Alteriffic

Well last night I logged on to see how this RAF (Refer A Friend) would work for me, I promptly created 2 UD Mages (and here’s where I cocked up) and summoned my level 1 Belf Paladin over.  The 2nd Mage was not linked though (n00b), as the RAF account hadn’t linked up for some reason.  I should’ve checked but to be honest I couldn’t be arsed to wait so I just went for it.  The reasoning being that I would see what the difference would be between a RAF’d toon and a non RAF’d toon.

The end result at the end of a couple of hours playing (and at least 30 – 45 mins of that was spent fiddling about going real slow sorting out macro’s and addon’s on the new toons) I had my Pally and Mage at level 12, and the non RAF’d one was sitting at level 7.  The plan for tonight is to consider purchasing another box (only £8 from gamecards.eu so not that bad when you think about it) and level up another Mage on this account I can have 3 toons running at 3 x XP.  I would still be left with a levle 70 on a BC account that I would probably need to transfer over once I get another copy (or copies) of BC, as I like the idea of triple boxing, as it will give me a chance at running a few instances solo (while above the recommended level admittedly).  I just dont think I can justify the additional cost of the subscription to be honest though.  I’ll buy a month of playtime for both new accounts (and get the free time that comes with it) then transfer the new toons across to one of the other accounts, which will probably give me around 5 or 6 (conservative estimate, depending on how bored I get) level 60+ toons across 2 accounts.

I’m going to probably roll up a trio of shammies on another server as well (again, depends on how bored I get).

I’ll pop up another post tomorrow (probably with some screens) with another update

To liven up the blog a bit, here’s a couple of screenshots from my recent boosting escapades with Boog & Bandaid.  They’re not especially exciting, but they’re ones I like.

The first is one as we’re hearthing out of SM Armoury after giving Herod a beating

This next one is a random act of kindness by rez’ing a low level character in Silverpine Forest as we ran by.  Unfortunately I was a little late to save him from death, but at least I saved him the corpse run, and buffed him up before he went on his way.

The last one is of Bandaid dinging (again in SM) as SoC finishes off a pack of mobs

The other news is that today I created 2 additional trial accounts using the refer a friend service.  I’m not 100% sure what I’m going to do with these after the 10 day free trial is over, but I wanted to see just how fast I could level up 3 toons to 20. 

I like the idea of 3 boxing to 20, then dropping one of them in order to simply dual box with the increased xp.  That said, I’m running out of classes to play that I actually want to play though, so this is probably not that great of an idea, as it will mean that I probably end up buying another copy of BC (£10 ish at the moment), then £15 to move my 70 on my other account across to the new friend account (or I will not be playing them come WotLK as I’m damn sure I’m not shelling out on a third copy, and subscriptions that’s for sure).

I already have a Shaman nearing level 70, so having more of these really isn’t that attractive to me (although I could realistically have Enh\Ele\Resto at end game as they’re all pretty viable, but I think that would probably be pretty boring tbh).  With the probable (might have already happened) patch to disable the 3x XP still being applied while in a group with a non referred 70 boosting it might all need to be done outside of instances, but hey, it’ll still be fun for a bit.   Plan will probably be to level a Paladin with a couple of Shaman or maybe a Shaman and a Mage (as I’ve not got any mages) and then when I hit 20 with the Pally and get Consecrate try out quest boosting with the Pally rounding up mobs, then tag them with consecration while my 70 Lock AoE’s them.  I’ll have to see if this is feasable.

Who knows, I might possibly be able to instance boost up the alts before the Boosting XP multiplier gets nerfed, which will change my focus a bit.  I’ll update more as I muddle along with it.

Here’s what I got upto this weekend . .

First the non WoW stuff

I spent the weekend on main parent duty as my wife wasn’t feeling well (only 6 weeks to go til we’ have another member of the family, so I was happy to take our little dynamo out of the house and give her time to rest up in bed.  We went to a few parks, fed some (a lot of) ducks, got the shopping done, went to a birthday party, washed the car and watered the garden.  All in all it was a great weekend from a Daddy point of view.

Now back to WoW

I finally managed to get my 2nd WoW Install set up with a slave configuration.  With Clone Keys not having the option to blacklist keys, I’ve basically taken off all the keybindings and then just set up a bar with the Function Keys (which I don’t use on my main setup) to do what I want.  While it’s not ideal, it certainly works for me at the moment.

Chunder - With that done I ran Chunder through some quests in Terokkar Forest, and then headed off to Nagrand to get the first lot of the Nessingwary Quests out of the way.  I’m now around half way to 67, with at least the rest of the level as rested.  So far my tactic is just DoT up 3 or 4 mobs, then throw a big heal on Boog while she’s Dark Pacting the Imps mana, then hit Chain Lightning on Boogs target and a lightning blast or two until the mobs are dead.  This seems to work fine, but I think with another macro or two to sort out totems (which at the moment I’m not using) I’ll become more efficient.

Bandaid – Hit 33 last night after a few runs through SM.  I’ve now got the Cathedral sorted, and I can clear the lot in 10 pulls.  I know this isn’t great when compared to other people, but it’s good enough for me at the moment, but I’d sooner have a couple more pulls and be safe, than risk bigger pulls and die.  I grabbed Whitemane’s Chapeau and now all I need from here is the Hand of Righteousness and that’s SM all done for Bandaid’s loot needs. The other good thing about SM Cathedral is that the Blue Drops DE into a Small Radiant Shard which are always useful for Firey Weapon enchants (one of the cash cows I have at the moment is buying cheapish twink weapons and then popping Firey on them and reselling them for 20 gold or so more than I paid).   Bandaid is now also wearing the Mantle and Robe from Doan, and will be able to use his Dagger.  I can now also get the Into the Scarlet Monastery quest, which will get the Prophetic Cane to pair with the Hypnotic Blade.

Umbi – Well the lil Druid I was planning on Dual Boxing with App has finally made it to level 15. 

SM Farming Strategies -  Well as stated above, I’ve now got the Library, Armoury & Cathedral wings of SM farming strategies down to a speed I’m sorta happy with.  While I wouldn’t at all mind getting faster, I’m now able to clear without much threat of death (unless I forget to wait for Suffering to be on CD

Focus for this week

• Get Chunder to 67 (this is the most important, as I need him to be level 70 before WotLK, and he’s close but not close enough)
• Get Bandaid to 35 (or higher) so I can increase his Herbalism skill, then power level this upto 300 (as I’ve a stash of herbs in my bank).  This will mean I can start to make some of the better pots, and while they wont be a major money maker, they should at least help out with the levelling process
• Get my guild charter signed up so I can use a guildbank, as this will make life a lot easier for storing all the stuff I’m stockpiling for WotLK
• Get Umbi a couple of levels, as he’s a long long way to go until he’s ready for App duty, and while I do very much want a rogue at high levels (and a Druid just seems the natural partner) I need to focus on getting him up in levels.  At least to 20 so I can boost him in SM.  I’ve never had a Druid above level 15, and 20 is the magic number where you get Catform so I’m going to persevere until 20, then decide what to do.
• Get Chompi to level 37 so he can get the RFD quest for Vanquishers Sword.  I could probably also do with chugging him through RFK quickly to grab hold of the quest which opens up the RFD quest An Unholy Alliance.
• Try to get the Spirit of Competition on some of my toons (not sure which I’ll go for, prob do a BG on each of them to try my luck)

The main aim this week is to get Chunder to 67, then after that Bandaid to ding 35, and once he’s caught up with Chompi get them paired up out in the real world.  There’s a few drops (Silky Spider Cape, Modresh’s Lifeless Skull, Death Mage Sash & Robes of the Lich) I want for Bandaid from RFD so I will probably take him there once I hit 35 to grab these items, and give myself a change of scenery from SM (while being slower as I don’t ‘know’ the Boosting strategies as yet).

Got Bandaid up to 32 + 3/4 last night with some quick runs through SM Armoury and Library.

After the first runs of both Library and Armoury presented me with only Large Locked Chests (and no rogue\engineer to unlock\blast open I thought I was in for a shitty night regarding drops.  That was not the case however. 

In the next 3 runs I managed to snag The Butcher, Black Duskwood Staff & Plans: Mithril Shield Spike (to go with the the Watchman Pauldrons I grabbed over the weekend).  I was toying with keeping the butcher for Ureg’s 29 hunter twink gear (and popping an Agi enchant on it and using it with an Agi enchanted Thornspike, but I’ve already got Armour Piercer for Ureg so I’m kinda happy with that for her twink weapon) but I thought I’d throw it up on the AH before I logged for a 24hr auction for a ridiculous 150G price.  If someone buys it for that I’ll be happy, if not then I’ll pop a Firey Enchant on it and try again.  I’m not going to let it go for under 125G though, as I’d sooner keep it for myself than sell it if I’m honest. 

I need to focus on getting Chunder burned through his rested XP, as I now feel that I’m getting the hang of dual boxing so the added danger of higher mobs should be as much of a factor as it was when I first tried.  This should only take a night or two at the most, and once that’s done I can pop back to RFK with Ureg to boost her a bit to get her nearer the 29 BG’s. 

UREG update

With Ureg being trained up purely for PvP (29 BG’s to start with) I need to start working out what I need to get gear wise for her.  While it will not be the ‘ultimate twinkage gear’ that there is, as I’ve decided not to be an uber-twink, and only really go for things that I can get from instance & quest boosting, and not shell out tons on the AH (so no Trolls Bane Leggins with Nethercleft\Nethercobra for Ureg.  I’ve already got the melee weapon  sorted (Armor Piercer + 25 Agi enchant) and I’ll be grabbing the Triprunner Dungarees, Gallan Cuffs, Razzeric Racing Grips, Raptor Hunter Tunic ,Master Hunters Rifle once I get to the level minimum to grab the quest(s).  I’ll probably sell the Watchman Pauldrons on the AH, and see if I can pick up a Thieves Mantle

First things first though, and tonight that means grinding out my rested XP on Chunder, and possibly heading over to Nagrand as I know the Nessingwary Q’s will let me chalk up a fair bit of XP, especially as I should in theory just be able to chain pull on Boog and have Chunder refil the lifetap health.

Once that’s done, I’ll head over to RFK to give Ureg a quick boost clear before I log off as that should now be doable in a lot less pulls that before now that I’ve got the hang of it.

Well last night I think I finally hit the groove on SoC farming SM.  I whipped through the Library, Armoury and Cathedral in about 30 mins, and then disaster struck.

At around 9pm, my little boy puked up all over his mum who was snuggled up to him in bed, so Boog and Bandaid were left in the middle of SM, and are most certainly dead now (I need to log on at some point today and HS Bandaid back to the Brill Inn.   The rest of the night was spent in an endless loop of puking, bathing, changing bed linen and getting the boy off to sleep, which was then repeated every hour or so until around 3am, which was lucky as we had used up just about all our bed linen by that time.  All through this though the little trooper was never downhearted, and remained fairly upbeat.  Once we’d cleaned off the sick from him, and got him in the bathroom he was fine (we even had a great chat about reflections in the tiled walls and shower cubicle).

So last night was a bit of a nightmare, but we soldiered through it, and Bandaid hit 31 which brings him up to the same level as App.  I still want to grab a few more levels in here (and at the rate I’m going I think I’ll be able to quickly knock a level out each time I go boosting in there) before I set them free into the real world.

Well I respec’d Chunder to Elemental (41/0/16) last night and have to say that after an hour or so of playing it I hate it

I’ve got just under 300 +DMG (and around 500 + heal) and I’m going to give it another go this evening and then think about either going totally resto (as I can see myself just healing Boog while she drags me through the quests to 70) or back to Enhancement (as the heals will prob still be enough to keep Boogie going) which will give me some solo’ability back.

The main reason I don’t want to go resto yet is that I really don’t fancy healing PuG’s, and there’s not a great deal of mid 60 guild instance runs at the moment.  I like the option of instancing if I get asked, but I don’t really want to deal with PuG healing (I’m happy being the secondary healer, or picking up the healing if the healer leaves etc).

I think I need to just get used to having Chunder running after Boog dropping a few choice totems (Grounding, Searing\Fire Nova, Wrath of Air,Healing/Mana Stream and possibly Stoneskin – all situational of course) and throwing the odd heal\chain lightning.  I think once I have a few macros sorted to heal Boog, and assist\Chain Lightning it will become much easier.  At the end of the day Boog should be able to cut through the quest mobs etc with no trouble at all, and with Boog popping a few heals now and then there should be next to no downtime.

I also don’t think it helps that I’ve gone from a full RARE set to a set that’s mainly green quest rewards (with the odd blue instance drop here and there, some of which is resto stuff).  Once I grab a few more bits of proper +dmg gear I hope to see the fun levels increase.

Dual Boxing Update

However I did manage to get Chompi part way through RFD, and picked up the Icemetal Barbute & the Silky Spider Cape and dinged 36 in the process.

RFD seemed a bit more difficult than SM to start with, I guess as I didn’t know the instance as well (I’d only ever cleared it once before, years ago) but once I got into the swing of not pulling too many mobs at once it went quite well).

I think I’ll leave RFDS for the time being (as the XP/hr isn’t up to what I was getting in SM), until Chompi hits 37 so he can get the ‘Bring the End’ quest, and the Vanquisher’s Sword reward.

Boog Gear Update

I decided that I’d put some of my cash to use and picked up Terokk’s Wisdom (only 400 Gold) and have also got the mats for +40 Spell Damage on my Blade of Wizardry (which I had in my Bank so no real cost for that).  Just need to find someone online in the guild who can do that for me, and then get a group to get the last boss of Setthek Halls down to get my Saga of Terokk and I’ll have increased Boogs Shadow Damage by around 175, which fingers crossed will help with the SoC damage.  Until I can get a group to do that I may try to pop over to Netherstorm and get a couple of quests done to grab hold of the  Imbubed Draenethyst Crystal which will probably do until I get a better drop\reward for ol Boogie.

Focus for this week . . . . .

• App and Bandaid up into the mid 30’s (hopefully 35, I should be able to do a level a night now I’m getting the hang of SoC’ing my way through SM
• Chunder up to 67 (and possibly respec ele\resto to better support Boog while being run through Quests as fast as possible).   I’ll need to have a quick look at the gear I have in Chunders bank to see if this would be viable, hopefully if I can get a few hundred +heal then I’ll give it a go.  I really need to check out what kinda spec I can get at 66 to see if it will give me enough oomph to go elemental As I’ll be spamming LB\CL’s I really want to make sure they get as much bang for their buck as I can.  Not sure if I should just go Resto all the way though so that Chunder can just Heal through any damage that Boog gets while DoT’ing up as many mobs as possible.
• Chompi to 37 (to get RFD weapon Quest as mentioned above)
• To get Boog up to 300 Enchanting, and 700 (unbuffed) Spell Damage (the spell damage could be tough)

So in the time since the last post I’ve been pretty much exclusively Dual Boxing Bandaid and App through SM.  I’ve now got Bandaid all of Doan’s stuff, as well as that off that Thalnos dude at the end of the Graveyard.  I had a go at the Cathedral, but to be honest it was a bit messy, with a couple of deaths from getting a bit greedy on the mobs.  I’m not that fussed at the moment tbh though, as Mograine’s got jack for Bandaid (same for App) but I did get the Triune Amulet from his bird.  I need to get her hat and mace as well from the Cathedral but as I’m going to be boosting through there a lot more in a few levels time it shouldn’t be a problem picking them up.

I’m finding the Library to be a nice run using the VW and SoC.  I can do it in around 8 pulls now, which I don’t think is too bad.  Not up to a Prot Pally by any means, but not too shabby considering how new I am to this, and the fact that my Lock really needs more +DMG.  I’m thinking of switching to a more Demonology based build to give my VW a bit more oomph, as I’m finding a few of the bigger pulls he’s very low on health or dead.  Not convinced that the additional 15% stamina will make that much of a difference but it might be worth giving a go.

Boogie Woogie needs some lootage

I think I need to focus on getting Boog some gear upgrades.  I’d sooner go for quest rewards as I know I’m not forced into hoping for loot drops and rolls but then that’s probably the same for everyone :-).  Main focus at the moment is trying to get a decent off hand weapon, probably The Saga of Terrokk as I’m pretty sure I’ve some (possibly all) of the items sitting in my bank).

A Cracking WoW Easer Egg

A Dwarf Priest has a cracking (see what I did there) post over on his blog about one of the lesser known WoW Priest only easter eggs.  It requires the Eye of Divinity to see and it’s possibly the best bit of WoW humour I’ve seen for a while.  You’ll have to head over to his site to check it out, but a hint is that it involves one of Haris Pilton’s cronies

Boog popped into Mech last night with Mia & Kit, and apart from 1 mage death it was as easy a run as I’ve had through anywhere.

I didn’t get any loot (I passed on Manual of the Nethermancer to the mage which I’m now thinking I should’ve rolled on as it would’ve accompanied my Blade of Wizzardry which I picked up off the AH for 350G), but it was a lot of fun and the first time I’d been in the instance.  It was nice to get to use some warlockery and enslave a few demons for a change as well.

The shammy with us had a nice stack of savory deviate delight so we spent most of the night as Pirates and Ninja’s (Pirate Chicks FTW)

Once we’d finished with Mech, I headed over to SM and took Bandaid through the Library and Graveyard.  This was far from smooth as I think I had around 4 deaths on Bandaid just from proximity aggro (the last time I was in there Chompi was 35, whereas Bandaid is only 28 so the aggro range is much larger).  I did pick up the Mantle of Doan and Illusionary Rod though, and hopefully with a couple more runs through there I’ll get to pick up the Hypnotic Blade and Robe of Doan as well which will mean I can just burn through there and DE the loot.

The Graveyard kicked my arse with it’s ghosties respawning on top of Bandaid while he was parked and I was off grabbing mobs.  I had to log after one run through there when Bandaid had 2 deaths in the space of 5 mins in the catacombs up to Thalnos.  The Orb of the Forgotten Seer dropped but I couldn’t be arsed to run Bandaid back again so I just DE’d it and then logged.

I’m going to have to be in SM for a while on most of my toons that are being leveled up, so this is all good experience.  I need to certainly work on finding out what’s best for me (either dot and run, VW & SoC or just SL\CoA everything as I run around.

Ureg: gets to see RFK (twice)

Well as I didn’t have much time online last night (nice weather + wife in last 8 weeks of pregnancy = nesting instinct kicking in big style so I was replanting shrubs and tidying up the garden)

Boog finished off the rep grind for Timbermaw faction and has now got both the Enchant 2H Weapon – Agility & Enchant Weapon – Agility.  I need to grab around 10 more points in Enchanting to be able to use them, but this (along with Enchant Weapon - Fiery Weapon) should sort out my twinking needs for a while (and has probably ensured that Boog stays an enchanter).

As Ureg was close to RFK I thought I’d run her through there, as there’s some sweet twink hunter items there which I was after.

As luck would have it, I got Armour Piercer on the first run (which along with the NightStalker Bow was the main loot aim of the boost), and also Thornspike.  Then on the second run I picked up Ferine Leggings and also Corpsemaker so all in all from a loot perspective it was a good run, with 4 useable items (although 3 of them were weapons so can’t be used at the same time). Other than the Bow from the rare spawn there’s not really anything else I want\need from there on Ureg, but I left her just outside the instance so that I can pop back there to play around with using SoC a bit better.  I found I could pull around 20 mobs with SL\CoA which rarely saw me drop below 70% health, and this also meant I could have the Ureg on follow with no real issues.  I did play with SoC a bit on the 2nd run, but I still need to work on the mechanics of it and there’s certainly room for improvement.

Ureg was just shy of level 23 when I had to log, and once she hits 25 (hopefully before the weekend) she’ll head off to Gnomeregan to run through and pick up the Triprunner Dungarees.  There’s not a lot else in Gnomer that I would want for Ureg other than a lucky Charged Gear ‘of the Monkey\Agility’

I was only getting around 58 xp per mob though, which was far under what I was hoping for.  That said I had hardly any rested exp bonus to burn through, which would’ve made a big difference.  I think it’s time to make sure everyone’s in an Inn\City in between boosts.

Updated Dual Boxing Plans

In light of the early issues I’ve had with the mechanics of dual boxing, I’ve kinda shelved all the plans that I had to focus on any toons in particular, and just boost the toons semi randomly while I get a proper feel for it. Things I need to sort out are

• UI\Macro’s on the 2nd laptop (where the alt will be boosted from)
• Change up the UI on Boog to clear it of spells that I’m not going to use while boosting, and make the spells I use while boosting easier to get at
• Kit out all the alts with 16 slot bags
• Get into the habit of farming some shards on Boog before I log off (so even if I forget to check I’ve got a few to keep me going for a while)

I also need to start taking some screenshots, and maybe a couple of movie clips to showcase my (lack of) dual boxing skills !

All in all I’m enjoying the fact that it’s a little different than the usual levelling process, and the ability to boost whenever I want is really nice.