Lessons Learned - Getting to Mid 30's

[Fornza]

Hello All,

I want to share a few lessons learned from my experiences getting to my mid 30's in an effort to help, encourage, inform, or inspire others along the way during their journey.

Fair warning: I'm no pro. I have never made a video in game because I'm sort of an average Joe kind of gamer. I work full time and gaming is a hobby. Anything that makes it feel like something other than a place to go for mindless, get-away-from-RLStress gets deleted from my experience. So here goes...

With that no stress motto, suffice it to say I went through all sorts of class combo groups until finally landing on Mages x 4 + a Priest. Regardless of any opinions on abilities of this group later in game, etc. I just couldn't bring myself to go trinity or something else, it all had the feeling of work for me. I simply love casters. I'm just not as good at melee while boxing. Others may be, that's great for them, I'm below average when boxing a melee team in Classic..... soooooo, casters it is.

Staggered Team Challenge: What I mean by that is when you find yourself with part of your team higher level than the other because of class substitutions caused by sorting out what you want to do in game. It is challenging, especially for casters that are spell dependent, to mesh.

Solution 1: Wait until your lowest casters are min level before going to the next recommended dungeon. Example: numerous guides etc, you can go to certain dungeons like SM GY starting at 26, recommended at 29. I'd say, go at 29. Your other toons will be higher and pull your lagging members along because it is easier for the higher levels.

Solution 2: Regardless of level concerns, wait until the next round of spells equalize your team. Example: level 30 is a big level for mages. You'll get the next rank of arcane explosion and your whole group might be playing with the same rank spell.

Gold Challenge: I seemed BROKE until getting to SM. My average character had less than a gold on it after buying the next rank of spells.

Solution 1: DO NOT go into the AH for anything other than selling. Even then, it seems like a time sink. Avoid it and just bank your mats for future crafting efforts. There will always be a new shiney to soak up your hard earned gold. DON'T DO IT! Walk away. Nothing to see there.

Solution 2: Send everything, i mean everything through the mail to an alt. I found TB to be the best because the mailbox is literally the fewest number of paces from the Auctioneer vs Org or UC. See lazy, avoid work at all costs comment above. Sell stuff on that alt only. It does not seem like much time, but posting, checking mail, etc. on multiple toons is a time sink. Time = money.

Solution 3: Always have hearthstone set nearest the dungeon you will be working. Example: if you're horde and farming SM, bind in Brill. You can always run to UC if you REALLLY need something, but frankly selling and training can happen in Brill and the run is shorter. No flying saves money. It adds up, it really does.

Solution 4: Only buy the spells that really matter for leveling. If you're using it virtually every fight, buy it. If it is something that will rest in your spell book until later.... well, buy it later when you REALLY need it.

Small tips I'm sure, but I hope they help.

If anyone else has tips or hints, please post. Anything that makes gaming more fun and less work will be welcome.

Good gaming to you all.

[southeastbeast]

Nice. Thanks for sharing your experience. Your other post is what led to me to try and level up an alt mage, but I abandoned that because it was too painful.

[Moorea]

one thing to note when you have some toon one level higher is if you are doing a mostly green mobs dungeon, some mobs will get grey to the higher level so they don't get xp and so the lower ones catch up (might not be the most efficient way to achieve parity but it worked for me, I have some ocd issues with mismatch in xp... and the class quests don't help for that)

[southeastbeast]

one thing to note when you have some toon one level higher is if you are doing a mostly green mobs dungeon, some mobs will get grey to the higher level so they don't get xp and so the lower ones catch up (might not be the most efficient way to achieve parity but it worked for me, I have some ocd issues with mismatch in xp... and the class quests don't help for that)

Yeah if it was closer level it wouldn't be too bad, but level 14 and rest of team is level 29. I don't want to solo quest to catch it up.

Also, I just noticed your signature with DynamicBoxer. Looks neat to be able to swap members without pushing config to ISBoxer again!

[Moorea]

Yeah if it was closer level it wouldn't be too bad, but level 14 and rest of team is level 29. I don't want to solo quest to catch it up.

Oh with such a big difference I would split the group and tag with lower level(s) and help kill with the higher ones, out of group

Also, I just noticed your signature with DynamicBoxer. Looks neat to be able to swap members without pushing config to ISBoxer again!

Thanks! I hope you like it! it's meant to make life easier (for instance it also will auto invite, sort your team in EMA etc)

[Acidburning]

your observations are very similar to mine. I just hit 34 and grinding out SM Lib.
I started @ 30 in SM GY until 32.
Very similar. I maybe had 6 gold between all 5 toons. I have about 50g on my bank alt from a few blues I have sold.
Think I have about 40g now between the 5 toons.
I have been trying to keep professions and skills up during the grind.

[Purpleflavor]

Avoid crafting professions until 60. It's such a huge time sink, and you can level them so much faster at 60.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Agreed on the general strategy, OP.

Avoid crafting professions until 60. It's such a huge time sink, and you can level them so much faster at 60.

Oh, it's definitely a time-sink, but I've been keeping my leatherworker, enchanter, and tailors up at level and it has helped with things like bags, shoulders, wands, etc. Not critical by any means but it does fill in the occasional gear gap while leveling. And just selling crafted items has definitely increased my bank account on two of the toons to double the others in spite of purchasing craft skills.

[Mercbeast]

I actually would highly recommend that you be open to surfing the AH for weapons. At certain points during my leveling adventure, I bought blue weapons for my team, and it made an enormous difference to my leveling speed, for relatively minor cost. 1.5g might seem like a lot in your 30's for a 20% increase in your wand or melee weapon, but that can speed things up enormously, and makes virtually no difference to your level 60 bottom line.

Agreed on the general strategy, OP.

Oh, it's definitely a time-sink, but I've been keeping my leatherworker, enchanter, and tailors up at level and it has helped with things like bags, shoulders, wands, etc. Not critical by any means but it does fill in the occasional gear gap while leveling. And just selling crafted items has definitely increased my bank account on two of the toons to double the others in spite of purchasing craft skills.

Yea, I made probably close to 200 gold selling mageweave bags, the price of MW was so low on my server that my TSM minimum prices wouldn't even list it, so I just converted it all into bolts and sold bags at about 1.5-1.2gold for a week or so.

[Darkgrin]

1 Tip for your Staggered Team. Anytime I get a character thats out of Sync I just tag boost him myself. Ex. Drive main character ungrouped with the other four higher level grouped behind him. Go to world and either ST or AoE target mobs that are between Your level and teams and you can kill all day with basically zero downtime until you catch him up. You get full xp per kill and are going atleast 5x faster but actually more because of no downtime