WoWGrrl's World » netherwing

70 Hunter Update, Enchanting/Herbalism

Valdesta — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 16:06:36 +0000

My Hunter was my very first toon ever created on World of Warcraft, and bears a name I've used online for years in various capacities and has become my online pen name. Many people on the game still call me "Val" no matter what toon I'm on. Valdesta was born during the Winter's Veil Festival in World of Warcraft, late in the year of 2005.

My hunter is the one featured fishing on this blog - with a guildmate warlock buddy who has way better gear than I do on my Hunter :)

Before the expansion pack came out, she hit 60 at the end of May 2006. By the time the expansion hit, I knew this Hunter wasn't my priority, so it took her until September 2007 to hit 70 having done ZERO outland dungeons and only a small number of Outland group quests. She soloed from 60 to 70, never running out of quests but completely not worrying about "reputation grinding".

This toon was never really destined for much, but gets some time here and there and has acheived some useful milestones.

Current Skills and Stats (Unbuffed)

Enchanting: 360/375
Herbalism: 375/375
Cooking: 375/375
First Aid: 375/375
Fishing: 375/375

Riding: 300/300 (using the [Reins of the Veridian Netherwing Drake] to call my epic flying mount and the [Horn of the Frostwolf Howler] for my epic land mount)

Reputation Standings - Outland

I was originally going to list the non-standard recipes I have for Enchanting, but I really don't have many that are worth mentioning, and the process was looking more tedious than I wanted to deal with for a blog post.

So, instead, you get a summary of my Reputation levels:

Reputation Maxed At Exalted

Frostwolf Clan (Alterac Valley battleground)
Netherwing

Reputation At Revered

Nobody in Outland!

Reputation At Honored

Cenarion Expedition	11446/12000
Ogri'la	1635/12000
The Consortium	4860/12000
Thrallmar	3113/12000
Lower City	243/12000
Sha'tari Skyguard	1630/12000
The Scryers	6555/12000
The Sha'tar	4487/12000
Keepers of Time	9309/12000
The Violet Eye	1610/12000

Outland Keys Obtained

Heroics Keys:

Other Keys/Parts:

Current Gearing

Gear is what I expect will start to change on this toon more than anything else - if there's a second Karazhan group that goes through in a week and my Mage is already tied up in a RaidID, then I go along with Valdesta instead.

Head	[Earthwarden's Coif]
Neck	[Expedition Pendant]
Shoulder	[Beastmaw Pauldrons]
Back	[Crystalweave Cape]
Chest	[Felstalker Breastplate]
Wrist	[Bracers of Maliciousness]
Hands	[Gloves of Quickening]
Waist	[Felstalker Belt]
Legs	[Beast Lord Leggings]
Feet	[Outland Striders]
Ring #1	[]
Ring #2	[Violet Signet]
Trinket #1	[Commander's Badge]
Trinket #2	[Riding Crop]
Melee Weapon(s)	[Sonic Spear]
Ranged Weapon	[Emberhawk Crossbow]
Ammunition	[Blackflight Arrow]

Goals For The Future Of This Toon

This toon is still mainly a "farming" toon. When I don't have much time to actually play, I may log into this toon to fly around on my Netherdrake and pick herbs for a little while. I much prefer getting my own materials for the endless stream of Super Mana Potions I go through on my Mage during raid nights!

That being said, I don't expect to do a lot with her because I'll use my Mage as a priority in raids and Heroics, and I'm advancing my Priest and Rogue to get to level cap before the expansion hits... whenver that is!

Mage Dings 70, Buys Epic Flyer

Valdesta — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 18:12:27 +0000

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!

Suicide from Netherwing Ledge

Valdesta — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:47:26 +0000

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!

Exalted With Netherwing

Valdesta — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 14:15:36 +0000

I made Exalted with Netherwing on September 23, 20 days after my toon hit level 70.

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After the Exalted with Netherwing script completed as above, the big Netherdrake that saves me from certain death gives me a big long ride over the landscape and lands me in Lower City in Shattrath, right by Barthamus who is awaiting my quest turn in so he can offer me my free Netherdrake Mount. Once I turn in my quest with him, it looks like there's all sorts of quests to pick up from the Netherdrakes around, but having read about this first, I know that I should only be accepting the 'quest' from the Netherdrake that I wish to ride, or I'll be spending 200g to buy another version of the Netherdrake.

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I had visited before reaching Exalted and had looked at all of the Netherdrakes, and aside from the Black Netherdrake that I thought would be over-popular, there seem to be a lot of purply/blue ones that look remarkably like the fake Netherwing folks ride around on while they're working on gathering reputation in the first place.

So, I finally made my choice - and went with the "veridian drake" - even though I have no idea if Veridian is actually GREEN or not??!

Aiming For The Netherdrake

Valdesta — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 13:07:11 +0000

So, the Netherwing Drake epic flying mount is the next goal on my 70Hunter's list.

As a casual player, it's been quite easy to chase this goal so far (after the epic training cost of course, which took a lot of saving up to afford) - sure, I don't have Heroics dungeon keys nor anywhere near enough rep to get them quickly, but most of my friends are still levelling a host of pre-60s characters anyway, and we play solo a lot because of our restricted play times.

A day or so after I bought my epic flying training and epic flying mount (a few days after hitting 70 on my first toon) and stumbled around, wondering what to do next, I was again reminded that whenever I see a Netherwing Drake, my pupils dilate while I stare and drool. So, my emotions inspired me to move towards this goal. Exalted is a long grind, but given enough time and day-to-day effort, anything can be accomplished.

About Netherwing Reputation

One thing about Netherwing reputation is that until you've completed a quest line in Shadowmoon Valley, you won't have Netherwing showing up under your reputation page, and all of the dragonmaw will be at 'hated' status with you, meaning they're red and aggro on you like a standard enemy.

The good thing about not having the reputation in your bar at this time is that you do not get punished for killing the dragonmaw at this time, either, so there's no reputation you have to re-gain.

Unlocking Netherwing Rep

The process of unlocking Netherwing rep can be done largely solo, but the last bit requires a party of fellow 68+s, preferably with flying mounts or a warlock who can summon.

The quest line that brings you from "Hated" to "Neutral" is outlined here on WoWiki - essentially, starting with Mordenai in Shadowmoon Valley, there are four "real" quests (gathering, killing a certain # of things) smattered with "go see this guy, listen to his tale, go find his mate and talk to her" ones, followed by a level 70 5-person group quest to take on Zuluhed the Whacked.

Once Zuluhed is downed, you can take a ride on the previously-held-hostage dragon, Karynaku, back down to the ground and to where she meets her mate, right around where Mordenai is walking about, where you turn in the quest series and are awarded 46000 reputation and moved immediately to Neutral.

No 300 Riding Training? Stop Here

One thing I didn't fully realize, even though I probably read it and just didn't comprehend it properly, was that if you don't already have 300 riding training, your quest line ends with the ability to get to Neutral reputation with the Netherwing.

There are two very important implications to this truth, both impacting very different parts of the whole rep-gaining game:

If you DO NOT have 300 riding trained, when you turn in the Zuluhed quest to Mordenai, you'll get to neutral but he won't have the next stage of quests to offer you - the ones that lead you back to Netherwing Ledge and on to the Daily Quests. So, 225 riding skill = NO Netherwing daily quests. Must have 300, even if you don't have the epic flying mount itself.
If you DO have 300 riding trained, when you turn in the Zuluhed quest to Mordenai, you'll get to neutral and he'll offer you a quest to talk to a guy in the Dragonmaw Base Camp on Netherwing Ledge, and from there you'll get your daily quests. HOWEVER as soon as you accept Mordenai's quest to talk to the guy on the Ledge, you get changed into some kind of "fel orc" that is of FRIENDLY status with the Dragonmaw, and therefore you can't help kill Zuluhed! If you hope to help your friends with this, be careful!

The disguise you get whenever you go near the Dragonmaw Fortress or the Netherwing Ledge is that of a fel orc, but as a bonus, your mount turns into a Netherdrake as well! And when you leave the Netherwing Ledge, your mount stays the Netherdrake until you log out or leave Shadowmoon Valley, even though you yourself change back to your normal toon body.

Moving On Alone

In getting that Zuluhed quest done, I got a few of my guildmates interested enough that they completed the full line up to and including Zuluhed only to realize with me that 300 riding was required to move on. Since most of my guildmates don't have the cash for the training, they've gone back to their other pursuits while I work on the daily quests.