Movin' On Up

I hit lvl23 last night and I'm making solid progress.  Not as fast as others I know, but I'm not sure how much time they're putting in either.  The most pleasant surprise so far has been the variety of dungeons I'm running.  I was dreading the prospect of being sent to the same place over and over again.  That, happily, has not been the case.  After running RFC five times in a row (not as bad as it sounds, most were quick final boss-only runs), I've been sent to WC three times, Deadmines twice and last night I hit Blackfathom Depths for the first time.

My theory for this is that I've been leveling so quickly (at least one ding per dungeon), that I'm quickly moving through my available dungeons and 'opening' new ones.  I really, really, hope this is true.  For one thing, I like the pace I've been going - a dungeon 2-3 times is sufficient before it starts to get redundant.  For another, I hope this system lasts up through Sunken Temple.  I hate that place.

The loot bags (Satchel of Helpful Goods) dropped two more cloaks for me, one was for casters (stoopid pallys) and the was dps-y, but not OMG-so.  As the link details, the satchels are broken down into levels, depending on your level.  Each level has loot that fills two slots (i.e. waist and back) and the item has random stats.  So at level 30, I'll be seeing lots of neck pieces and gloves.  The 40's will be sparse tho since they give shoulder pieces and rings.  I highly doubt they'll have anything better than my heirlooms.  Though on the other hand, maybe a pure tanking shoulder may have an edge... we'll see.

It's Level 15!

OK, so that's settled, LFG kicks in at 15. My guess is that while RFC is level 13 for horde toons, Blizzard is keeping the bar at 15 so all toons have the same starting point (allied folks can't access RFC - located in the middle of Orgrimmar - until they reach or near 80).

Anyway, I joined LFG (tank/DPS) and spent about 20 minutes running around Mulgore picking flowers, breaking rocks, and killing harpies. I finally did get into an RFC group and it went very well, the folks were friendly and shared their quests. Most also had some heirloom gear as well, so they had experience.  Best of all, the healer we had (shaman) was from my server!  He also said he was planning on LFG'ing extensively, so hopefully we can run together.  Plus, I won the bracers! This was a huge jump for me because, well, honestly, I was still wearing white bracers, maybe even grey.  Oh yea, I also ding'ed 16 when I turned in the shared quests. 

Funniest part of the run?  The hunter ran out of arrows.  Seriously.  I couldn't make that up if I tried.  Well, I could, but it would be too cliche.  We all laughed and told him to melee away.  Then he said his DPS would be low and we pointed out that it would still be higher than shooting an empty bow.  All good natured and all fun.  I realized I miss low level instances where mages need on green staves with strength because everyone else passed and the +stam is still an upgrade over whatever they had, and different folks at different levels can lead to very interesting results.  I think I'm gonna enjoy this expirment. 

The only drawback?  No officers from my guild were on when I hit 15 to add me up :(  We have an policy of alts being 15 before they're added.

A Slight Hiccup

I didn't have much time to play last night - I worked late and had to get up early - but I did log on long enough to ding 13 and join LFG for RFC.  And I couldn't?  If I tried to open up the LFG window, nothing would happen, just as I was leveling up.  I checked the patch notes and they don't list a level requirement below which LFG doesn't work, indeed, they seem to go out of their promoting it for all levels

Level-appropriate rewards will be offered to players who choose the Random Dungeon option for pre-Wrath of the Lich King dungeons.

The only thing I can think of is that I clicked on LFG too quickly after hitting 13 (it was before the gong sound and the light whoosh faded).  I didn't actually intend to run the instance, just verify I could, in fact, queue up.  Ah well, I'll check again tonight and hope for better results.

Why I'm Here

Hello everyone and welcome to Hooves & Horns.  I'm starting this blog mostly to track my efforts to level my new warrior, Bigfncow entirely through WoW's LFG system.  He's not my only toon, though, so I may write on other topics from time to time.  

While Bigfncow is new, I'm not starting from scratch.  He does have the heirloom chest and shoulder pieces, a full set of netherweave bags, and 10g to get rolling.  I may kit him out with the heirloom trinket as well, but I don't think I'll get him a weapon.  I want him to learn and level as many different types of weapons as possible because, well, because he can!  


So, what's the inspiration for all this?  Well, the LFG system, released with patch 3.3 is obviously a huge motivator.  It makes running instances so much easier and quicker.  Well, at least the Northrend instances.  I don't have any experience with running dungeons from BC or Vanilla WoW (yet).  And instances are my favorite part of the game.  I've done the quests over and over and over and over again.  So I know the quests.  I'm not a big BG'er (in no small part that whatever faction/server combo I join seems to be the whipping boy of the battlegroup).  

Now, why a warrior?  Well the key with the LFG, though, is to be able to heal or tank.  If you're a pure DPS, the waits are dramatically reduced, but they're still there.  Healers and tanks, though?  ZOOOM! right into the instance.    As you can see from above, I have two druids - both can heal and one can tank.  I love druids (obviously) but I wanted something different.  I've tried DKs several times and I'm just ...meh... about them.  I'm not sure why, they just never took ahold of me.  Oddly enough, I think it may be because I skipped 55 levels and didn't have a chance to 'grow' with my toon, learning new skills every two levels and such.  In any event, DKs were out.  I thought about palladins as well, and while they do hold a good degree of appeal to me, I wanted a warrior.  I wanted to be the basic, prototypical tank.  I wanted to wear plate and use a shield and look badass.  So, a warrior it was.  


What race though?  I was tempted to go gnome.  I've always wanted a gnome - they look funny and I like those starting quests.  But in the end, I went through the other extreme and chose Tauren.  Why?  Because I want to tank and being a tank means needing lots of health points and Tauren get a 5% base health boost.  Plus, that whole badass part from above?  Tauren pull that off with ease.  We're big, we're broad, and we glower.  Plus, I enjoy their starting zones too. 


So I created Bigfncow and ran him up to level 12 last night.  When he dings 13, I can queue up for Ragefire Chasm and from there, no more quests.  Well, I'll take quests for the dungeons if folks can share them, of course.  But if/while I wait for groups to form, I'll be picking my flowers and mining my ore and killing random mobs for lewt/cloth/rep whichever I need at the moment.  


So wish me luck, and check back often!