Lich King Tactics

Tonight the Wrath of the Lich King is released in Europe. I already have secured my box from a good contact, however I still have to wait for the servers to "open".

I now have serious problems choosing what to play next. I've even become interested in picking up a Death Knight.

My tactics when it comes to consuming the Lich King expansion is to ... chill. I am going to take it really slow and be sure to read all lore and really explore the lands. Most of the people on my guild are going to race to 80 as quick as possible. I am going to figure out how to make gold while leveling (since I hate farming sessions) and just enjoy. I don't expect to turn 80 this year. What is your approach?

 

Last night I participated in a few skirmishes against the Lich King's invasion. It felt rather lackluster so I took my little warrior & priest duo to their first excursion into the Outlands. Every time I've gone into the outlands for the first time with a character it has been more or less a pain. Not this time. My protection warrior backed up by a disc priest was able to tear through the mobs in Azerothian blues.

I've now replaced most of their gear. The priest did have gear from Shadowfang Keep... *blush*. My biggest problem is that there are so many tanks on our server that they keep yelling for DPS in the LFG channel. How about that. I've leveled 3 DPS characters before this and they had trouble getting into PUGS because everyone was screaming for tanks.. go figure.

My hunter is now sitting happily in his Argent Dawn gear (although a bit pissed about having to wear a sissy skirt). I managed to secure all pieces except the breastplate in little more than an hour of relaxed grinding (I was practically alone).

Where are you hiding?

I realized that it was quite a while since I updated the blog... well I haven't given up on WOW. On the contrary I've been so busy at work and in Azeroth that I haven't had the time to write anything. Patch 3.0 did really renew my interest in WOW - to the point where I don't even long for the Lich King expansion. I am having fun right here, right now.

New talents

After the 3.0 patch I've been a mess trying to figure out what specs to use and what works best for me. The interesting thing is that most classes that I play (Hunter, Warrior, Rogue and Paladin) have had some dramatic changes. Experiencing the classes again has been tremendously fun.

My hunter is deep in the beast master spec. 52/9/0 with an army of three new exotic pets I am leveling up. I currently have a worm from silithius that I am doing amazing tanking tricks with...

My warrior is not only enjoying but loving the new take on protection. A tree that I never used before even as a tank.

Achievements

Completing achievements had an initial boom that has now subsided - with the large number of characters I play it is untenable to try to complete all achievements. I will have to select one char to really focus on - and that has proven very hard for me. It looks like my dear hunter will be the achievement ho...

Hallow's End

A very fun event that I've squeezed the most out of. It bothers me a bit that I never got the plate helmet for my warrior (but I got the AP ring). I've used the event to level up chars and with my hunter really tried to complete as much as possible. I never got all the masks and the cloth helmet. Better luck next year I suppose.

Multiboxing

A new joy... I've taken a priest and a warrior from 1 to 54 in very short time. Going into instances with two characters have proven to be quite challenging! Just questing and killing in the normal world is simply fast and very easy. I find PVP pretty hard though and it usually leaves my priest dead while my warrior tries to finish off any gankers. However with so many 70 running around right now insta-gibbing lowbies it isn't really that fun...

My latest achievement was completing all of Maraudon with my two chars at level 52... great success and lots of fun. The little green blobs with AOE were the most lethal mobs.

Wrath of the Lich King

Ten days to go... and it looks like I might be on a business trip during the launch. Oh well... I guess it is going to be slightly less crowded in the new starting areas when I get back. With potential 80's running around griefing and ganking. My biggest concern is which character to level to 80 first. I am leaning toward taking my hunter...

Hexapuma's Army: Multiboxing

While waiting for the next expansion I've gathered a small army of toons. It seems I can't help myself to go creating more and more toons. With the latest "Recruit a friend" (or RAF for the cool kids) boons you can actually level a couple of toons really really fast.

What you get from playing with a friend:

* Friend-to-friend summoning - once every hour (I think) you can summon your friend. This cuts down on travel time immensely - especially since you'll level so fast you want to visit trainers so much more often.

* Triple experience gain - you get triple experience from quests AND killing mobs. Triple is fast - very fast. It is so fast that you'll skip most quests in a zone because it is becoming grayed out. It also makes instances leveling very interesting.

* The recruited friend can grant bonus levels to your characters... even more leveling.

There are a few caveats in the mix though. Your "friends" account gets linked to the recruiter. This means that only those two accounts will gain the triple experience when playing together. It is also only active 3 months... so if you want to level multiple characters - get cracking!

Of course you can always get yourself a second account and either multi-box them (playing two accounts on the same computer) or if you have two computers play that way. I currently have two computers setup next to each others to play my two accounts. It does require a few macros to run successfully but it works like a charm.

I am currently leveling a Warrior and a Priest this way... My warrior tanks and accounts for most of the DPS... the priest is little more than a pocket healer and when not healing auto wanding the target. I am not using the two characters full potential. Probably 3/4 of the warrior and 1/3 of the priest...

It is really interesting way to play... much more room to botch up comparing with running with just one character. It feels a little bit like WOW in difficult mode.