Tag: wow powerleveling

Azeroth Advisor is shutting down on February 17th. To be honest I have never used their service so I wouldn’t know what this means, but it’s apparently a pretty popular thing for some WoW players. I guess we’ll see what it becomes when their new MMOG comes out.

Icecrown Citadel now has weekly quests. Not that the daily dungeon quest, the Wintergrasp weekly quests, the weekly raid quests, the cooking/JC/fishing daily quests, and tournament quests weren’t enough for your plate.

Blizzard announced that they will be integrating the Armory with the Auction House. It will involve some kind of premium feature as well. The community is up in arms over Blizzard charging players for certain things that they feel entitled to. Personally, I doubt I’ll use it one way or another, so it won’t really affect me or my gaming experience.

One of the quickest ways for your application to get denied by a large raiding guild is to click skills. Many assume it’s because of an elitist attitude. On the contrary (most of the time, sometimes there really are jerks out there), it’s factually true that clicking skills reduces your overall in-game effectiveness. It takes much longer to move your mouse to a skill and click it then it does to press a button on your keyboard. There is no denying that. Test it yourself. Place you finger on the spacebar and your mouse in the middle of the screen. Now try to click a skill on the bottom right before you can press spacebar down. It’s not happening.

Additionally, your mouse isn’t capable of being useful while it is delegated to clicking skills. Mousewalking is a highly accurate way to move when you need to move with finesse. Targeting, via the mouse, is also easier to do because you don’t need to return to your skill bar once you’ve clicked something. Not to mention its usefulness for healing. You can mouseover heal (where you simply have to hover your mouse over someone’s name) with Clique or macros or simply use the mouse for targeting while you walk and cast with your other hand. Additionally, using Clique you can assign certain click-cast abilities to the raid frame to be able to click for instants and use your keyboard for casting spells.

I’ve heard a lot of excuses, but most of the time it’s because no one has tried it before they talk poorly or say the dreaded “I can’t do it.” Sometimes they say they’re left handed and can’t put their fingers on WSAD (which can be remedied by placing your right hand on JKIL, the alternative to WSAD. KOL: also works for some). So my first request, if any of you out there want to improve but don’t want to give up the mouse is to try it.

If you’re an arrow key user I have another rarely used alternative, especially if you’re left handed. The numpad makes an excellent gaming area. You have 8456 for movement and 79 for strafing. Then you have for skills. It’s not the most efficient and doesn’t give you easy access to modifiers like CTRL, SHIFT, or ALT but it’s something to consider.

So, how do you set things up? Well, place your left hand with your middle finger on W and the other two fingers on A and D. Now, S can be used for backing up but I find it’s better to assign it to a casted ability (because you wouldn’t be moving forward while your hand hits S). Now, Q and E are by default strafe left and right. However, some people prefer to use them for abilities. I do a lot of mousewalking and don’t need them (because A and D are strafe while mousewalking). That leaves all within the reach of your hand. That’s 12 abilities, plus an additional 36 if you count the SHIFT, ALT, and CTRL modifiers.

The real trick to learning is to make sure you remember what your abilities are and keep the abilities you use the most in the most comfortable position for you. For instance, my main attack (Shred) or heal (Rejuv, Flash of Light) is bound to F because my hand can find F very easily. Other main attacks are bound to zxcv with shift-C always being my AoE attack. It can be different for you. Go to a target dummy and practice with what works best for you.

I’d like to also take a moment and talk about click-casting. Click-casting can be REALLY helpful if used as a supplement and not a crutch. For instance, Clique will let you mouseover heal removing the need to click someone before you can heal them. You can also assign right click to dispel a target and target them, so you can do two actions at once. A true timesaver if you need to pull off a debuff and follow up with a big heal.

In conclusion, if you find yourself having difficulties clicking your skills then give hotkeys a try, or if you’d like to see an improvement with how you interact with the game. I’ve known people who have jumped up 400-700 DPS or more in some cases when they finally took the leap. Then again, if you’re having fun clicking your skills and you’re content with that, then keep doing it. Games are all about fun, and in the end, that’s what really matters. 

Cataclysm is coming, and it will be upon us more quickly than we can imagine. Most things that we look forward to happen like that. It seems a distant thing, and then we wake up one morning and the thing we are looking forward to is upon us, and we have no real notion of where the time went.

With that in mind I and probably the rest of the World of Warcraft community have been keeping a close eye on the Cataclysm information, looking for anything new Blizzard releases, and also becoming familiar with the major changes that will rock the WoW world we know and love. The changes are big, and most of them look like they are going to bring about good changes, that will not only inspire new players to play, but may entice old players to reactivate their subscriptions. There is however one thing that is coming with the new expansion that makes me /sigh in real life.

Leveling.Sure it doesn’t sound like such a terrible thing, and some people even enjoy it, but I just can’t ever seem to get excited about it. Sure I enjoy seeing the new zones and experiences the often times witty quest text that Blizzard lovingly puts into the game, but at a certain point I just can’t stand it anymore. Usually this happens right around the last level, or next to last level when the grind seems to take forever, and I’m fairly sure that I will die of old age before I actually reach max level.

So far all I’ve done is QQ about having to level, and I’ve given no real reason why I personally dislike it so much. And really what do I have to complain about, since Blizzard is only adding 5 levels instead of 10 this time. I am pleased with Blizzard’s choice to only add 5 additional levels to the game, but I am still dreading that level grind, and here’s why:

The night the expansion is released I am one of those people that must go out hours before midnight, and stand in a line with a bunch of strangers just to be sure that I have my copy as soon as humanly possible. I could probably have it mailed to me, and it would be there the next day but that’s not good enough! Then when I get it home, I frantically unwrap the box (which is usually a rather trying experience, me and boxes do not get a long) and insert the CD in my drive and hold my breath as the load screen appears.

Once the load screen is up I read through the books that normally come along with the game, and hopefully by the time I’m done the game is done installing and I proceed to log in. From there it becomes a sort of obsession for me. Much like my desire to be the first (or as close as possible) to the front of the line to purchase the game, I must be one of the first people to reach max level. I have this inane desire to be one of the first players to experience the new max level content and that desire drives me to remain up nights, to deprive myself of sleep, and sometimes even neglect to shower longer than I would normally allow. My friends and family become distant memories of the past, and all that matters is that I reach my goal.

Now I know what you’re thinking, I don’t need to do any of this. I don’t have to be the first, and the content will be there regardless of if I do it in a week or 6 months, but I want to do it. Maybe it’s my competitive nature bubbling to the surface, but the need to get to max level and do the content is something I can hardly suppress.

Even when I manage to reach max level on my main toon the leveling does not end. I, like many other players, have several alts that I enjoy playing, and of course in order for them to experience end game content they too need to go through the leveling process. This can be a long and tiring process, depending on how many alts you actually have. I personally have three, which brings my level total from 5 to 20. I can tell you after the first time, the leveling process certainly loses some of it’s luster, and after the second or third you start to know the quest text by heart and it just becomes more tedious than fun.

After all this complaining I would like to say that there are some things I do enjoy about leveling. I enjoy the new (and usually most awesome) areas that Blizzard will introduce for us to do our leveling in, and the lore that comes along with it. As stated before, I enjoy reading the quest text (at least the first time around) and really getting into the story line. I enjoy leveling with my friends, and laughing as we all fail at new encounters, or get stomped by the huge monster that is wandering around the low level zone. But without a doubt, I’m happy when the level grind is over.

Take breaks – I should really take my own advice here, but taking breaks is important. Even if you just get up and stretch your legs I promise when you sit back down you will feel refreshed.

Have a plan – You don’t need to write it down, but when you first log on decide what zone you will start in and where you will go from there.

Ask for the help of strangers – If you are out leveling and need help finding something, or need assistance to complete a quest, don’t hesitate to ask those in the zone with you. You may come across a few not so nice people, but most will answer your questions and lend a hand. This is a great way to start new friendships.

Read each quest fully – I am guilty of this, I skip the quest text and wander around aimlessly trying to find what I need to complete the quest, only to find out that the answer was in the quest text all along and that I am now even further away from it than I was in the first place. Save yourself the trouble, read the quest text first there are many helpful clues there.

All in all leveling is not such a bad experience, and the good things usually outweigh the bad, but I still can’t help but think that maybe I should teach my daughter how to play so she can do it for me. Join us on our forums to share what you like and dislike about leveling, and some of your helpful tips for making the leveling process smoother. 

So you’re just starting World of Warcraft, you’ve picked your race and class (gnome rogues ftw!), and you’re at the point where you get to pick two professions. You might say to yourself oooh I’m a rogue so Ill get leatherworking so I can make my own armor! or I’m a warrior so Ill get blacksmithing so I can make my own weapons! OK just stop right there n00b! Lemme tell you a little secret about all those cool crafting professions

So instead, pick two gathering professions. The cool thing about gathering professions is that you start making money right away walk up to a mineral vein or a plant or a dead animal and grab those mats! Its 100% profit! And since you are going to be spending a LOT of time running around doing quests and killing animals it only makes sense to take advantage of gathering professions. Mining and Herbalism are the biggest moneymakers, but since they share the minimap, I usually will pick mining or herbalism and then pick up Skinning.

Also, items with grey text are vendor trash, meaning you sell them to a vendor. ALWAYS pick up the vendor trash at your level every little bit counts. If its WHITE text, that means its used in a profession somehow. Hold onto it and see what its worth on the Auction House. If you can sell it to the vendor for 25s but sell it on the AH for 50syouve just doubled your profit! Don’t laugh at 50s profit either do that 1000 times (which you will do this 1000s of times in this game) that’s 500g!

You should be making more than enough money to pay for new skills, updated armor and weapons, gryphon flights, stupid noncombat pets (hey I love em too!) etc. But keep in mind you are working towards two things when you hit lvl 40:

1. Buying your mount, which is going to cost you 90g
2. Preparing for your first crafting profession, which will take money to level and buy schematics/patterns/recipes/etc.

You cannot enter Phase Two until you have purchased your mount and have like 100g in savings. Trust me on this one 😀

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT PHASE ONE:

Q: Gen, you are a god among gnomes, and handsome to boot. But if you tell everyone to take up gathering, who will buy the materials were gathering?! If there’s no money in crafting, nobody will buy our materials!

A: It actually makes a perfect circle lowbies gather the mats, while highbies buy the mats and make crafted items (well discuss highbie strategy in a bit). These highbies in turn sell their items (for a profit) to other highbies and lowbies who NOW have money to spend (because they’re not wasting all their money trying to level up crafting professions!) It works really well like this.
Q: Gen, you are kind, intelligent, and have abs you could wash clothes on. My character is lvl XX, and I’m a lvl YY Crafting Profession and a lvl ZZ Gathering Profession. And I’m BROKE! Should I drop my crafting profession and take up a second gathering profession?

A: It depends on several things. If you are already close to lvl 40, you might as well keep the crafting profession UNLESS its really low level (like <125 or something) then ya drop it like a bad habit. If you are relatively low level but have a mid-level crafting professions, I would still drop it and take up a second gathering profession. You’ll end up making much more money by the time you’re 40, which is the real goal of this guide.
Q: My materials aren’t selling! The market is flooded with them and I keep getting them returned in the mailbox!

A: Ya that’s going to happen from time to time. Some days you can sell a stack of something for 1g, the next day the entire AH is flooded with stacks selling for 20s. Its what I call the Retard Factor. The best thing you is get a general idea of how much stuff is selling for at that time, price your materials a little bit less that that, and hope for the best. Don’t throw your hands up in despair when someone undercuts you its gonna happen. Just take your unsold mats and put them back on the AH someone will buy them, trust me! 

Main Principle In Power Leveling
DOWN-TIME is your enemy! Down time is defined as either sitting around waiting for manna, waiting for health, or running to and from the graves. How do you minimize down time? By killing that which is WEAKER than you and thus the numerous smaller XP gains will rack up faster than the slower, bulky XP gains. Read on for more.

POINT ONE: QUESTS ARE BETTER THAN NOT!
This has been a big debate in this game. Some people just want to kill and grind without bothering to do quests. But I disagree. I believe that quests are an important component of powerlevelling as they give additional EXP, money, and items. BigDwarf starts the game in Dun Morogh, near an icy field full of lvl 1-3 wolves and such. He immediately runs to the field and starts hammering wolves. He gets to level 3 fast enough, in about 40 minutes, after killing dozens of wolves. He then starts talking to the NPC’s nearby that have Yellow “!” (exclamation marks) on top of their heads (a yellow ! means the NPC has a quest for you)

So BigDwarf talks to an NPC who gives him a quest to kill 15 wolves, and when he does he gets extra exp and extra copper. The problem is, of course, that now BigDwarf has to go back to the fields and kill wolves again. Had BigDwarf taken the quest at the start, he would have greatly increased the efficiency of his character gains and would have the quest completed! Grinding is always good, but the benefits of questing is that you get additional exp for finishing a quest, and cash or valued items.

POINT TWO: MULTIPLE QUESTS ARE BETTER THAN ONE AT A TIME
Learn this lesson now, or waste numerous hours to learn it the hard way. In fact, this is certainly what I would call a key to the game. This principle becomes more profound the more you advance in levels. Numerous times I found myself accepting a quest to kill “10 of X monster” that I had already killed 20 of! Its so tempting to do this:

talk to NPC –> Get Quest –> Do Quest –> Return

Trust me! Once you get out of the first newbie stage and are past level 5, this approach will slow you down. You want to gain maximum levels, at maximum speed! The right approach, therefore looks like this:

Talk to all NPC’s in the greater vacinity –> Get All The Quests you can muster. Collect quests like candy. Accept them from NPC’s, accept them from other players (when you are in a group, players can ‘share’ quests).

Quest A may say “Kill 10 of monster X”, and Quest B may say “Kill 10 of monster Y”. You will find that as you kill monster X, you have to plow your way through several monster Y’s. In essence, you are completing two quests simultaneously. Doing multiple quests at once is the only way to fly.

typing “/1” will broadcast to the regional channel. The other way I do it is simply go to the location of monsterX (providing the server is populated enough), and either invite people or send a /tell message to them (typing /tell *name* will instant message someone). There is always someone nice enough to let you join, or someone who will hook up with you.

The point is, GET IN A GROUP and you will see the EXP gains as well as the quests fly. Having said that, I must mention that if you group, make sure the group is coordinated and not just some fly-by-night group of inefficient morons. If the people in your group are not serious about getting the job done, leave. You will fare better solo any day than you would in a chaotic group. And if you can’t find a group, just ‘skip’ that quest and go to the next one, and return later when you can. Solo when you can, but don’t push it and waste 3 hours trying to solo a mission you could do in 20 minutes if you were in a group. 

Patch 5.2: The Thunder King brought with it not only new and exotic locations to visit (if you don’t mind a few storms) but a slew of new creatures. One of these creatures is the Zandalari Battlesaur whose roar can shake even the most stalwart hero. But, what exactly goes into crafting a voice for such a creature? The World of Warcraft Sound team was able to pop the hood and give us a look at the anatomy of the sound design within.

There are subtleties to sound design that aren’t always evident at first listen. In this case, the Zandalari Battlesaur’s roar consists of several layers of sound that are integrated into one unified voice. These layers include:

A voice actor : We pulled in some of the best voice talent in the industry who excel in making creature sounds. In this case, we were able to bring in Jon Olson who also did the non-Voice Over sounds for sha and hozen mobs. What you hear is an edit of two takes that form a base layer of performance and sound that other layers and effects are crafted around.
Bear : Early last year, senior Sound Designer Chris Kowalski took his recording gear and his courage to Big Bear to gather some scary up-close source material from several of the wild animals at Predators in Action. The bear recordings from that visit were used to add size and embellish some of what the actor did.
Tiger : While at Predators in Action, Chris was also given the opportunity to record the tiger that was used in the movie Gladiator. This resulted in a ton of great material, including a lot of big cat chest rumbles and roars you may hear mixed into several creatures across Pandaria.
Final Sound : The final mix is comprised of all the layers above along with additional processing and mastering that make it fit within the world.