My thoughts about the DK Frost Spec

or: With a corn cob pipe, a button nose, and two eyes made out of coal.

I won't lie, I have really enjoyed playing the Death Knight class. I have to add that there is just something really cool about watching a Tauren use a 2 handed weapon to beat down an enemy.

Melee with Berthold has been up front and in your face, which is a switch from the ranged Hunter and stealthy Druid Kitty classes I leveled before.

The blatent OP of the class has been a fun way of quickly moving through the Burning Crusade content...yet again. Solo'ing the group quests in Nagrand was a lot of fun, and gave me an idea of how an extended PvE fight will go.

Leveling Bert has been fast with the new streamlined system. I completed 98% of the Hellfire Penninsula quests and when I was done I was level 64. This time around I gave Zangarmarsh and Terrokar Forest a miss and went straight into Nagrand. My plan is to skip Blades Edge, do a nice chunk of Netherstorm and then level halfway through 70 in Shadowmoon Valley.

I would like to do this to get some good quest reward armor to take into Northrend, and it never hurts to be half at least half a level ahead of any new zone you are starting.

I started out in the Unholy Tree from 58 - 61, then switched to Blood until level 66. Now I am test driving the Frost spec and find it solid for play. I like being able to have my diseases up throughout the entire fight, and the added armor from Frost Presence adequately covers the lack of self healing.

Here is my current spec.

Current spell/attack rotation is:
Plague Strike ->Icy Touch->Blood Strike->Blood Strike->Obliterate->Frost Strike

I got this rotation from Nicolai on Elitist Jerks, along with the dps spec.

The rotation starts by getting up two DoT spells and then uses strikes that create Death Runes and give a bonus for each disease you have ticking on the mob. By the time you hit Obliterate all your Runes are on cooldown, and this is easily covered with Frost Strike which uses the Runic Power that your melee had built up.

Other notable skills that I will use situational:
Unbreakable Armor, Howling Blast, Lichborne, Death Chill, Death Strike

Lichborne and Unbreakable Armor are buffs to armor and help to resist movement impairing spells.

Death Chill will force your next Icy Touch, Obliterate, or Frost Strike to crit. I personally like to use it with Obliterate.

In all it seems all three Talent Trees are well designed, and from what I have read each is viable to tank with. Blood was enjoyable, I liked all the self healing; Frost is going well, but I had the most fun with Unholy I think.

When I hit 69 I think I will swap back to the Unholy Tree to see if I still like it best and then make my decision about my Talent spec just prior to hopping the Zeppelin to Northrend.

Holy Crap! What do we do now!!??!!

or Life in World of Warcraft 3.02

Alas poor Ilidian I knew him well....

WoW 3.02 is currently being added to the servers, and soon we will emerge into realms that appear the same, yet all will have changed.

These are exciting days ahead. The next month will be spent learning how the new game mechanics function, and planning out how we want to approach the expansion. Some will want to charge ahead to level 80 and the new endgame content, others will go hit up the new Death Knight class, still others will be sleeping in Inns and building up a bit of XP to stay just ahead of questing level requirements.

If you were around for the 2.0 update you are probably patiently keeping an eye on the Realm Status web page while doing other things, dishes, work, laundry...you know.

This is old hat for us, for we remember the old days when our worlds would fall apart once a week, but would usually be back up by 11:00am.

Sometimes not.

OK, most of the time not.

And usually we would spend the next two or three days getting our add-ons straightened back out.

For those that are Burning Crusade babies who came to the game in the times of rolling restarts and short scheduled game maintenance... DON'T PANIC!

I repeat DON'T PANIC!

We will get through this.
What we are going to do is get back to our roots and once again start paying attention to all the other research sites, QQ'ers, and hunter how-to bloggers that got us from huntard to hunter the first time around.

We are also going to try things on our own FEARLESSLY. These changes bring exciting new things to WoW that will enhance the game and hopefully make things more fun.

Sure things will be off balance and wacky for a bit, but that is to be expected. Adequately testing a game for 10 million people to play is one heck of a task for our developers, so to this end we will also be Patient. Let the huntards and @ss hats piss and moan and complain, while the rest of us take things in stride and enjoy all the new adventures ahead of us.

The advantage is we are heading into the expansion informed and experienced. We can do this gang, we have been here before, and don't forget that there are new people out there that will need our help on the way.

One of the great things about the Hunter community is our willingness to stop what we are doing and show someone else the tricks of the trade.

*sings* Its a whooooole new wooooooooorrrrld, a fantastic point of view!

Here is my list of Hunter Research sites.
Some old and some new, all of them friendly and all are passionate about our fav class.
Keep these handy for when you are stuck and want a little help, or maybe a good laugh on a realm maintenance Tuesday.
Edit: This is looking like my new side bar....

Hunter Blogs
Big Red Kitty
Aspect of the Hare
The Hunter's Mark
Gun Loving Dwarf Chick
ReNoobed
Twisted Nether Wiki - Blogs of all classes listed here.

Hunter Forums
BigRedKitty Forums
Elitist Jerks
WoW Hunter Forums-Official

Research Sites
Petopia
WoWHead
WoWWiki
WotLK Wiki
Kaliban's Loot Lists

Podcasts
The Instance
Twisted Nether
World of Warcast
Big Red Kitty

Double Trappin'

Or: Would you like one lump or two?

I got nice screen-shot of my first ever, non-premeditated double trap.

In the past I've double trapped just fine, only it was part of the plan of attack or I was practicing. This is the first time it happened instinctively.
/woot!

The setup for double trapping is pretty easy. Set up your Freeze Trap down and wait for the traps cool down timer to expire. The trap will remain primed for another 30 sec, so pull the first mob into the trap, and when the trap activates immediately drop another trap at the feet of the second mob.

*Bing*

Two trapped mobs.

In this case I had three mobs, one caster and two melee. I dropped my first trap and waited for the cool down to expire, sent the pet after the caster and fired a Multi-Shot. The Multi Shot brought the two melee mobs to me while my pet then tanked the caster.

The first melee mob hit the trap and froze, I backed up a hair and dropped the second trap. All the while Auto-Shooting the caster.

You can see that my pet Shepard has Bestial Wrath activated which means he is doing an additional 50% damage to his target.

Pretty nifty.

Fin's First Bling!

Finegas got his first gem-able item this morning. I picked up a Band of the Victor from Battlecryer Blackeye, the Thrallmar pvp reward vendor.

This rare level ring is very easy to come by even at level 60. All you need to do is complete the daily pvp quest Hellfire Fortifications five times.

The quest has you capture the Stadium, Broken Hill, and The Overlook all of which are in the center of Hellfire Peninsula. Each time you complete the quest you will receive 3 Marks of Thrallmar, and the ring will cost you 15 marks.

It is very easy to complete these while doing your normal quests in this zone. Basically you enable your pvp flag and stand inside the structure until your faction's flag appears.

If you get lucky and have some successful pvp encounters while doing this quest you will get your ring even faster.

As a hopeful tanking bear I chose the ring which gives the bonus to my critical strikes and attack power, there is an equivalent ring for casters and healers.

I chose to use a Shifting Nightseye as a gem. This purple gem fits in any blue or red gem slot and splits my bonus to Stamina (for added health), and Agility (+4 for armor, crit rating, attack power, and health). The gem itself set me back 35 gold, but now that Fin is transmuting Arcanite Bars and selling raid level potions I'm not sweating it too much.

Hunter Gear

Ok I couldn't post a druid gear list without showing some good hunter lovin' too.

Way back when Vik was Echo Isles' number one huntard (read this time last year) I looked to Big Red Kitty for advice on replacing my Shammy blues and low level greenies with gear that would allow me to step into Karazhan.

I found this post of his on WoW Insider that very week. It also led me to Kaliban's Loot Lists for hunters. Between the two I am now laying out what Lassiter will be wearing when he hits level 70.

The best part is that a lot of it is gear from Quest Rewards or items that can be purchased on the Auction House without breaking your stride on the way to a flying mount.

In some cases there is more than one viable choice. I have put an asterisk next to the items that Vik used and I was happy with. He is actually still using a few of these pieces.

Remember, just 'cause its purple doesn't mean it is an upgrade. Especially with the ability to gem the blues. I slapped three +4 agility, + 6 stamina gems into my Stalker's Helmet of Second Sight and had a hard time replacing it. Not bad for a quest reward.

Edit: On the same token just because an epic piece of gear is leather doesn't mean it is a downgrade either.

Much of the gear in Karazhan that a hunter would be interested in are leather items. If a drop has bonus to Agility, Intellect, or Stamina; with additional bonus to Attack Power, and/or Hit Rating then you need to be piping up to get a roll in.

Keep in mind that that same gear will be useful for a tanking druid as well, you may need to pass on that drop in favor of getting your raid group geared up.

Just don't get hornswaggled into not rolling for gear just because it is leather and your class can wear mail. The hunter is a ranged attack class. If you play your hunter well in a raid situation by the time the boss is chewing through that leather the clothies will be lunch, the tank will have died, and the healer is next on the snack list.

You will see the quest reward and rep gear get edited in as Lassiter gets closer to Outlands.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, on with the list!

Weapons
*Valano's Longbow (AH) - Level 70
*Crystalforged War Axe (AH) - Level 69

Armor
Felstalker Bracers (LW350) - Level 70

Felstalker Belt (LW350) - Level 70
Girdle of Gale Force (AH) - Level 69

Felstalker Breastplate (LW350) - Level 70
*Breastplate of Rapid Striking (AH) - Level 68

*Scales of the Beast (AH) - Level 66
Leggings of Beast Mastery (AH) - Level 70

Swiftsteel Gloves (AH) - Level 70
Crystalhide Handwraps (AH) - Level 70

*Cloak of the Craft (AH) - Level 66

Pathfinder's Band (AH) - Level 70

Trinkets

Enchants/Enhancements
Khorium Scope (AH) - Level 55
*Stabilized Eternium Scope (AH) - Level 60

Gems
Delicate Living Ruby (AH) - Red Socket
Rigid Dawnstone (AH) - Yellow Socket
Shifting Nightseye (AH) - Red or Blue Socket
Glinting Noble Topaz (AH) - Red or Yellow Socket
Relentless Earthstorm Diamond (AH) - Meta Socket

Feral Druid Gear List

or Gearing for Karazhan and beyond.

I will be updating this list as I learn more about druid gear. Anything with an asterisk is something I have acquired and am happy to use. Hover on the link to see the WoWHead tooltip. Click on it to be taken to the WoWHead page regarding the items.

The purpose of this post is for me to create a reference list of the important gear for me to acquire on my way to level 70 and on into the endgame. Right now I am using Big Bear Butt Blogger and Kaliban's Loot Lists as my resources, in addition to my own finds as I play.

My goal is to be a good tank in instances.

I am not so worried about gear from Kara or above at this point so this list will be limited to the gear that will allow a druid to start tanking in Kara and/or be ready to move into the expansion.

For professions I will likely go Engineering for the tanking gear, and Alchemy for cash flow.

Idols
* Idol of the Wild - (QR) Level 63 This is listed as a 2 person quest, but I was able to solo it at 62 in bear form with some creative use of rooting and moonfire.

Weapons
*Braxxis Staff of Slumber - (AH) Level 64 Keep an eye on the AH. I got this item at 46% of its normal listed price.

Armor
Stylin' Purple Hat - (AH) Level 69
Deathblow X11 Goggles (Created) - Level 62, Engineering Level 350

Manimal's Cinch - (QR) Level 68, Shadowmoon Valley
Belt of Natural Power - (AH) Level 70

*Necklace of the Deep - (AH) Level 65 Again, I found this item at a significant discount just by looking for it now and then as I was leveling up.

Bogstrok Scale Cloak -(QR) Level 64, Slave Pens
Cloak of the Valient Defender - (QR) Level 67, Netherstorm

*Band of the Victor - (pvp) - Level 60, Hellfire Peninsula
Delicate Eternium Ring - (AH) - Level 70

Trinkets
*Charm of Alacrity - (QR) Level 61, Hellfire Peninsula
*Regal Protectorate - (QR) Level 58, Hellfire Peninsula
Badge of Tenacity - (AH) Level 70
Goblin Rocket Launcher - (Created) Engineering Level 350
Gnomish Poultryizer - (Created) Engineering Level 340

Gems
*Shifting Nightseye, Purple

Patch 2.4 Hunter Mana Issues

Or OOM and Drinkin' Like a Fish.
Lowbie Hunters OOM.
Patch 2.4 introduced an unannounced, or unintended change to the Hunter Class' ability to regenerate Mana. In a nutshell they reduced it's efficiency so maintaining adequate Mana while grinding became more difficult.

On Viktel, my level 70 hunter, I simply switched over to Aspect of the Viper and didn't give it a second thought.

However as time passed and I listened to podcasts and read my favorite blogs I discovered more and more people complaining about being out of mana. I finally had the chance to break out my Orc hunter Lassiter and check the situation out for myself.

The Old Attack Pattern
There are two big challenges of being a Beast Master Hunter in solo play. First is not to pull aggro away from your pet while it is tanking for you. Second is to avoid running out of Mana. All of a hunter's special shots use Mana, and so does our all important Mend Pet spell.

This lead to a commonly used attack pattern that would slowly build your threat, and save mana.

Here is that pattern, it is assumed that you have Growl turned on and it is spamming.

1. Cast Hunter's Mark and send in your pet via the pet attack macro*
2. Let 2 Growls go by. This allows your pet to get a good head start on building aggro.
3. In the event that you are attacking a Mob that is elite, or several levels above you cast Mend Pet which is a heal-over-time spell. This will help mitigate the damage your pet is taking. You can skip this step against Mobs that are easy for your pet to handle.
   
4. Your opening shot should be Serpent Sting, and this will trigger your Auto Shot
   
5. At about 5 - 7 seconds after you use Serpent Sting let off a single Arcane Shot.
6. Repeat from step three if the fight is a long one and your sting wears off.
   

Being level 42 Lassiter is grinding experience, and I left him resting in Stonard. I mounted up, and found a few Crockolisks just north of the Orc encampment.

Sure enough I was sittin' on my @ss in the Swamp of Sorrows after killing a mere three Crockolisks thinking to myself; "Self, this stinks. There has got to be a solution."

*The Send Pet Hunter's Mark Macro:
/cast Hunter's Mark
/petattack

How I Got Around It.
Reflecting on my endgame hunter, it stands to reason we might just need to tack on a little Mana regeneration. For our endgame hunters it is pretty simple, just pop into Aspect of the Viper and forget about it.

So what we need is something that acts like the afore mentioned aspect. A quick check at the Auction House for some Lesser Mana Oil met with some success. One application of this on my 2 handed axe did the trick nicely. I played for two hours without having much difficulty at all.

The old attack pattern still works fine.
The Mana Oil lasts for a full hour and since it is applied to our weapon it will last through death. Each bottle of oil has 5 applications each.

So for now Lesser Mana Oil solves the problem. Later on when Lass reaches Outlands I will probably upgrade to Superior Mana Oil until I get Aspect of the Viper at level 64. Its a bit of a bummer that I will be spending gold to maintain a grind, but in the long run its not that big of a deal.

Have a great day.

Edit: I did notice some OOM issues while working on leveling up my second pet, Patches. I found that I had to slow way down on both the stings and the arcane shots. I am attributing this to the fact that his DPS is much lower than my Lion who is always within one level of myself.

The little guy holds aggro fine, he just can't kill the Mobs as fast as his bigger brother.

Consumables for Beast Master Hunters

Or: What? We were supposed to bring snacks?

Now that I have finished off my list of in game Achievements for Viktel I have been concentrating on gathering up a stockpile of materials that I am expected to have during instances and raids. These are the items that give you just a little more oomph in those long boss fights.

Here is a list of what I am putting together for myself and a little about why I picked them. I am also going to include the materials needed to create the buff items just in case you are lucky enough to know an alchemist that is willing to make them for you. Typically I will send over enough materials to make 4 full stacks, and include a tip equal to one daily quest (11g). Don't forget to send vials along with the other materials to show you appreciate their work.

Phases of the hunt.
As a hunter my primary concern is that I don't run out of mana to use for my specialty shots. I could just run with Aspect of the Viper on all the time but that will put a big dent in the amount of DPS I can generate. I like to divide my fights into two phases, MQoSRDPS and mana regeneration.

Just a quickie note, I learned this technique from Big Red Kitty and you can view a most excellent BRK training video on the subject by clicking here. It does take some practice so I highly recommend a look-see.

A note about Elixirs.
There are two types, battle elixirs and guardian elixirs. We are allowed to have one of each running at any given time. If you happen to take a second battle or guardian elixir of another kind the effects will not stack. Elixirs are canceled and will need to be replaced if you die.

Items for DPS Phase.
For the Beastmaster Hunter Agility and Crits are king. Agi affects everything we do, and helps our pets do their job. Critical Strikes activate our Kill Command ability which we like to have available each time its cool down is over. To help increase both of those I like to use the following two consumables.

Elixir of Major Agility
Battle Elixir - Made by Alchemists
Increases your Agility by 35 and your critical strike rating by 20 for one hour.
Ingredients for a stack of 20: 20 Terocone, 40 Felweed, 20 Imbued Vials.

Warp Burgers
Food - Requires a cooking level of 325 to make.
Restores 7500 health for 30 sec. Spend 10 sec eating for well fed buff of 20 agility and spirit for 30 min.
Ingredients for a stack of 20: 20 Warped Flesh.

Mana Regeneration
Throughout our fights we hunters use mana for our specialty shots. The following two consumables will give us back a portion of mana each 5 seconds that pass. Thus the term MP/5. I like to use the following because they stack well with Aspect of the Viper which we use in our Mana Regeneration phase.

Elixir of Major Mageblood
Guardian Elixer - Made by Alchemists
Regenerates 16 mana per 5 sec. for one hour
Ingredients for a stack of 20: 20 Anchient Lichen, 20 Netherbloom, 20 Imbued Vials.

Superior Mana Oil
Apply this to your melee weapon. Made by Enchanters.
While applied to target weapon restores 14 mana to the caster every 5 sec. One hour.
These come as a single item that has 5 charges.
Ingredients for one: 3 Arcane Dust, 1 Netherbloom, 1 Imbued Vial.

Fel Mana Potions
One time usage - Made by Alchemists
Restores 3200 mana over 24 sec. Reduces spell damage by 25 and healing by 50 for 15 min.
Comes in stacks of 5. Ingredients for a total of 20: 20 Mana Thistle, 40 Nightmare Vine, 20 Imbued Vials.

The Mana Regeneration Phase.
I like to enter the MRP when I hit about 40% mana.
Here are the steps for the mana regen phase:

1. Activate Aspect of the Viper to begin regenerating mana.
   
2. Activate Rapid Fire to speed up your auto shots & help retain as much DPS as possible.
   
3. Drink your Fel Mana Potion, which gives you 3200 mana over 24 seconds.
4. When 24 seconds have passed activate Aspect of the Hawk and ramp up the MQoSRDPS.

Note: Vik is also a Leatherworker so I will activate Drums of Restoration as well if the cooldowns allow it. I figure if you can take a little pressure off the healers thats a good thing right?

OK So How About Our Pets?
Good new there! As it turns out as of the release of TBC our pets get to enjoy a food buff too.

There are two foodstuffs for our pets. Both available on the AH if you can't cook them yourself.

First is a nice buff to increase your pets health if you are using Fido in a tanking role:

Sporeling Snack
Increases the Stamina and Spirit of your pet by 20. Lasts for 30 min.

The second is a nice little DPS buff, and it will also help Growl work if you are grinding.

Kibler's Bits
Increases the Strength and Spirit of your pet by 20. Lasts for 30 min.

There you have it folks, a picnic for the ages.
I hope a few of y'all find this useful.

41/20/0 Trapping in Heroics

Prior to the onset of my graphics problems I was just beginning to run heroics in hopes of getting some of that phat new badge gear.

Being new to heroics I jumped over to BRK's Hunter Forums and asked this question:

I was just wondering how to tweak my game for trapping in Heroic dungeons with the 41/20 spec.
I can chain trap most regular instances with no problems. I have spec'd both the pet and myself with keeping the pet alive during combat in mind.
I am hit capped and my crit is just under 24%.

Now that I am in Heroics is the trapping game basically the same? And is it worth dropping MM points to pick up Clever Traps (I'd rather not if at all possible).

I got several great replies, and this post from Zball is my favorite:

With proper planning and management, trapping in Heroics as BM is easy. I never had an issue and I've done it as BM, MM, and SV.

Things to look out for and keep in mind.

-Communicate. Your tanks need to know to wait until you give the go ahead on any pull where you will be tasked with trapping. Healers need to tell you if they're being attacked. You have to keep your party in the know about the status of the trapped mob. Let them know that blue square is yours and yours alone until it comes up in the kill order.

-Blue square is your responsibility. In Heroics the mobs hit a lot harder. Get used to it. Have another trap ready. Be ready to have your pet tank the square until your trap is off cooldown in case the trap breaks early. Be ready to kite. And do not Feign Death while Blue Square is alive. You have bandages and pots. Use them. Do not ask for or expect a heal when dealing with your responsibility.

-Mind your traps and pet. Be careful and be ready to blow Intimidate on a mob that has broken free. Your pet is a tool in an instance. Use it. Sacrifice if you need to. You are more important than your pet. You are less important than the healer.

-Do not outlive your healer. If you do, you're wrong. You die first. Those mobs hit you before they hit the healer. That's part of your job as a DPS class.

All in all, trap talents aren't going to make or break you. As long as you have knowledge of your class and keep on top of things, Heroics are easy- mode.

Thank you for the words of wisdom!

2.4 & OOM

Along with all the Sunwell goodness, the 2.4 patch also brought us some mana regeneration issues. Not such a big deal inside instances where I tend to top off my mana anytime I hear another character munching or drinking, but out on the grind I found this to be a little bit annoying.

I haven't tried any PvP since the patch hit, but I imagine that is where it will hit us hunters hardest since burst damage is king in that venue.

In order to adapt we will need to pay a little more attention to our mana usage in the field. Here are a few suggestions for conserving your mana while grinding PvE.

Kick on your Aspect of the Viper; get your mana regeneration going. While grinding we want to build our DPS on a slow curve to avoid pulling aggro off our pets anyway, so switching over from Aspect of the Hawk will be benificial for more than one reason.

Your first shot should be a sting. Personally while grinding I like Serpent Sting. Since I'm sending in my pet Kaylee with a Mend Pet cooking I don't worry about reducing the damage she is taking. The faster the mobs die, the faster I'm grinding. If she comes back low on health I just top her off with another Mend Pet.

Use your Sting's DoT countdown as a timer to apply one Arcane Shot every 14 secs. That's all you really need to do. Your AutoShot will take care of the rest. If you are like me and don't simply spam a macro, feel free to hit Kill Command when that procs, we need to keep those reflexes sharp.

Each PvE fight looks like this for me:
1. Send in the pet via my Pet Attack/Hunter's Mark macro:
/petattack
/cast Hunter's Mark

2. Let 2 or 3 Growls go by.

3. Open with Serpent Sting and follow with a quick Mend Pet if needed. Here is a spiffy macro for that:
/castsequence reset=5 Serpent Sting, Mend Pet

4. When the the DoT counter shows 5 seconds remaining I pop off an Arcane Shot.

5. I hit my Kill Command hot key when that ability procs. I am currently using the add on Critical Alert which allows you to assign a specific sound to your Crits. When I here "bwoop", I mash button #5 on my Speedpad.

Usually I don't have to re-apply the sting before the fight ends.

When I get a little bored of the routine I will practice various skills. I will lead a mob around with freeze traps. I like to practice my Misdirection pulls, double trapping, jumpshots and kiting too. But the whole time I am really working on my managing my Mana pool.

My goal is to be aware of my mana usage to the point that in a boss fight I will have jut a smidge left as the boss dies. Mana not used is damage not done.

Its kind of a balancing act.

Anyhoo, with the new changes in Patch 2.4 hunters will need to spend a little time relearning some Mana control, but not to worry before long it will all be as rote as it was before the changes.

Bomb Them Again! Strategy

The bombing run in Ogri'la can be a real pain in the patooshka!

It finally ocured to me that I was approaching a 3D problem with two dimensional thinking.

This strategy works like a charm after a little practice.

The Set Up
1. After getting the quest, and before entering the bombing zone get some altitude and hit the "auto run" command; on my computer that is the Num-Lock key.

2. Set your flight trajectory to a 45 degree downward angle, and use the Straight-Up key to gain altitude at a 45 degree angle. This is the same key you use to jump, the default key is the spacebar.

This set up should allow you to strafe up, down, left and right with one hand. The other hand is using the mouse to control where and when you throw the bombs.

The key is to never stop moving forward.

Practice, practice, practice.
You will want to practice moving about in friendly territory first.

Once you have good control over your flight pattern go practice flying around in the bombing zone for a while. Don't worry about completing the quest at this point, just concentrate on avoiding the flack from the canons below you.

When you can fly through the bombing zone without getting knocked off your mount you are ready to add throwing bombs at the targets.

The Bombing Run
Here is my approach to the bombing run.

I think of each battery of guns and ammunition piles as an island. I fly to the center of the island at a 45 degree down angle. As I start the approach I will already have clicked on the package of bombs to activate the spell's AOE targeting.

As the canons shoot I will fly up and to the left or right for a count of 3 to avoid the flack and then return to my original course.

When I am close enough to the ground to see the green AOE target I throw a bomb at whichever pile of ammo is convenient. After I throw I leave the area by flying up and to the left or right.

Rinse and repeat. It only took a little practice to get to where I was able to do this quest in just a few minutes.

The Alt. Report

Here is a little progress report on my little family of alternate Warcraft characters. Before I start here are the guides that I am currently using.

Jame's Horde Leveling Guide
Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide
Lootable.com Tradeskills Guides

Following these guides my group has been leveling quickly. James keeps you on the best quests in multiple zones, and minimizes the mindless grinds. Also, the quests tend to be chain quests so if you are into game content you won't be missing out, you just need to stop and read the quests.

Kallessin - Kal is my Drenai fire mage who is currently at level 49. His tailoring and enchanting skills are both at level 300, and are pending my first trip to the Outlands to get more training.

Kallessin is kind of my guilty pleasure, I am a terrible mage, just terrible. He is also a great money maker in that I'll scan the Auction House for those drops that are disenchant-able and selling at a discount. One nice surprise here was that there are no fees connected to the materials involved in enchanting. Can you say total profit?

Kal also just made his run to the Hinterlands and Zul'Farak to get his [Carrot on a Stick] trinket (thanks Darq!). I also already have the [Mithril Spurs], but am waiting for an equipment upgrade before attaching them to a set of boots. While in Zul'Farak a couple of nice caster leather items dropped that I was able to enchant and send to my druid Finegas (thanks again Darq!).

Hazzmat - Hazz is a Drenai Paladin specc'd into the protection tree. Currently level 33 Hazz made a big trip this week. I sent him off to an oceanic server as an experiment to see if I like playing with a server that is having its peak when I am playing. I am a bit of a night owl and frankly its nice to see other people in the zone with me. Then, since I enjoy doing my gathering in the morning I should see less competition for nodes since it is early morning in New Zealand.

Also Hazz just went through a nasty change in armor. He went from a cool looking set of blues to a nasty looking set of greens.... Really, it looks like Disney did a technicolor puke all over my Pally. And with no guild tabbard I can't hide it at all. Ack!

Lassiter - My little Orc Hunter is not so little anymore. He is currently level 38 and topping the lists in the battlegrounds. He just finished all three of the Hemingway Jr. quest lines and picked up some really trick gear. The boss fights aren't in the guide but what hunter could pass up [Tiger Hunter Gloves], [Panther Hunter Leggings], [Raptor Hunter Tunic], and a [Master Hunter's Bow]. I solo'd everything but King Bagalash, I was just about down for the count when a friendly Dranai pally stopped and helped me take Bags out. Thanks, whoever you are!!

and last but not least comes Finegas.
I just picked back up with Fin this morning and he is just starting in Stranglethorn Vale. He should be the last that goes through this. Fin just dinged 34 this morning and should be hitting 36 when I am done with rested points. Since the level 39 PvP bracket is where Druids really shine as flag runners I'll be getting the above equipment (minus the bow) to use in Warsong Gulch. Unless I have a field day on the auction house that is.

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

WoW Leveling guides

Being a bit of an alt-oholic I have had the chance to look around and find a few leveling guides to help break up the monotany and make things more fun. My criteria for each guide is pretty simple. The guide needs to be free, minimize any mindless grinding, be current and easy to follow.

Here are my favorite guides.

Leveling Horde.
On the Horde side I began both Tandani and Finegas in their home starting areas, Troll and Tauren respectively.

Once they hit level 10 I moved them out to the Ghostlands where I use Snowflake's Guide to the Ghostlands (12-21). My reasoning behind going to the Ghostlands lies in the idea that the new content quests are grouped together for speedier leveling, and the gear is better. That and I'll be spending plenty of time in The Barrens anyhow, I'd like to break up the scenery a bit.

At level 20 its off to The Barrens using Jame's Horde Leveling Guide; which is divided up into six chapters that will take you to level 65.

Leveling Alliance
For the Alliance Characters I would recommend the same kind of pattern. First do all the quests in your starting areas and then head over to the Bloodymist Isle to do your 13-20 level quests there. I didn't use a guide for the area as it was still very new when I went through it. My thinking is the same though. The newer content is better streamlined and has better rewards. You also get a little ticker tape parade at the end that had me a little misty eyed.

From 20 - 30 there is Youri's guide which acts as a prequal for Jame's Alliance Leveling Guide which is the guide that I prefer. This guide is divided into five chapters that will take you all the way to 70.

Tradeskill Guides
For tradeskill leveling I prefer to use the crafting guides put together by the folks over at Lootables. These guides are current and concise and they utalize drop down windows rather than putting everything on one long web page. Another great feature that they provide is a shopping list for each tradeskill.

I like to print the shopping list out and have it sitting next to my computer to reference while on my back character. Since I prefer to have gathering trades until level 40 or later I can be stashing away what I need for the profession grind, and then selling off any extra.

Fishing and Cooking
These two skills go hand in hand. I found a great leveling guide on WoWWiki that will tell you what fish you need, and where to fish them. then its a single push of a button and a cup of tea while your character cooks things up. This guide will take you all the way to level 375 in both skills.

Keeping Things Organized.
I keep things interesting for myself by rotating through my characters. Basically I will play a character's rested level down to zero and then switch. I also bounce between Horde and Alliance with one or two characters doing battle grounds at the top of a bracket.

This keeps things fresh but can be a little confusing. To keep things straight I have an index card for each character that I will make some notes on. That way I know right were I am when that character is up for its turn playing.