Cataclysm Level Flow Map and other useful info

Taken from mmo-champion:

Leveling map:

Cooking:  Cooking Recipes
Leatherworker:  Leatherworking Recipes
Alchemy:  Alchemy Recipes
Enchanter:  Enchanting Recipes


My professions are gathering; miner, flower picker, fishing, cooking.
If I didn't have gathering as a profession, I would go with leatherworking and Enchanter.

Going into the expansion

Here's the 2 spec that I have settled on going into the xpac;
Boomkin:  Puka's Boomkin spec


Resto:  Puka's Resto spec

As I mentioned before, my gear isn't the optimal but that's due to playing my Paladin and deciding to switch to Puka as my main with 4.0.  I'll be leveling up as boomkin until level 83 and then focusing on Resto the last 2 levels to get ready for raiding with my guild.

My first zone will be Vash, I also plan on mining and picking flowers while I'm questing.

Race change???

The Shattering is here and I can not wait to get home from work to see what the old world has in store for me.

With this patch today, there's new races/class combo, see the pic below.  I'm considering changing my Druid from a NE to a Worgen come December 7th.  I'm also thinking abou switching my human Pally to a Dranei.



Until my next post...

Enchanting love for Resto

 Here's a list of enchants to obtain in the expansion... majority of it is for Resto.  Need to show some love to them trees.

Weapon

• Power Torrent – Permanently enchant a weapon to sometimes increase Intellect by 500 for 12 sec when dealing damage or healing with spells.

I am assuming that this will be the default weapon enchant for Resto.  Intellect provides mana and spellpower so this enchant is pretty much the upgrade to the current spell power enchant except that it is a triggered increase.

• Heartsong – Permanently enchant a weapon to sometimes increase Spirit by 200 for 15 sec when casting spells.

This enchant seems inferior to Power Torrent.  So, if for some reason you can’t get Power Torrent, go for this enchant.

Feet

• Lavawalker – Permanently enchant boots to increase movement speed slightly and mastery rating by 35.

It remains to been seen how important mastery will be in Cataclysm.  At this point, I’m assuming this enchant is better for Resto than the stamina/run speed enchant.  Since I’m assuming that movement speed will still be important in encounters, this will likely be my boot enchant.

• Earthen Vitality – Permanently enchant boots to increase movement speed slightly and Stamina by 30.

This looks like a direct upgrade to the current +15 stamina/run speed enchant.  With the mastery/run speed enchant this is probably suited better for PvP than PvE.

• Haste – Permanently enchant boots to increase haste rating by 50.

Important enchant if you are below the haste cap.

• Mastery – Permanently enchant boots to increase mastery rating by 50.

As I mentioned previously, it remains to be seen how valuable that the mastery stat is.  Since this only gives 15 mastery over the mastery/run speed enchant, I’m assuming that Lavawalker is the better of the two enchants.

Wrist

• Greater Speed – Permanently enchant bracers to increase haste rating by 65.

The obvious enchant if you are under the haste cap.

• Exceptional Spirit – Permanently enchant bracers to increase Spirit by 50.

Since more spirit, gives a higher rate of mana regen.  This is probably the standard enchant if you are already at the haste cap.

• Greater Critical Strike – Permanently enchant bracers to increase critical strike rating by 65.

Now that all HoTs have the chance to crit, crit may become more valuable.  However, I’m not sure that I see a time that this would be used by a resto druid before either of the two enchants listed above.

Chest

• Peerless Stats – Permanently enchant chest armor to increase all stats by 20.

Not much to say on this one.  More stats across the board = good!

• Exceptional Spirit - Permanently enchant a chest to increase Spirit by 40.

Possibly the better enchant for healers that are having mana issues.

Back

• Greater Intellect – Permanently enchant a cloak to increase Intellect by 50.

I think this is the obvious cloak enchant.

• Greater Critical Strike – Permanently enchant a cloak to increase critical strike rating by 65.

I can’t imagine Crit being elevated to the point where it would be chosen over intellect, but I listed it here for completion sake.

Hand

• Haste – Permanently enchant gloves to increase haste rating by 50.

The obvious choice if you are not at the haste cap.

• Greater Mastery – Permanently enchant gloves to increase mastery rating by 65.

Regardless of how effective Mastery is, this is the obvious hand enchant if you are above the haste cap.

Offhand

• Superior Intellect – Permanently enchant a shield or held item to increase Intellect by 100.

No brainer here.

Ring (Enchanters Only)

• Intellect – Permanently enchant your own ring to increase Intellect by 40. Enchanting your ring causes it to become soulbound and requires 475 Enchanting skill to remain active.

Again this is a no brainer if you are an enchanter.

There are a couple slots that you have a choice of enchants to use, but it still seems like most slots definitely have an optimal enchant.

Patch 4.0.3a - The Patch that will change Azeroth forever.

Patch 4.0.3a is tomorrow and this is from posted on mmo-champion.

Reset your hearth to Stormwind because when December 7th roles around, you don't want to be stuck in Dalaran looking for a portal to SW to start leveling.


What's in Patch 4.0.3a
Sammew posted an interesting list of the features you should and should not expect in Patch 4.0.3a on the official forums. Zarhym also jumped in, and announced a 20% reduction to the XP required to gain levels from 71 to 80.

What is not in:

• Creating worgen/goblin characters
• Worgen/Goblin start zones
• Archeology
• Professions past 450 (Illustrious Grand Master)
• Guild leveling
• Guild achievements
• Eastern Kingdoms/Kalimdor flight
• New Zones (80+)

What is in:

• Portals in Dalaran/Shattrath Removed
• Class trainers in Dalaran where portals once were
• New race-class combinations (excluding worgen/goblin)
• New Gnome/Troll starting areas
• Changes to existing zones
• New cata load screens
• New cata intro cinematic
• New cata login screen
• New music
• City Quartermasters, with rep tabards
• Bug fixes
• Class balancing
• Druids, paladins, priests, and shaman will have their talent trees reset
• Experience required to gain levels 71 through 80 is being reduced by 20%
• New tamable hunter pets (Monkey, fox, dog, and beetle, as well as new skins for existing pet classes.)

Expansion leveling

Just a little info I gathered while in beta:

Level 80-81: 1.6 million XP
Level 81-82: 2 million XP
Level 82-83: 4 million XP
Level 83-84: 5 million XP
Level 84-85: 6.5 million XP

The leveling speed is linked close to the time you take to complete a zone.
Level 80-82 - Hyjal or Vash between 4-5 hours.
Level 83 - Deepholm about 5 hours.
Level 84 - Ulum between 4-5 hours.
Level 85 -TH about 5 hours.

I went the route of Vash because it's a new experience questing underwater and you're able to obtain an underwater mount.  From my experience, level 80-83 went by fairly quick and easy... going that last 2 level took time and was much harder.

When I hit those levels, I plan on queue for BG's and will farm some flowers and mining nodes while questing.  Of course running 5-man instance with me guild if there's an open spot... by this time I will be healing full-time and if I have to queue up for 5-man I shouldn't be waiting too long.

Until my next post...

Random Thoughts

 Currently, boomkins is OP in BG's.  I've been doing some random BG's lately and each time I end up in the top 3 with the least amount of deaths.

Here's a link to Puka's Armory: 
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Garrosh&cn=Puka

YES, I know my gear sucks and it has been for some time.  I leveled Puka to 80 when Wrath first came out and ran Naxx for awhile until he was put on the shelf.  I only played on Puka to farm mining nodes, flowers, fish and cook... in other words I was making some made gold with very little work.



The night before the expansion is release, I plan on re-doing my talents for both boomkin and resto and reforging anything that is needed.

Obtaining gear from quest rewards for boomkin and resto, so I'll be able to heal in 5-mans with some comfort.  I'll use my badges for Resto gear and start setting-up my raiding gear at lvl 83.


Until my next post...

Cataclysm

This is what I find interesting with the changes to Boomkins and Resto Druids:

Some of the Changes to the abilities & mechanics;

    * All heal-over-time spells (HoTs) will benefit from crit and haste innately in Cataclysm. Hasted HoTs do not reduce their duration, but instead add additional HoT ticks. Haste will also benefit Energy generation while in cat form.
 
  * Unlike the other healers, Restoration druids will not be receiving any new spells. They have plenty to work with already, and our challenge instead is to make sure all of them have a well-defined niche. A druid should be able to tank-heal with stacks of Lifebloom, spot-heal a group with Nourish and Regrowth, and top off lightly wounded targets with Rejuvenation.
    (I like the fact that there's no new spells for healing.  Resto druids have enough arsenal to either main heal or assist imo.)

Wild Mushroom (Level 85): Grows a magical mushroom at the target location. After 4 seconds the mushroom becomes invisible. Enemies who cross the mushroom detonate it, causing it to deal area-of-effect damage, though its damage component will remain very effective against single targets. The druid can also choose to detonate the mushroom ahead of time. This is primarily a tool for the Balance druid, and there will be talents that play off of it. No cooldown. 40-yard range. Instant cast. 
    (This by itself I would like to see the affect of it.  I think this can be using in multiple trash pulls.)

New Talents and Talent Changes

    * Tree of Life is changing from a passive talent to a cooldown-based talent, similar to Metamorphosis. Mechanically, it feels unfair for a druid to have to give up so much offense and utility in order to be just as good at healing as the other classes who are not asked to make that trade. We are exploring the exact benefit the druid gets from Tree of Life. It could strictly be better healing, or it could be that each heal behaves slightly different. You also will not be able to be banished in Tree of Life form (this will probably be true of Metamorphosis as well). Additionally, we would like to update the Tree of Life model so that it feels more exciting when you do decide to go into that form. Our feeling is that druids rarely actually get to show off their armor, so it would be nice to have at least one spec that looked like a night elf or tauren (and soon troll or worgen) for most of the time.
    (I actually don't like it, I enjoy seeing myself as a tree... although with the look of the tree, maybe I don't mind as much.)

    * Balance druids will have a new talent ability called Nature’s Torrent, which strikes for either Nature or Arcane damage depending on which will do the most damage (or possibly both), and moves the Eclipse meter more (details below). The improved version of Nature’s Torrent also reduces the target's movement speed. 10-second cooldown.
    (This is something I'm loving so far and with the new proc icon in the UI.)

    * Restoration druids will have a new talent called Efflorescence, which causes a bed of healing flora to sprout beneath targets that are critically healed by Regrowth.
    (I haven't had to chance to toy with this but I think this will be great in 5-man... the real test will be in a raid setting.)
   

My next post will be my current spec and gear and what my spec will be with Cataclysm

My guild - Monarchy of the Dead

When I came back to the game from my break, I was months behind as far as gear and progession goes.
Most of my friends that I've played with over the years have either transfer servers/faction or is no longer playing. 

I wanted to raid again with dedicated players to end-game but not on a hard-core raiding schedule... that is almost next to impossible I thought to myself!  One day, I came across a posting on the WoW Realms forums from Dumuzi doing some recruiting for his guild Monarchy of the Dead.  It's advertised as an small, adult guild that is interested in running 10-man content... I thought to myself, this is perfect.  I went to their website, like what I read and decided to post my application and the rest is history. 

All I can say is I'm very impressed with everyone in the guild.  It is made up of adults and mostly couples... I wish my wife still played, she would like the people in here.

Most of the members have been playing WoW for some time and like myself, some of them have taken a break from the game and just recently returned.  There's a few that is fairly new to the game as well.  So the level of raid experience varies from one end to another, and the gear is just about the same. 

The guild raids 2 nights a week, Friday & Saturday starting at 8 pm and stopping whenever someone has to leave.  What really impressed me with the people in this guild is that when we wipe on a boss, everyone shrugs it off and has a discussion on why the group wiped and what can we do better the next go around.  Every new boss encounter that we have done we're able to down the boss with few to no wipes at all with no buff.

I can tell you that gear is not a factor nor raiding experience, it the person that is playing the charcter and everyone else in the group.  I've found a great place where I can call home and the friendship that I make there will be a last one.


Until next time..

WoW

This will be my first adventure into the blogging world, and doing so as a casual player of World of Warcraft.
I first started playing WoW about 6 months after the release of the original game, so it has been a long 4+ years.  I've been through many phases as a player; hard-core raider to casual, back to hard-core and took several breaks thoughout that time as well.  I have also raided on several different characters throughout those 4+ years.  My very first toon was a mage then I switched to a druid, priest and pally.  I raided up to ICC on my paladin and decided to take a break from the game.  Just recently return, playing on Garrosh (PVE) server and found a great small 10-man casual raiding guild.  I came back raiding on my holy paladin and until recent made the decision to switch my main to my druid (Puka).

This blog will be my perspective as a casual player going through the process of leveling up from 80-85.  I plan on questing as a boomkin and doing 5-man as a tree.  Until that time, I will be raiding ICC 10-man with my guild on a casual basis trying to upgrade my ilvl 200 gear.  I will post my spec and gear a couple of night prior to the release of the expansion.

Let my adventure begin...