Easily Distracted

My original goal was to have 10 level 85 characters of each class. I have been sitting on 7 so far, with three close behind. My usual method has been to run my 5 "raid ready" characters through LFR, and then leveling my rested three lowbies. Over the past two weeks, I haven't really been following that. I did a few pug runs on my shaman as a DPSer, and sent all three to the Darkmoon Faire to do the profession quests which have a two-fold benefit; five extra points on their profession and XP is a win-win situation to me!

I had one problem with the profession leveling though, as both of my horde toons needed wool cloth to level up high enough to be able to accept the Darkmoon quests for first aid. I was contemplating taking my 75 paladin on a grinding run, when Blizzard unexpectedly intervened. The new scroll of resurrection promotion would enable me to kill several birds with one stone. One of the accounts that I had let "hibernate" had an alt with a bank full of low-level cloth, and was never upgraded to Cataclysm. I resurrected the account, and did a neutral auction house transfer of the cloth I needed to my horde toons. I also now had a Cataclysm level account that I could pay for another month of game time and get a shiny new mount for my main. And grant any character on that account an instant level 80 boost. And server transfer any character from that account to one of my main accounts server for free. Very, very nice!

Some of my "raiding" level 85 characters are pretty much done with drops and point purchases from LFR, and will most likely be done for a while. I started getting the other two level 85 toons ready, and their disparate gear levels required slightly different approaches. My priest had a few higher level pieces from the past holiday bosses and tailoring, so I felt comfortable going right into the Hour of Twilight heroics with her and the few pieces of PVP gear she still had. I ran her through all weekend until she had capped out on points, and between gear drops and the initial quest rewards, she is sitting at a 370 ilevel. I'll purchase boots for her from one of my valor capped characters, and I'm only a few justice points away from getting a new cheast piece with will replace the last of the PVP gear and give me a two-piece bonus going into LFR.

My warlock, on the other hand, had very little gear to start with. I had one ring from the headless horseman and the alchemy trinket. I decked her out in PVP gear and hit the normal dungeons. I ran the normal dungeons until I couldn't get the bonus justice points any longer, and replaced some of the green items with drops from the normal dungeons. I purchased the chest and legs from the justice point vendor. I "gifted" her with bracers and boots from points on another character, and queued for the new heroics. After zoning into a few already in progress, I managed to get into the first heroic in a fresh run. It was probably the nicest run I have been on in a long time.

The other runs weren't horrible, but they weren't very notable either. This run, however, was really pleasant. People were polite, there was some humorous banter, and a good time was had by all. It was just plain nice. I managed to get through all of the new heroics, and almost cap out on valor points before I was eligible to enter LFR. I also left the heroics with a few less pieces than my priest, so I picked up a necklace from the justice point vendor to get rid of a low level item. I was sitting at a 375 ilevel, so I decided to try the first half of LFR instead of doing another heroic. The raid went fine, and while I didn't top the meters, I wasn't all the way at the bottom either.

I know there are a lot of people who have issues with people using PVP gear in PVE. I understand and have been witness to several occasions where someone who had PVP gear was a detriment to a pug run. It is, however, possible to do just fine with PVP gear if certain criteria are met. All of my gear was gemmed, enchanted, and reforged to get the most optimized PVE stats possible without using epic gems and really expensive enchants. They were all DPS toons. Tanks, with the exception of druids, and healers really can't pull it off unless they're really, really good. Almost all of my alts that are now LFR veterans have gone into LFR with at least the PVP helm and shoulders if they weren't lucky in the new heroics. My warlock was the most PVP setup of all of my characters. I could have gone right into the new heroics, but I chose to run regulars to get the justice points to replace the chest and leg pieces, because I just wasn't putting out enough DPS with all PVP. My priest had better gear than my lock before adding the PVP items, so it was a non-issue. Against Mannoroth I pulled 150k on my warlock with 6 PVP items, a green trinket, a green ring, a 300ish neck, and a 333 blue staff. After getting 378 ring, trinket, bracers, and boots I was closer to 170k the second time I faced him. It's just a matter of knowing what you are capable of doing so you can make an informed decision.

I was also slightly distracted by the new Star Wars MMO. I had gotten it for my son for his birthday, and played it a little when he was asleep. It is pretty neat, but it runs like crap on my desktop (crappy video card). My laptop is a higher-end Dell XPS, and he doesn't have any problem playing it on that. I did manage to level a Jedi to 11, but the choppy display on my desktop was to annoying for me to really get into it. Aside from the voice acting, the initial questing is just, if not more, linear than WoW. Oh, the previous week I also downloaded the free to play Star trek MMO, and played that a bit too. My ironman alt still sits, unplayed, in the night elf starting zone...


10x85:
Hunter 85 i390
Deathknight 85 i384
Rogue 85 i383
Priest 85 i370
Mage 85 i380
Druid 85 i381
Warlock 85 i375
Warrior 80
Paladin 75
Shaman 72