Saturday, May 30, 2009

The Adventures of Mokrana - Chapter 3

Mokrana levels yet again! This time, I used the first chapter of Jame's Leveling Guide (level 21-31). It took me from the Barrens, to the mountains of Stonetalon, the forests of Ashenvale, to Thousand Needles, and even across the sea to Hillsbrad.

Jame's Leveling Guide 21-31: 14h 49min
= 1.48 hr/level

Previous Chapters:


Total /played at level 30.5: 1d 4h 45min

Again, this is pretty significantly behind Jame's rate, who at this same point is at 19 hours /played and averaged 1 hr/level during this section. Again, he is playing a paladin, who level a lot faster.

On that same note, I want to let you all know that I went ahead and bought Mokrana some gear. It was all purchased with her own money (though she's been making serious buck with her herbing skills). She now has several blues, including a [Cobalt Crusher] that I found for relatively cheap. I've definitely noticed a serious improvement of both her speed and survivability, and am enjoying playing her about a million times more. My advice for anyone leveling a shaman - find a way to get some decent gear, it really matters for these melee classes.

Mokrana and her new mount and new gear, ready to take on the world!

Now, on to the analysis!

My only complaint is that I got a bit behind the guide in several places and was forced to grind. This was especially bad for the first half of the guide when I have bad gear and wasn't too fast at killing things. In particular, I was behind during the Hillsbrad Foothills section, and had to grind on humanoids there for a long time to catch up. I also ended the guide half a level behind, but chose to move on rather than trying to grind my way to catch up.

I have heard several complaints about folks getting behind specifically in this section of Jame's guide. I think this may be due to changes in quest drop rate causing less built-in grinding. I know Jame plans to add new quest circuits as he goes through the addon, so I hope this is one section that gets some new runs added to it.

Towards the end of the guide, my inner engineer started showing through, and I made a little spreedsheet to track each quest circuit and it's average hr/level time. I think this will be really useful info for Jame if he decides to tweak or optimize these guides. Here's the results:
  • Stonetalon Mountains (27-28) - Harpies Threaten circuit - 1.41 hr/lvl
  • Stonetalon Mountains (27-28) - Bloodfury Ripper optional circuit - 1.26 hr/lvl
  • Hillsbrad (28) - 1.88 hr/lvl
  • 1K Needles (28-30) - Pacify Centaur circuit - 1.55 hr/lvl
  • 1K Needles (28-30) - Highperch/Grimtotem circuit - 1.35 hr/lvl
  • Ashenvale (30-31) - Felfire Hill circuit - 1.93 hr/lvl
  • Ashenvale (30-31) - Never Again circuit - 1.97 hr/lvl
Next up, I'll be revamping and revising the 31-41 section on my warlock Tirrigeth, in preparation for Mokrana's next journey!

3 comments:

  1. Hrm...

    I'm using the addon for 3 Alliance toons I'm working on leveling, and all 3 are ahead of the curve.

    Last night the addon told me I should be at 24, but if not don't worry... I was 26th level at the time.

    I don't have an accurate /played time with any of them. I was using them for a pet selling business I was working on. And I'm working on leveling their professions, too.

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  2. That's still great leveling speed Jiyambi, considering everything (leveling tradeskills, playing a shaman and being on a section which could use revamping).

    I expect big improvements on the next sequel, and even bigger ones past level 40, since that's when enhancement shamans start to shine.

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  3. Freddy - I was speaking specifically to the Horde version of the guide, the Alliance one may be easier to keep on track. Also, it's perfectly reasonable that with normal ammounts of rested XP, this wouldn't be a problem at all.

    Jame - I figured that would be the case, I have heard shammies really pick up after level 40 :)

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