I know many multiboxers take up the hobby as a way to separate themselves from other players. It works. Once you get your gear moving, even with 5 shaman there's very little in game I can't do outside of 10+ man instances. Even Heroics.
But I'm not one of those boxers. I love playing with other people. That's probably why you're more likely to find me in a BG or clearing out Goldshire than by myself in an instance somewhere.
It's true I run one of the largest guilds on Argent Dawn (www.forhorde.org) but because I wanted my boys to wear the tag, I'm rarely in guild chat anymore.
But I've been pretty happy with my setup so far.
This week, a Dual-Boxing.com regular, Zaedra, sent me a PM. She's been leveling a 3x Gnome Warlock team (yes yes, I know... Boom's favorite) and just acquired 2 new accounts. Most of her friends are on Alliance, but she shares the same love of AD Horde players as I do.
After a bit of negotiation, I welcomed her 5 new Troll Shamans into Twenty Totems.
Welcome Zaedra! (and grats on lvl10 btw. That's 10 totems, with 10 more to go!)
Our hopes are that as she levels to 70, we'll be able to attempt even crazier things with 10 Shaman, than what I've been able to accomplish so far with 5.
This got me thinking. What if I welcomed in 2 more players, 5 shaman each. 80 Totems anyone? :) Half of an AV... a full multiboxed AB or EotS. Maybe we could clear Molten Core together. The possibilities are endless.
So here's the deal. If you are a multiboxer, and would like to roll 5 shaman, horde side, on one of the greatest servers this game has to offer, I'd be interested in giving you a home in TT. I only ask that you be 21 or older, have at least a few months of multiboxing under your belt, and come with an understanding that you're gonna get to 70 on your own. I'm not offering you any help. Just a home, and a hell of a cool tag under your shaman's names. (if I may gloat. :)
As any of the Armory trolls can tell you, the Twenty Totems have been running around in some pretty embarrassing gear. Hey, ya gotta start somewhere right? The worst being my weapons. Mainly the boys were still sporting the Azure Lightblade, a healing dagger from a quest in Nagrand of all places. Yes, the stupid thing has only 48 spell damage, and I'd be an Alliance Pally (total idiot) to actually enchant those things. So I didn't.
So when I started PvP this last weekend, I had one goal in mind. 25,200 honor. That, and 20 Eye of the Storm Marks, would finally get me my Gladiator's Gavels. Now THAT'S worth enchanting. :) Speaking of, now that we (as enchanters) can merge 3 small prismatic shards into 1 large, I had just enough mats to enchant all 5 Gavels with Major Spellpower. (for the bean counters, that's about 1500g in enchanting mats based on AD prices. My wallet hurts.)
The 25k honor didn't turn out to be the problem. It was the tokens. I hate EotS. As I've discussed here before, any BG besides AV, due to the number of players, is really rough on multiboxers. But I wanted my maces. I tried two matches, and lost huge, and got screamed at by my own team. (of course) I had to try something different.
I decided it was time to hit the trade channel and ask for pvpers. I got two. Both of whom ended up running MANY rounds with me. I warned them up front that I was running EotS, and that we would be losing today. We never lost once. I'll go into the strategies we discovered in another article, another time.
Not only did I get my maces yesterday, but I also realized each Shaman had about 30 Alterac Valley Tokens IN THE MAIL. That means they each had 100 in their inventory. So I decided it was time to change mounts, and grab one of Thrall's. (Thrall was the War Chief of the Frostwolf Clan... learn2lore noob)
I want to thank the players who jumped in and went pvp'n with the Twenty Totems on Sunday. I have their names written down at home somewhere, and I'll post them when I find them.
They helped me realize that with a little communication, AV doesn't have to be me only source of pvp fun. Heck, maybe I'll sneak back into WSG someday soon...
By the way
The very talented Boylston over at Lightning Overload(one of my favorite multiboxing blogs) wrote up an excellent BG guide for multiboxers. Check it out here. It's worth the read.
As I've noted before, I'm currently further ahead in game than I am here on the blog. In "reality", I've already hit 70, conquered wow and won the intertubes. But I took notes and screen shots along the way, and I plan to share those missing stories with you.
Please find enclosed, per your request, 5 humans. Blond hair, rugged good looks and terrible porn star mustaches. Why? Cause the Bronze Dragonflight thinks Thrall will freak out if 5 level 70 Orc Shaman come rescue him... so they made us look like Bo Duke. That should put his mind at ease.
There's a pretty cool story behind Old Hillsbrad, which is the instance we're going to talk about today. If you've read the book Lord of the Clans by Christie Golden, you know this story already. For those who haven't, allow me to recap.
Thrall was captured when he was a baby. His parents were on Azeroth, working on some low level quests when their accounts got hacked and they were killed off. The total douche responsible, took their baby in hopes of raising him up as a trained pet. (Thrall = Hunter Weapon!)
He named his new pet "Thrall" which means "Slave". (it also means The "Close to the back door of Orgimmar so Alliance can farm him and feel important" Guy in other dialects.)
Thrall was educated in all sorts of combat and military strategy, because his master figured he'd eventually use him in the Arenas. He also thought that after Thrall got his Arena Rating up, maybe he could slide himself onto the roster, play 3 quick games each week and be rolling in full Vengeful in no time. (hack)
The relevant part to this is Thrall's eventual incarceration (due to a very bad attitude and unwillingness to sell arena points), and his inevitable yet brilliant escape from Durnholde Keep due in no small part to a very sexy diversion caused by Taretha Foxton, Thrall's "Little lady friend".
That's where we come in. The Bronze Dragonflight, known to us in game as the Keepers of Time, have asked us to go back in time to accomplish a few things:
1. Create a sexy diversion 2. Help Thrall escape from Durnholde Keep 3. Reunite him with Taretha 4. Make sure George McFly takes Lorraine to the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance 5. Get Back to the Future. /phew
I first did this instance at level 67. And while I barely took down the first boss, Lieutenant Drake, (no idea why he was wearing this kilt, but we took it from him) I simply wasn't able to keep up with the marathon of fighting that starts right after you let Thrall out of his cell.
So I totally bailed on Thrall and came back when we were 69. This time I was all stocked up on Jesus Juice™, so I could get some mana back between spawns. I also discovered that things got WAY easier when I would run into each spawning group of mobs, drop Stoneclaw Totems to keep the melee busy, and then focus fire on the one or two casters.
Eventually we got to Captain Skarloc, who thankfully has the mannerisms of a Bond Villain, and his theatric banter gives me time to drink my way to full mana for the fight. I suggest you kill his two minions first, as they drop super quick. Don't let Thrall tank, unless you're setup to heal him. I simply drop an Earth Elemental, and he does the dirty work just fine. (horray for plate gear /sigh)
Once Skarloc is dead, Thrall submits to his basic instincts and steals the dead man's horse. We mount and follow as he leads us to Tarren Mill where he hopes to find Taretha. Thrall stops right outside of town, and waits for you to talk to him before going in. Don't. Take your team on a tour of the place first, and wipe out all the guards that patrol town. This should make the next part easier.
After everyone's dead, head back and talk to Thrall, and he'll lead you to a barn. Go ahead and follow him in, and you'll get to watch Thrall bitch slap a horse for failing to keep it's mouth shut. A small but appreciated gift from the Devs.
You'll fight a small spawn in the barn, the church and finally a small group in the inn. That's where you'll find Thrall's BFF, only to be interrupted by the verbal abuse of a gigantic dragon outside.
That's where the final showdown with Epoch Hunter begins. And it sucks. Here's what you do.
Get outside FAST, and get setup right out in front of the entrances of the Inn and the Church. You'll see Epoch hovering in front of you. He'll start the fight by sending in three dragonkin. One mage, and two warriors. Do what you'd expect...
Keep the melee busy with Stoneclaws, and your Grounding Totems should keep the casters fire from hurting anyone. Burn the caster down first, then burn into which ever Melee mob that Thrall has taken it upon himself to pull off your Stoneclaws.
After that group drops, you're gonna have an identical group spawn to your LEFT. Rinse and repeat. But then the third and last spawn will appear below Epoch, and this time you'll have 4 mobs. Two are casters that will burn through your Grounding Totems pretty fast, so make them a priority.
If you get in any trouble with these waves, drop an Earth Elemental. But remember, we've already burned two on the first two bosses, so you only have 3 left. And you'll need at least two for Epoch.
Once Epoch heads in, drop whatever Elemental tanks you have left... then RUN. Get AWAY from this dragon. He has a terrible aoe silence, and a knockback that will send your group in a billion directions. Once you're a few steps away, pop your nukes and go crazy. He WILL kill your elementals, so focus purely on burning him down.
It was scary the first few times I did this, but after I got used to simply dumping everything I had into him, I realized he'll drop pretty easy. And if you're lucky, he'll be nice enough to leave you a Time-Shifted Dagger which has some excellent stats for that level. (I'm still sporting two of these on my team while I grind to my pvp mace.)
Overall, I really enjoy this instance, multiboxing or not. It's fun to be so involved with a WoW Hero like Thrall, and the story is a fun one. An added bonus for those of you who enjoy Lore (stupid nerds), Blizz put in a bit of narrative in the town of Southshore, which you can access after you beat the boss. I don't want to give anything away (*cough* Ashbringer *cough*) so go check it out for yourself.
Now that I have my team of tanks, I've been staying off the quest trail (as planned) and found myself flying through whatever dungeon I encounter. I'll be writing about each one in the near future. For now, I want to focus on the changes coming in Patch 2.4, and how they'll effect my plans as I inch closer to the big 7-0.
The problem with hitting 70 this late in the game, is that PvPers are already geared. Heck, we're coming up on the 4th Arena Season! This means that when I step into the BGs as 5 brand new level 70 Shaman, I'll likely be in level 90-100 Blues at best, while others are in level 146 Epics. Yikes.
I'm going to miss this once I hit 70s BGs.
The most painful part will be my lack of Resilience, a stat that reduces your chances to BE crit, and reduces the damage you take when you ARE crit. You have exactly zero resilience in your base stats, so the only way to build it up is to get resilience gear. That's easier said then done.
Up till now, with the exception of a few raiding rings, you could only get resilience gear by pvping, but you need it to pvp competitively. So the only option for you is to run BGs, in terrible gear, and save your honor until you can afford to buy the gear you need.
After Season 3 came out, the original Season 1 (S1) gear became available for bulk sums of honor. This is great! But when you add up the honor you need, you'll be stuck pugging through BGs for many months before you've got the gear you need to survive in Arenas.
This is where 2.4 comes in. Blizzard recognized this gear gap, and decided to make available a set of Blue quality level 115 pvp gear, complete with resilience, and even a +35 resilence 2 piece set bonus. So how do you acquire this fabulous new wardrobe? PvE.
In the expansion, Blizz decided to reward us with faction quartermasters. These are NPCs who offer you fabulous gear for rock bottom prices, based on the level of reputation you hold with their faction. So they're using these quartermasters to distribute the new pvp armor, an I couldn't be happier.
WoWInsider posted a wonderful little spreadsheet pointing out what factions you need to get, in order to get the gear you want. They spread the gear out over five factions: Cenarion Circle, Thrallmar, Keepers of Time, Lower City and Sha'tar.
As you can see from the chart, there are three types of Shaman gear. Elemental, Enhanced and Resto. Each is of course itemized around it's spec, and each one has it's own set bonuses. The Elemental set, which I'm obviously looking to, has a pretty stupid 4 piece bonus: 2% crit to shocks. This is frustrating because you're rarely in range to use shocks as an Elemental Shaman. What i'm more interested in, is the 2 set bonus that each set shares.... +35 resilience.
The thought here, is if I replace two pieces of Seer's Mail (Elem), with two pieces of Seer's Ringmail (Resto) I would only lose +10 spell damage, but get a total of +70 resilience bonus. Woot! And within a few minutes of the patch going live, all five of my boys will be wearing 5 pieces of level 115 blues, packing 151 resilience and a heck of alot more armor. All for the price of about 100g per toon. (chump change)
So how do I get there? Well, I just need to run instances and complete quests that build up my reputation with the 5 needed factions. Normally, this is hard. Because after you run any available quests, you're left needing to run instance, which requires 4 other "good" players... not if you multibox. :)
Punch in your toon's name, your server and your region (US or EU) and BAM! The dishes are done! The page will build a beautiful bar chart showing exactly where your reputation is with all of the important TBC factions. But wait... it gets BETTER!
When you click on each one, it actually shows you where and how you can build up your reputation, and even calculates how man mobs you need to kill, quests you need to finish or instances you need to run to reach the next reputation goal. WOOT! This makes it incredibly easy to keep track of my Reputation TO-DO list. I'm already well on my way to being Honored with all five factions long before the patch gets here.
I can't wait!
The patch also brings us a NEW faction to grind, the Shattered Sun Offensive which brings a pile of new dailies, server based progression and a pile of sweet new epics when you hit Exalted. I'll go over all of that, and my SSO plans in my next post.
Shortly after that, I'll be sharing my experience in Sethekk Halls (oh man the first boss blows), my party with Thrall in the CoT, and even the Big Ding! It's all right around the corner. Stay tuned.
Auchindoun was originally a holy burial ground for the dead of the Draenei. But the Shadow Council decided it was a great place to hold an epic kegger. They hoped to summon a pimptacular uber demon, and be the first to apply for "BFF" status with the new bad boy on the block.
But as with all the other parties the Shadow Council threw, this one didn't go well. They succeeded in summoning Murmur, the first stereophonic boss in WoW, but the spell also caused an explosion that destroyed Auchindoun and half of Terokkar Forrest. Ah well. Ya gotta break a few eggs...
Auchindoun is now home to 4 different 5 man instances. In order of difficulty, Mana Tombs, Auchenai Crypts, Sethekk Halls and Shadow Labyrinth. Going against all logic and traditional conventions, I chose to start with the easiest one. :)
Mana Tombs was the next logical instance progression for me. It's labeled 64-66, so at 65 I figured it was time to take a shot. By this point I've discovered that while I don't need to drink while raiding (Water Shield + Elemental Focus + uber crit from ToWx5 = Infinite Mana, and some embarrassing mana leakage.) However, I DO need drinks for wipe recovery. And when you're learning a new instance, it's fair to assume you'll be wiping. I did. Bring water.
There are only 3 bosses in Mana Tombs, the first being a gigantic void walker named PANDEMONIUS! (sorry, I just can't say his name without yelling. Go ahead, try it yourself.) Once again I figured my ego was all the "instruction" I'd need to kill this guy, and totally forgot that 10 seconds or so into the fight, he turns on a spell reflect shield. Turns out it was EXACTLY my ego that came flying back into the face of my shaman, and we all died to the wrath of our own lightning.
I recovered, drank, and took another shot. This time I stopped casting when his shield came up, but still died to his awesome melee powers. Why? Because I didn't have shields equipped. Equip your shields when in instances. K?
So I recovered, drank, put on my shields, and took another shot. This time he died... taking three of my shaman with him. This doesn't exactly encourage me to proceed. But I do.
Luckily, as if to say "Hey, you remembered to equip your shields that time!", Pando left us a beautiful new Shield of the Void. That rocks, and sucks. It rocks because it's an upgrade. It sucks, because now I have to kill that jerk over and over until I get five of them. :)
The trash mobs were falling into the typical pattern I've become accustomed to from previous instances. You get a few melees, a few casters and usually one mob that really hurts. Once you figure out who is who, you kill the hard hitting one before they even get to you, then use grounding and stoneclaws to finish off the rest.
The second boss is a walking stalagmite named Tavarok. (And yet another name that rocks... get it? No? Never mind.) He hurts. He hits freak'n hard, and has an AoE stun that does 2400 damage over 3 seconds. Yikes. While I was busy casting a group chain heal, he stomped on one of my guys and he simply dropped. But he still wasn't strong enough to outlast my DPS, and he died after 2 of my boys did.
And what did we get for our troubles? Lightning-Rod Pauldrons! These babies use the same model as the crazy "Antennas of doom" Pauldrons of Elements, part of the Shaman's very first Dungeon set back in Pre-TBC days. Of course, this rocks... and sucks. Now I need 5. /sigh
Working my way to the last boss, I started to notice just how much fun I was having in an instance. This is great! I'm seeing cool content, at my own pace, and when things go bad, I have only myself to blame. It makes it much easier to laugh at a wipe, trust me. Multiboxing is fun. You should totally do it too. And while you're doing what I tell you, post about my blog on your guild forums. :)
Finally, I was faced with Nexus-Prince Shaffar. He starts with three Ethereal Beacons (sparkling bawls of doom) that if not killed, turn into humanoids that cast hurt on you. The prince will summon additional Ethereal Beacons every ten seconds. So the smart thing to do would be destroy the beacons right away and be sure to focus on the adds every ten seconds.... that is, IF YOU'RE A MERE MORTAL!
Being the invincible Twenty Totems, I simply dropped trou, popped some trinkets and let loose the wrath of the heavens. This doesn't always work mind you... but it did today. :)
The prince dropped in less than 30 seconds, and I quickly dispatched his summoned adds while their prince rotted on the ground in front of them. Good fun.
For all our trouble, the jerk left us a crappy set of plate bracers. But I could care less. Why? Because as the great prince fell, my team began to DING! 66 baby! And you know what that means... time to recruit me a couple of tankss!
I mentioned long ago that I was encouraged (as a multiboxer) to show off a bit whenever in town. Of course, this appeals to my ego, as it would to any of yours, but it actually serves a more social purpose.
You see, on some servers, multiboxers are spit on. All the time. Everywhere they go. The GMs know them personally due to all the reports. (even if a GM has already verified that you're not breaking the ULA, they HAVE to follow through with every report.) They are corpse camped everywhere they go. People hate them.
This used to be the norm, but that's slowing changing. Here's a good reason why.
Boxers realized that when they made their exploits (bad choice of words... no?) public, it gave a chance for the "nice" people to get involved... You fan out in Org, drop 20 totems on the ground, light up your shield, pop your dps trinkets (to light up your fists), turn into 5 doggies and start to do the doggie dance with your front paws on fire. People LOVE it. It's fun.
You immediately draw a huge crowd, and very rarely does anyone say anything nasty. And when they do, at least in my case, about 12 folks speak up and say "Shut up man! He's not cheating! That's Boom. That's the Twenty Totems!" :)
You're bound to piss people off when you either ruin their day in a BG, or worse, you find them flagged while doing quests, and hit them with 5 simultaneous CLs from behind, melting their gear to their flesh, and sending them off to have a conversation with the GY Angel. But if you've built up a good relationship with your server's community, they'll come to your rescue when someone decides to get mean.
After 65 levels, I have to agree. This plan worked insanely well. My group has become beloved by both Horde and Alliance. I went out of my way to help anyone who looked like they needed it, Horde or not. Being a nice guy, and putting on a show once in a while does wonders.
If you plan to multibox, "Have fun when in town" is some of the best advice I can give you to ensure you enjoy yourself each time you log in.
Anyone who has a 70, knows what the Ring of Blood is. But for those of you in the cheap seats, it's an arena found in Nagrand, that's watched over by a little goblin named Gurgthock, and his prized warrior, Mogor the Ogre.
You see, Gurgthock, being the enterprising goblin he is, has decided to use the abandoned arena to hold some gladiator style grudge matches, and you're his latest challenger.
After talking to the goblin and accepting his first challenge, you're warned to get your butt into the ring asap. After a few moments, the first boss appears. You fight, you win, you talk to the goblin, he gives you gold and lewts. Then you head back into the ring for another fight. This goes on for a total of 6 fights, including a final showdown with Mogor the Ogre.
Everyone loves this quest series because of the payout. In 6 quick battles, you end up netting 60, 66, 10x [Super Healing Potion] and 10x [Super Mana Potion], and your choice of 6 pimptacular weapons. The weapon of choice for Elemental Shaman is the Battle Mages Baton.
There's a healing mace (Mogor's Anointing Club) but by that time I already had a damage mace with more +spell on it, and the staff works great for questing, where you rarely risk physical damage, requiring a shield.
The Ring of Blood quest series isn't available until you hit level 65, so as soon as I did, that's exactly where I went. Now as a 70 Warrior, I get tapped by my guild mates to tank the Ring of Blood on a regular basis. The fights are tough enough to justify a good tank, and a dedicated healer... I had neither this time. I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to do it, but for that staff, I was willing to give it a try.
It's a regular event to find another group already doing the Ring of Blood, and this visit was no different. When I arrived, a group of Alliance were fighting the last boss. Following my own advice, I immediatly spanned out the boys, dropped totems and let loose the wrath of nature. It was fun. The boss suddenly took a huge hit, and after a couple lighting bolts the boss fell.
I was suddenly surrounded by a group of cheering Alliance from the guild, SI Kaldorei. I cheered them back then took a risk with a /wait emote. I ran to the quest giver and started my first fight. Sure enough, their tiny gnome warrior named Longstreet went rushing in to tank for me. He was supported by his healing and dps support, Alardoren, Corrann and Leonidise.
They were gracious enough to stay around and help me finished all 6 fights. THANKS SI KALDOREI! :)
Seriously, as a guy with more than his share of allergies growing up, nothing makes my skin crawl more than Coilfang Reservoir. Don't get me wrong. I love the place. It's bright, upbeat, entertaining and creatively designed.
But when you're killing mobs with moss and gunk hanging off them, and running around in murky water full of crazy looking mushrooms, I just can't help reaching for the Benadryl.
The first 5 man instance in Coilfang is The Slave Pens. It's rated at 62-64, so I figured at 64 I'd do ok.
I buffed the boys up with some Water Breathing, and dove deep into Serpent Lake where we found the nefarious subterranean pumping station, operated by the sinister Naga. The place is rumored to be operated by none other then Lady Vashj herself. But we won't be seeing her today. (thank Thrall for that.)
The Slave Pens are maintained by three bosses. The first one I ran into was Mennu the Betrayer. I almost pulled him not knowing he was a boss, as he's just a tiny Broken Draenei, and doesn't look very imposing. Turns out, he isn't.
He's supposed to be difficult, but at 64, my DPS just melted him down. We looted, and moved on.
Next up was a ginormous Makrura named, Rokmar the Crakler. The dude's a giant crab, but with a name like that, I was more likely to wear his t-shirt then kill him. But as it turns out, he wouldn't give us any phat lewts unless we did.
Brimming with ego from the quick work I made of the first boss, I just dropped my totems and pulled. I forgot about this guy's crazy bleed. It ticks for 900 per second, and won't stop until the poor sap gets a FULL heal. So I noticed a shammie taking damage and did a quick CH, but that didn't top him off, so the bleed continued. I eventually dropped him with 4 shammies left alive, only to watch a second one die from the bleed a few moments later.
Ah well.. He did drop a pretty cool looking healing mace, the Coilfang Hammer of Renewal, which I'll someday display on a shelf in my player housing. :)
The last boss is the reason I came here. He's a giant Bog Lord named Quagmirran. Admit it, the dude looks sweet. (He's in the banner image at the beginning of this post.) When you get to his room he's submerged in a deep pond, assumedly wrinkled as a prune by now.
Before you throw a stone in the pond to get his attention, I suggest first you talk to a Night Elf who's trapped in a cage. If you free him, three Naga will come rushing in, which are easily dispatched. After that, the NE will grant you a buff that gives you +110 to Nature Resist, and +5% to all stats! WOOT! This is important, because Quag has a nature based AoE and Poison.
After setting up I wandered just close enough for the beast to know we were there. This is my favorite part... you see, I love theatrics. I love the power in dropping twenty totems in front of a mob, just before I blow his insides out with lightning. It's fun. And Quag, when activated, doesn't just run at you, he walks up this huge underwater ramp, slowly revealing just how freak'n huge he is. It's beautiful.
The fight was a quick one. The NR buff really paid off, and I was able to just burn him to a crisp... but not before he stomped three of my boys. >.<
Slave Pens wasn't much of a challenge, but I couldn't help but giggle each time I took down a boss "on my own". Multiboxing really shines in instances. You'll remember running them in the past as a "normal" player, and each part where you previously wiped because that pug you picked up was afk, or where someone's pet went running off and decided to bite a bosses ankle before you were ready. You never deal with that when you multibox...
64 was an important ding for me. First off, I took the opportunity to find out if anyone would still need me, or feed me. (no, I'm not old enough to remember the Beetles, I'm just a dork.) Turns out no one did, so I continued feeding myself.
Second, this opened up the quests in Nagrand. I love Nagrand. Unlike every other zone in TBC, it's beautiful, and very calming to play in. There's also alot of "go kill eleventy of this and eightyteen of that, etc." quests which Multiboxers LOVE. Why? Because mobs are like butter to us. And we're.. you know... the knives or whatever... right.
So anyways, Nagrand has a pile of excellent quest line, many of which end up with spectacular gear rewards. I decided not to be picky, and simply grab every quest I ran across. Even if I had to collect a ton of drops, I still did the quests. The xp was good, and the loot was better.
It's Nagrand where we run into our old pal, Hemet Nesingwary, a dwarf with an itch for killing critters. We first met him in Stranglethorn Vale, where he had us hunting a wide variety of wildlife. But when TBC came out, Hemet felt it was time to level to 70, and find more challenging game in the Outlands. So he handed over his STV operations to his son, Hemet Nesingwary Jr., and setup camp in Nagrand.
He once again offers us a series of Hunting quests, which are just great for multiboxers. And the best part is, that each series ends in a fight with a higher level elite, which normally stops solo questers in their tracks. But not us! I easily dispatched every mob in the entire series at level 64. It was great fun, and paid out in xp and gear upgrades. Don't miss it.
I've stated before that I'm trying not to quest too much in outland. That rule goes into effect right at this point. Once I was done with Nagrand, I started to move into instances for my xp, so as to save as many quests for 70 as possible.
We have alot of initial expense at 7o, being our flying and epic flying mounts. Quest, once you hit 70, are an insanely easy way to make a pile of cash, especially as a multiboxer. We can blow through quests so quickly, and the payout is the same for all 5 toons. That adds up quick. Some quests that pay 9g before you're 70, pay out over 22g after. So it's in my best interest to save the quests for later.
I chose to do Nagrand for two reasons.
1. The gear upgrades would help me get into higher level instance. 2. The quests would give me the money I needed to get my epic ground mounts.
It did both just perfectly. This leaves Blade's Edge, Netherstorm and Shadowmoon Valley unmolested, and ripe for the gold digging once 70 gets here. We'll see how that works out.
The Blood Furnace is the second wing found in Hellfire Citadel. It's labeled as a 61-63 level instance, which places it second on the TBC instance list, right after it's little brother, Hellfire Ramparts.
After I stormed through the Ramparts (minus the last boss), I wondered just how far I could go. So I naturally headed into the Blood Furnace to see what kind of damage I could cause.
I was once again amazed at how effected 5 DPS focused toons (with mail armor and shields) are in 5 man instances. And this time, I was sporting my new Water Shield, which adds a ton of mana regen, even in combat.
I found myself quickly chain pulling the place, and the first boss (The Maker) fell quickly to nothing more than focused DPS. It wasn't until the second boss that I had a problem. Broggok, as it turns out, is a big softy... it's his friends who suck. All sixteen of them.
When you first clear the room before Broggok, you'll find him floating on the other side of a gate, with a huge leaver in the ground in front of it. Hmmm... this seems easy. Pull leaver, let Broggok out, kill Broggok. Nope.
An observant eye will notice four cells around the room, each gated up and holding 4 Fel Orcs who look like they're missing their prom. When you pull that huge leaver in front of Broggok, the gate in front of him stays closed. The gates holding back the orcs however, open. One at a time, but still.
You'll suddenly find yourself scrambling to manage 4 elite mobs. This means repositioning the group, and fast. Something I don't yet pride myself on being able to do. As soon as the last of the four is down, the second cell opens and releases another 4, who come from yet another direction. /ugh
I of course had forgotten about this fight, so I didn't setup a strategy ahead of time. Instead I did what most DPS people do when they panic... NUKE!
While I managed to barely keep my group up, and take down all four teams of orcs, it left me with exactly no mana as the previously mentioned gate, in front of Broggok, opened. Broggok found 5 Shaman, with no mana, and oddly dressed in identical clown gear, standing over the bodies of this 12 favorite buddies.k Not good.
He floated in while I was frantically standing perfectly still, and thinking good thoughts. (I've heard this helps you regen mana faster... not true.) It was this point where I finally admitted to myself that setting up a button to drink water might just pay off.
We got smooshed.
Luckily this 16 buddies didn't respawn. We came back in, dropped twenty, and blew him away. The next time I went in, I managed to focus fire 3 of the 4 orcs in each group, and tank the 4th while my boys regen'd mana. It worked great.
The rest of the instance was even easier. The mobs didn't last long, and the final boss dropped almost immediately.
Blood Furnace was actually alot of fun. I enjoyed figuring out how to take down Broggok. But it was still a bit easy at 63. So what does this mean... can I do Slave Pens already? What about the Underbog? This has real possibilities. I'm getting cool blue loot, and the xp is nothing short of spectacular.
I know I need gold. And instances are not the way to get it. Quests are. But I'm trying to think ahead... If I wait and quest when I'm 70, the gold more than doubles for each quest turn in... and when I'm 70, I'll need 5k just to get BASIC flying mounts... not to mention the 25k for epics. ^.^ So maybe instances are where it's at.
We'll see.
Speaking of mounts... my ground mounts are feeling really slow... We'll have to fix that next.
When you're trying to manage two or more toons in World of Warcraft, it's the little things that make you want to kick puppies. Like quest givers. Moving your mouse to 5 different screens to click on an NPC (assuming the camera stopped in place that allows you to see the NPC) then choosing the next quest, and accepting it can be very tedious. (what difficult lives we live. /sigh )
Anyways, a macro I've grown to love is the Accept Macro, found at dual-boxing.com.
Now, whenever my main gets a new quest, I simply "share" it with the group, then hit this macro. Boom! All 4 other Shaman instantly accept the quest. You'll be shocked by how good this makes you feel. It really shouldn't. Helping an orphan reach the cookie jar doesn't feel this good. It's amazing.
This really shines when you come to a new quest hub and pick up 5 quests at a time.
Our friends over at World of Raids are reporting several undocumented changes found on the PTR. Most are trivial, but one caught my eye... JOIN AS GROUP is back in AV!
Up till now, we've had to use in game mods (I use AV Enabler) to get all of our toons into the same AV, and it's not always successful. That all changes in the next patch!
I promised you last week that I'd post my nuke macro and explain it. Then RL happend, and I got busy. But I'm ready to share it now.
All Elemental Shaman have a DPS buff called Elemental Mastery. It's a talent that when used, guarantees your next spell will be a crit. The cooldown on this talent is three mins.
As an Orc Shaman, we also have the Orc Racial Blood Fury, which gives you a temporary boost to your Spell Damage based on your level. At my current level, it adds around 120ish.
Then there are the caster trinkets. These became notorious back before TBC, as mages used them in conjunction with talents to produce insane burst damage, creating the Three Minute Mage. An Elemental Shaman can do the same, and it just so happens that there are TWO caster trinkets that are easily accessible in early TBC questlines. The Ancient Crystal Talisman, which grants 104 spell damage, and the Vengeance of the Illidari which grants 120 spell damage.
Caster trinkets used to be stackable "back in the day", but this simply became way too overpowered. So now when you use a caster trinket, it causes any other trinket to start a small cooldown, keeping you from stacking them.
At the time of this post, Thunduh (my main) is at 338+ Spell Damage.
Now that we have the numbers, lets talk about how much win this is. Blizzard will let us make a macro that will cast a different spell each time we hit the button. (using /castsequence) But we only need to do this IF the spell/item causes the global cooldown (GCD) to cycle. Buff trinkets don't. Either does Blood Fury or Elemental Mastery... you following me?
Now remember, the two trinkets can't be used at the same time, so what this macro does, is trigger off whatever it can, then immediately cast Chain Lightning. All in ONE key press.
KACHOW!
So assuming all cooldowns are up, the math goes like this:
338 Spell damage base
+ 120 from Blood Fury
+ 120 from VotI
+ Guarantee Crit
= 578+ Spell Damage, 2280+ Crit Chain Lightning.
Oh.... TIMES FIVE SHAMAN. ^.^
Joy of joys.
I setup a row of oversized buttons on my screen with all 4 of my damage boosters, so at any time I can see what's available. It couldn't be easier, and it couldnt' be more fun.
So if you're a caster, get those trinkets asap, and get your macro setup. You'll love every moment. Did I mention how cool it looks too when it tries to cram in all the different buff animations from Blood Fury and the trinket? /evilgrin
You might be wondering where exactly I've been. I can tell you. Alterac Valley. Why? Because my plan worked perfectly, and my boys are now rolling with 280+ spellpower. But that's not all. I still have yet to get the HWL Spelldagger (+72 spellpower) and enchant them with +40 spellpower. For a grand total of 380ish spellpower. (I'll lose the 12 damage on my current dagger.)
But even now, this has got to be the most fun I've had yet as a multiboxer. Let me tell you exactly what I did.
First, we need to discuss the gear change that came with last year's expansion, The Burning Crusade. You see, when the expansion came out, we had previously spent nearly two years at 60, and to keep us interested, Blizzard had to keep adding more and more powerful level 60 gear.
While we didn't ALL have this gear, they couldn't exactly release a new expansion, raise the level to 70, and add gear that wasn't as good as Tier 3 some players already had. So instead, the new gear had an enormous jump in "item level", making the new gear much more powerful than anything seen before the expansion.
This also meant they had to up the power of mobs at early 60s levels. So what to do about players who haven't been at 60 for two years? What about players new to WoW when the expansion came out. How would they get over the level bump at 60? Easy. Give them a slew of early quests that provide new (enhanced level) gear. How early? Why, level 58 of course. :)
So when I hit level 58, I spent some time at Thottbot.com, and mapped out a series of quests that would completely gear my Shaman in identical TBC gear. My only fear, would be that I would level to 61 before I completed them all. And while I have one quest series left (to get bracers), I still have a few bubbles of xp left to pull it off.
The only reason I haven't done the bracers yet, is because it's a REALLY annoying quest series called, Thick Hydra Scales. The short version is, Kill a billion Hydras that are widely spaced, until you collect 60 scales (12x5 Shaman). Ugh. But I'll get it done tomorrow, assuming it doesn't level me to 61. If I get too close, I'll bail.
Why don't I want to go past 60? Well, that's because of the unique 51-60 Alterac Valley Bracket. All of the other battlegrounds push you into a new bracket at 60. (60-69) But AV is different, and AV is a multiboxer's paradise.
So I mapped out all the quests, and got them done in 3 short gaming sessions. And sure enough, the xp was amazing, and it pushed me from 58 to 60 in no time.
Of the quests, most were available at level 58, while the last 4 required me to hit 60 first. If you're going to do this, do yourself a favor and don't sleep in inns. The Rest XP will make it harder to complete them all without going over.
With the new gear equipped, I headed into my first AV, and wasn't disappointed. I have NEVER had this much fun in WoW. I typically had a mob of 4-6 players who not only followed me around, but were thrilled to heal my boys and keep the Thunduh Rolling!
I'll have some AV pics for you soon. The first few times I was in there I didn't even think to take shots.
Part of my questing including aquiring two new trinkets, both of which have a "use" that boosts spellpower. Tomorrow I'll show you how I made a "Nuke" macro that allows me to stack up to 527+ spellpower, and cast a Chain Lightning of death, all with one press of a button.
I was right. Because of the ToW effect, I can easily down even elites that are many levels above my boys. So the magic turned out to be finding quests that were many levels above us. That wasn't hard. I did a few in Winterspring, but ended up spending most of my time in Western and Eastern Plaguelands.
Quests were completed before I even knew I had them. The "Cauldron" quest series was awesome. They took less than 10 mins each, including travel time, and payed out 14k+ xp. At one point, the boys were averaging over 80k xp per hour. It was great.
Eventually I found myself with the quest everyone tucks away, and never gets around to... Araj's Scarab. The reason this gets dropped, is because after doing a long series of level 55-57 quests in Andorhal, you're faced with taking down a level 61 Elite, (Araj the Summoner) who happens to be surrounded by an army of level 60s who pull in huge groups. So you skip it.
We didn't.
As you can see in the banner pic, we took Araj down without any health loss. The key to that of course, is the fact that Araj only attacks with spells, which means everything he throws at us, ends up in a Grounding Totem. :) Good lord I love Shaman. We were even able to take down all of the 60s around us, and we were all level 55 (well Thunduh was 56) at the time. It was great fun, and enormous amounts of xp.
I'm actually surprised to be enjoying questing so much. I fully expected to be in instances this whole time. Guess I was just spoiled by the carebear runs with Boom. But this is actually pretty fun. As a side bonus, questing lets you interact with other players too, which is incredibly fun! (on my server at least)
Before I knew it.. the boys were 58. Wait... FIFTY EIGHT! We all know what that means. It's time to hit the Portal.
But I'm not ready to just rush in and get to 70. I have a stop along the way. That stop is Alterac Valley. There are two AV brackets, 51-60 and 61-70. I plan to play in the first bracket, until I can afford two specific Honor Rewards. And I plan to do it in TBC gear, tweaked to the tune of 340+ spell damage. I'll show you how in my next post.
I published Twenty Totems because I loved WoW, and I love to write. I left WoW in 2008 with a bang. I still answer emails about my past in WoW, but I'm currently focused on my new project at AppCaddy.com.
Alot of the information in this blog is out of date, but I hope you enjoy it none-the-less.
There's a pretty cool story behind Old Hillsbrad, which is the instance we're going to talk about today. If you've read the book 
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. Yes, this hobby was expensive. No, I don't do it anymore.