Catching Up
It's been waaay too long since I last wrote about our adventures in Azeroth and Outland. Looking back I see that the last entry was three months ago, at which time we were at level 62 and in the Terokkar Forest outside Shattrath.
Much has happened since then. Kate's character is now at level 74 and I'm a little way behind, but not far; we've explored most of Outland and half of the regions of Northrend; we got flying mounts. So much has happened that there's no way to go into detail - for one thing I can't remember it all and even if I could it would take a couple of weeks of constant writing to get it all down. So instead I'm just going to give a very rough overview of some of the things we've done, then pick up with what we've been doing recently.
Outland
As I recall, we did enough questing and grinding around Outland to finally hit level 70, at which point we were able to go and buy our flying mounts. That was tough - Shadowmoon Valley, where you have to go to get the requisite flying training (which is actually just the next level of riding training), has some very tough baddies and they wander all over the place including onto the roads. As a result, just getting to the trainer can be a rough trip. Getting back isn't half as bad because instead of staying on the ground you have the choice of hitting the flight master or flying your own mount. We chose the second option, which at that time turned out to be a bad idea because I didn't even make it as far as the Terokkar Forest border before being knocked out of the air by a spell from something below me. Still, it was a learning experience in that we now know that flying over hostile settlements is not recommended.
Being able to fly makes some things much easier; for one thing you can go over regions infested with baddies and thereby avoid them, which we did in Zangarmarsh while moving between quest locations, and you can also get to areas that are impossible to reach any other way. It was thanks to this that we were able to finish our explorations of Zangarmarsh, Nagrand, Blade's Edge Mountains and Hellfire Peninsula.
Northrend
We'd actually visited Valiance Keep at the western end of Northrend, and Valgarde in the east, some time ago, but since several sources suggested that Northrend in general wasn't a good idea for anyone under level 68 we hadn't gone beyond the walls of either.
Of course, once we did hit 68 that opened it up for us and we started exploring the Howling Fjord and the Borean Tundra very soon after. That included making a trip by land from west to east so that we could find all the intermediate flight points, making it possible to fly between Valgarde and Valiance whenever we need to.
Starting from the coastal strip that we explored as part of that run, we've pushed northward to explore and quest. It didn't take long to finish exploring the Borean Tundra and since then we finished mapping Grizzly Hills and Zul'Drak (which we went into more than anything to get the manual for making Heavy Frostweave Bandages) and then moved into Dragonblight. Once that was finished (just the other day) we went north into Crystalsong Forest.
Recently in Northrend...
Crystalsong is tough at level 73, I can tell you. Most of the baddies wandering around are level 78 and higher; I can just about handle one level 78 wolf without help, but I'm fairly certain that's my limit - a 79 would slice me up. And we've seen level 80 mobs in the area.
Still, by being careful we were able to complete the map and along the way we found the ruins underneath the aerial city of Dalaran, and along with that found the portal crystal that we should be able to use soon to get into the city itself. The way I understand it, as soon as we hit level 74 we can get a quest that will give us one opportunity to portal in; once there, we should immediately find an inn and set our hearthstones, so that we can go back any time we choose just as we currently do with Shattrath.
Last night we did something much simpler and less risky; as part of the 3.1 patch it became possible to see Nat Pagle the fishing trainer and get a new fishing pole that adds 25 to your fishing skill, so we went out there to get one each; and it also made available a new Clamlette Magnifique recipe, from Quickcleave the cooking trainer in Gadgetzan, so we flew down there to get that too.
I had to dip out at that point so I hearthstoned to Shattrath and took the portal to Stormwind so that I'd be in a convenient place for the ship to Northrend when I get in later today. Kate stuck around in Northrend and hit level 74 - so I have a bit of catching up to do. Once we're both at 74, I think our plan is to do whatever we need to to get to Dalaran as soon as possible.
Much has happened since then. Kate's character is now at level 74 and I'm a little way behind, but not far; we've explored most of Outland and half of the regions of Northrend; we got flying mounts. So much has happened that there's no way to go into detail - for one thing I can't remember it all and even if I could it would take a couple of weeks of constant writing to get it all down. So instead I'm just going to give a very rough overview of some of the things we've done, then pick up with what we've been doing recently.
Outland
As I recall, we did enough questing and grinding around Outland to finally hit level 70, at which point we were able to go and buy our flying mounts. That was tough - Shadowmoon Valley, where you have to go to get the requisite flying training (which is actually just the next level of riding training), has some very tough baddies and they wander all over the place including onto the roads. As a result, just getting to the trainer can be a rough trip. Getting back isn't half as bad because instead of staying on the ground you have the choice of hitting the flight master or flying your own mount. We chose the second option, which at that time turned out to be a bad idea because I didn't even make it as far as the Terokkar Forest border before being knocked out of the air by a spell from something below me. Still, it was a learning experience in that we now know that flying over hostile settlements is not recommended.
Being able to fly makes some things much easier; for one thing you can go over regions infested with baddies and thereby avoid them, which we did in Zangarmarsh while moving between quest locations, and you can also get to areas that are impossible to reach any other way. It was thanks to this that we were able to finish our explorations of Zangarmarsh, Nagrand, Blade's Edge Mountains and Hellfire Peninsula.
Northrend
We'd actually visited Valiance Keep at the western end of Northrend, and Valgarde in the east, some time ago, but since several sources suggested that Northrend in general wasn't a good idea for anyone under level 68 we hadn't gone beyond the walls of either.
Of course, once we did hit 68 that opened it up for us and we started exploring the Howling Fjord and the Borean Tundra very soon after. That included making a trip by land from west to east so that we could find all the intermediate flight points, making it possible to fly between Valgarde and Valiance whenever we need to.
Starting from the coastal strip that we explored as part of that run, we've pushed northward to explore and quest. It didn't take long to finish exploring the Borean Tundra and since then we finished mapping Grizzly Hills and Zul'Drak (which we went into more than anything to get the manual for making Heavy Frostweave Bandages) and then moved into Dragonblight. Once that was finished (just the other day) we went north into Crystalsong Forest.
Recently in Northrend...
Crystalsong is tough at level 73, I can tell you. Most of the baddies wandering around are level 78 and higher; I can just about handle one level 78 wolf without help, but I'm fairly certain that's my limit - a 79 would slice me up. And we've seen level 80 mobs in the area.
Still, by being careful we were able to complete the map and along the way we found the ruins underneath the aerial city of Dalaran, and along with that found the portal crystal that we should be able to use soon to get into the city itself. The way I understand it, as soon as we hit level 74 we can get a quest that will give us one opportunity to portal in; once there, we should immediately find an inn and set our hearthstones, so that we can go back any time we choose just as we currently do with Shattrath.
Last night we did something much simpler and less risky; as part of the 3.1 patch it became possible to see Nat Pagle the fishing trainer and get a new fishing pole that adds 25 to your fishing skill, so we went out there to get one each; and it also made available a new Clamlette Magnifique recipe, from Quickcleave the cooking trainer in Gadgetzan, so we flew down there to get that too.
I had to dip out at that point so I hearthstoned to Shattrath and took the portal to Stormwind so that I'd be in a convenient place for the ship to Northrend when I get in later today. Kate stuck around in Northrend and hit level 74 - so I have a bit of catching up to do. Once we're both at 74, I think our plan is to do whatever we need to to get to Dalaran as soon as possible.
Labels: Games, Human Paladin, WoW
posted by Pete Ford at
11:22 AM
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