Expansion Fatigue

Before I begin discussing the toons I’m taking on the adventure let me begin by saying how the adventure came about.

Towards the end of each expansion I get ‘expansion fatigue’. I’ve typically leveled 3 or more toons to max level, and not being a fan of end-game, I kinda get tired running toons through the same quests on my road to max level them. I’ve seen all the new zones and quests. I’ve toyed with the professions. With WoD I played in my garrison as much as I could bear.

Looking for a change I started up a new toon on a new server. The purpose was to play a race or class I haven’t played in a long time, or if ever. Rogues are a class I haven’t played since vanilla. Druids I’ve never leveled past the mid 30’s. Monks have only made it to level 10. Pandaren I’ve barely played, and Draenei… I just can’t get into Draenei. I don’t know if it’s how they run or their tails, but I just can’t enjoy them. Humans are similar to Dranei in that I’m not a fan of how they run when looking at them from behind.

This new server was to explore those classes and races, giving them another shot.

Money, money, money

Having to start from scratch without the huge bankrolls I’ve amassed with my max-level toons was daunting, yet I looked forward to the challenge. Taking a look-see at the Auction House on my first character (I always make a “banker” toon first, immediately running the it to the nearest city) I knew buying gear was out of the question. On all of the realms I’ve been on the economy has been out of control. Level 5 weapons going for hundreds of gold. Seriously? Who the hell buys them?!

So, I knew two things: 1) I needed a character whose sole job was to grind for ore and herbs to sell on the Auction House so I could make fast cash, and 2) as I leveled my characters I’d need to level their professions as well so they could make themselves gear to save money.

The Professions

So off I went creating characters for specific purposes. (I didn’t create them all at the very beginning, but we’ll get to that in a minute.) The Shaman, who you’ll meet in my next post, was to be my main. I chose Mining and Jewelcrafting for her as I read that Jewelcrafting, beside making gear for the other toons as they leveled, could make good cash on the Auction House.

My “gatherer” was to be a Druid. As I mentioned above, I’ve never gotten far with Druids so this was my chance. Also, gathering materials is fastest on Druids as you don’t leave your shape-shifted form for things like herb picking! Mining and Herbalism was this toon’s professions.

The Warrior… well he picked up Mining and Blacksmithing for the obvious reasons, he needed to make the weapons and gear for himself and the other characters.

The Warlock picked up Tailoring and Enchanting since they are perfect together. He could also make all of the gear for the other cloth-wearers, and could throw enchants to all of the other characters.

I left the other professions like Leatherworking alone, for now. (FWIW, I absolutely despise Leatherworking. I am confident it is by far the worst profession to level due to the need to farm beasts for what feels like eternity to skin the needed leather. I’m convinced the developers at Blizzard keep it this way for masochistic enjoyment, watching over farmers from above, laughing and pointing.) We’ll see in the coming months if I pick up other professions.

And… the adventure came about how?

Oh yeah, so The Shaman was going fine as my “main”. I didn’t have many of the other characters yet as I was focused on her, and in her heirlooms she was quickly blowing through the zones. But it was when she was in her early 40’s, sitting in the Eastern Plaugelands, that I got a case of altoholism. I needed a change, just for a little bit I told myself. I need to hit things with metal to break up the monotony of being a caster. And so The Warrior was born… and then The Pally… etc, etc.

The thought of leveling without heirlooms on all characters was in my head, though after going through the same starting zones over and over again I decided to allow heirlooms until level 10, just to get through the starting zones faster. The Warrior though was pure from the very beginning. No heirlooms ever. (We’ll talk more about this in an upcoming post.)

I needed more of a purpose for leveling the 4 or so characters, and that’s when I remembered the Loremaster achievement. Bingo! Leveling without heirlooms will by default force me to do more quests per zone anyway, so I decided to take the extra time to do all of the quests.

I’ve since found it isn’t as easy as it sounds, for many reasons, but I’ll leave that to another post.