But, I have to say, it is truly a great time to level right now.  I only got ganked five times in STV!  I think 10 times all together until level 46.  The STV ganking was definitely at a minimum.  I should be in Outlands next week too and I suspect with the novelty of the Sunwell dailies, I shall have a pretty easy ride through the 60′s until I can get to 70. 

My PvP server in Germany is listed as medium-full and normally that would entail a lot of griefing, ganking and generally just hard leveling (But damn is it fun!) but the new content has definitely made for better leveling, so go to it!  Level up that lowbie alt while the zones are empty!

The last character I leveled was about a year ago.  I am happy to see that Blizzard really made some nightmare quests much easier to do solo.  If you leveled a while ago, you will remember the quests “Humbert’s Sword”, the Geologists, Bloodsail Bucaneers (The capn’ killing one), That huge elite ape on the island next to Princess Pooba, and many other elite or group quests which were just a lesson in frustration.  All these quests are now easily soloable, with a minimum of frustration, and the mobs are no longer elite (and the pirates never were, but there are less of them now).  Also, you get a lot more EXP per quest than before.  Overall, the leveling experience is almost, almost bearable, considering it will be my fifth high-level character.  I swore after my first that I would never level up again, and after each one I swore the same thing, now I guess I have to admit, I actually look forward to leveling my Shaman!  I must be losing it. 

Then one minute later a level 40 druid comes by on his horse, I, being the nice fat orc I am, /wave and engage a black panther.  He roots me, and starts to spam starfire or some crap.  I dropped a couple of totems, and in the end, he killed me with 25 life left.  Luckily I had a relic on me and promptly reincarnated and hit him with a shock, and he went down.  He never attacked me again.  HAHA.  Noobs.

There will be among other things this new arena set available…

Pretty decent for only needing honored, and costing about 10-20G a pop.  A good way to get going in the BG’s as a fresh 70 because most of the fresh dingers will already be honored with many of the factions in Outland.  But S2 definitely blows it away and that will be available soon with honor, so save it up!  Inficio has 58k honor saved up already and I plan on having the limit, 75k when it goes live so I can almost fully kit up.

I wanted to level up my Shaman and then the server was shut down for three hours, so I did  some battlegrounds with Inficio while waiting.  The first impression I had there was LAG.  So bad I only played one of each, and then I just quit for the night…

The changes to AV though seem a bit strange to me, I guess I wonder why.  We lose 9 out of 10 AV’s on every Horde character I have.  So these changes:

Alterac Valley

* Captain Balinda Stonehearth Stonehearth can no longer be interrupted, silenced, or have her spells slowed. In addition, her water elemental cannot be banished, and does increased damage.
* Vanndar Stormpike and Captain Balinda Stonehearth have had their health totals reduced to match the health totals of Drek’Thar and Captain Galvangar…
* Warmasters/marshals in Alterac Valley now increase each other’s maximum health and damage by 25%. This is a stacking effect.
* Horde players will now start the battle closer to Drek’Thar and Frostwolf Keep.
* There is now a Join as Party option.
Just don’t make sense to me!  The one AV I played last night, we got to Balinda the same time as the Alliance got to Galv, and we took down Balinda easier, but the Alliance still won easily.  I have to play it more to be sure, but starting farther back when we already lose the whole time just seems like an unwarranted nerf.  If the Alliance are smart, they will defend Balinda with 10 people and we will lose even more horribly than before.  It is only a matter of time before they adapt I think.

The one AB I did was so laggy I just /AFK’d

The one WSG I played was a fast victory for us.  We lose this BG a lot in my battlegroup but even if we win more often, I still hate it.  I can see some huge crits coming though with the double damage debuffs on the flag carriers.

I haven’t checked out Sunwell yet, and since I am not a PvE fan, I just might not at all.  What disappoints me about this patch is, just like the last one, it is another PvE patch.

I am waiting for the next pvp patch with impatience.  Sure, they fixed some BG stuff, but compared to all the new pve stuff, once again, the PvP’ers got left behind.

Jame’s Horde Leveling Guide

Try typing your characters name with your left elbow!  (If you are right handed, if you are left handed, use your right elbow!)

Here is my attempt to write Inficio—

ikn fcijc iuol

Woot!

A couple of them are not rogue expressions.

The task-

Use WoW Rogue terms to describe your sex life.

Some of the more noteworthy ones are:

You’re facing the wrong way!

Ambush

Not enough energy

Miss, Miss, Dodge, Parry, Vanish

The Barrens

Backstab

Improved Backstab

Dirty Deeds

Preparation

Diminishing Returns

You need to be in a raid group in order to enter this instance

Find Weakness followed by Surprise Attacks

Cheapshot

Quick Recovery

Vigor

Combat Potency

Vitality

Blade Twisting

Improved Gouge

Dagger Specialization

Opportunity

Dirty Tricks

Initiative

Sleight of Hand

On Sunday I snuck into Elwynn Forest, killed a couple Boars for dinner and set off to find the Darkmoon Faire.  I promptly turned in my Delirium card deck and got my Madness Trinket.  All I can say is WOW!  I love that thing.  The first thing I did was take it into EoTS for the bonus weekend and racked up the most HK’s with it.  Needless to say, the buffs are simply NICE for BG PvP and for Farming, simply rockin’.  Besides the +51 stamina you get buffs when you land a killing blow that gives honor or experience.  And the best is, you can have as many buffs on you as you can killing blows in 15 seconds. 

There are, among others:

+35 Stamina

+70AP

+ Attack Speed

+35 Crit rating (woot)

While farming leather last night I managed to get all four up at the same time.  At minimum 2 of them.  Each lasts for 15 seconds.  I collected the cards meself and paid about 500G for it.  I was tempted to sell it for about 300G profit, but I ended up turning it in.  In my opinion the best investment I have made yet in WoW.  Novelty item perhaps, but I just love it.  Sometimes(seems pretty rare) when you kill an enemy your character will speak in the /s (speech bubble) format and say “This is Madness!” in speech that both Allies and Horde can understand.  Luckily, it is rare enough not to be annoying like the BAM mod.  Also, when you get the buff there is no audio cue.  At first I was disappointed about this, but then I saw how often it proccs while farming and realized it is a very good thing because that audio cue would get old quickly.  So, go out and get your self some madness!

So, here is a short list of BG types that I frequently encounter.  Feel free to add your own!

Note- Some of these are from the EU forum.

GHoD — “Get’s the Hell out of Dodge” aka “Beats Cheeks” at the first sign of trouble.  This is most often a resto druid, but also very often a rogue.  They will duly blow all cooldowns as soon as the fight turns against them and beat cheeks.  It is not unknown for them to blow evasion, sprint, and vanish just to end up dying anyway from behind as the mage, or hunter finishes them off at range.  One of the stupidest things I see in BG’s.

Master Trinkteter —This guy has a macro which triggers every single trinket, racial etc. and spams it every chance he gets.  I played with an orc hunter that had a macro with both trinkets and boiling blood activated every time the CD was up for his aimed shot.  Hits hard, but takes 3 global CD’s before he can even start his 3 second cast.  He usually ends up with his face in the ground before he even gets one shot off.

CC Crapper— We all hate this guy.  He just craps on your trap, CC etc…  He is the one who hits the guy in the ice block, which only just saved the hunters ass.  Or the guy who attacks the sheep, hits the healer who is sapped and ignores the S3 warrior who is chewing everyone up.  He just doesn’t give a crap about CC’s and just hits everything in his path.  Often doesn’t even use his own CC effectively.

Kamikazee Gnome — This is that little gnome in BG’s who just blinks into huge crowds of Horde, arcane bombs the hell out of them, and does decent damage before he dies, and he always dies.  The reason he is so annoying is because he is so small and hard to target amid all the taurens and orcs.  Can be quite effective in AV while bridge defending.  Also the reason there are so many anti-gnome names on Horde side, i.e.  Gnome smasher, Gnome crusher, etc…

Mad man— This is usually an S3 warrior, but sometimes an over eager mage (see above) who just rushes into the crowd and goes berserk and dies a usually swift death while frost nova’d and stuck in place and being pummeled by 6 enemies.

Stalker—  Every clothy knows this type, and they are always a rogue or druid, aka stealther.  This bastard stalks you in the BG and every time you are alone, he ganks you.  You drink, or are low on health, he ganks you.  This is a personal vendetta more often than not and I am guilty of this action too from time to time.  It is very fun to do as a rogue, but not so fun as the stalkee.

Potion Master—  This is the guy that shamelessly drinks health pots in BG’s.  Nearly as bad as the GhoD type IMO.

The spot is in the NW of Zangamarsh, and I grind the Ironspine Gazers , and the spore bats that fly around there. Why? Well, for one, I am level 70, and they are level 63-64. Playing on a pvp server means I won’t get attacked as most of them are still low 60′s. Secondly, the basilisks drop knothide leather and straps, but here is the bonus, they have a good drop rate of Chunk of Basilisk, which sells for 1.50- 2.00 Gold per piece on my server because it is used in the Blackened Basilisk recipe, i.e. it is in high demand.

Last night in one hour of farming, I got 60 chunks of meat and promptly sold them all at 1.5 G a piece. 3 stacks of knothide leather which goes for 12G a stack on mine, and 80 knothide scraps, so another 16 knothides. I also got 17 felscales which go for 1G a piece. Not to mention a lot of spores from the sporebats which sell ok, and lots of greens and junk. Overall not a shabby place to farm. I made about 150G in one hour. I hope to do it again tonight!

I also like to farm for cobra scales but they seem to drop very rarely for me and they are overfarmed, and hard to get to, whereas the other spot is just about deserted.

So, what are your favorite spots to farm? Besides the sunfury elves of course! That is definitely a hot-spot but on my pvp server, you end up just doing a lot more pvp, which also is fun, but when I need money, I avoid that place!