What next?

[eqdude]

I'm looking for some suggestions on how to lvl from 70 to 80 for 5 shaman trolls. I've hit the wall on these guys, and I'm not sure how to continue. I'm interested in a horde leveling guide that is made specifically for multiboxers, or some ideas about how to improve my gear enough to survive in the lvl 70 dungeon. It is a real drag having to do gathering quests at this lvl. It seems that most of the gathering quests want 10 to 20 pieces per character and half of the items to be gathered have a low drop rate. It takes hours to finish a gathering quest for all 5 members of my team. So, I am looking for a guide that has a list of kill quests or other quests that are less time consuming. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

[Ualaa]

Well with five shammies, your good choices are PvP and Quests.

Depending on your battlegroup, there may be a decent amount of 70-79 battlegrounds, in which case you could conceivably level entirely for PvP; experience in pvp is generally 50-75% as good as efficient questing, depending on win/loss ratio. Even if there aren't many BG's running, you can be queued whenever in game and a few here or there will supplement your experience.

Instances can be run without a tank. However, until you outgear an instance it is hard to do without a tanking toon. Burning Crusade heroics and Lich King normal/heroics have mobs which hit way too hard for the Earth Elemental. I'm not saying you cannot do them, but it won't be fast clears until you outgear them at which point they'll likely not be any experience.




For Questing:

You have both Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord, I'd do one and then the other. Gathering quests can suck, but do as many as you can stand, as in WotLK there are gathering quests which lead to kills etc.

Then move to Grizzly Hills and Dragonblight. Again, do as much in each as you can; they're for the same leveling range. If a quest sucks, you can skip it... with two zones worth of quests, you don't need to do everything. But a lot of crap quests lead to kills etc. Look the quest up on wowhead, and see if the final quest gets you a reward that is worthwhile.

Sholozar Basin and Stormpeaks are again roughly equivalent. Same deal as before. However, once you hit 77th, pick up cold weather flying (unless you already have a team at 80th who can buy/mail these to you). With cold weather flying, you'll want to be in Icecrown.

Most of the Icecrown quests aren't that bad to do. And at 77th with 0% experience into the level and no rested experience, there are plenty of quests to get you to 80th easily. Icecrown quests unlock dailies, which you'll use as your primary source of gold generation, at least initially. Focus on quests from the airship and from Ebon Hold.

[eqdude]

Originally Posted by Ualaa

Well with five shammies, your good choices are PvP and Quests..

PvP has not been as easy as I expected it to be. I have yet to find a BG leader that was savvy about multiboxing. All of them have tried to split my team up and put one each in five different groups. It is difficult to keep up with my team when they are not in the same group.

Originally Posted by Ualaa

Depending on your battlegroup, there may be a decent amount of 70-79 battlegrounds, in which case you could conceivably level entirely for PvP; experience in pvp is generally 50-75% as good as efficient questing, depending on win/loss ratio. Even if there aren't many BG's running, you can be queued whenever in game and a few here or there will supplement your experience.

I moved my team from Blackrock to Undermine because I did not want to be such a huge target for gankers on that pvp realm. Blackrock was a great place for BGs because it seemed that the horde always won everything all of the time. However, that is not the case with Undermine, where it seems to be hit and miss on any given BG.

Originally Posted by Ualaa

Instances can be run without a tank. However, until you outgear an instance it is hard to do without a tanking toon. Burning Crusade heroics and Lich King normal/heroics have mobs which hit way too hard for the Earth Elemental. I'm not saying you cannot do them, but it won't be fast clears until you outgear them at which point they'll likely not be any experience.

You are so right! I went into UK with my team just to see how it might work. I had to use my elementals on the first two groups of mobs at the entry. I could not see myself waiting 10 minutes between each mob just to use my elementals to get through the place.

Originally Posted by Ualaa

For Questing: You have both Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord, I'd do one and then the other. Gathering quests can suck, but do as many as you can stand, as in WotLK there are gathering quests which lead to kills etc.

I've already done all of the non gathering quests in both places, and I am still one bubble away from lvl 71. The problem is, I came here too early. I came here at lvl 68 because I wanted the better gear to do BGs at lvl 69. So, I'm going to move on to the higher mobs and quests if I can find any that are not greyed out. :-)

Originally Posted by Ualaa

Then move to Grizzly Hills and Dragonblight. Again, do as much in each as you can; they're for the same leveling range. If a quest sucks, you can skip it... with two zones worth of quests, you don't need to do everything. But a lot of crap quests lead to kills etc. Look the quest up on wowhead, and see if the final quest gets you a reward that is worthwhile. Sholozar Basin and Stormpeaks are again roughly equivalent. Same deal as before. However, once you hit 77th, pick up cold weather flying (unless you already have a team at 80th who can buy/mail these to you). With cold weather flying, you'll want to be in Icecrown.
Most of the Icecrown quests aren't that bad to do. And at 77th with 0% experience into the level and no rested experience, there are plenty of quests to get you to 80th easily. Icecrown quests unlock dailies, which you'll use as your primary source of gold generation, at least initially. Focus on quests from the airship and from Ebon Hold.

Thanks for the rundown on which areas to go to next. I have done it before, but I needed a refresher. :-)

[Crispin]

My suggestion:
Get to 71.
Goto Scholozar Basin.
Goto the Pool of Undead near the Avatar of Freya.
Kill millions of level 76 Bonescythe Ravagers.

Make sure to bring:
Plenty of Water
Plenty of Runic Mana Potions

Helpful:
Craft all the gear you can, it'll be the best gear you can get /w-out instances.

Enchant your gloves for +20 hit, it is like being a whole level higher and is EXTREMELY beneficial.

Sockets: Socket HIT! I don't have any sockets, so I am kind of screwed. I did consider making the crafted pieces from BC but just suffered through it not wanting to waste time.

I have 1 level 64 shaman, he just stands at the back and gets exp.
I use my main to loot / target.
My other three shamans do the killing and run out of mana in ~6minutes at level 74.

Not as fast as instances but less painful than questing, to me.

Also, Ualaa's suggestion on Alchemy is spot on. I have 3 Master Transmuters and have made 700g in 3 days at a cost of 3000g to get them all to 450.

GL
-Crispin

[Ualaa]

I totally forgot about Zul'Drak... that's an option too, after Grizzly Hills/Dragonblight, but there were a lot of collections which were irritating, but still more zones means the ability to pick and choose which quests to do and which to skip.

I used the Icecrown dailies... to farm gold, which was used to purchase herbs for leveling alchemy. Combine a lot of transmutes, with a jewelcrafter (or several for more cuts), is quite decent gold. I'm up to 24 alchemists, each with transmute spec, which is averaging 3,700 gold a day; that's with the lower gem prices, at average price levels during the start of an arena/content patch cycle, it would be closer to 5k a day.