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The Fun Guy?
So it looks like I’m starting over.
Again.
Kinda.
When you have a couple dozen leveling misfit alts, several of which are the same class, everybody tends to blur together. You know, like that one toon had that one thing that you thought was cool, but got lost in the shuffle after leveling another three characters of the same class. That old song and dance, knowwhatImean?
I happened to be bouncing between servers, looking for something on someone, when I came across a Death Knight that I had leveled to 100. For some reason, despite leveling a number of Death Knights, this particular one I associated with fun. He had a PVP tabard that I liked, and had repped up with a few MoP factions that got him close to unlocking some sweet mounts and such. He was fun to play.
Fun. I like fun.
That’s when the broken pieces of my thought process started churning like spaghetti in a blender. There were aspects of Legion that I enjoyed. Why not enjoy them once again on my Fun Guy. That’s like fun with a side order of fun! I mean, what’s the point of playing if you’re not having fun, right?
Step one was getting his professions sorted out. I started this process pre-7.2, and looking back I might not have made the changes I did. I dropped Blacksmithing and Enchanting, both capped at 700, and picked up Jewelcrafting and Skinning. I had some time and some spare change, so getting both to 700 did not take much effort at all.
The Skinning I did here:
The Jewelcrafting happened thusly:
The question, of course, is why those two professions?
Jewelcrafting has gold-making potential. From what I’ve read, reaching 800 skill level is no longer an expensive nightmare grind in the Patch 7.2 world. Granted, this is also going to cut down on potential profits. But since I also ground out the Cloud Serpent rep and got the recipes for all of the Jeweled Panther mounts, there’s still gold-potential to be had. Also, I haven’t done the Jewelcrafting questline yet so it’s a slightly new way to level. Anything is better than the usual grind.
Skinning? Yeah, on the surface it doesn’t seem like a very logical fit. Skinning and Jewelcrafting seems to go together like Peanut Butter and Sardines (don’t judge). But the draw from Skinning isn’t the skins. It’s the Blood of Sargeras. Skinning can pile up the most Blood if you happen to be leveling with the Blood enchant on your shoulders. More Bloods, more chance to make gold in one fashion or another.
My Death Knight was at Revered with the Shado-Pan. I probably won’t get flying for another few months, so I’ll take a few days to get Exalted and unlock their Big Cat mounts. I also hear a rumor that there’s also another flying mount that shows up at Exalted.
So much win! So much fun!
Next: My failed 300k gold investment.
Making Gold With Class Trials
Yep, Tome of the Tranquil Mind. The consumable that you have to use when you want to swap specs. Without it, you have to be somewhere in a rested XP area (city, inn) to make the change. A beneficial item to have for raiding, running dungeons, or hell even for questing.
According to The Undermine Journal, these things sell on the AH for roughly 200g each. Your mileage may vary of course, but as of right now the average price is 200g. Other than the handful you get when you complete the New Dalaran quest at the start of the Legion expansion, the only other way to get them is to buy them off the AH or have a character with Inscription that can make them.
So what does this have to do with making gold with Class Trial characters? Allow me to explain:
- Create a new character, and select Class Trial. You’ll start with a fresh (temporary) level 100 character.
- After running through the brief tutorial, you will be sent to the Broken Shore scenario. Once there, leave the instance.
- You will appear in front of a quest-giver who tries to give you the option to enter the scenario. There’s also an option to skip the instance, which results in you being sent directly to New Dalaran.
- Once you spawn in New Dalaran, hand in your quest to the dude in front of you. He will reward you with the Dalaran Hearthstone and five Tomes of the Tranquil Mind.
- Go to the mailbox, mail the Tomes to a bank alt or another character. Log off, delete the character, rinse and repeat.
With this method, you can either load up with stacks of Tomes for free, or sell them on the AH. That’s roughly 1000g on the AH for maybe ten minutes of work.
Not too shabby, and oh so sneaky.
Can You Level Too Fast?
I now have two characters at 110.
Oy.
Let me backtrack a second. In Warlords of Draenor, I had over twenty characters at max level. The leveling experience in WoD had the potential to be very, very fast. There was really no drawback in racing to 100 except for gear not keeping up, but if you upgraded your heirlooms to cap out at 100 they’d keep up with you until you could pick up a few pieces. So gear was kinda a penalty.
That, and flying.
The implementation of flying was what made many people backtrack over old content until they had repped up enough, or completed enough quests, or explored enough of the new content. People were upset, but they did it. And Blizzard let them know that they’d probably have to do it all over again in Legion.
You’d figure I’d learn.
My Pandaren Warrior was insanely easy to level. First, because he was a Pandaren he had double the normal rested XP as other races. I’m not sure how that worked exactly, but what I do know is that from 100 to 110, I was never OUT of rested XP. That was pretty sweet.
Second, I leveled him as a Protection warrior. At 102 he picked up his Arms artifact weapon, and I dumped all my artifact points into it. Still, even with what would be considered an underpowered artifact, from 100 to 11o I died a grand total of TWICE. Both were due to being drunk with indestructibility. I died more than twice during my first World Quest as an Arms warrior. Much, much more.
Third, I leveled using the Legion Companion app. I had followers running the XP missions when I was at work. Each successful mission netted me an entire bubble of XP. That’s actually how I dinged 110. I completed a mission on the app, logged in a little later in the day, and I was 110. How about that?
I’d already been through most of the content on my DK, and my Warrior was going to be my profession mule. He was all about the Mining and Blacksmithing, both of which don’t really kick in as far as making serious gold until 110. I’m greedy like that, so the push was on to cap him.
Dinging 110 was somewhat satisfying until I started finishing class hall quests and found myself rewarded with followers who were 103. Clearly, I had some work to do, like:
- Gear. Much like during the WoD crunch, much of my Warrior’s gear fell behind. He had some quest rewards that brought his iLevel up, but when I had to enter a dungeon as part of the Blacksmithing questline I didn’t have the iLevel to get in. I had to go to the AH and buy a bunch of 780 gear just to finish a quest.
- Rep. World Quests related to professions were going to be beneficial at end game. Unfortunately, because I blitzed through only a couple of zones I found myself lacking the Friendly reputation with a few factions. I had to go back, start over at 110, and go through quests until I hit Friendly with the faction in question. Then off to another zone, rinse and repeat.
Leveling in Legion is more about being efficient than it is about being fast. Truth is, you’re going to have to visit every zone if you’re interested in World Quests. You’re going to have to finish every zone, or at least to the point where you receive the dungeon quest for the zone, if you want to fly.
As the Pandarens say, “Slow down.”
(Editor’s Note – I realize the irony of a post warning against leveling quickly, right after a post discussing the quickest way to level. Relax and follow what you will.)
Fast Leveling in Legion
It’s been a little over a week since Legion went live. Fragnance needed just over five hours to reach 110, and good for him. Others took a bit longer but many have already dinged 110, including myself.
One down, twenty more to go!
To quote the great Will Smith, “Aw Hell Naw.”
Before I go any further, I’ll just say this about Legion. I really like the storyline, and in-game storytelling is usually not what I’m about. I’m not a lore guy, and I only read maybe 20% of the quest text that I’m given. But there have been times during my Legion questing experience when I actually stopped and thought to myself that it’s a good thing I’ve got an alt coming through this content because I might want to read some of this the next go round.
That being said, sometimes you just wanna get to the end. The game starts at endgame for many, and they don’t care how they get there. They just want to get there, like, yesterday.
So how does one get to 110, like, yesterday?
Brace yourself, jabroni. I have some good news and some bad news.
First, the bad news. There’s no subtle mechanic to game that’ll get you to max level. No “Bonus Objectives” or XP potions like there was in WoD. Fragnance did it through optimized questing and select dungeon running. That’s pretty much how you’ll do it too.
Now for some good news – I have not one, not two, but THREE methods for getting to 110 as fast as possible.
Method One – Bellular put together a video that outlines a good, strategic route for MAX GAINZ!
Method Two – Umren has some powerful tips for getting through the content in the most efficient way possible. Efficient = fast, and fast = good AM I RITE!
Umren mentions the Emerald Wind toy, which I did not know about but will be dropping everything and getting this POST-HASTE! Oldbess goes into a little more detail about this toy, and mentions another one that will get you Flying in Legion before they release flying in Legion. Look, just watch the video.
Method Three – You might notice that there isn’t a video here. Technically you are correct. What there is, though, is a link to a website. Don’t panic, there’s nothing shady about this site. What it does, is provide you with a detailed walkthrough on 100-110. It tells you what quests to do, when to do them, and provides videos to clarify certain aspects of some of the quests. I actually used this, and I found some of the explanations very helpful.
The website is Guide me Senpai, and you can check it out by clicking HERE!
So there you are. Leveling tips. Now get in the ring of grind, and get it done.
Garrison Gold Setup in Legion
Garrisons were nerfed to the ground as far as passive gold making went. So, you might ask, is there any point in maintaining them in Legion? I have posted a suggestion in the past, but Mad Season has gone the extra mile and created a video that outlines a very good garrison setup that should still generate some decent gold that, while not completely passive, will not take a great deal of time out of your day.
I would write more, but Demon Hunters went live today and I’m going to see if I can transmog one as Robin before he goes into the new expansion. Anyway, enjoy!
Rokk Talk 