Tuesday, December 22, 2009

From 70 to Icecrown in 2 weeks!


Since I knew I'd have some time on my hands during the Christmas holiday, I decided to pull out my old 70 priest and level her, since she hadn't seen any action since Black Temple. I was also really interested on how the gearing up process would go with all the changes in 3.3.

Fortunately, between the new LFG system, changes to questing, and the newly available gear, I found I was able to get my priest ready to heal Icecrown Citadel in just 2 weeks!


Leveling through the new LFG system

I leveled with a Shadow spec (for soloing) and a Disc off spec to heal some dungeons, and my initial thoughts on the new LFG system were very positive. From 70-80 I ran each dungeon once, with VH 2-3 times. During this time I was only in 1 pug that didn't finish the instance and probably only had a total of about 4 wipes.

I also found that the new quest/map system was really amazing in zones that I didn't know very well, such as Sholozar Basin. It replaced the need for extra mods like TourGuide or Carbonite.

Overall, leveling from 70 to 80 took about a week.

Gearing up a fresh 80

Once I hit 80, I decided to concentrate completely on Disc (I queued as both but, unsurprisingly, have never been selected for dps). After 3 days and about 40 heroics later, I had amassed full iLvl 200 gear with a few 245 pieces from triumphs: the Talisman of Resurgence and the Band of the Invoker.

Hitting the new 3.3 content

Once I had at least 200s in every slot, I felt comfortable running the regular version of the Icecrown 5-mans.

After running them all once, I'd picked up a few pieces of 219 gear. Since I still didn't feel completely ready to dive into the heroic versions, I just kept queuing for these 3 and continuing to pick up the free 219s, and noticed that after another day or two of this I was finding it hard to OOM. The only way I could do it was spamming Holy Nova even on packs of 1-2 mobs. When healing regularly, I never even had to drink between my Hymn of Hope and Shadowfiend cooldowns, so I decided it was finally time to start into the heroic versions. Besides 1 failed PoS run, I've found them to be pretty smooth.

Ready to raid!

Overall it's been a really good experience, the new emblem system mixed with the new LFG system makes it very easy to get into full 232/245 gear and ready for Icecrown Citadel in a matter of a few weeks. Compared to the BC days where hitting 70 during Black Temple meant you were about 9 Karazhan runs away from doing anything higher than SSC/TK, I have to congratulate Blizzard on catering to the alts of people who love the game and know how to play but don't have time to raid off nights to gear up.

3 comments:

Zigi said...

Congrats!

Meanwhile my lock has been level 75 for like a year... I need to take advantage of the new LFG system and quest interface some time too...

Dechion said...

Hiyas,
I would have dropped this in your "contact me" spot but alas I could not find one.

I was wondering if you folks have any input on leveling a Shaman resto using the LFG tool.

Things like what talents make sense while levling that way, stats to look for, spells at various levels, stuff like that.

I found a lot on setting up a Shaman at 80 and raiding with one, but that leveling info is hard to find.

Zigi said...

I have been leveling my lock slowly, mostly through instancing with a guildie who is leveling a shaman enh/resto.

I would say for the most part the instance healing leveling build would focus on the same things as an endgame build, but you'd probably focus more on stuff like mana efficiency.

What level are you? If you're past 70, I would fill out the resto tree to pick up Riptide as soon as possible, as that is a great tool in 5 man.

Points you could skip if you have to are things that scale only when you have really good stats (Nature's Blessing), or things that really only make a difference in a large raid setting (Ancestral Awakening).

And I should add a contact me button somewhere...