The Alt of My Alt is My Alt

And it’s my fault. But I’m ok with it, because as of Sunday, my big three are all on one server and happily doing business with each other.

Yep, the server transfer waiting period finally ended, and I slingshotted them over to my new (hopefully permanent) realm. There’s definitely a sense of completion in looking at my character screen now, with my 67 hunter, 70 warlock and 60 mage all waiting for action.

It’s been a bit distracting, as someone will be looking for something in guild chat and I’m usually able to go and find the item or materials on another character if need be. I’m also noticing odd benefits to having a few higher-level alts.

I was on the warlock last night, hunting herbs in Nagrand. Someone called for a 5th person to join their Ramparts group, and I spoke up. I figured it would be good practice for me, having not played the warlock in a group for months. But as we waited atop Hellfire Citadel for people for finish their usual pre-game RL stuff, it dawned on me that I had a primo level 60 DPS class one character slot away. I quickly swapped in my mage, and away we rode.

It was a decent run; picked up the The Witching Band from the final boss, but that was about it. My mage skills were most definitely on the rusty end of things, but I managed not to get myself killed.

I also got my hunter to 67 last night, which meant that I could begin the ghost quests in Shadowmoon Valley and reach the Teron Gorefiend group quests. I did, and I did. It’s funny how easily these quests get completed, now that nearly everyone you meet is working on the quest for their alt or helping a friend’s alt. I joined a group of 70s, who kindly summoned me to a hilltop across the nether so we could fight the ghostly level 71 elite dragon. And I do mean summoned me to a hilltop. We all crowded onto a roughly 8x8 foot space and pulled the dragon when he flew past. Being a hunter, I of course need range to do any sort of effective damage. Yeah, no. I had no range on this fight, and was reduced to pricking away with my little blue daggers and popping Beastial Wrath or Kill Command whenever the cooldowns were up.

We managed to slay the beast in the end, surprisingly. Four 70s, two of which – healer and DPS – could not see the dragon for lack of their Spectracles, and a gimped 67 hunter did not seem an ideal group for the quest, but it worked out, so yay. I got my Stalker’s Helmet of Second Sight as the end quest reward. It’s nice, but it’s not as dragon-ish as I was hoping for. It’s got more of a sea-monster feel to it. I guess that’s OK. My biggest gripe with that helm, though, is that it offers three blue sockets for the +8 attack power bonus. As a hunter, I haven’t found blue gems to be all that useful. I grabbed a couple of +12 stam and a +3 mp5 gem, but I would have really liked to have at least one red gem slot in there. Ah well. I’m sure I’ll replace it at some point.

So in all, it’s good to have all my favorite characters together at last. But it’s going to be tough spreading the love between them. My big goals are to keep focusing on the hunter’s progression, rep and attunements, while keeping an eye out for any healthy PUGs for the warlock. The mage will have to play the bench for a while, at least for the next month or so.

It's All Mine(ing)

Took a break from leveling on Sunday evening to finally skill up my mining. I got guilty during a PuG when someone asked if there were any miners present. I said yes, but I was far too low to tap any Outland veins. The other player got all serious and told me that I really should get my mining up, as I wouldn’t want to miss out on all of the ore I was leveling around.

I’d coincidentally just picked up my Swift Pink Hawkstrider the day before, so I was a bit more mobile. I decided to start mining. Moved from level 220 up to 295 that evening, mining Mithril, Gold, Truesilver and Thorium.

Oh, and I also got filthy stinking rich doing it. I must have gathered 5 or six stacks of Thorium, and god knows how much Mithril. I was in the zone. Must have watched at least 5 or 6 episodes of Buffy. Kept sending the ore, stone, random minerals and crystals to my bank alt, and at the end of the night I tossed everything up onto the AH. Next time I logged in, I collected over 200 gold.

Last night was a bit more casual; just needed to pushed mining another 5 points to 300 so I could start gathering the Fel Iron nodes in Hellfire Peninsula. I’d definitely recommend following through mining, ‘cause I thought it paid well at the LOWER levels. Had no idea it was this profitable in the post-300 skill range. But I guess we can add this to the other 19 billion things I’m still learning about this game.

Also joined a brief PvP group yesterday for the daily quest in Hellfire Peninsula. I’ve been trying to get my three Thrallmar marks every day by capturing the three contested points on the map. And by capturing them, I of course mean that I ride in, flag for PvP, wait for the tower to turn Horde-controlled, and do the very same thing to the next two towers. I’d then hide in a gully or run back to Thrallmar to wait for the PvP flag to timeout. Easy 3 marks per day.

Yesterday, though, we actually got a little 5-man group together and actively defended the Overlook, Stadium and Broken Hill for about an hour. I didn’t realize that you get a bonus Thrallmark mark per PvP kill you to which you contribute. I had my little stack of 15 marks I’d slowly been gathering since I hit level 58, but that turned into 56 yesterday, so I was able to get my Mark of Conquest from the Horde Field Scout in Zangarmarsh. Very cool.

One final holy shit: A simple level 65 quest in Blade’s Edge Mountain got me this Wild Horned Helm in less than five minutes. God I love the “find an upgrade” feature on the WoW Armory.