Daily Thoughts: It’s Not Christmas Anymore

Apparently today is the official day after the Christmas holiday time for my universe. Last night my significant other took down our tree and decorations in the midst of a living room cleaning frenzy, and today the tree at the office where I work is packed away into boxes to wait for the next year.

So, I’m now waiting for christmas again. Though, I sincerely hope it doesn’t take until december to find my presents, which apparently someone buried all over Azeroth. Yes, I’m talking about Archeology epics. This profession is a little soul-sucking, but I really want Zin’Rokh, the epic level 85 bind-to-account 2h weapon. Aside being a substantial upgrade for my ret main, would also look nice on my fury warrior and death knight once the paladin upgrades or finds a replacement. There is also a very nice healer trinket for my holy set or my resto shaman once he hits 85, and a caster ring, which lacks hit or spirit, making it a viable upgrade for my holy paladin, resto/ele shaman, or boomkin. The trinket and ring are also bind-to-account.

Although the grind to get any of these (which I haven’t yet, by the way) is pretty long, at least due to the nature of the BOA epics, only one toon needs to be an archeologist unless you really care about multiple toons getting the pets and mounts. Just last night I got the Fossilized Raptor mount and although it’s pretty cool, I have no desire to level archeology on any other toons. I’m glad I have the last of the fossil solves that I have any interest in, but we all know we really want the gear.

For those looking to start archeology, a couple important tips:

  • Do it now, they’re making leveling even longer in patch 4.0.6
  • After 100 skill you don’t get anymore skill points for leveling, so don’t solve any of your finds prior to that skill level, in 4.0.6 it seem they’re lowering the number to 50. So at least head to 100 prior to the patch dropping.
  • They’re also limiting the amount of fragments you can collect to 200 per race. Each solve takes a minimum of 35 fragments, rares solves up to 150 fragments. Some people were saving all the fragments of the race they wanted loot from (the 2h sword is from troll), in order to only solve that race once they were high enough to find the item. This won’t work after 4.0.6 either.
  • Unless you have a real preference of which toon gets pets/mounts/achievements, level this profession on your fastest character. Any toon with 310 flying, paladins for aura, druids for quick flight form, etc. The faster you can move the faster you get to dig sites and to the survey points
  • A decent guide/explanation of the profession can be found HERE.

Cataclysm Faction Reputation Guide

I’ve prepared a pretty inclusive list of all the cataclysm factions, links to their loot lists on wowhead, and if they have tabards, dailies, etc. Also past the cut is a list of each factions epic loot available. Continue below to see the list including Baradin’s Wardens, Dragonmaw Clan, Guardians of Hyjal, Hellscream’s Reach, Ramkahen, The Earthen Ring, Therazane and Wildhammer Clan.

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Daily Thoughts: Deepholm Impressions and Screen Shots

Awesomeness. That’s my “if you had to describe deepholm in one word” word. This zone, like Hyjal, has a very fluid quest process. Blizzard has really stepped up their game with cataclysm. Now the questing has more of the feel of a traditional RPG, where your actions and quest results have a very real effect on the world around you. They again made a lot of use of the phasing mechanics in order to show the progression of the zone and the NPCs involved as you do things which help save the world. The zone is gorgeous and has now become my favorite cataclysm zone. Of course, I’ve only played Hyjal and Deepholm so far.

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Daily Thoughts: Hyjal

I must say: Hyjal was a blast. Counting all the horrible groups of people killing and collecting everything for the quests, completing the zone took me between 4-5 hours and got me to level 82. I really enjoy how the zone played out, with few exceptions I’ll get back to later. For the most part, the quests lead you in a circular direction around the zone with very few quests sending you very far. The zone makes heavy use of little mini-instances. You take portals to underground areas and complete small quest chains inside, then return to the main zone to continue. Everything looks great, though (unsurprisingly) they reused a lot of old models for the mobs. I only have one major complaint with the flow and feel of the zone as a whole. Occasionally, there was no quests to do. Sometimes it seemed to not give you any directional quests to the next place and you sort of have to fly around for a little while to find a quest giver.

There aren’t really any difficult quests to complete. This could be due to it being the “entry-level” cataclysm zone or because my Paladin was sporting pretty nice ICC25 quality gear. After doing what I believe was all the quests in the zone, I had only two upgrades to my current gear, though some pieces were close. As a result my person damage dropped a little. As you level the ratings required to gain a % of haste/crit/hit/expertise all become much more substantial. With only 2 upgrades, my haste and crit are both 50% or so lower after 2 levels gained and both hit and expertise, which used to be capped, are now well under cap. Fortunately, I feel that Deepholm holds more upgrades. Shortly after leaving Hyjal I did the Stonecore instance and got Sword of the Bottomless Pit, a substantial upgrade over even my Shadow’s Edge. The damage per second of the weapon is 33% higher. I digress, back to Hyjal.

Another thing I noticed, though honestly not until I was writing this, there wasn’t any group quests in Hyjal. On several occasions I ended up grouped with people so we could share the kill of a quest mob, but it was out of convenience of not waiting for 4 other people to kill it first, not from difficulty of the mob. I am hoping for more difficult future zones and quests. Alas, I must wrap this up, my 35 minute wait to log on is about over and I want to get back to questing.

More from the Cataclysm soon, Deepholm next!

Hyjal leveling guide – I admittedly didn’t use this, but I wanted to provide a resource for those looking for one.