Check Point - 3/30/2010

Thought I would post a blog about how I enjoy the different classes. I've played them all (except Death Knight) to at least level 20, which I know isn't that high, but I felt like letting you know how much I liked or disliked the classes during the early stages of the game.

Paladin
The Paladin was my very first roll when I started WoW over a year ago. To tell you the truth I didn't much like the Paladin in the early levels (I think up to 20) because I thought the mechanics (judgement, seals, etc.) was confusing. The whole game was new to me at the time so I think the Paladin was just too challenging for me. That is why I rerolled to something easier, the Rogue, which I will get to next. I also didn't like the fact that I couldn't pull mobs to me because there was no range weapon or spell that I could use.

I then started playing him again to level to 30 and got the Exorcism spell which solved the pull issue. I also began to understand the mechanics of using the Paladin and in fact I really started enjoying the class. I love having a strong spell for pulling in mobs and also being able to melee with the mobs. After the fighting is done, all I have to do is heal myself. A very self sufficient class. Especially since they can also wear heavy armor. Right now this is one of my favorite classes, although if I do end up pulling to many mobs, I tend to die rather quickly. I have to time my heals right.

Rogue
This, I suppose, would be my main character although he's only 4 levels higher than my second alt. I rolled him second because I thought it would be an easier class. I wouldn't say that the rogue is easy to play but it was nice to have something different than the Paladin at the time. I'm not much of a stealth guy as I felt it took to long to move around. But I did use it if I was going up against multiple mobs. I really liked dual wielding and also the poisons. After leveling the Rogue for quite a while though, I got burned out. It seemed like I was doing the same thing over and over again so that's why I rolled again.

Warrior
My 3rd character and he is almost to 30. At first I didn't care too much for the mechanics of the Warrior, but I have learned over the past month to really enjoy it. It is becoming really easy to kill multiple mobs, even if they are higher level than myself. All it is is charge, rend, block, revenge, thunder clap, and so forth. The only bad thing is I have to use bandages quite a bit, but lately that hasn't been the case. I may fight 3 mobs at once and then after they are dispatched I look down at my hp and only about 10-20% is gone. That's basically filled up by the time I get to the next group of mobs. I'm really enjoying my Warrior.

Mage
My Mage is my 4th character and I rolled him because I wanted to try out the true caster class which I rarely do when playing rpg games for some reason. I haven't played my mage in several months as he is next on my list to level to 30 once the Warrior is done. But, I think I remember enjoying the mechanics behind the mage. I would frost the mobs and then hit them with spells until they were dead. Created my own food and water so didn't take long to recoup between fights. I look forward to getting back to my Mage this week (maybe tonight even).

Warlock
For my fifth character I wanted to try out a pet class. I was really wanting to stay human as I knew the starting area better so I went with the Warlock instead of the Hunter. My warlock is at 23 right now and I actually really enjoy playing this class as well. The Void Walker as the tank is very nice. It makes it pretty simple to level with the Warlock. It is difficult sometimes to manage the Void Walker and make sure he doesn't pick up too many mobs. Although when this happens you can simply start high tailing it away, because once a couple of mobs focus on you, you're in big trouble with only cloth armor. I can't wait to get back to this class as well.

Druid
For my sixth character I decided I wanted some new scenery so I went with the Night Elf Druid. Ugh. This is my least favorite character. I've already played a Mage which is basically what the Druid is in regular form, just a lot less powerful. I had already played the Warrior, which is the bear form, but with a lot less options. I just got the cat form at level 20, or maybe I have to do some quest for it first, not sure, but since I have already played the Rogue it seems like it would pretty much be the same but with less options, like bear form was. Maybe it will be better, I'm not sure. I tried to play the Druid in Bear form but it was so darn boring. I thought regular form was at least a little interesting, but unfortunatly I died a lot because my spells were not that powerful. I know a lot of people like the Druid but I just haven't found anything to like yet. Hopefully it gets better, but I'm not looking forward to leveling him to 30 when the time comes around.

Priest
After the Druid I wanted to come back to the Human lands so I rolled a Priest for my seventh character. I didn't think I would like the Priest much so that is why he's my last human character. Something about healing didn't excite me too much. But when I started playing I actually grew to enjoy it. It was nice to hit mobs and be able to have some powerful heals to keep you alive. The only problem was the mana drain. I have to stack up a lot of juices and take breaks between fights. He's at level 20 right now so I look forward to seeing how he does on the way to 30 in the next couple of months.

Shaman
The next character I was just trying to get one of the last classes in. So number eight was the Shaman. I wasn't too excited about using totems and even after leveling to 20, I'm still not that excited about them. They're ok I suppose but they annoying as well. I suppose the good thing about the Shaman is that he can survive since he's not too squishy like other caster classes. The Shaman never really excited me that much.

Hunter
The final character (since I don't have a DK yet) was my Hunter. Not sure why I left him for last, mostly because I couldn't get a Human Hunter. I wish I didn't wait so long though, because I really enjoyed leveling my hunter to 20. Much like the Warlock, it's great to have a tank out there while you sit back and shot your gun or bow and arrow. It's really simple to play the Hunter and leveling is a breeze. I can't wait to get back to him.

In order, this is how I would rank the classes (from worse to best):
9. Druid
8. Shaman
7. Rogue
6. Priest
5. Mage
4. Warlock
3. Warrior
2. Hunter
1. Paladin

So I suppose Paladin wins out so far, but it may just be because I've just played him recently. We'll see if my feeling change in my next check point blog.

Meet Dotsmadato, my Combat Rogue....

This is the character that I have leveled the furthest. I suppose he would be considered my main character. I really enjoy "slicing and dicing" through all the mobs with this guy. I have almost gone through all of the Deadmines solo, but wasn't able to defeat VanCleaf. I probably could now since I'm more experienced, but haven't tried in a long time. Here are his stats:

Level - 34

Strength - 52

Agility - 122

Stamina - 89

Intellect - 23

Spirit - 48

Armor - 859

Herbalism - 208

Mining - 100

Fishing - 90

Cooking - 141

First Aid - 189

As far as his skills are concerned, you can see that I use him as a gatherer, mostly with herbs. I did have him as high as 256 with skinning before I switched him over to mining a while back. I now use my Hunter as my leather farmer. I will have a lot to do regarding his secondary skills, but I won't be playing my Rogue (except for gathering herbs) until all my other characters are up to level 34, which could be a very long time at the pace I'm going. He is obvioulsy by far the highest Agility character I have. He also has the highest stamina. He is my most powerful player.

Daily Blog - July 13, 2009

Played several hours over the weekend but didn't get too much accomplished as far as my goals are concerned. I'm still working on leveling my leatherworking for my Druid, I think I'm around 135 or 140. Right now I need medium leather to level the profession and the auction house prices are too high (around 5 gold per stack). I remember back several months ago when I started playing in December 2008 I would sell leather on the auction house for much cheaper. I believe the server was fairly new back then. I would sell a stack of light leather for about 1 gold and be happy, now they go for 2-3 gold. Same with copper bars as well.

So now that it's too expensive to buy I have to go out there and collect it myself. I've been using my Hunter because I find it easier to kill mobs that are a few levels higher with him. I went to Duskwood to kill some of the wolves to get my leather. It takes a long time, and I somewhat regret giving up skinning for my level 34 Rogue. I could have easily gotten medium leather with him in Duskwood, but unfortunately I switched him to herbablism instead. Oh well, it's more difficult to do herbalism with a low level charcter than skinning so I'll just use my Hunter for now. While getting leather I actually got him up to level 19.

Also, in the past week my wife has started to play again so I've been helping her. She only had one character before (paladin) and she thought it was a difficult class to play, so I told her to be a Rogue. She's enjoyed it so far, but is having a little trouble in some areas. She is trying to master the technique of drawing only one mob at a time. The Rogue is a little squishy if you get too many mobs on you at once. I went ahead and helped her with some armor and weapons to make it a little easier.

Maybe tonight I'll be able to collect some more leather, but my Hunter has now run out of bullets (heavy shot) so I need to make some more with my engineer, but unfortunately my engineer is only around level 40 or so. So I'm working on leveling my Paladin's engineering profession so he can make heavy shot for my Hunter.

It sure is slow going leveling all my alts.

Daily Blog - July 6, 2009

Well I played probably around 12 hours over the three day weekend and still have not got my Hunter's Jewelcrafting profession to 150 (actually can get it to 155). I'm currently at 143, which is only 43 points higher than before the weekend. It takes a lot of money to level this profession, so I end up putting things on the auction house (copper, stone, dusts, everything possible) to make money. I'll make about 10 gold and then spend it to raise it by a couple of points. I'm now having to buy jades which seem to be in short supply and too difficult to obtain myself. I cannot currently get iron ore myself to prospect the jades, which has about a 1 out of 3 chance of happening anyways. So I'll wait on the auction house and buy one for about 3-4 gold apiece.

To speed up the process I went ahead and got rid of my skinning profession for my lvl 34 Rogue which was at around 250 and picked up mining. I leveled that up to 99 last night. I'm hoping that I'll be able to locate iron nodes and collect it myself and possibly also come across some of my own jade stones. I hope the iron nodes aren't in areas that are too high for my Rogue.

Painful process, this leveling of Jewelcrafting. Not sure why it's so much worse than all the other professions. The items that you are creating could not even be used by the player making them most of the time. Once you reach level 20 and can become and expert (or whatever it's called) there isn't anything you could actually use until your in your upper 20's or 30's. And you would never be able to collect the items. You would have to be at a much higher level to collect the items you need to make the jewels.

Oh well, I'll continue leveling my Rogue's mining tonight and hopefully I'll eventually find some iron nodes or find some cheap jades at the auction house.

Daily Blog - June 30, 2009

Played for a couple of hours last night. Ran around Elwynn forest to level up my mining for my Warlock and sold the copper bars in the auction house as I ran out of money which I was using to buy supplies so I can do my enchants. Right now I'm done enchanting my equipment so my next step is to make some Elixirs. My Priest is my alchemist but he doesn't have all the herbs to create the Elixirs my Warlock needs and he's too low of a level to gather (16) so I have to purchase them from the auction house or have my Rogue (lvl 34) go collect. It takes to much time for my Rogue to get them, so I've decided to just buy them. Their expensive and I've run out of gold so that's why I'm selling my copper bars at the auction house. They're going for 4-5 gold per stack so that's pretty nice and I think I put about 4 or 5 stacks out there. Hopefully they've all sold when I start playing tonight, then I should have plenty of money to finish uprgrading my gear for my Warlock. I will also need to make some scrolls with my Mage and probably a couple of armor kits. Here's what I need to do:

Make 4 Elixirs of Wisdom
Make 8 Scrolls of Spirit II
Make 2 Medium Armor Kits
Make Major Glyph of Corruption
Make Minor Glyph Drain Soul

After all this then I can level my Warlock up to 18.

Daily Blog - May 4, 2009

Got a lot accomplished this weekend with my Mage. My Rogue continued leveling up herbalism and collected flowers for my Mage's inscription. I was planning on going to Stranglethorn Vale to get the necessary herbs but the mobs in that area were too high for my Rogue so I went to the Wetlands instead. Much easier. So I was able to level my inscription to 150. I was also able to level fishing and first aid to 150 as well. Now I'm going through the process of updating my gear for my Mage so I can start leveling to 18. I've gotten a new dagger and enchanted it to add + 2 dmg. I also just finished making some wizard oil to apply to my dagger. BTW, it really sucks how that doesn't stack. Why is that? Sharpening stones stack, why can't wizard's oil?

Next I'll be creating on off-hand item "mystic tome" and then looking for better armor.

I should be able to get some time in before the Rockets and Lakers game tonight.

PS - while I was in Stranglethorn Vale I did level my Rogue to 34.

Daily Blog - May 1, 2009

Played a couple hours last night, before and after a Rockets win. I switched out mining for herbalism for my level 33 Rogue and got to work leveling his herbalism skill. Ran around Elwynn Forest a couple of times to get my skill up to 70, then went over to the Barrens to get my skill up to 130. I think I'm up to 110 to 115 right now. I wish the Armory would update on the WoW website so I can see exactly what my level is. For some reason it hasn't updated since April 21st. I will continue running around the Barrens until I get to skill level 130, then it's off to Stonetalon Mts to get up to 170. After that I can finally go to Stranglethorn Vale and get the necessary herbs I need to level up inscription for my Mage. It will be rough considering the area is levels 30-45 and I'm only 33. I'll just have to be careful and take it slow.

This is the first time I've been in the Barrens and it's pretty impressive with the giraffes and those huge beasts that look like Rhinos (don't remember their names). I guess it shows how little I've explored in this game. The Barrens is soooo huge! It's strange not seeing any other player for an hour. I was all by myself out there collecting flowers which was nice to not have any competition. What a beautiful game!

Daily Blog - April 30, 2009 Part 2

I've decided that I will gather my own herbs to level up my inscription to 150, instead of buying flowers from the auction house. In order to do this though I will need my level 33 Rogue to start picking flowers. I'm going to drop mining and get the herbalism profession. Even with my Rogue though, I'll eventually be venturing into territory that has mobs that are a little higher than myself (Stranglethorn Vale). I suppose I'll just have to be carefull. Also, maybe I'll actually be able to raise my Rogue's levels. It's been awhile since I've been in an area where killing things actually gave my Rogue experience. This will be another thing that probably takes a long time. I'm just glad my Rogue has a horse so I can get around much faster. This game takes forever, but that's why I love it!

Introduction - Dotsmadato

Dotsmadato is my Human Combat Rogue. He is currently level 33 and is my favorite character to play so far. He's a gatherer (mining/skinning) and makes a lot of money for my other characters in the auction house.