Take It To The Limit

Recently I have taken to listening to Podcasts whilst playing WoW. I have in the past listened to The Hunting Party Podcast, The Instance, and Hypothetical Help. The Instance is the must listen to show of the week due to it's lighthearted, comedic touch, which allows the transferal of information at the same time as having a bit of a chuckle. Unfortunately the show has not been as regular as normal, so to fill the void I listened to the back catalogue of Hypothetical Help backwards. As usual the site shows the recordings most recent first, but with no button to go to the first episode I just listened to them from end of season/series 5 down to the first episode. It certainly makes for interesting continuity.

2 points stuck into my brain from the two shows, one is definitely from the Instance, and the other could be from either show (it's the same people in both podcasts, and I was multi-tasking at the time). The first point was the Blizzard announcement to reduce the current XP required to level in Pandaria, and the second was what to do at max level. (apparently they are both included in this week's edition of the Instance)

It took a while to find the information but this is on the PTR patch notes for 5.3.

"Experience needed to increase from level 85 to level 90 has been reduced by 33%"

This is an unusual step for Blizzard to take on current content and they have never done this before. The assumption is that Blizzard have the figures and there are probably a lot of Alts stuck at level 85-86. The reasons are obvious to everybody why this is the case:

1. Mists of Pandaria started off, not being very Alt friendly
2. There is too much to do on one character, never mind an army of Alts
3. Reputation grinds made it prohibitive to have 2 Raid ready characters, especially if one of them requires 2 sets of gear.

The question is will it make a difference? I believe that it is going to make a huge difference, and with the changes to Reputation grinds it is going to be possible to level all the characters to a position were they can LFR to the Siege of Orgrimmar or whatever Blizzard are going to call it.

I currently have 5 max level characters, 3 of which are lacking in the Epic gear that you might expect to be dropping off a mid expansion 5 man Heroic. I have however been slowly pushing them all to a position were they can start to make huge leaps in gear.

The starting point for a newly levelled level 90 character is to follow a well trodden path.

Gear

1. Purchase a complete set of PvP gear from the Auction House, they are not expensive and are now available with an iLevel of 458, some 450 PvP gear may be available, but I would aim for 458.
2. Rings and Necklace are available from Jewelcrafters.
3. Scribes can make Staves
4. Scenario "Arena of Annihilation" awards a 450 weapon
5. Scribes can make a Darkmoon Trinket

Reputation

1. Own Sunsong Ranch, at level 90 all crops harvested award reputation with the Tillers. Do a few days of Dailies with the Tillers and the Ranch will be yours, provided you picked up the commendation with your main character. The farm is useful for farming raw materials, food and later you can do the Orders for reputation.
2. Reputation, my recommendation is to first cap the Tillers and then move to Operation: Shieldwall and the Kirin Tor Offensive (or the Horde equivalent). This will give you something to spend your Valor points on, and gives the most bang for your bucks.
3. Accumulate Valor by capping Valor on your main, and then chain running Scenarios or Heroic 5 Mans
4. LFR opens up at iLevel 460 and will give you something to spend that huge supply of Elder Charms of Good Fortune that drop from the Island of Thunder.

Once on the LFR merry-go-round you can swear and curse like the rest of us

Lucky Man

The Kirin Tor Offensive is my current chief motivator. I am neither excited or bored with these quests yet. The differences in the quests are so infinitesimal, kill 10 Mogu or alternatively, kill 3 Mogu with bad hair, 3 with with bad teeth and 3 with bad breath.

The reputation grind is closer to Golden Lotus than the Anglers, and Revered looks like it might take weeks.

On the plus side, I am yet again making full use of the Sunsong Ranch. I have no intention of doing Dailies on alts, but I can manage to grow a few vegetables for a daily reward. The farm is slightly more manageable with the 4 seed planting and the half hit point Virmen, after you have ploughed them down. Bursting crops seems to be a more common occurrence than previously but then they need to be replanted, and I am no longer holding stacks of single seeds.

With the changes to this patch I have been able to push the last mile for exalted status with the Anglers and the Klaxxi. Having completed the Klaxxi through work orders I decide to see if there was a finale to the grind. I was not disappointed and my reward was the Seal of the Windreaver.

Doing the Kirin Tor, means that I am positively overflowing with Elder Charms of Good Fortune, and it was at this point that I discovered that they only stack up to a max of 20. To make space for some new ones I decided to stand in line for the lengthy wait in the LFR. I was surprised to see another option in my list for Heart of Fear, and I was lucky enough to notch up a Garalon kill by joining at the end of a run.

Having used up the grand total of one Elder Charm, I immediately chose to run LFR Mogu'shan Vaults. I find this raid utterly tedious, the trash turns this into one big boss fight. This time I was rewarded with 3 items Stonemaw Armguards, Wildfire Worldwalkers, and Fetters of Death. Belt and Bracers replaced PvP items and the Boots were a sideways upgrade. What was more shocking was the iLevel of these items, iLevel 476, is less than the ring for completing the Klaxxi rep grind at iLevel 489. Operation: Shieldwall is relatively easy to grind to exalted and that offer iLevel 496. It appears that LFR is nothing more than a way of obtaining 90 Valor points to add to that all important 1000 weekly Valor cap.

Is this good design? personally I think that Valor is becoming the only way to gear a character, and until they make it so that you can Valor cap in 3 nights, then alts are going the way of the dodo. My guild wants me to take up Healing duties in raids, but at the moment I am too focused on my Hunter, to gear up a second character. This is bad for the game, and alt Healers and alt Tanks are needed to reduce the long waiting times in LFR and LFD.

My hunter is still wearing 4 Blue items and we are up to the second patch in the expansion. The worst thing is that the gear make such a huge impact to the DPS, and I expected an increase between 10-15 K for the 3 new items, and when I get a decent weapon the figures will go through the roof, and then maybe, I might not be such a sitting duck on the Island of Giants.

The Late Show

Just a little something I have been pondering recently. If you have been away from the game for some time and have just returned via a Scroll of Resurrection or just a bit of pre Panda curiosity, or in my case have undergeared alts, what is the easiest way to get some gear quickly?

I have all my healers in LFR Dragon Soul equipment but what about gearing up those pesky damage dealers. In my opinion and it will probably get me lynched, get hold of the latest crafted PvP set. This will be enough to get into the the 4.3 Heroic 5 mans. As your gear will be 25% gimped by having resilience dripping from your gear, I suggest supplementing this with the BoE i Level 378 Justice gear. There is plenty floating on the market, that will cover the wrist option, and maybe some gloves and boots. One of the best ways to increase Dps is to obtain the best weapon that you can afford. In my case I have used the Blacksmith crafted i Level 365 weapons. They are still expensive to craft due to the large quantities of Truegold required. Depending on your level of competence put some cheap enchants, and get some buff foods and possible some flasks/elixirs.

Start at the 1st of the linear set of Heroics End Time. Oddly enough this instance is probably the hardest of the 3. Each instance comes with 2 or 3 quests all rewarding i Level 378 gear, 150 valor points for completion and 70 Justice points per boss, not forgetting the random Boss loot.

In case you are worried about your own performance especially wearing PvP gear, you can get a Guild run or alternatively use the LFD which is probably a nicer environment than you remember because most of the angry noobs can be found hanging out and wiping in LFR. Klepsacovic wrote about this phenomenon back in February. Other tips for LFD are either be nice and chatty or quiet as a mouse and hope nobody notices your sub par performance.

The 2nd Heroic instance Well of Eternity comes with some hefty buffs so don't get too excited about your 30-40K Dps score at the end of the instance. From experience the early buffs seem to favour melee and the later buffs benefit ranged.

The 3rd Heroic instance Hour of Twilight is straight forward with exception of some adds on the run down to Wyrmrest. My tip is to kill the Borer first, they are easy to spot looking like an eye on a stalk.

After running the full set, run the random version a few times and hopefully you get to fill your troublesome gear slots, mainly Trinkets and then you should be able to enter the roller-coaster ride that is LFR.