing someone else equip that item that would've been SO FREAKING EPIC for you.
But I fought it back, and remembered that within a few months I will look back on this gear and laugh at how crappy it is. Just like when we would raid Naxx for the weekly quest and I'd chuckle at the noobs rolling for ilvl 200 gear when I was decked out in 264 epics. And after a few seconds of disappointment and anger, itpassed and I was calm again. It is just pixels, after all. And later that night when I lost the roll for a sweet necklace to another rogue, I fought back my anger and sense of injustice (my dps was so much better!). Just pixels. Just pixels.
Although I have to admit that when I logged in this morning I ended up buying a BoE epic piece as a "consolation prize" for myself. It set me back 10k, but hey...just pixels right?
It's hard to put into words why loot is such a desirable thing. Yes, the obvious answer would be that better gear makes you more powerful. But once you're at the end-game stage of raiding, a few points of upgrade doesn't really impact your numbers. I mean, when you're facerolling through heroic bosses already, is it really going to make your DPS THAT much higher to have 5 more agility? This is basically what happened at the end of wrath - I joined a great guild after ICC had been out for over 6 months. By that point I'd farmed up pretty much the best gear available. Sure, I got a couple pieces here and there, but towards the end of it all I didn't even bother rolling for things that were an upgrade. Why spend ~500g getting new enchants and gems when it won't really matter?
This is the mentality I'm trying to adopt as we progress into Cataclysm. I try not to get fixated on gear. I try not to spend too much time farming or pugging in the hopes of getting something. I know that once patch 4.1 comes out, there will be all new raid content, and the current top-end gear will be obsolete, and there will be even better stuff for me to get fixated on.
Alas, I am only human (or should I say a Troll), and when an awesome upgrade drops during a raid, my heart can't help but skip a beat. Yesterday after we downed a boss, one of the best-in-slot agility trinkets dropped, and yes - I felt my pulse skyrocket. My hands were trembling as I typed in /roll.
My roll was pretty good, but in the end a hunter got it. I felt just a little twinge of that familiar sensation - the agonizing, soul-crushing, heart-wrenching disappointment of seeing someone else equip that item that would've been SO FREAKING EPIC for you.
But I fought it back, and remembered that within a few months I will look back on this gear and laugh at how crappy it is. Just like when we would raid Naxx for the weekly quest and I'd chuckle at the noobs rolling for ilvl 200 gear when I was decked out in 264 epics. And after a few seconds of disappointment and anger, itpassed and I was calm again. It is just pixels, after all. And later that night when I lost the roll for a sweet necklace to another rogue, I fought back my anger and sense of injustice (my dps was so much better!). Just pixels. Just pixels.
Although I have to admit that when I logged in this morning I ended up buying a BoE epic piece as a "consolation prize" for myself. It set me back 10k, but hey...just pixels right?
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Where do we go from here?
The Insane title has been sort of the big major goal I was aiming for in wow...and now that's done with, I find myself sort of at a loss. Well...what now? I mean, of course there are little things I could do, such as getting some random reps to exalted and doing BC-level dungeons for rare drops, etc. There are ALWAYS things to do in wow...
But the insane title was like, a BIG lofty goal. You weren't gonna get this done in a matter of days or even weeks. There are really only a few of these kinds of feats in wow - the two that comes to mind is the Loremaster title and getting the violet drake for completing every single world event.
The problem with loremaster is that it's one thing and one thing only: do every quest you can possibly do. You might argue that there's variety in those quests, but that's not entirely true. I mean, 99% of all the quests in wow follows one of these formats:
a. Kill x number of mobs (or kill 1 special mob)
b. Collect x number of objects (either found on the ground or drops from mobs)
c. Escort a half-wit NPC from here to there
d. Go to this questgiver/Listen to the questgiver/Watch the questgiver do something
I mean, how many quests are there, really, that is actually exciting and different form this generic archetype? Don't get me wrong, I like questing as much as anybody, but not enough to go do 2705 quests (yes, that's how many it takes...not even counting cataclysm). Plus the title loremaster is a complete joke, given that no one actually reads any of the lore. If they did, they would still be reading it right now instead of finishing their quests. I swear, NPCs love to talk...
And the world event is actually one that I'm working on at the moment, but the trouble is that there's really nothing for you do work on during the 9 months out of the year where your wow calendar has no exciting graphics. Just the same old dull brown background - no easter eggs floating by, no pink heart lanterns, no christmas decorations, no spiderwebs.
A small project I'm planning is getting the sandstone drake (pictured below).
Ain't he gorgeous? The only problem is that he's not easy to come by - getting the recipe to make him (he's not actually a mount per se, you actually TURN INTO the drake - extra awesome points!) requires endless digging as well as a 525 skill in archaeology. Of course you could find someone who already has the recipe, but the mats alone cost upward of 30k+. Even if you farm everything yourself and use a goblin friend for discounts, it costs 23k in vendor mats alone. Similar to the mechano hog, it requires ridiculously expensive mats you can ONLY buy from vendors (ie blizzard gold sink). So yeah. I mean, it's not really a grind for me given that I do have a goblin alt and yes, I can afford the mats...but I'd rather try to get the recipe myself. God knows how long it will take me to max out archaeology.
What's new in store for this troll rogue? Will I succeed in becoming a sandstone drake or will I pussy out? Will I find something else exciting to do in wow? Or quit to the delight of my husband and friends? Only time will tell...stay tuned!
But the insane title was like, a BIG lofty goal. You weren't gonna get this done in a matter of days or even weeks. There are really only a few of these kinds of feats in wow - the two that comes to mind is the Loremaster title and getting the violet drake for completing every single world event.
The problem with loremaster is that it's one thing and one thing only: do every quest you can possibly do. You might argue that there's variety in those quests, but that's not entirely true. I mean, 99% of all the quests in wow follows one of these formats:
a. Kill x number of mobs (or kill 1 special mob)
b. Collect x number of objects (either found on the ground or drops from mobs)
c. Escort a half-wit NPC from here to there
d. Go to this questgiver/Listen to the questgiver/Watch the questgiver do something
I mean, how many quests are there, really, that is actually exciting and different form this generic archetype? Don't get me wrong, I like questing as much as anybody, but not enough to go do 2705 quests (yes, that's how many it takes...not even counting cataclysm). Plus the title loremaster is a complete joke, given that no one actually reads any of the lore. If they did, they would still be reading it right now instead of finishing their quests. I swear, NPCs love to talk...
And the world event is actually one that I'm working on at the moment, but the trouble is that there's really nothing for you do work on during the 9 months out of the year where your wow calendar has no exciting graphics. Just the same old dull brown background - no easter eggs floating by, no pink heart lanterns, no christmas decorations, no spiderwebs.
A small project I'm planning is getting the sandstone drake (pictured below).
Ain't he gorgeous? The only problem is that he's not easy to come by - getting the recipe to make him (he's not actually a mount per se, you actually TURN INTO the drake - extra awesome points!) requires endless digging as well as a 525 skill in archaeology. Of course you could find someone who already has the recipe, but the mats alone cost upward of 30k+. Even if you farm everything yourself and use a goblin friend for discounts, it costs 23k in vendor mats alone. Similar to the mechano hog, it requires ridiculously expensive mats you can ONLY buy from vendors (ie blizzard gold sink). So yeah. I mean, it's not really a grind for me given that I do have a goblin alt and yes, I can afford the mats...but I'd rather try to get the recipe myself. God knows how long it will take me to max out archaeology.
What's new in store for this troll rogue? Will I succeed in becoming a sandstone drake or will I pussy out? Will I find something else exciting to do in wow? Or quit to the delight of my husband and friends? Only time will tell...stay tuned!
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Insane in the Membrane....for reals
Ah, finally, I can use the title "the insane". Last Sunday at 12:06am server time, I was able to obtain this title by turning in roughly 60 darkmoon faire decks. I could've gotten it done sooner but alas the darkmoon faire only travels into town once a month.
A bit of my triumph was diminished by the fact that the title is MUCH, MUCH easier to get compared to before patch 4.0.1. You no longer need shen'dralar rep (probably saves you about 40 hours of a miserable grind & anywhere from 20k-30k gold). You no longer need to have honored with bloodsail buccaneers and exalted with the goblins SIMULTANEOUSLY. Meaning instead of killing booty bay guards, then having to grind Dire Maul quests over and over (it being one of the 2 repeatable quests that give goblin rep without lowering bloodsail rep), you can just go kill booty bay guards, then go kill pirates to your heart's content to raise the goblin rep back up. Ugh.
Of course ravenholdt and darkmoon faire are still time consuming and expensive, but nowhere near as exhausting as raising your goblin rep from 0/36000 hated all the way to exalted just by repeating the same quest over and over again. I suppose you do make some sweet moolah disenchanting the green items that drop and selling all that runecloth, but then again you no longer need to spend as much on librams, PBDs, etc...
Anywyas, QQing aside, I am very happy with my new title. I liked my kingslayer title but pretty much everyone has that title now so it was getting rather old. And now all I have left is to somehow dispose of 60+ darkmoon faire deck trinkets on teh AH...prices are crap at the moment!
A bit of my triumph was diminished by the fact that the title is MUCH, MUCH easier to get compared to before patch 4.0.1. You no longer need shen'dralar rep (probably saves you about 40 hours of a miserable grind & anywhere from 20k-30k gold). You no longer need to have honored with bloodsail buccaneers and exalted with the goblins SIMULTANEOUSLY. Meaning instead of killing booty bay guards, then having to grind Dire Maul quests over and over (it being one of the 2 repeatable quests that give goblin rep without lowering bloodsail rep), you can just go kill booty bay guards, then go kill pirates to your heart's content to raise the goblin rep back up. Ugh.
Of course ravenholdt and darkmoon faire are still time consuming and expensive, but nowhere near as exhausting as raising your goblin rep from 0/36000 hated all the way to exalted just by repeating the same quest over and over again. I suppose you do make some sweet moolah disenchanting the green items that drop and selling all that runecloth, but then again you no longer need to spend as much on librams, PBDs, etc...
Anywyas, QQing aside, I am very happy with my new title. I liked my kingslayer title but pretty much everyone has that title now so it was getting rather old. And now all I have left is to somehow dispose of 60+ darkmoon faire deck trinkets on teh AH...prices are crap at the moment!
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