A few weeks back I wrote about how fell for Blizzards bait to get me to subscribe for the next year. As you might remember I was also a bit concerned about how I would get my moneys worth of entertainment from WoW while I wait for the expansion. After a few false starts I have finally come up with something for the immediate future.
It should be painfully clear that I plan to level a Pandaren Monk come expansion time. I have linked to my new blog PandarenMonk.net about a dozen times since its launch. Yeah I am all in for Mists of Pandaria. Although I am committed, I also have a major problem that I need to resolve before expansion time. I suck as melee. It isn’t even something I am ashamed to admit. I am very melee gimped.
Knowing that Mistweaver Monks and Windwalker Monks are both melee classes, I have some work to do. If I plan to be effective as a monk, I am going to have to groom some melee skills. There is no way around it. With that said, let me introduce you to Phetid, my DPS warrior. I figure there is no better way to learn to melee than to do it for 85 levels. Melee ain’t nothing to but a word to me!
Last night Phetid dinged level 20 and he finally got his mount! As I was wrapping up the last few quest of the evening Razor asked me what my /played was. It was 6 hours and 24 minutes if I remember correctly. Then something kind of funny happened. Razor said I sucked because it was taking too long. And within the same exchange Kik said that he was shocked at how fast it was going (Kik is leveling a Pally). How could two WoW veterans have such varying opinions on leveling speed?
The answer has nothing to do with the game. It is all about the differing approaches to tasks within the game. For years now Razor and I have looked for every advantage we could find to make things easier in the game. So to us, things like leveling and gold become trivial. With Kik it is all about the fun and doing things when he can.
I am more than positive that Kik has never dedicated a weekend to leveling 8 toons to level 60 using refer-a-friend. Razor and I, been there done that. I am sure that Kik has never seen a toon go from level 1 to level 60 in 6 minutes. Razor and I, been there done that. As you can see our play styles are vastly different than the average Joe/Jane.
When Razor says I suck because it took me 6 hours to get to level 20, he is right. I do suck, I have done it faster A LOT faster. But there is a big difference this time; I am actually playing my toon to learn it, not just to blow out levels. Believe me I have leveled plenty of toons and never really learned how to play them correctly until they reached max level.
I am also reading the quest dialog *gasp*! Yes you read that right I am reading the dreaded things. I am infamous for grabbing a quest and stumbling around like a wine-o on a three day bender. Only to find out that it was an escort quest and my charge is dead or worse yet gone. Oh how Razor must tire of repeating the words “Didn’t you read the
quest?”
tff yeah I know I was bustin your chops but hey I will give ya a break for reading the quest text lol,
I am definately slowest at leveling. I try to practice the talents as I learn them to develop my play style. However, I admit I am completely sidetracked by the release of 4.3, with new 5 man dungeons, a raid finder, and upgraded gear everywhere. Like ICC, I will probably focus on the 85 level “end game” until it is defeated and then go back to leveling toons.