The Joy of Lowbies

"It strikes! one, two,
Three, four, five, six. Enough, enough, dear watch,
Thy pulse hath beat enough. Now sleep and rest;
Would thou could'st make the time to do so too;
I'll wind thee up no more." - Ben Jonson The Staple of News


As I mentioned in my last post, I don't have much in the way of free, unimpeded time to dedicate to WoW these days.

The only raid boss that I attempt these days;
believe me, this is a fight with a lot of movement.

I'm sad to say that such an odd, irregular and easily interrupted schedule is not one that is conducive to raiding. Over the past couple of months or so my level 85s have withered due to neglect. My regular raiding has completely ground to a halt after going 8/8 on two toons with no heroic bosses down at all.

With only an hour or so of available time in an evening, running dungeons or LFR seem like an exhausting, implacable mountain to climb and not worth the effort. Doing daily quests gets very boring very quickly. Maximum level PVP is new and scary and intriguing, but would require a fair bit of effort to get the gear that would allow me to survive for more than the brief moment between when an enemy sees me and when he decides that I should be dead.

So what's a Dwarf to do?


THE JOY OF LOWBIES

I am an Altaholic, but not in the usual way. I am in a guild with several people who I would consider the norm for extreme cases of Altaholism: They tend to create an alt and focus intently on it until it reaches max level before giving a new one any real attention. Consequently, they have a lot of max level characters and characters that are well on their way there.

I am a little different. I have dozens of low level characters of every race and every class scattered around 10 or 12 different servers. Not including the Death Knights (only one of which I've ever gotten out of the starting zone; he's level 62), only a couple of these characters are above level 25. My highest level Horde character ever just dinged 18. Seriously.

I really enjoy low level characters and low level questing. There is something very compelling about boiling a class down to its very essence and seeing it naked and helpless in its infancy. In those initial levels each class is very similar: Uncomplicated, pure, and a joy to play. To see which skills are learned and when, and to discover how to use each new skill and see the way a class gradually becomes more complex is very intriguing.

I'm not really clear as to why, but I seem to hit a brick wall between level 14 and level 20. In the mid-teens the class will have taken shape and while many important and class defining abilities are yet to come, the fundamental structure of how the class is played is evident. For me, at least, this is when the experiment to test my attitude towards a class feels as if it's run its course.

As well, it's at that point that a character is out of the starting zones and into the next areas (Barrens, Westfall, etc). These zones are larger and more involved than the starting zones and feel more general and less specific to the character. This is when my mindset changes from, "This is a fun toy to play with," to "Oh gawd, I have how many freakin' levels to go?!?". Taking a character through these zones begins to firmly cement the notion in my head that I'm committing to the grind to get the character up to max level; a long and daunting process, especially for someone who levels as slowly as I do. Therefore, any character that makes it past that barrier and hits 20 is one that—in my head, at least—has been selected to survive and make the slow journey to level cap.

I have really only levelled a couple of different characters past this breaking point. My first character, a hunter, got to level 48 before he was abandoned and left to rot as I switched servers. My Warrior, Priest and Paladin all got to max level in Wrath, and two of them have gone onto 85. Thallie, my Shaman and current raiding main (the cobwebs on her are, at least, fresh) was the first character I created when Cataclysm launched and is the only one that I have managed to take to max level since then. So many more have failed this litmus test and remain unlevelled and unloved.

It seems that the decision to go past the level 20 barrier is a significant one for me. It is a mental commitment to that character; a commitment to learn and master the nuances of the class at the very highest levels. However, if the class, or the character's name or the server or anything else doesn't feel right, then that character is doomed to a shadowy half-life of neglect. Not to be deleted, but doomed to sit in the Inn at Sentinel Hill or at The Crossroads with pitiful white or grey gear, never to be the hero that they could be due to the capriciousness of my whimsy.

So having said all that, with a fervent desire to play but with limited play time in which to do it, I have been spending a lot of time with my low level Alts lately. Some have pushed past the elusive and mysterious Level 20 and have become, at least in my mind, actual characters, whilst some are still merely interesting toys to experiment with. It's been a lot of fun, and I've been indulging myself by seeing areas of the game and doing activities that I've never done before. It's as good a way as any to ride out the end of this expansion, at least until the raid healing bug bites me again.

News From the Lower Levels

Over the past several weeks while I have been working on the 20 Days of WoW Challenge, I have kinda been neglecting writing about anything else. While I managed to sneak in my take on Call to Arms, it's been hard to find the time to write about other topics, even though my mind and my notebook are bursting with ideas.

While playing, I have been spending much more time these days on my alts and yet oddly, I still only have one 85. My lowbie Shaman and the other Fannon have been keeping my attention these days at the expense of my higher level alts. Fannon the Second is about to hit level 40, and Thallie the Shaman just dinged 30 last night.

LEVELLING

I must say that the levelling experience after Cataclysm is superb. The pace seems fine tuned; it's quick and fun, but doesn't overreach the level of the zone unless you use heirlooms or run dungeons. The quests themselves are executed better as well, with a vast majority of the tedious and time consuming running back and forth between quest-givers and quest areas removed. Duskwood in particular has benefited from getting rid of the need to run back to Darkshire from the Raven Hill graveyard every 10 minutes.

The two alts that I am levelling up simultaneously are both using a different approach: Fannon, my Protection Paladin on Azuremyst, is questing and trying to amass as much gold as possible, while Thallie, my Shaman on my main server is in full heirlooms and levelling up through the random dungeon finder.

FANNON THE PALADIN AND THE QUEST TO GET STINKIN' RICH

Firstly, I am finding it damned confusing to have two characters the same name. Normally, all of my characters have unique names and, while I don't do any roleplaying, in my head at least they are all unique individuals. When I created a new character on Azuremyst, I named him Fannon because the guild I was joining is full of people from the Blogosphere and Twitter who know me by that name.  However, I'm finding it annoying when referring to the two Fannons in writing, and calling the Paladin "Fannon 2.0" kinda ruins the immersion for me.

Anyway, attempting to put aside my own mental problems, I am astonished at how quickly Fannon of Azuremyst is progressing through the levelling content. Obviously, starting on a new server means that this Fannon doesn't have access to any Bind to Account Heirlooms or any help other than the perks that being a member of a Level 11 guild will bring.  However, even lacking heirlooms I am plowing through the levels.

Same-level quest mobs get mowed over like tall grass in front of a riding mower piloted by a cocaine fiend. Quests are turned in by the bunch. Quest hubs are squeezed and used up like limes during a tequila drinking contest. The quests and the levels just fly by.

In what seems like very little time (in fact it's a little over a day of actual playtime), my little Effin' Paladin is about to ding 40. All of these levels were done with questing; he hasn't stepped foot into a dungeon yet. It's a little hard to believe he's that high, because the levelling process has seemed completely effortless.

The other bit of interest with Azuremyst Fannon is my goal of becoming wealthy by level 85. This isn't going as fast as the levelling, unfortunately. As of this writing, he is sitting at 440g with another 100g or so on the Auction House. I'll talk more about this in another post (hopefully this week) and give some more details on how I've gotten to where I am.

THALLIE: THE DUNGEONEERING SHAMAN

Note: I was too lazy to take another screenshot of her.

Thallie, as you may recall, is my little levelling Resto Shaman on Sargeras. At some point she has managed to acquire a full set of heirlooms - although her shoulders are cloth and her mace is the wrong itemization for healing. She has been spending her time sitting in the Dwarf District of Stormwind next the the Shaman trainer and faithfully running dungeons to gain experience. I haven't spent as much time playing her as I have with Fannon of Azuremyst, but she's been packing on the levels too.

Over the past week or so, any chance I get I log onto Thallie and hop into the Dungeon Finder. I must say that I am pleasantly surprised with how well these low level instances have gone. Admittedly, some of the lowest level dungeons go by extremely quick and they sometimes remind me of the final days of Wrath when Tier 10-wielding 10-man PUGs would storm into Naxxramas for the weekly raid quest and steamroll over the bosses in 30 seconds.

She has seen more low level dungeons than any of my other characters ever have, and I've done a few that I had never seen before. Ragefire Chasm, Wailing Caverns, Stockades, Gnomeregan and most recently Scarlet Monastery Graveyard have all been conquered by this intrepid little braid-wearin' healer. Oddly enough I have never got Deadmines or Shadowfang Keep. Go figure.

With full purchasable heirlooms - Cloak, Shoulders, Chest, Hat and Weapon - in addition to the experience bonus that comes with being in a level 24 guild, each dungeon is easily a full level or more. And with the way Blizzard has restructured the dungeons, most of them are very quick runs. And her gear is fantastic. She has gained seven or eight levels in the past few days with 5 or 6 dungeons and very little effort.

The biggest problem I've seen is just trying to keep the same group throughout the dungeon. People drop out after defeating a boss, finish a quest they need or dinging the level they wanted then leave, and new people quickly take their place. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I have had very few long waits for a group, and most of the tanks I have had have known their stuff well enough so as to not cause any problems. Running all these dungeons has been quite enjoyable.

QUESTING OR DUNGEONEERING: WHICH IS FASTER?

It's not exactly a fair comparison given the heirlooms, but even so there is no question in my mind that levelling through questing is much faster than levelling through the dungeon finder - assuming you are playing a non-healing spec. Mobs melt like butter in front of my Protection Paladin, but are not surprisingly quite a bit tougher to my Restoration Shaman.

The questing zones are just so incredibly well designed that there is virtually no downtime while questing. The quests are varied and fun, and proceed in a logical, story-driven manner which is completely engrossing. I have not felt as if I were grinding once since I started taking Fannon 2.0 through his journey.

The biggest advantage to running dungeons during the levelling process is the same as it always was: gear. For a minimal investment of time and effort there is a whole lot of great, blue quality gear available. Thallie's gear is a lot better than Fannon's paladin gear was at the same level. On the other hand, having great gear is far less important during questing than it was (or it may be that Protection Paladins are just ridiculously overpowered), and the mobs die just fine in quest greens.

Ding!

Last night I did the last half of level 84 and got the Ding! that everyone looks forward to most.  Thosif is now at the level cap with a 323 iLvl; just about ready to enter heroics.  I completed three dungeons to get the final 6 bars of XP, two Vortex Pinnacles and half of a Stonecore run.  All of them went very smoothly, setting myself up for the inevitable shock that I'm sure I will experience when I start focusing on the harder dungeons.  I was hoping to get Grim Batol or Lost City of the Tol'vir, neither of which I have seen before.  But no, the random dungeon finder had other ideas.  At least it put me together with three amazing groups.

Disco Stu has come to heal you!

Of course, level 85 as a Paladin means that you are going to be looking at this guy on the left an awful lot, Guardian of the Ancient Kings.  I think this spell has a lot of promise, and I'm really looking forward to trying it out.  But wow... Blizzard sure made this guy look stupid.  I guess they feel that Paladins need to have more wings than anyone else.

I still need to finish questing in order to get my faction Reputations to where they need to be.  Earthen Ring is my priority, as they have some really nice things for Holy Paladins.  So that means that I'm heading back to Vashj'ir, which I did only enough of to get my seahorse mount and find the entrance to Throne of the Tides.  It's ironic that after I hit the level cap the first thing I do is go to the starter zones.

Really... I can't even look at this guy.  He had better be worth it.