WoWGrrl's World

I'm a big fan of dungeon runs on leveling characters, and within the dungeon runs, I'm a big fan of having enough reagents to last through 3-4 runs.

Why? So I can be lazy, and not restock after every run! And, so if I get into a really good group and we get a lot done together then I don't run out of reagents partway through, either.

This entry talks about all the various ways I look at my leveling toons in terms of being able to tweak out just a little bit more improvement beyond my casting rotation or playstyle.

Toon Maintenance

I've been playing World of Warcraft for a while, and have developed quite a healthy little family of toons. The ones I list on the sidebar of this blog are only the ones that have advanced into Northrend, but even just keeping them properly maintained takes a bit of time and attention.

Thankfully, it doesn't take a LOT of time and attention. Just a bit of time and attention every once in a while, thanks in part to useful addons like ReagentRestocker and Bagnon.

I try to leave all my toons in a state where I can log onto any one at any moment and proceed directly to a dungeon instance or questing area without restocking, repairing or clearing out my inventory to make room.

Does Anyone Have Any Water?

It's hilarious how often I hear this question in leveling dungeon PUGs.

In fact, I do actually snicker out loud at the fact that I have a stereotypically unprepared player in my group with me.

(it seems like that stereotype is present in each of my Azeroth PUGs, and it gets much better by Outland and Northrend)

Myself, I tend to bring at minimum two stacks of water to any instance on any toon that uses mana (minus my Warlock, who instead brings 2+ stacks of bandages and uses Life Tap). This is way more than I'll use in 95% of runs, but it means that I have a stack or half a stack of water I can trade to the Pally tank or whatever healer we have who ran out of drinks.

Potions, Elixirs, Buff Foods

Even on my leveling toons, I tend to stock Healing and/or Mana Potions, buffing elixirs or low-cost flasks, and buff foods.

Sure, it costs a bit of money to get stocked up initially, and takes cash to replace the stockpile as it gets used up, but once you see how much faster you kill things, and how much less time you spend running back to your corpse or waiting for a resurrection after a battle, I'm confident you'll become a believer, too.

There are all sorts of little Auction House related addons that can help you find materials for your elixirs and buff foods when they're cheap, too - the main ones I use are Auctioneer and WoWEcon, but there are a lot of smaller, less bulky addons you could use as well.

On my realm, weekends tend to be the best days to stock up materials for the coming week.

Outdated Gear, Enchants, Armor Kits, Gems and Glyphs

Every 10 levels or so, up until level 60 (then more frequently from that point onwards), I do a larger review of my various playing toons.

I'll look at my gear and see if there are any specific pieces that have evaded upgrade and are getting close to being 10 levels underleveled for my current position, and I visit the Auction House to see if there are any quick replacements.

If there's nothing in the Auction House, I might look towards some professions my various toons have to see if anything fills out a spot, or, more likely, I might just leave it and just keep an eye out for something new listed in the Auction House over the next while.

Glyphs get upgraded when I notice that I have a new glyph spot open that hasn't been filled :)

Enchants and are something I believe in right from a low level, but as with all of my non-progression-raid materials, I also believe in "finances first". Meaning, enchants make playing and FINANCIAL sense, right from the beginning. Gems fall under the same rules, but sockets don't appear on gear until Outland levels so I can't say I use gems at a low level :)

While leveling up to Outland, I've determined that stamina enchants are amongst the most useful to my toons (live longer, die less), although I might also toss in a Mana enchant on a chest piece of a caster as well. Even melee DPS characters that would benefit from agility tend to get stamina enchants simply because stamina enchants are cheap and the materials plentiful in comparison to the agility enchants.

And for those pesky armor slots that don't seem to have any enchants for them for low level folk, Armor Kits are a great source of stamina enchant: legs at a low level, and then head and shoulders added in once your gear is level 60+.

Progressing With Professions

All my toons have primary professions by the time they hit level 12 at the latest, and have picked up secondary professions First Aid and Cooking by that time as well, because it gives me something to do with all these materials I'm picking up while I quest and level. The first five toons I leveled past 60 all have the secondary profession of Fishing as well - trained, and skilled to max!

I'll admit, not all my toons have the Fishing skill, but after doing that 225 Nat Pagel quest with 5 toons, I think I've earned the right to not worry about it anymore (all 3 of my 80s have maxed fishing).

When it comes to the Primary professions, I tend to start with gathering professions like Mining/Skinning or Herbalism/Skinning but eventually once the character gets to 35 or so, I start looking towards the future to try to figure out what professions combinations would be most useful to the family as a whole.

Once I've selected the crafting that will be useful, I carefully weigh which gathering profession to drop, pick up the new crafting one, and set to work maxing out the profession as quickly as possible - within "financial reason" that is.

Right now I'm working on advancing my 54 Paladin's Blacksmithing profession, and have recently picked up Alchemy on my "parked" 65 Rogue and am working through the levels there, too. Once my leveling characters get their professions up to Northrend levels, I tend to leave them to advance more naturally until I hit 80, at which point I renew my efforts for finishing the job.

Does All This Effort Really Pay Off?

To some people, even half of the efforts I put into my various toons above seems like a heck of a lot of work to put into even one character on World of Warcraft. Not only effort, but time and money and either friends or all the right professions handled by your own toons.

I do agree, it's a lot of effort to put into one's character on World of Warcraft, which is why characters of mine only get a review once every 10 levels up until they hit Outland. If there's a chance the character isn't going to make it to max level because I don't "love it enough", there's no use in spending oodles of time or cash on many of the factors I mention.

The main way these efforts have paid off for me are twofold:

First off, my leveling toons level more quickly than most of my friends on a straight /played time basis. I have less down time and more mana and health and can do more in the same period of time - simply because they don't buff themselves up.

Secondly, now I'm in a wicked raiding guild where these habits are expected of our raiding toons without question, I haven't had to change my playstyle to support the costs associated. I was already in the right mindset, had the right understanding of how to use professions for both gearing and money-earning benefits, and had no problems keeping a solid stock of raid consumables that wasn't Auction House dependent.

Let's Talk About WoW Bay-bee

So hey, it's an anti-climactic ending to my article, but if you're on Twitter and like to talk WoW, be sure to Follow TheWoWGrrl so I can share my WoW adventures with you, too. I check out the recent followers every few days, so if you follow me and you talk about your WoW adventures on your own, rest assured I'll be following you soon!

You know you wanna!!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Related posts:

1. Secondary Professions Are For All
2. Pushing warcraft professions; Always auctioning; THREE bank toons.
3. Dungeon Power Leveling Secrets

Tagged as: cooking, first aid, fishing, powerleveling tips, Professions, pugging, pugging tips, secondary professions, successful pugging guide, wowgrrl guides