Journal of a shaman equipped with frost resistance totem

These are gathered experiences from my levelling in Northrend. I don't know how many of you have interest in soloing experiences anymore, as "everyone" is 80 now. I'll justify it saying that there will be plenty alts levelling through Northrend.

Speeeeed! Give me what I neeeed

Compared to pretty much everyone else, I've levelled pretty slowly. But if you only look at actual playtime, it's pretty good. All of it has been on rested XP. And this time, unlike the last (Outland), I'm only levelling one character, Kirba. Last time I levelled both my priest and druid, switching them every now and then when I got too annoyed with the other.

It feels slightly awkward that I've only finished Borean Tundra, with about 20-30 quests done in other zones, and I'm already half-way to 80.

Money money money

As a lot of others have pointed out, Blizz is trying to empty our pockets by every mean possible. Some of it can't be avoided, like spending 150 gold training (and I'm exalted with Orgrimmar) my lvl 75 spells. Others can be avoided, though. Some of the ways I've tried to save money:

• Obviously only repair and buy reagents at a fraction with which you're exalted. Orgrimmar in my case.


• Limit the number of flight path usages, by planning a route that involves very little flying. Of course, this might sometimes take extra time, so it's a balance there. For example, with my hearthstone set to Dalaran, I've plenty of times taken a portal to Orgrimmar and the zeppelin to either of the starting areas to save money. It's kind of extreme, though, and not something I do too often. Rather boring to wait for the zep. If I'm in one of the southern Kalu'ak towns, I'll use the boat instead of a flight if it happens to be there at the time I arrive.


• Except for my gathering skills (mining in my case), don't train tradeskills until you're honored with some fraction. I'm almost honored with Warsong Offensive myself.

There's also the flip side of the coin, making money. While I did earn 2k gold selling glyphs when 3.0 came out, I'm not usually much fan of hanging at the auction house too much. That leaves a few other ways:

"Normal" questing. Yields a pretty stable income, but nothing spectacular. Most of it will be going down the drain when I hit 77 and have to buy Cold Wheater Flying.

Dailies. Not too different from questing, really, except that they're slightly faster since you know what you're supposed to do.

Green BoEs... Sent those I can use to my alts, those that I expect to have a use for to a bank alt, and those that I don't think I'll be able to use at all to disenchanting. What to do with the disenchants? For now, they're stored. Later, perhaps they'll help finance my epic flying mount.

Resthancement

I've levelled to 75, about 3/4 of the time as resto, the rest as enhancement. Been respeccing to resto for each instance, there are never healers around. Not that I mind too much, means I always get a place in a group. I'd like to try dpsing as a shaman sometime, though.

I felt like a friggin' glass cannon as enhancement. Next time I go enhancement, I'll drop talent points in Anticipation and Toughness to counter that. I don't think I ever died, but I don't like seeing my health bar leap up and down as I take damage and use my Maelstrom Weapon stacks for instant heal.

Static Shock was not my cup of tea. Spesifically, the lack of Water Shield meant I only had Shamanistic Rage as a mean to get my mana up again. It's a raid/group dps talent, as far as I can see, less useful as a soloing talent.

Now that I've reached 75, Kirba just got a new spell at her disposal. Lava Burst is pretty hefty. As resto (with spellpower gear), it crits for about 2.7k. Nice. I was planning to respec sometime, but I think I'll just wait for 3.0.8 and the free respec.

I must admit, though, that I felt a bit envious hearing that a pally friend of mine crit for 4.5k on Holy Shock used offensively. Wow. That means 3k non-crits, instant, every 6 seconds if you want to. Seriously... overpowered, if it's true. My Earth Shocks hit for about 1-1.2k on non-crits. Looking at the tooltips, I can see that Holy Shock is more powerful. I can only guess that's because it can be used both for damage and healing, while I've got Earth Shock and Riptide on two different 6-second cooldowns.

Fanclub stuff

Thanks to the D.E.H.T.A. quests in Borean Tundra, I've gotten a nice boost to my Cenarion Expedition rep. Only half-way to Exalted to go.

I've been doing the Kalu'ka dailies when I can, so I'm already Revered. I don't know why I bother so much with them, but they're very likable. And since it's entertaining, that's good enough for me. Thanks to that, Cuttlefish Tooth Ringmail is waiting for me in one level, Totemic Purification Rod in three levels. And if I should reach exalted, I don't mind getting Pengu and the fishing pole.

Misc stuff

Astral Recall rocks while soloing. I can recall to Dalaran, go to Orgrimmar and do whatever I want, then hearth to Dalaran again and catch a flight back to wherever I want to.

Glyphed Water Walking rocks as well. Very nice whenever I'm close to water. Makes some quests ridiculously easy. Ride out to the quest mob, kill it, rebuff and ride back.

Fire Elemental Totem rocks like heck. Drop the totem, Earth Shield the elemental, make sure to damage all mobs at least a bit, and just pull wildly. I've pulled around 10 mobs at the most, and downed them all. Fun.

Speaking of Earth Shield, While I've been resto, I've tossed it on any horde I've met. They seem to appreciate it. I always buff those I meet as priest or druid, so it's nice to have something to offer as shaman too, sort of.

I've missed Glyph of Water Mastery a bit since I dropped it. I think I feel the difference in mana regen.

Is it just me, or did they recently add the feature that gives an arrow on your radar to the quest you've marked in the quest log? Only works for a few quests, but very handy for those it does work for.

Evil plan to take over the world

• Keep up my dailies and whatever other Kalu'ak quests I find until I earn exalted with them.


• Do Warsong Offensive quests in Dragonblight until I'm honored with them, then go train my professions. Won't take long, only got 500 rep left until Revered.


• Howling Fjord. Don't want to miss out the story. Hope I'm not doing something stupid, like killing the fun for my alts when I next level there.


• Respec to Elemental once 3.0.8 hits. Preferably test it as dps in an instance. Perhaps test it as a healer as well in an non-heroic instance.


• Keep levelling, obviously enough.


• Do some instances. No stress, though, I'm probably going to see the inside of them quite a lot as heroics.


• Have fun. Highest priority.