Yep, I did it again!

In September, my Hunter made it to level 70, and that was my first toon to hit 70, having been at the level cap of 60 before Burning Crusade came out.

Bluehairmage is my second toon to hit 70, and he was level 23 or so when Burning Crusade came out, but I’ve had a lot of fun advancing him all the way through and he’s pretty well-rounded (fishing, cooking, first aid, quest blues, dungeon experience, the first of a few crafted epics).

Epic Flying Fetish - How I Did It

I’ve decided that while some people like to see all the high-end dungeons and get all the high-end loot and deal with the high-end drama, that I like the quiet places in life where money accumulates quickly enough to be able to afford Epic Flying right at hitting 70 - with a little bit of planning, of course.

I could have played my mage every day and ground out quests every time I was on, and made it to 70 long before I could afford the 6000g or so it takes to buy 225 riding and 300 riding + the Swift mount itself, but I didn’t play it that way - I based my levelling off of the cash in my bank and that gave me the incentive to save money so I could level this toon through to 70 and start to get involved in some of the cool stuff I haven’t done much with.

At about level 66 for both my Hunter and my Mage, I had about 3500g in the bank, as a reference point. This seemed to work for me. But both times, just before I was ready to ding 70, I had to do an extra “sales push”, selling banked materials with no real earmarked purpose in order to squeeze out the last 500g. Enchanting materials happened to be the ones that tipped me over this time, whereas last time it was a general “garage sale” of junk from all of my toons.

Next Toon In Line?

Well, my toon family is growing thin in terms of “close to 70″. I have a 61 Warrior who has been parked for quite a while and I have no real interest in dusting off at this time, and after that is my 45 Rogue and Priest.

So… lots of time to save up for the next one I guess, but I also have toons hitting 50 soon who will need significant cash investments for upgrading professions quickly, so we’ll see how it goes!

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One part that annoyed me in doing the Netherwing daily quests was the fact that not all the Fel Gland obtained from beasties in Shadowmoon Valley worked properly when the whole “A Slow Death” quest was done where I was to be using the Fel Gland and Yarzil’s meat to feed and poison camps of mining Dragonmaw Peons.

Sometimes, I’d put down the food and the guys would gather around, but they’d bug out before they did their little cheer about the food, and they just stood there and never ate the food and were never poisoned. Wasted Fel Gland.

Other times, I’d put down the food and the workers would ignore me completely!!! Blarg. Wasted Fel Gland.

And yes, with an Epic Flying Mount the trip from Netherwing Ledge to Sanctum of the Stars in Shadowmoon was short, but at times of disgust, I’m an impatient person and would rather pay a few gold than watch myself fly for a few minutes.

Where To Die

Before I had the Netherwing rep line unlocked, there was a quest that required me to go to Netherwing Ledge and kill peons in order to get to the Netherwing Crystals that were a turn-in. I noticed rather early (thanks to the elites wandering around and my lack of initial quickness on Feign Death) that if one died while on the Netherwing Ledge, one arrived at a graveyard right beside Sanctum of the Stars, and one wasn’t in ghost form because one couldn’t run back to the Ledge to recover one’s corpse.

I also noticed that the penalty was the standard ‘death with body recovered one’ - that is, 10% durability loss on items worn and that was it.

After working on the Netherwing line for a while, and running into that Fel Gland problem, I devised a more fun way of getting myself killed and returned to the Sanctum of the Stars in Shadowmoon Valley - falling into the nether!

A simple way to do this is to fly out off of the Ledge and ensure your pointer on your minimap is over complete blackness (not over a floating island), and then to dismount. You fall and fall and fall, and then are seemingly propelled down and away from your camera view as you fall into the void.

Where Not To Die

In my testing, I also wondered what it would be like to fly up WAY HIGH above one of those floating islands and then to dismount above it and fall to my death that way.

It was terribly disappointing and I strongly suggest against it - it’s like dying up in the middle of the air where your corpse doesn’t fall down… you have to take the spirit rez and thus you’re suffering the 25% damage to inventory and worn items, plus the 10 minute rez sickness!

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