I'm no pro at a Mage spec, and am open to input if one feels educated enough and compelled to supply it ;) Check out my spec for Bluehairmage and leave a comment.

While I've already got a 70, I'm planning for Bluehair to be the character that does the dungeons, grinds the rep, and lets me see the cool things I can't see as a solo character. (it will, of course, be a slower progression than some may be used to, but faster than others I suppose!)

So far...

I entered into Outlands at level 59 and did enough quests in Hellfire Peninsula to get myself to 60. From there, I visited Sen'jin to pick up my Swift Olive Raptor and visited the trainer in Orgrimmar to get my new skills. I was happiest to find that my next set of water started out making 10 at a time instead of 2!

Once I hit 60 and got trained up, I visited the Auction House to upgrade old bits of Azeroth equipment that hadn't been upgraded from the quests I did in Hellfire Peninsula, and then I headed back to Thrallmar and the next time I was ready to play, I put myself into the LFG tool as being interested in going into Ramparts.

So far I've done enough Ramparts and Blood Furnace runs (6 of the first, 3 of the other - something like that) to get to 5999/6000 in Friendly, then started doing some Thrallmar quests to top myself into Honored.

When I left the city, I had used up all of my rest bonus, pushing my Mage through from 56 over the last month or so. I come back and find myself at 82% rested, which is very nice!

Where Next?

I know that I need to get Revered reputation with a number of factions, as outlined in the World of Raids section I found while searching the topic in Google, and I'll trust in WoWWiki.com for telling me the most efficient way of progressing through each faction itself, but in general I'm not sure what my path will be.

I guess I'll do Hellfire Peninsula quests until they start annoying me too much, then I'll head into Zangarmarsh and follow whatever strategy is suggested for Cenarion Expedition reputation, and then come back to Hellfire Peninsula when I'm bigger and badder. Revered in a number of reputation trees seems like a lot of work... anyone have suggestions or a blog entry or something to point me to to help me with more direction than my current random wanderings? :)

Related posts:

1. How To Efficiently Get Thrallmar and Cenarion Expedition Rep – Mage hits 64
2. Gearing Toon #2 For Heroics – Hunter
3. New Mage In The Outlands – Beware, Beasties!

Bluehairmage was a mere level 23 when Burning Crusade came out, and has recently reached level 60 in the Outlands, while questing with a few strangers in Hellfire Peninsula who happened to be working on the same things I was, all three of us at level 59. I had decided to hold out until 59 before jumping through the portal with this one at 58, just in case that extra level would help me much in terms of reducing my aggro range, since one of my vocal guildmates had made a big deal of his clothy getting swarmed by mobs with a "mile-wide aggro range".

I found it was much easier this time than it was when I brought my Warrior in (she who is still at 61 and is not played often), and while the fights were probably about the same with my Hunter (who entered the portal the day after the release, with 2000 other lvl 60s), the familiarity and complete lack of competition made this Mage's trek a lot easier.

I only finished enough quests to get me to 60, so I could return to Azeroth and to Sen'jin in Durotar in particular, to train for my Epic Land Mount (540g) and buy a [Swift Olive Raptor] for the actual ride. Yay for faster feet!

Epic Land Mount also makes the Outlands a lot more bearable, simply because it's a lot easier to outrun all of the aggro on faster feet, and there are beasts and humanoids and flying things EVERYWHERE out there. Very few spots you can find that have the empty barren landscape like used to be found regularly in Azeroth.

Neat Trick - Sheeping Bonechewer Raiders

[edit, I've read in May 2008 patch notes that this has been fixed, anyone test? :) ]

While working on the very first quests one obtains in Thrallmar, I found a rather neat thing with my Mage, in terms of taking down the Bonechewer Raiders.

You see, Bonechewer Raiders are the Bonechewer guys who are riding around on a wolf mount, and who patrol the side of the Path of Glory that is nearest to Thrallmar and most likely where players will be collecting Bonechewer Blood.

If you start battle with them when they're on their mounts, they dismount and both the raider and the raider's mount head towards you for battle. The mount doesn't despawn when the raider goes down, so you need to take them both out.

That is, unless you sheep the Raider before engaging in battle. Then, the mount completely disappears and when the sheep wears off or is broken, only the Raider remains!

Simple to kill that way, and who really needs the few scraps from the Mount, if he even drops any??!

Related posts:

1. Mounts, Distraction, Outlands Questing Team, Outlands Instances
2. Planning Reputation Gain: Mage
3. Warrior Hits 60, Buys Very Fast Ride