It’s been a while since I’ve had a segment, but hey, kids, research expeditions and other events have kept me away from the game for a bit. However, I’m back in and committed to getting all 11 classes to level 100. How, do you ask? With heirlooms, of course! You can upgrade all heirlooms to level 100 now, and if you plan out carefully, you can maximize your leveling efficiency. First of all, cloth heirlooms not only work on locks, mages and priests, but I also use them on my boomkin and elemental shaman. That’s 5 classes! It’ll cost you 2,000 gold for each of the 5 armor upgrades, not including the pirate’s ring, but that’s 10,000 gold to get you a 45% boost to experience gain on 5 toons from 90-100. You can also spend another 5k on the heirloom staff, but that’s up to you. I personally did it so as to not have to worry about a weapon upgrade as I leveled. Of course, if you can purchase or make a 630 weapon, go ahead and do so.
At level 91, you can also purchase a 20% leveling buff potion, making your total experience gain around 65%! With the pirate ring, it’s 70%! If you craft a few 630 pieces, you’ll be a one toon wrecking crew, sailing your way to 100. The question is, what’s worth more to you? Virtual gold or your time? I’d say time, especially since you can use some of your saved time to make back some of the coin you spent on the heirlooms in the first place.
Now I’m off to get my lock, mage and priest to 100 in style!
Heirlooms have always been awesome, but now, they’re even more awesome. After Blizzard made heirlooms accessible via a tab throughout all your characters, and that you can boost them to carry you to level 100, it offers a great avenue to level your alts all the way to raiding with an efficient route.
Personally, I have used my heirlooms to get every class to at least level 90. Now, I’ve upgraded my cloth heirlooms to take my mage, priest, druid and shaman to level 100. Yes, you can use cloth heirlooms on druids and shaman that go pew pew, since you take little damage. If you combine the 45% leveling experience boost with the 20% garrison potion that’s available at level 91, the grind to 100 is more than 50% faster than my first two toons that I took to level 100.
So, plan out your toons by heirloom type, and if you have the gold, upgrade those pieces to get all of your alts to 100. Because, who doesn’t want to run missions and dailies through 11 different classes every day?
If I’m highly inebriated, I MIGHT boost a gnome warlock to 90
Click below for the audio segment:
You know those behemoth projects at home or work that seem insurmountable? The ones that seem likely to be completed after a man walks on Mars, or after Miley Cyrus stops begging for attention? Well, they say (project management professionals? I dunno) the best way to accomplish said goal is to break it down into it’s smallest parts and work on them one at a time with shorter individual time goals.
One goal that I’ve always had out on the horizon is to have all 11 classes at max level, and considering that I’ve been on a long hiatus from raiding, now might be the perfect time. Now, before you scoff at me, I already have 4 level 90s, and the other 7 are at level 81 or higher. To bend the goal a bit in my direction, I’m restating the goal as “11 level 90s when Warlords drops.” In this way, I can park a level 81 and boost him to 90 after the expansion launches, shaving 9 levels off my goal.
To break it down into its smallest parts, I need 34 levels (I currently have levels: 87, 86, 85, 85, 83, 81) to attain. Considering that every expansion has launched between September 25 (MoP) and January 16 (BC), I predict that WoD will not be released prior to late September. More likely, I think it will launch in the fall to winter time. Consider this: the time between beta and release has increased with every expansion:
Burning Crusade: Beta started 10/13/06 and launched 1/16/07 (3 months and 3 days)
Wrath of the Lich King: Beta started 7/17/08 and launched 11/13/08 (3 months and 26 days)
Cataclysm: Beta started 6/30/10 and launched 12/7/10 (5 months and 7 days)
Mists of Pandaria: Beta started 3/21/12 and launched 9/25/12 (6 months and 4 days)
This is not to say that it’s a guarantee that Warlords will have an even longer gap, but it’s probably safe to say that it won’t be much shorter than MoP, so 6 months at the earliest. Even if the beta dropped this week, it’d be late July before the expansion launches. Obviously that’s not the case, as we’re probably 2-3 months from beta, meaning launch won’t happen until September or October at the earliest.
So, back to my math. If I need to gain 34 levels across 6 toons, I can set a modest goal of one level per week. At that rate, I would finish by the first week of September. However, if my leveling rate is higher than expected, or the expansion is delayed into November, then I can throw on the extra 9 levels and finish all 7 toons by early November and save my level 90 boost for perhaps, an Alliance gnome warlock?
Ick, never mind. I’ll save the boost for my daughter, I suppose.
My daughter is now 8 years old, and although she’s been exposed a little to World of Warcraft, I’m now allowing her to dive in deep. She has a level 8 pandaren hunter, but wanted to start a blood elf mage to “mix it up.” Now, Earthen Ring is full of my characters, so I put her on another server, but as she was picking her blood elf hair color and earrings, it struck me that Blizzard now allows cross-realm mail for account-bound items! We shrieked in joy when I told her that I could give her very powerful gear that she wouldn’t need to replace until level 80 or 85! I then sent her all of the cloth heirloom items, two trinkets, and a staff. Even as a true noob, she was one-shotting trees, undead, and lion cubs near Falconwing Square. She also has a 55% boost to her leveling experience. So, if YOU have a kid’s alt or an alt of your own on another realm, don’t forget to send across those heirlooms, but sorry, you can’t send gold.
Hey, my wife and I have been hosting a parenting podcast, called Kids are Hard, for about 3 years, and after a haitus for the last few months, we’re back with a new episode and will have new ones every 2 weeks. So, if you’re a parent, or you want good birth control if you’re not, head on over to kidsarehard.wordpress.com to find our podcasts and shownotes, and follow us on twitter and facebook @kidsarehard.
You can also follow me @epicdiapers and epicdiapers.com!
Remember, you can also hear my segments on The Instance, Rawrcast, The AIE Podcast and Convert to Raid.
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Hey all, it’s Sihx, and well, after more than 4 years of raiding with my team, I’m taking the summer off to spend more time with my family instead of my virtual family. It does feel nice to get more time at night with my wife and kids on Wed and Thursdays, but man, I really do miss the raiding scene. However, I’ve refocused my few hours of weekly play time in Azeroth into farming, I mean, literal farming, and of course, leveling alts with the 33% nerf to xp between 85 and 90. If you aren’t raiding or don’t have a weekly committment, I’d suggest you think of things you’d like to do in game, and then make a checklist, in order, of what you can get done in a short window of playing time. Perhaps it’s trying out the new heroic scenarios for ilevel 516 loot. Maybe expanded pet battles, leveling alts, killing 3 bosses in LFR, transmog runs, making a little cash in the auction house, or maybe just getting your sexy blood elf to dance on the mail box all night long. Whatever it is, do what you want, and make sure you’re having fun without taking away from someone else.
Who doesn’t love getting ripped off by overpriced booze, rigged carnival games, and trying to figure out which eye on that carny is a fake one, and if he’s staring at you or not, and if so, what are his intentions…
Anyway, the faire has been revamped and given it’s own island, but it’s a far cry from Coney Island…wait, no, they’re pretty similar on second thought.
The faire is a great way to add to your collection of mounts, pets, companions, achievements, and even a new way to obtain heirloom gear to quickly level your alts. You can earn tickets that are redeemable at a myriad of vendors on the island.
Now, the faire only comes around for one week every month, and there is a limit to how many tickets you can earn in a week. According to a blue post by Bashiok, you can earn a maximum of 135 tickets. Not bad, it’s good enough to earn three pets, or a mount and a pet, or 4 pieces of cosmetic armor, or an heirloom armor item and weapon. But if you want a full set of faire transmogrification gear, it will take you 4 weeks, or 4 faires or 4 months to complete a full set. The good news is that the replica armor and heirlooms are bind on equip, so you can have multiple 85s working on seperate pieces all at the same time.
Well, I finished my trek to level 80 with my dual boxing recruit a friend adventure! All told, my /played time was 1 day and 14 hours. That is fantastic. Considering that this is the time it took for TWO toons to go from 1-80 AND I got to grant 40 levels, makes it nothing short of amazing. That’s 200 effective levels gained/earned/granted in 38 hours. That’s 5.2 levels per hour!
Even the most robust leveler with heirlooms takes 3-4 days at least, to level ONE toon to 80. Even considering 3 days for one toon (2.2 levels per hour), my conservative estimates tell me that RAF is at LEAST 2.3 times faster than leveling traditionally, even with heirlooms….for the fastest levelers.
I’m a hack at this. It took a while to set up my macros and key bindings. I think that my 5.2 levels per hour blows away the average player’s levels per hour. Conservatively, it takes 4 days to level to 80 (1.67 levels/hr). RAF at my pedestrian rate is still more than three times as fast. I’d say it’s worth the extra cash ($5-10 overall). My time is worth it.
copyright Blizzard Entertainment...I don't want to be sued.
You can listen to Segment 4 of “Epic Diapers” at the end of episode 232 of “The Instance” at www.theinstance.net.
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Audio
If you’re like me, you like alts…a lot. But, I don’t have the time to level them one by one. Heirlooms are nice, but dual boxing with recruit a friend is about 5 times as fast. What you get with this program is 300% experience gain from all sources.
10% bonus reputation gain, each toon can summon each other once an hour, and the recruit can donate up to 30 levels to the veteran account….plus, you get a swanky rocket mount.
So, how does it work exactly? Well, without going into the fine details of the process, you basically send yourself an email through the recruit-a-friend option on your battle.net account management page. Once your new trial account is established, your two WoW accounts are now “linked.” You will need to purchase a full copy of WoW, about $20, or you can wait for Christmas like I did and pick up a copy for $5. These accounts are linked for 90 days, and in that time, each account gets a free month. So, in all, you’re only shelling out $35 for everything…it’s the same cost for a winged eagle lion and cenarion hatchling, and quite honestly, I think it’s way more worth it to get lots of level 60s for this price…and you still get a mount on top of it, which is a $25 value anyway!
To play, just launch two sessions of WoW on your computer and create two toons that will be grouped together for the next 60 levels. As far as class selection goes, it’s generally easier to level two of the same class, say two mages, double pyroblasts anyone? It’s really up to you and your end goals. Either way, it will take some time to set up your follow and assist macros.
I generally get a pair of 60s up in 24 hours or less of played time. I then start another pair of toons, level them up to 30 in about 8 hours, and with the original recruit level 60, I can now grant 30 levels to my level 30 veteran toon, making him a level 60 instantly….man, you should see the language in chat when you gift these levels in the middle of Orgrimmar! Anyway, that’s 3 level 60s in about 32 hours played total!
You can do this as many times as you can within 90 days. If you have additional cash lying around, you can even transfer your level 60 toons from your recruit account to your veteran account.
And if you wondered, yes, this is completely legal, does not violate the terms of service; Blizzard has absolutely no problem with multi-boxers…I mean, it’s more money for them in the long run! And personally, I feel it’s a new, different, and challenging way to play the game.
Epic Diapers 