Woot! I done dung 80! Thoughts on Northrend.

[OzPhoenix]

Second team, my new primary team, hit 80 this afternoon!!!! Woo Hoo

No RAF, No Heirlooms, No boosting (5xPaladin, so no room for a booster).

The first time I leveled through Northrend I hated it so much that I quit boxing for 6 months (or more). This time, it was a lot easier.

1. I decided that if I could ding 80 as I finished the last quest in Icecrown, that'd suit me fine. I wasn't going to do every quest in every zone, no matter how much money all that post-80 questing might have made me. With that in mind, I:

a) Skipped Boring Tundrea completely. I don't know what it's like for Alliance, but for Horde it is (or was anyway) one long collection quest after another. I did Howling Fjord instead, actually managed to get the zone quest achievement, and only did the odd slightly annoying collection quest.

b) Dragonblight, basically a full clear save for a few really bad quests (1 or 2 only). Love doing the Wrathgate series, and had a blast with my 5 Pallies battling it out in Undercity :-)

c) Hit Grizzly Hills at 73 and only got about 30 quests in before I hit a wall of collection quests. No matter, done the Arena quest fights, and by now, a bunch of very VERY multiboxer-friendly dailies had opened up (Wyrmrest Temple Defense, plus all the pvp Grizzly Hills ones, 9 in all).

d) Zul Drak - started out real well, the first 2 quest hubs were pretty much all boxer-friendly and I did the whole series around Voltarus, at the end of which the new team had their first sight of the Lich King (coward wouldn't fight me). After that it ran downhill rapidly and I skipped the entire second half of the zone as long collection quests triggered subsequent quest hubs.

e) 76 by now which triggered Schalozar - nice zone that. Apart from boosting Herbing and Mining out to 450/450 with ease (Skinning hit 450 while I was still 71), lots'a fun quests for a boxer, including the whole Nesingwary's line. Got about two-thirds way through the zone, and this along with dailes and the daily dungeon (slowly building up those Triumph badges) got me to 77.

f) Things get real nice at 77. Icecrown questing opens up as does Storm Peaks. Storm Peaks I did "only" the very fun quest line that opens up the Sons of Hodir (2,200 relics of Ulduar sat in the bank so my whole team went to Exalted). Didn't bother with the rest of the zone much as I was just off 78 by then (dailies again...gotta love 'em).

g) Icecrown - 78 out 80. I had decided in the interests of matching the phasing with my other team that I'd do all of Icecrown, lock, stock and barrel regardless of quest type, so I was a little aphrehensive coming into the zone, but it turned out well. There's a few collection quests to be sure, but most are pretty easy, and indeed, some are actually boosted by multiboxing. I dinged 80 with my zone quest meter at 85/140 so still quite a few to go.

2. Ok - Northrends been nerfed! (And a good thing too). I can't prove it, I gots no hard data, but leveling this time round was MUCH easier than just after Wrath came out - there were just too many times when I got a collection quest and thought to myself "didn't this used to be 'x' items, or a crappy low drop rate" or similar. I'd bet dollars for dimes there's been a stealth nerf to Northrend to speed up questing through it.

3. Argent Tournament dailies - ahhh, hot diggedly it's good to be able to box vehicle quests now. Along with some of the earlier dailies I put into my regular routine this has made things so much more fun. The only miss (and it's a minor one) is that you can't box Jousting quests (only 1 player at a time gets kill credits), but oh well, I can live with that. I actually hit the daily limit of 25 dailies today, and they were all very multiboxer friendly quests that I could knock out with minimal effort and time.

4. Gearing - if you have a bit of gold behind you, you can do a real large gear jump on 80. Crafted 2xi245 and 7(!)xi200 epics for the whole team soon as I got back to Dal - most of the rest of their kit is blue i174-200. Along with enchants and gems, the teams kit was vastly improved over what it was just before dinging 80 and I'll be hitting the Heroics tomorrow for sure.

Anyway, sorry for the long post - just happy as a pig in...mud... to be 80 again!

[jinkobi]

Fun read

Glad you got to 80! All down hill from here j/k Try not to burn out too bad before Cataclysm- I know I'm taking a little break after June. Have to be here in June to get my Midsummer firefestival done and finally finish the Long Strange Trip

Have fun man the hard part is over!

[Souca]

3. Argent Tournament dailies - ahhh, hot diggedly it's good to be able to box vehicle quests now. Along with some of the earlier dailies I put into my regular routine this has made things so much more fun. The only miss (and it's a minor one) is that you can't box Jousting quests (only 1 player at a time gets kill credits), but oh well, I can live with that. I actually hit the daily limit of 25 dailies today, and they were all very multiboxer friendly quests that I could knock out with minimal effort and time.

While you can't get credit for the joust on all five characters, the unmounted characters *can* help out. This is especially true if they are ranged. In my current daily rotation, the character on the mount only does shield breaker and keeps up their own shield, the other 4 actually kill the mob. This is true of both the Valiant and Champion jousting dailies. The quests where you fight just one at the end can only be done by the mounted character or the npc will bug out; however, all characters will get credit.

The jousting in front of ICC is fully boxable and so much faster that way as long as you don't charge and lose followers.

Another tip. In the No Rest of the Wicked daily, you can save Alumeth's Remains on your slaves for the next day which means you don't have to gather all the body parts but once every five days.

- Souca -

[Mercurio]

a) Skipped Boring Tundrea completely. I don't know what it's like for Alliance, but for Horde it is (or was anyway) one long collection quest after another. I did Howling Fjord instead, actually managed to get the zone quest achievement, and only did the odd slightly annoying collection quest.

Isn't that as happy as an Ogre in mud? Anyway, after leveling up four teams to 80 on the horde side, I was AMAZED by how much easier things are leveling on the alliance side. Boring Tundra is a great zone for alliance with hardly any collection quests. I've now leveled a couple of teams up on the alliance side and they are a ton faster. Really too bad blizz seemingly has such horde hate.

[Sam DeathWalker]

if you have a bit of gold behind you, you can do a real large gear jump on 80. Crafted 2xi245 and 7(!)xi200 epics for the whole team soon as I got back to Dal -

Ya that is exactly my plan i245 in the chest and wrist (mail caster is black chiten bracers and enscroled neubian breastplate), i226 in the waist and boots (mail caster is lightning grounded boots and blue belt of chaos) and i200 most elsewhere. Can't wait for 80 lol ...

[Kojii]

Grats on ur 5 pallies reaching 80 bud, when I left u on Friday u were 77.8 on leveling those last two must of went fast for ya!!

[EaTCarbS]

Grats! leveling sucks, its a good feeling when you reach the top =)

[Slats]

Congratulations. I was impressed how you kept up with tradeskills the whole way as well.

Cannot wait to try out some raid content with you and Aztrid. Our little boxing community is getting quite big now!

[OzPhoenix]

Grats on ur 5 pallies reaching 80 bud, when I left u on Friday u were 77.8 on leveling those last two must of went fast for ya!!

Hehe Kojii, I'd be a little bit embarrassed to reveal just how much Wow I've played this weekend. It's been raining in Sydney here non-stop for like 3 days (until today) and I had 4 days off of work, so it was a LOT of WoW.... lol.

To Souca: Yep, the followers now help me tear down the jousting opponent nice and quick ;-)

To Mercurio: Yeah, I've heard Boring Tundra is a lot funner for Alliance. A shame that - hopefully Cata won't be so lopsided.

To Sam: The gearing options nowadays are a hugh boost, I'd hate to think though of your mats budget... lol (mine was 30,000 gold just for 5 toons).

To Slats: VoA next Sunday - hehe.

[mikekim]

To Sam: The gearing options nowadays are a hugh boost, I'd hate to think though of your mats budget... lol (mine was 30,000 gold just for 5 toons).

on levelling various groups up to 80, I find if i keep the professions up top speed then the mat cost for equipping them is not that great (providing you have the right professions for your group). you might have to buy frozen orbs / crusader orbs to make some of the items, but it only normally costs me 5-10K when they hit max lvl.