Monday, November 12, 2007

Almost 67

Okay so I did a bit of playing this weekend and I'm only 8% away from hitting 67. At this point its just a countdown until I hit 70. I need to follow some good advice and start leaving nagrand after I finish a few more quests. I think the zone is great, and good for farming, but I need XP not fun and games. I'll come back after I get 70 and farm the holy crap out of it then.

Next stop is North Nagrand so I can get my mage's battle baton. Its a rediculously difficult series of quests where you kick the daylights out of some instance level guys. I am almost 67 like I said, so its not something I think of as a problem, I just hate finding groups. I know some guys but they are usually raiding and I don't want to wait all day to get this done.

After I get that and a few more things from Nagrand, I'm off to Blades Edge Mountains. According to the Warlock's Den, there is a TON of quests that give me things I should have pre 70 there. Of course its all crap once I hit 70, but it is what it is.. I still need to hit a TON of instances, but that comes secondary to leveling at this point.

Need to do:
Underbog (all the way)
Slave pens
ManaTombs
CoT Durnholde

And thats just to be going into instances at my LEVEL! So I'll let you guys know how each go.. hopefully no more craziness from people. Monday's my night off WoW, so probably no update tomorrow.

Friday, November 9, 2007

After the Tusker!

Tusker, the big snuffalupagus in Nagrand needs to die.

Well I thought, this looks like it could be a problem. Lots of people saying, you need 3 to take him down. So I kept reading..

Looks like Locks have a "easy button". There are some holy-moley felguards over at some forge camp in Nagrand. Numerous entries list that enslaving one, mounting and running like you-know-what will allow you to solo this snuffy with ease. So try #1, I enslave. Suddenly a invisible felcannon blasts me and I take a LOT of damage. I assume it was a felcannon.. cause really I saw nothing. Big green flames, big damage. So I die.

During the ghost run I had to do to get to my body (cause I always forget the friggin soulstone), I thought of pulling with Curse of Shadows and then enslaving the guy. This seemed to work well. Now I'm not really a believer in enslave demon. It always breaks and I die a terrible death. I push this feeling aside for being able to solo a guy other classes can't solo(even some at 70). Now I get there and well, someone (me) didn't read the stupid description from other posters on thott.. There is a ton of other elephants running around here. So I end up just overwhelmed at the base of the rock the tusker chills on. Fighting like 6 elephants. Good news sports fans, I WIN. These felguards are NO JOKE. Mine was 68, but some are 67, and he was vicious. I dotted, and whenthey turned to go to me, I made him hit them. That was the strategy. Well that and howl of terror. Which helped but not a solution in and of itself. So finally the guy and me make enough elephant corpses that we can go up to tusker. and..

and...

He breaks enslave and goes into a "evade" coma. So he's just standing there.. not doing anything, and THEN I get summoned into Underbog.

My second attempt will work. Even if I gotta just totally get a 40 man raid together.. LOL. I'll try this again tonight without the 40 man raid. Really if I could just have dealt with 3 elephants it wouldn't have been a problem. This is really a waste of time if my experience doesn't pay off some good dividends.

Which reminds me, questing experience in outlands sucks. I mean sucks BADLY. I get about 1k xp from each of the kills I'm making at 66. I'm getting about 10k xp from questing all over nagrand. So the nessingwary quests, if solo'd make you more experience in the KILLS than you make in the quest itself. I think this better affirms what everyone has thought for a long time, grinding vs questing is a dumb argument. Grinding +Questing = quicker xp.

Grouping into Underbog (take 1)

Ok so while I was running around killing things in Nagrand a guildy (whom I did not know personally or in WoW) hit me up for a Mana Tombs run.

I've done MT before, and it was just garbage. Cost me 5g to get repaired cause we wiped like a bad case of the runs. Anyway, since then I've been eager to get back in there and really try to do some good. Plus I wanna kill that boss..

Ok, back to the story.. So he invites me to a group and this group is just flip flopping people leaving, joining.. leaving/joining.. Till finally we're in. WAIT A SECOND, I get summoned to Underbog? Well its a new one for me, so why not.. Everything goes well (I was so far on top of the damage charts its silly to even mention, yeah me!). He makes some kinda rookie mistakes, and handles himself in a "not so good" fashion. But that's ok, I mean.. When have I been known to ever be 100% on anything? So then our tank has to dash, his job called him in so he says. (see note). I said.. (notice the quotes) "I know of no one on that can tank for us, do you guys?" followed in 3 minutes by "Well guys with no tank this concludes our night, have fun". Then I hearthed. I wasn't happy, cause really.. I was doing well. Saving the group here and there, and just annihilating everyone with my damage. So I'm standing in Nagrand now, and the guildy jumps me about "wth man? I thought you were into helping guildy's" It set poorly with me, I don't know if its "maturity" or just being old and cantankerous. So I ran the whole thing by another guildy who is a real life friend. He told me to just brush it off.. I checked and this guy is his main, so its likely he's new to the experience of grouping, and guild grouping.

Karma1: I joined for Mana Tombs... Not underbog (truth is I would've done underbog, but I resent being lied to)

Karma2: If we had been at work and he had done this kinda bull, it'd be cited as "Unprofessional". We weren't at work, but still don't be a hose brain.

Karma3: He jumped MY stuff for leaving when no one had a tank. I had other stuff I could be doing beside dancing in underbog.

Apparently he had just GOT a tank, and quickly made amends about jumping me for leaving. So I'm letting this one go. As a side note, I probably will never run with this guy again, unless it is just out of painful necessity. I can't say anything specific, cause I don't want to name names or point fingers.. But he conducted himself in a way that made things "less fun" for me in the group. Ergo, I'll not group with him again. No hard feelings, I'm sure in 3 months he'll be raiding Kara or something.. but not with me.


Note:
Some WoW players are actually so retarded that they thing REAL LIFE should come second to the GAME. These people should immediately commit suicide. My kids/wife/house/job/school all rank higher than this game, and they SHOULD. If any of the aforementioned higher rated issues require me, I'm logging off. If you have these things and maybe they don't love/need you, or maybe you just don't love/need them.. I pity you. Don't dog those of us who have a life outside of WoW, it just makes you seem pathetic.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Epic Mount, oh yeah..

Well last night I had planned on a group to get through Scholomance. Well, at least to the alchemy lab.. Anyway, so I logged on and only one of my buddies was there. So I, reluctantly, put it out in guild chat "any1 wanna go through scholo, to the alchemy lab?". Remember, I'm "new around these parts" for this guild. Most of them are so uber, I don't even understand it.. Nevertheless, before I could count to 10, I had the guild's primary tank, primary healer, a lock who is way uber also, and a druid healer (who spent her time in cat form helping out with dps).

Basically I hosed my buddy. He understood, but I still felt bad. Honestly though, what an experience! To say these guys just straight up wtfpwned this instance would be an understatement. They were unbelievable. We rolled through the mobs so fast I barely had a chance to cast an instant dot on anyone. All in all, scholo lasted.. roughly.. 15 minutes. Tops.

Dig this though.. THEN the lock is so cool, he says to me "DM is next right? wanna go there?".. This would CONCLUDE my mount quest. I don't know that I'm crazy enough to turn down the freakin superfriends in the guild to try to find a PUG to get in later. So of course I ran to BFE where the quest guy is to turn in this part and get the next, and final leg of the quest. The MT, and the healer druid dropped out. So my buddy Yara got on (68 frost mage, atm), and then we got a rogue from the guild (also 70, apparently ALSO a superfriend). And we stormed through DM west. Now when I say we stormed through.. I mean I LITERALLY had to pull with drain soul to get a shard from the mobs. The damage was of the charts, and thats no understatement. So without a tank we steamrolled DM west. Being new to the instance I tried to put a curse on the mobs and then drain soul (for the lodestone to keep the crap moving in the ritual I needed to get my mount). If the lock was doing a fire spell, I put curse of elements, if he was doing shadowbolt, the mob got curse of shadows.

The fight to GET the freakin mount was insane. Not HARD, but insane. I think pre burning crusade it took a bonfide group of bad mofo's to pull this off. Me and the other lock enslaved big felguards and had them run around smacking people. Imps, imps everywhere.. there were 30-40 of those dudes.. I did Rain of Fire as I was just tryin to help while watching the doohickeys to make sure they kept going. This was no small feat, as there was so much craziness on this altar that I could just barely see anything specific about the nodes at all. The Felguards are really what helped out, I think anyway. If we had had a 70 demon lock with us their felguard would've been more powerful.. but really, who cares about THOSE guys.. (j/k demo locks). Anyway so at any time the other lock is droppin dots and shadow bolting.. while also keeping up doohickeys with me. He was such an uber lock too.. I mean, I consider myself good, or I DID until I saw this guy. Its obvious that experience raiding pre/post burning crusade has made him just supremely knowledgeable about what he's doin, and how he's doin it. I on the other hand am just not that serious. In the end we smoked the mount and the stupid demon guy that follows after it.

Victory lap of Shattrath on my new epic mount. Yeah, okay.. so I was the only guy in Shatt that had JUST got their epic and was >64.. I still felt like a bad mofo though..

Now for the flying mount.. argh!

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

60-69 WSG

Firstly, I'm really REALLY new to this bracket, but seriously... When did all the horde stop doing PvP? If you are on my server or in my battlegroup, then you know how odd this really is. 60-69 WSG hordies are like 20-29 alliance guys.. nearly retarded and all running around trying to do 1:1 and no group cohesion.

Although I was really grateful to smoke some horde, when last time I went PvP at 60, in alterac valley, there were a ton of morons trying to solo 4-5 horde at a time. I'm no coward, but a clothie versus 5 horde guys is going to die. Unless the 5 guys who had more sense than you and are in a group, are all messed up or having keyboard/mouse issues. We got smoked... A lot.

Then I go into this bracket for WSG (never did 60 wsg..) and we just rolled these guys. All the alliance guys stayed in 3's for the most part, and I was in a mini group of friends (65 lock, 67 frost mage, 66 shaman).. Personally we stomped them. I had the top in HK's and #3 in total damage. I didn't see a mis-shaped field either. Everyone I saw was my level or higher. Mostly 69's to be honest. I thought this resilience thing would really play a bigger part in how PvP was going to be done post 60. Now I want to PvP all the time. Winning is something I really enjoy, duh...

Now I'm going to push to 70 with total disregard to the fact that at 70 I'll be up against ppl in their Tier6 who are going to put such a hurting on this little gnome. I doubt I'll ever get that far along until there are lvl 80 folks who want to jump into these instances and see how far they can pull a lvl 70ish gnome lock.

A ssecret to my success in this particular run into WSG was the healers bane.. Unstable Affliction. You can't remove it without being hurt pretty good, and its NEVER the only dot on you (if you saw a guy named Mcgoo run by you, anyway). I was ignored on the field a LOT, which helped. Since I'm affliction, I am a slow damage dealer.. I have enough juice into destruction that I can pop out some damage if need be.. But it would shoot my proverbial wad of mana and leave me standing there with an imp and a glowing stick.. trying to squeeze juice from the little imp and lifetap. I have emotional issues about using lifetap when a Tauren guy with a HUGE flaming axe is running at me, I consider lifetap a last resort in PvP. The only occasions I have known this to not be the case is when I have a druid at my back and I get HoT'd out my wazoo.. which usually means unending mana for Mcgoo. Which in turn means when I die, I'll have either 3 rogues standing over me, right before THEY die.. or a field of bodies. I'm pretty persistant, and just like with Dwarf.. if you ignore me.. you'll die.

Back to UA, and why Affliction is king in PvP... Well there were these 2 blood elf pallies see.. and an undead priest. The priest, pretty much has to pray that he can keep his heals up to live through my DOT's or he's gotta go kamakazi on someone. Either way, he's not a threat on a big scale. Pallies and rogues are the only classes that can ditch UA without getting a smackdown. Pallies bubble removes it without damage, and rogues just suck in general and blizzard gave them an out so they wouldn't cry (just kidding). Anyway, there is this buff marker or whatever you call it after a pally does a bubble. I looked for this and dropped UA on them. Basically their bubble, their defense to this, was on cooldown and I was going to rape them for this. You heard right folks a nobody-knownothing 65 lock schooled 2 49 pallies. This to me meant I must rule the world.. in reality it was just that I was paying attention and I had the skills to take them out of the game.

One pally tried to flash heal himself out of oblivion. This is a smart move, but not when I'm still watching.. I drained his mana and then /laughed at him. When he was in range to do some melee damage, nightfall proc'd. So night night, pally1.

Pally2, on the other hand did a unofficial berzerker rage and rush for me. I don't know if pally's can ditch fear.. but he didn't. So while he's running (I did take some damage, which when a big 2h hits cloth armor it means gnomes take damage).. I drained his life.. then his mana, for good measure.

I don't play a pally above 13 or so, so I'm no the end/all be/all with them... I will say this. I have been hocking some plate that I am cursed to get that is +stam/+int.. why are you pallies not BUYING THIS! Its a known exploit of pallies/shaman.. When your blue bar is gone, usually you die. So make your blue bar a bit bigger.. PLUS I never EVER saw these pallies have an int buff from a mage (poor teamwork).

I run with a mage so I almost always have brilliance or intellect buffed. My favorite is when my buddy buffs my imp (Im affliction and it takes an almost all caster enemy to get me to NOT use my imp).. Any good Affy lock knows this means I have even MORE mana to dark pact away from the little booger. Dark Pact = Love. Thats how that breaks down people.

As I am 65, I have 5 points left for talents. I really think they are going to go to my Imp, and my healthstone. Just figuring that since I use my imp exclusively in instances, and I'm basically a healthstone vending machine, that these would be logical places to put my points. Just checked improved imp as a talent, affects my bloodpact by upping the stamina I get from my bouncy friend to 80-ish. That's right sports fans, 80 stamina that isn't gear dependent! When I get that stuff together I should be pretty versatile for both battlegrounds/arenas as well as raiding.. Guess we'll see

The gnome on the non epic..

In a almost continuous stream of whining and bitching regarding me being both too cheap to buy mats for an epic ground mount AND need to get a group to go through both scholo, and dire maul. I am still refusing to do it, but honestly I'm not even to the point where I can go to diremaul and DO the quest. What I really want is to for a lock buddy to take pitty on me (and a bit of gold) and take me through Dire Maul and help me get this mount.

This seems like its not going to happen anytime soon. Two great problems arise from this. Number one, I cannot get my flying mount until I am both level 70 and have my epic ground mount training (received for free upon quest completion for my dreadsteed). I do not want to be level 69 screwing around on a level 40 style mount while the cool kids are out grinding the last 20g to get their flying mount. My choices are slim, and unappealing. So I am going to have to sit in front of scholo and LFG. Precious little is as boring in the game as going LFG. It is a painful, often unending time upon which my life seems to accrue less value and less meaning. Now my new guild, The Order of Medivh, is wicked cool. Problem is that they are pretty much all doing level 70 stuff. Arena/raiding, etc.. Which means this "FNG" will probably receive less than a helping hand doing some old old level 60 stuff. I am really hesitant to ask for any lock style help either, cause I don't want to look like a schmuck. I have some favors I can call in from some lock buddies, but some of them have quit the game in its entirety. One of those people may not even still have their mount, maybe split the costs? Hm.. sounds better than ditching 250g from the word go just to get my stuff..

Don't get me wrong 250g isn't as bad as what other people farm to GET their mount skill money and mount money. The thing to remember here is, if you want to you can farm that kind of gold in a few weekends. No matter what I do, I NEED a group of people to run through some lvl 60-ish instances with me so I can get my mount. Granted its the shizznit as far as epic mounts go, nothing comes even close. I may buy a mechanostrider too just to run around and look normal, instead of like the uber super bad-mofo that I really am.

Large Prismatic Tard

Well the only things left to do to Dwarfenstuff to put him up to real uber-twinky-ness is his weapon enchants (and something called nethercleft let armor?), and the +150 health to chest. Then if I just want to obsess I could get a libram for his head, and if I get just really nutty.. A hurricane/precisely calibrated boomstick.

I am going for extra twinky-ness and getting Greater Agility Enchants on each of my 1h axes. The mats for this is beyond all belief extensive. Well they are for me anyway.. here's the list
  1. 8 Arcane dust (currently I have 37)
  2. 4 Greater Planar Essences ( I have 6)
  3. 6 Large Prismatic Shards (ouch it hurts, but i have 5)
  4. 2 Primal Air (I have 3.5)
So you can tell I am 1 Large Prismatic shard away from cranking out even more agility for my hunter. I need more Greater Planar Essences and a little bit more fun in Nagrand should reap me the remainder of my primal air. As usual, shards are my major pain. To me, everything green that I get is a potential payday from the AH. Some weapons sell better than others, just like some armor sells better than others. Lately I have been putting up an auction for my "less desirable" weps/armor for 24hrs on the weekend, and if it doesn't sell its off to my buddy the enchanter. So far its gotten me a crapload of arcane dust (good, I'll need it later for tailoring), and about 2 greater planars. Never a shard. I realize shards are usually from BLUE items, and I would sooner run Mcgoo naked through ramparts than have a blue DE'd instead of sold for the (incredibly overpriced) outland norm. So, I end up trolling the AH looking for people who are "pricing to move" their shards. Now as a non-enchanter, this seems dumb on their part, but I love them for it anyway.

I may push another 20g over to dwarfenstuff and let him get one of his weapons enchanted. I'm not sure I can wait till I have enough mats for both!! I have always been a force to deal with on the battlegrounds and in duels. Since I basically ramped up dwarf's stamina and agility to the max, shedding almost all other stats.. I have noticed that I:
  1. stay alive longer
  2. do a LOT more damage
I am hoping there isn't a wall of diminishing returns once I get this extra 40 agility, but this is really my first high level enchant (everything else was really kinda cheaply done). Either way I'm happy to have a weapon that is really top notch along with an enchant that is considered borderline overkill for my bracket (40-49). The libram would be nice, but I doubt the necessity of it, and this nethercleft stuff doesn't really seem to far and away outshine my clefthoof armor I got put on my legs already. No matter what though Dwarf is getting his glowy weapons, and if I happen to have 100g extra sitting around and hurricane or the boomstick show up on AH, I may just swipe them up. I miss not having a gun, /cry.. Bows seem so.. so.. elven. And forget those long eared people!
hehe

Monday, November 5, 2007

PUG's

The PUG is a necessary thing, but not always the ideal situation.

---Firstly if you don't know it, a PUG is a pickup group. Like people who don't know each other just deciding to team up to take on an instance/quest, etc...

My Friend Val, basically wrote a "hey what do you think" post and I'm filling in the blanks.

To ME a PUG is how you get to know people. Almost 95% of my action in game is from PUG's. Oddly the same percentage of things I don't like came from PUG's. This is, to me essentially the reasoning behind PUG's. Learn what you like/hate about groups by doing so with mostly less accustomed individuals.

Like I found, I hate pally healers. I know I know, some of the biggest baddest guilds run all over the dang place with pally healers. Sure. As to date, I've not had but 1 experience with a pally healing that didn't turn to crap in 10 seconds. This is ALL post 60, so its not like I was in deadmines and he couldn't keep me alive.. As a lock I found I LOVE druid healers. They can HoT me and I can lifetap to get some free mana. LOVE that. love love love love love.

For a guild leader, it is essential to have your officers doing PUG's. I mean that is how I would draft people in. Word of mouth, but I would only take my officers word for it. And the more the officers work with folks the more they can coordinate their leadership skills with how groups should work. I haven't raided, but I would think having any amount of "what do I do when he does..." would screw you over pretty quick.

Now for the casual player, I think its good for the same reason I like/hate them. Basically seeing how other people do what they do, you get an idea of how you like things done. People you like to do things with, etc.. I have a big friends list, and probably 4 are in my guild. The rest are people I played with in the past who handled themselves good. This is basically my go-to list for groups. Like if my group (guilded or non) need a rogue. I know of 3-4 rogues that can do what we want and how we want it done. Frost mages? I know 3.. Fire mages? I know 2.. Hunters.. well who ever needs a hunter in WoW and can't find one has serious issues. I have a hunter and I can't throw a AOE up in a town without having 4 hunters run in that circle. But yeah, I know of some BM hunters, 1 survival hunter, and 2 MM hunters.

So basically I think pugs are good. You will create more headaches than you'll solve, but it will help you by having people put their expectations on YOU, and you in turn learn how to deal with them.

Friday, November 2, 2007

Farming Cloth

My friend from the blogosphere has already given her take on it, however she's not a warlock, and she's not alliance. So here's my take on it, being both.

Linen:
The Linen capital for alliance is the Deadmines. Its easy to get to, easy to run through. Its all good things. PLUS, you might make a few gold by running folks through (just make sure they know you get the linen). Deadmines is really straightforward. I usually would run/dot/hellfire when I got a big enough crowd. You can, of course run through 1 at a time. SPECIAL HINT: Most locks don't use fear in instances cause it "brings back friends". Use it here. howl of terror pays off good when you get a ton of folks as it 1) gives the dots a few more secs to kill them and 2) might have them bring back friends.

Wool:
Wool is the Stockade, and the stockades are wool. This is an easy farming place. I'd send in the VW to each room and do an AoE taunt just to pull. He can take the damage anyway, and then do some siphon life, and run into the VW, and do hellfire. This will kill everyone if you have enough +damage. The most I've been able to handle at 64 was 10 guys at once. I'm not "great geared" or anything either, so don't assume I'd blow you away.

Silk:
Scarlet Monastary. Go there, run any part you want. The armory was good for me but so was the cathedral. At 65 these guys sting a bit if you get 5-8 of them on you, so for the purposes of armor repair bills, be careful. Otherwise you might as well buy it in the AH for your 5-8g repair bill. Use the VW that is why he is there! and let them run. Runners mean you don't have to wander around looking for people to gather, they'll come to you. Same theory as Deadmines..

Mageweave:
Hinterlands - Specifically Jinth'Alor. This place is CROWDED with folks so be careful. They are mostly 45+ elites from my run there this weekend. While they aren't a collossal powerhouse, some do really put the beat down on you, and there are some ranged folks (mages/hunter types) that will smack you from a distance. My suggestion here is same as before, use the VW. Get 3-4 folks grouped, dot them up like nuts, lifetap.. Drain Life to get full stats.. then if you feel like it rain of fire. (This is a circumstance I dont' advise hellfire. There are nooks here that can conceal folks and you might pull 3-4 more guys at once. Remembering that they are elites, its better to not get hit than to get hit. At 60+ I doubt they'd kill you, but if you get enough on you its a possibility you may have to deal with)

Runecloth:
The good folks of the Scarlet Crusade have been good to us in the past, and still are. Head to Western Plague Lands (WPL). From there head up to Hearthglen. There is a ton of these folks standing around looking dumb, so you can take them 1 group at a time (groups are non elites that I saw, and about 3-4 in a group). Once at hearthglenn, be careful. A runner can pull back 9 guys, again at 60+, this probably won't kill you.. but why pay repair bills?

Netherweave:
I'm not at a level where I can farm this place alone. However, the Hellfire Ramparts is where I go to get this. I am a huge fan of NOT getting into groups to farm. I actually almost refuse to. So any other ideas? SURE! All around hellfire citadel is about a million orcs. They can be elites in some places and remember your quests to know how to avoid the guys that will smack you too hard. I really like farming those guys, but the hard/fast truth is.. Instances typiaclly get better drops. So while doing it for JUST netherweave is a bonehead move, if you are 70 you might get in a group to run through here by just saying.. I'll go with, but I want the netherweave. I don't know the success of this, but I do know that I never sold any of my netherweave and the extremely painful rep grind with Honor Hold (HH), almost requires you to farm these places. So I have just goo-gaas of this stuff sitting in my tailor's bank.

Notes:
Finally, keep an eye out in the Auction House. Weigh out your time, if its worth it to you to run to Jinth'Alor for 40 mageweave, go. Now if you just need 40, honestly.. you will probably do better to just buy it at the AH. Sometimes folks are pricing things to MOVE, and don't care that they are way below market. Also, try putting your query in the TRADE channel. If you need 100 mageweave, put it out there and see what the person comes back with. Remember not everything in the game is about gold, so they might need pots (if you're an alchemist). This is a social game, and while the full Tier6 guys don't really need your 5 bars of fel iron, it may be worth it for them as they aren't using what YOU want, and you won't sell what YOU have either..

Skining for gold!

Skinning is one of my go-to professions. There seems to always be a market for it, and there are animals EVERYWHERE in Azeroth/Outlands, just begging for you to rip their hide off and sell it. Ok so they aren't begging, but I'm a warlock, and I dabble in soul stealing and crap like that.. Don't expect rosey things here!

Light leather: Ok this one is easy. Pretty much everything you skin in starter zones will drop the ruined leather scraps or light leather. I play around with humans (even though, mostly I use dwarves/gnomes), so I go from stormwind to eastvale logging town. These mobs are lvl 10ish, so don't show up at lvl 6 and think you'll steam roll these guys. As a higher level lock... you should tag RUN. I use this a lot, the run+dot+hellfire farming method. It's gold baby, thats all there is to it. There is SOME downtime, but really not enough to sweat especially when killing 9 mobs at once. Hit NUM LOCK and run through hitting everyone with curse of elements, and siphon life(this reduces downtime) when you get about 6-8 on you sacrifice the VW, and pop hellfire. They should all be hurting anyway, and you should get some good health before you really feel the pain. This works great, and I use it on lvl 60's even now (at 65!) although I put a corruption on them for good measure. This will level you out of that in quick order.

Medium Leather:
I go to Duskwood for this. Duskwood was my first big BOOM for money in the game with Mcgoo anyway. I got lucky drops and the leather off the nightbane worgen folks is all gravy. Caution: These guys hit pretty dang hard. Casters in particular should watch out. if you are a lock/mage this is scary (unless you are a frost mage), but papa Mcgoo has your way out. I have 2 tried/true farming methods. First is the dot+run+hellfire method, second is the VW AOE taunt method. As you can tell I send the VW in to a series of mobs hit each one.. (while I dot them with the appropriate aforementioned dots), then I force the AoE taunt. and hit passive to pull them to me. Some locks use hellfire, others use rain of fire. Rain of fire sucks. They always come for me, it never works for me.. ever. If you are a serious farmer, getting the talents in destruction to have things "daze" from your spells can be suped up a bit by the talent to cause ROF (rain of fire) and HF(hellfire) to do the same thing, and also resist interrutpion (BOO YA!). So that really ups your chances to daze them. This, really, seems to have almost no utility in instances, so if you're going to go raiding remember to respec, cause most priests would rather let you die from HF than keep your sorry butt healed. Anyway this is the other method, and the one Papa Mcgoo says will work for you. TRUST in Papa.

Heavy Leather:
This is the easiest to level.. 2 words, Stranglethorn.. Vale. Its a gold mine. There tends to be more Heavy Leather on the AH than anything else for most servers I've been on.. I rarely had issue not selling though so I pushed this till I could go up to thick. Now on occasion in STV there are some guys that will drop thick leather. You can check your WoW database for the level ranges here because STV spans a good distance in levels. One of the great things about STV is you may not have to kill anything. THAT'S right kiddos, there is always 90 bigillion people in STV, and most don't do skinning so just run around and you'll find bodies to skin. Another reason to love this place, I know..

Thick leather:
If you are leveling up, you should just FIND this stuff from fighting mobs your level or higher. But the goldmine for this, Ungoro. Specifically the Monkey Caves. Not saying you can't do it from raptors, but my monkey friends.. if they are almost dead.. run to get help (ahem.. no need to search.. they'll go get help on their own. This is always awesome, many q's push you into these caves @ level so you may find some bodies to skin without killing, but the drops can be good so I wouldn't turn my nose up if I was you.

Rugged Leather:
Any schmuck will tell you the Yeti Caves in Winterspring are the place to go for this in mass numbers. I however will tell you that Fearing these guys as a lock, is where the REAL money comes from in the caves. They bring back friends, and you can dot them up for the dot+hellfire method. Sometimes I sac the VW to get that pain shield, but really in here dots almost always kill them at 60+ anyway.

Knothide Leather:
Pretty much everything in Outlands has this, or some scraps. Nagrand is where this becomes the awesome. Keep in mind I am just getting THERE myself! So this part I am hazy on. I prefer Clefthooves. Why? cause occasionally they drop clefthoof leather, which is worth a lot of money on its own.
There are talbuks and all manner of things here to kill/skin, so go nuts

This is where the skinning guide ends for now kiddos. Now go get some dead animal and skin it! hm.. well in game you can do this.. IRL, you might get some funny looks.

;)

Farming fun!

I am a regular reader of Wowgrrl, as she's got a good writing style and she speaks her mind about things. She's had a 2 parter on powerleveling tailoring. I wish to expound on that and basically put it out there on how I do things.

We all do things differently, and her being only Horde means she is naturally smelly (j/k Val!), and probably wins many battlegrounds against me. Honestly though Hordies do things different in different places.. I'm going to start a series of farming notes for people who want to find some stuff and weren't sure the best way to do it, or maybe.. just wanted a warlock's opinion on it.

Stay TUNED!!