Gear upgrades and Grinding Tol Barad -- 18 quests a day!

I've been running archaeology digs, farming for Winterspring Cub Whiskers, and grinding Tol Barad while waiting for running normals recently. I recently bagged a Scepter of Power and traded in some JP for the Apple-Bent Bough. With the off-hand intellect enchant, I think I come out ahead of my old Staff of Siphoned Essences. Here they are compared on WoWhead, though it misses the +40 INT from the off-hand enchant. That with a few smarter enchants and though my iLevel is the same, DPS should start looking up. I also traded out my one piece of Heroic gear, the Corrupted Egg Shell, for the normal Gale of Shadows I picked up in my tenth or so run of Grim Batol last night. It was time to stop worrying about convenient mana and to throw in on more DPS.

But the real lesson for my grind comes from
this comment on Baradin's Wardens at WoWhead:

You can do a maximum of 18 daily quests to earn reputation with Baradin's Wardens [A] or Hellscream's Reach [H].

The post continues to tell you how. I've been stopping after "6 daily quests (out of 22) that you can pick up at Baradin Base Camp [A]", when, "If your faction controls Tol Barad, then there are 12 daily quests that you can pick up at Baradin Hold." Whoops. 18 a day (even the more sure 12, since I won't check in that often) would speed up the grind for the Stump of Time just a little bit!

Rep Ding! Exalted Therazane

What's new with Jal? Not much. I've been running daily normals for Justice Points, and wearing my Therazane tabard for rep. The daily rep quests were boring enough that I've been traveling up in Winterspring grinding Wintersaber Trainer rep instead as I wait for LFG, in part because I saw that, come 4.1, Wintersaber Trainer rep is getting nerfed, and when I say nerfed, I mean homogenized. I should also admit that I spent hours and hours in vanilla farming rugged and other leather from the frostsabers under the rock without ever knowing the trainer was up there, scowling at me killing the wild cats. It was a great place to farm. Rarely anyone there, and nobody really taking down the sabers, who would respawn very quickly. If I'd only known. I did wonder what my mount, a frostsaber, thought about it...

Even so, it didn't take long to get exalted with Therazane. After a few runs, I was just a few hundred points of rep away, and I went back for a final quest. That apparently makes for five exalted reps. Funny, I'm not sure what they are offhand. Therazane (shoulder enchants), Wildhammer (great rep gear for Cat), Sons of Hodir (LK shoulders)... um... (runs to Armory) Apparently the Alliance Vanguard and Stormwind. Who knew?



That said, who really cares? What a payoff!



Wow. Now you know why swag motivates workers, I guess. I remember when I worked at a shop that gave out bonuses for each additional billable hour you clocked, but if you did the math, the percentage of each hour you were bagging dropped after a certain point. If your own company doesn't value each extra hour of your time more, why should you want to give them? Well, that never stopped the company hawks. Anyhow... Looks like I'm susceptible after all.

And for those reading hoping this'll serve as a sort of guide, next is Tol Barad commendations for the Stump of Time, though I'll probably get the frostsaber mount first.

During my daily runs, I'm gradually performing better. The below Recount for Halls of Origination (I came in part-way) is pretty good, and I was off-healing much of the time for our ungeared Shammy.



Shammy follows:



It's not a big deal, and I don't mind our three wipes (!), but I was surprised to feel my own reaction when I saw the lack of enchants and gemming.



Though I didn't have a violent reaction and am actually happy to pull along newbies, I see now why people get so irate when undergeared folk try running heroics. And it's much easier to carry undergeared dps (not that I've been yelled at, as I've only run one heroic) than healz. She just couldn't keep up. So I went elven for a while and threw around some resto-ige (still spec'd balance) and had fun. I also have to take some grief for not knowing that Void Seekers heal themselves if you left two stay close to each other. Whoops.



In other news, Spinks has stopped playing. No big deal. I think it's funny to hear someone trying to figure out the distinction between quitting and quitting for a while. Goodness knows, if you've read this blog at all, you know I take breaks for months at a time. Blizzard expects you to at this point, I believe. Doesn't want you to, but expects it.

Ah yes, I also dodged the temptation to buy a MSI R6850 Cyclone PE/OC Radeon HD 6850 with a gig of VRAM for what's now under $170 with rebate. I decided this was what I wanted when I put together my new rig, but I've been sliding by with what's almost a four year-old card. I mean, look at the roller coaster heatsink! Still, $170 is just $70 shy of what I paid for a quad-core AMD Athlon II at 3 GHz, a new mobo, and four gigs of RAM. Crazy.



The only other thing I've got is that the Frostesaber Stalkers really have it in for the bunnies. I mean, wow. They'll leap four times their body length, it seems, to take one down, and then they don't even bother eating it. See the pic of three going after one at once. INSANE. ;^)



That last one looks stepped on.

Collage brought to you by the fine folk at Microsoft Paint.

On: Winterspring Frostsaber Mount Grind Changed in 4.1 - The Wowhead Blog

More of my comment crossposts. I've started running Frostsaber rep now 1.) to pretend I'm protesting and 2.) because I'm bored out of my mind as I wait for a PUG to show up.

Winterspring Frostsaber Mount Grind Changed in 4.1 - The Wowhead Blog:

I don't understand the point of this change.

Why this obsession the new dev team has with homogenizing everything?

+1

There was a time when you could argue that a set of of Nature's Wrath gear was a good poor man's tiered armor for a boomkin. Then it didn't matter that Wrath was Nature dmg and Starfire was Arcane. Resistances nearly disappeared. Instead of type-specific spellpower boosts, it was just "spellpower." Then "of healing" was the same as "of spellpower".

This might seem unrelated, but it's the same sort of homogenization. Gear standardized. Rep runs standardized. Is it really wrong that the Alliance can get a crappy but pretty ground mount in a day and Horde can't? Dude, I farmed frostsabers for weeks for leather in vanilla and never even saw the guy on top of the rock. If 80% of the Alliance don't know he's there, what percent of the Horde care?

I wonder what percent of WoWers depend on WoWhead.com and similar, outside of the game, help sites? Doesn't anyone play casually? Why pander to either type of player (casual gamers who don't want to learn the difference between healing and spellpower, and hardcore gamers who don't want cross-faction mounts to be different. At all. No matter what.) to the point that the whole game is watered down? Does "of Nature's Wrath" or grinding rep really kill the game?

If anything, they should put the rep right back like it was in vanilla and make it a serious, long-term grind that only the truly crazy complete.

Ding! 77

Took a few days off during the week for RL, but played a bit last night. Got 77 right at the moment in the quest line where you unexpectedly go from friendly with the Frenzyheart to Hostile, and vice versa with The Oracles. Laser Chicken's rep list has two items from each faction worth pursuing, but the real benefits seem to be getting the Mercenary of Sholazar achievement and grabbing the Mysterious Eggs which reportedly have a 4-8% chance of turning into a Green Proto-Drake. Which reminds me that I might should have saved my 1000g for Cold Weather Flying rather than spent it on dual-speccing, which I haven't done yet. 77 is the level where flying's back in Northrend.

You can switch back and forth between Frenzyheart and the Oracles, but I'm probably going to rep up just the Oracles so I can start waiting a week for each egg to hatch. And I'm going to have to start saving up for flying too, I suppose. Time to finally grab Auctioneer again and bring the bank character back online.

Let me add that the questline is hella easy. I'm not impressed. Fun, but waaaaaaay too easy.

One quick note: The Frenzyheart/Oracle questline sure ain't PC, is it? You start by whacking gorillas (not that I didn't whack scores in STV for leather), later poke baby gorillas with sticks until the mother shows up ("Run away dumb softknuckle! We gonna poke you more!") -- so that you can kill her!, and then kill Oracles, proverbial sentient beings, for no good reason. You're a "slave" the entire time, and then the Oracles are dumb enough to turn on a dime and friend you after you've been murdering them. Compare this with the werewolf line where the werewolf clan has you, what, go to capture an orc and dismember it, but you're stopped by some girl before you do it. Blizzard seems to be having a good deal of fun with the people who quickly click, "Accept" and click talk bubbles without reading, but they're also putting grinders and completionist through some questionable lines for no good reason.

Not arguing it makes everything okay, but the Frenzyheart text cracked me up a few times.

"Dajik the Wasp Hunter says: I placed most of the spikes. Good amount of pointiness I think. You like?"
"Dajik the Wasp Hunter says: Dajik's last learner eaten by sand-thing. We do better this time though!"
"Dajik the Wasp Hunter says: You do okay enough with that one. Just okay."
"Dajik the Wasp Hunter says: Oh! Dajik has idea! Make chicken sounds and maybe they come to you!"
"Dajik the Wasp Hunter says: In case you wonder, wasp sting not feel so good. No need to try."

etc

Update and panzerkin staff

The great DPS staff I grabbed was the Staff of the Sorrowful Chieftan. Insanely good DPS for me, but it really brings to light how bad damage mit is for 'kin since the LK nerf. I really miss Braxxis armor x 360%. The staff was a cinch to get with three in the group, and takes about a minute after landing at Zul'Drak. Get it.

In other news, I'm behind on posts, have dinged 76 which I'll backfill, and have been running the Nessingwary questline now that I'm 76. Also bagged my first rep reward, dropping back in with the walruses to grab the Whale-Skin Vest. I think I might also grab the Whale-Skin Breastplate (not on Laser Chicken's list; this is panzerkin only, folks) next time I log in, as that'd be a good upgrade for when I'm panzering solo with the Staff.

(Update: Argh, now that I do some wowheading, it looks like going after the Dark Iceborne Chestguard gives me both a better piece plus gives me the iceborne set bonus back, which I recently lost putting in a few new pieces. Argh. See what I mean about theorycrafting ruining your playtime?)

And Nessingwary's is danged busy. I didn't realize how many achievements were available in that zone -- mostly hunting -- until an 80 was nice enough to link a few for me.

Finally, let me reiterate how important it is to ignore theorycrafting pre-80. Not spending much of any time figuring out exactly what to wear or what rep to grab, etc, has paid off in much faster leveling. About all I did was leave Zul'Drak for the Dragonblight storyline, as those rep rewards will eventually be better. For now, the Kalu'ak rewards (76 & 78 level usables) are doing just fine. There'll be time enough to count points when the dealin's done.

PS -- Paid for my dual spec. Now I just need to find the time to pick a set of resto talents.

Ding! 72

Forgot to get /played (EDIT: about 33 days. Sheesh. Lots of wasted time at 70). I'll grab that tomorrow when I get back on, which will have another couple of hours added.

Been running the Kalu'ak missions in Dragonblight, having stumbled onto them taking the turtle boat on my way to Dalaran. Been okay missions, though steal pups and killing their enemies to get supplies after talking about how the enemy's just confused is somewhat at cross purposes. They're also pretty clearly supposed to be Hawaiian or Samoan-esque, and, well, the stereotypes are right out of Phantom Menace.

So far I've bagged a Carved Dragonbone Mace, with decent spellpower stats, but the armor rewards haven't even tempted me to put away the Wyrmhide rep set. Surprised that the Mace and its other concurrent quest rewards have no WoW Head comments or even WoW Wiki entries. Not a bad mace at 72!

Laser Chicken's hot off the press rep guide shows that there are at least two rewards worth pursuing as long as I'm walrusing, the Whale-Skin Vest at Honored (tempting, but level 76 required), and the Totemic Purification Rod at Revered, which I'm not sure I'll bother to get (level 78). We'll see.

UPDATE: Looks like the Rod is is a pretty good spellpower pickup, and here are a few suggested off-hands to go with. Still, I'm a few levels away from either.