So I made it to 85 on my Death Knight. I made it pretty quickly given the amount of play time I put in and in comparison to the slog it was to 80. I did it in less than a month. I did no dungeons and had no guild benefits as a boost to anything. I also did not play as rabidly as I did when trying to reach 80.
My trip from 80 to 85 was strictly via quests and mining. Yep, that’s it. No guild bonus.
I’m in what is basically a bank guild and while there are about 26 or 27 members most of those are toons of about 5 of us. The majority of the time I am the only guild member on and many of the others are lower level toons. So with over a month since Cataclysm and the new guild leveling system we are still only 32% to level 2. So no guild perks yet.
I still haven’t run any of the new dungeons. In a few cases I was out geared for them on normal by the time I located the entrance. Truth is, I haven’t run a dungeon in a group on my DK since I changed to Unholy and that was at least a couple of months before Cataclysm, so I’m a bit out of practice and I have little idea as to how things will go in a group with the new spec.
I found the leveling to go very quickly just doing the quests and mining. The fact that you get experience now from mining and herbalism and I think Archeology is a huge bonus in my mind. Sometimes the XP is fairly small but when you are mining to get ore for prospecting, as I do, you tend to need a lot to get the gems you need and so the small amounts of XP add up and quickly.
The change in the way quests are done is very helpful as well. By not having the group quests and being able to turn in and acquire some quests in the field makes things go a little quicker. Having map markers for where to go to do the quests helps make planning my route easier as well.
There have been a couple of quests that have caused me to have to stop and rethink my approach and ultimately use spells that I had not previously used. I think this is really good training for the things I’ve heard about from the new dungeons.
I have found some oddities with a couple of the new Cataclysm zones. For some reason in Hyjal, while I haven’t finished all the quests there, I can’t seem to find anymore there. I have the same problem in Uldum. So now how am I supposed to get the achievement for doing a certain number of quests in that zone? Deepholme is also a little strange. I have done the required number of quests, I can’t find any more though I do have the two dungeon quests but now the dungeon entrance is gone, the ports to Stormwind and Orgrimmar are gone as well as the vendors and there is fighting in the temple.
I still need to do Twilight Highlands. I had pretty much just started it when I hit 85, I haven’t even gotten as far as getting the portal to Stormwind open, though I have a quest relating to it. No, sadly, I got to 85 and lost a little interest and have wandered off to level my Gnome Warlock. I will have to put some time in with my Death Knight though. I need to be prepared for Friday. I’ve been invited to my first raid. If it happens it should be interesting and maybe even fun. I’m expecting to be really bad and I think a couple of others are expecting a wipe fest. I know I am.
Guess we’ll see how it goes. And then I’ll be leveling my Warlock up to 85.
See you in the machine.
Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.
