Now that i'm nearing endgame...

**Bisclaveret** · 08-28-2008, 10:12 PM

I've recently broached the level 51 mark, after a long slow, mostly solo journey. I'l confess that I've rarely ever read these forums (and despise forums in general, especially official forums for games..), despite being in the guild for almost 2 years now, because 90% of the discussions were all endgame and meaningless to my level 20 characters, but now that I'm reaching the endpoint, Where Do I Go From Here?

Is there some standard quests, etc to do before i begin raiding things like MC, etc, or are people even doing old instances anymore? My discussion with some people outside the guild seemed that no, noone does the level 60 raid stuff anymore, and to get all my gear through grinding PvP as it's "pretty much compatible with tier 5 raid stuff, and noones going to take you on raids undergeared without PvP gear" Only.. i hate the WoW battlegrounds-style PvP, and I hate spending an entire evening going 0-20 on most every battleground i've been on.... usually half the team is AFK or fighting in the middle somewhere and paying no attention to the goals, and I won't forget the recent AV I went on where everyone was screaming "don't kill galv! go right past him, we kill Drek and we win!" which ended horribly..

Honestly, it took this long because WoW isn't the only MMO I play, least of all the only game I play, and I hate runs through instances over and over (side effect from playing Diablo 2 for 4 years.. having a high-level character 1 hit kill everything while you scoop up the gold and exp got so boring and demeaning... and cookie-cutter "use this build only, or people won't play with you" builds too..), so i've mostly been going the quest route.

ScratchMonkey · 08-28-2008, 10:50 PM

I leveled 60-70 on a couple toons doing only quests and now I'm paying for it as I lack decent gear and experience for the 10-man and heroic content. I'm now leveling a couple of other mid-60's toons and I'm trying to do instances more, and seeing decent gear as well as getting experience playing in the kind of groups that I'll be playing at 70.

At 51, you should be able to run Sunken Temple and the Blackrock Mountain instances. A lot of people do still run those. Alliance side, a few run the Scholomance and Dire Maul at 60 for epic mounts.

Once you hit Outland, start looking for groups for Ramparts and Blood Furnace, and as you get higher, the Coilfang Reservoir instances. There are quests to be done in there, you get rep to buy stuff later, and you get familiar with grouping, which is essential for end-game raiding.

**Bisclaveret** · 08-29-2008, 03:07 AM

I know how to operate in groups, i've been doing it many times. However, I don't really know how to play my spec, per say. I've been fully shadow specced ever since rolling the character, but any time i'm in a group doing an instance, i'm always forced to heal since we either have noone in the group that can heal, or the group is full of dumbass twink rogues/paladins that love to just run in whenever they see a mob (my coworker is one such.. his idea of tanking on his level 70 pally is to run into 5+ mobs.. it's.. not very effective... and his rogue just spams blade flurry, etc.) So i'm a shadow priest thats only used shadow sparingly.

Noone does MC, Naxx, Onyxia's Lair, etc anymore? thats pretty sad. How will i be able to get the first few tiers of armor then, besides PVP?

ScratchMonkey · 08-29-2008, 06:47 AM

The gear in the old world raid instances is rarely notable compared to the gear you get in initial Outland quests.

From 58-69, you're mostly worried about getting gear that just lets you survive in the low-end raid instances like Kara. Some of that will come from quests, some from rep grinds, and some from boss drops in 5-man instances. There are guides showing you what kind of stats you need to enter Kara. Once in Kara, you start grinding for gear that lets you survive the next 10-man instance.

Don't feel compelled to heal if you're not spec'd for it. My primary toon is a prot paladin, so I'm generally tanking or off-tanking. (But if the healer goes down, I'll start spamming heals on the MT as long as I have mana.)

**orion808** · 08-29-2008, 11:12 AM

Scratch is right on the money. The gear at 61-63 from questing far outweighs the months of raiding MC/BWL/Ony. Enjoy the leveling while you can.

I have an enhancement shaman that would like to run Sunken Temple and Blackrock Depths. I'd rather not be drug through there by a 70 and would love to be able to run it with appropriate leveled players...especially someone I haven't run with yet.

**wlbrn2** · 08-29-2008, 07:29 PM

My shammy is at 53 now and I'm always looking for instance groups. Look for Belize in game. I'm gathering quests for BRD now but would be happy helping out in ST as well.

Talara-- BTW, I'm coming back from a year-plus break from WoW and am not in TG at the moment (presumably dropped for woeful inactivity), but was formerly the tank known as Saxen in Cocidius. Sax remains on vacation while I level the shammy ahead of the xpac.