A Warrior's Journey: Meet the Warriors

Two! Plural! Yes!

A long time ago, when I was PvP nuts, I rerolled Friday on a PvP server. At the time I was leveling other alts, as well, got burned out on the Alliance quests, and never got her past Level 10. So Friday2 just kinda sat there for, oh, a year and half, until now.

Leveling up Roxigar, my shiny new Orc Warrior, got me thinking about leveling Ally side, as well. Leveling two toons, one from each faction, and one each on a different type of server, seemed to fit this lil' "experience experiment" better. So now we're following two warriors' journeys.

Yah, I really did intend to talk about the leveling experience so far as well, and I will a bit. But first, lets meet our Warriors. :)

Roxigar

My baby Orc is growing up so fast! He's currently sitting at Level 17. This is, like, one of two male toons I've ever made. Hmmm... maybe third. I gotta lot of toons. Anyhow, I thought to add a little more mix to the experience experiment, I'll level one toon male, one toon female. So far no difference really. Fri gets invited to groups randomly a bit more than Rox does. Which doesn't make a lot of sense because... Rox Rocks!

He's big and green and strong and has a cute spiky mo-hawk all the Orc girls really go for. I bet blonde human mages would dig him, too. I don't see him really as a ladies man, though. I wonder why. :P He seems to be all about the adventuring. No ties. No guild. Going it alone for glory and honor... and gold.

He makes gold like crazy. Part of it, I'm sure, is the skinning and mining opportunities in the starter areas and the Barrens. I don't plan to spend a lot of golds on silly stuff for these toons. Mounts first. But I will be upgrading thier gears at least every two or three levels. Regardless, Rox isn't going to have any problem hitting the 100g mark by 30.

He's got skinning and mining for money. He's doing well financially, so far. He's outfitted mostly in greens and can easily quest 2 or 3 levels above. He's quickly by-passing the last half of the Barrens quests. Right now deciding if we should a) continue with the Barrens, b) head to straight to Stonetalen (which I've always wanted to play), or c) head for Silverpine/Hillsbrad (ditto).

Side note: Rox got into his first duel last night... and we got pwn'd hard by a Belf Pally. It was insane! I just kinda freaked out and couldn't even remember how to interrupt! Embarrassing. I'd better get my PvP shit together or Fri is gonna have a hard time of it eventually. He still hasn't done RFC or WC. Maybe tonight I can knock those out.

Orcs are obviously good tanks and warriors in general. When applied personally, the theory about knowing the quests making life easier works out. Rox does well, but he dies a LOT more than Fri does. I could do Westfall and Redridge with my eyes closed. Rox and I are in unexplored territory as we finish the Barrens and head into Stonetalon. It's very exciting. I can't recommend enough switching factions for a "new" experience if you haven't before. So far, Rox wins for getting closest to that "new to WoW" feeling.

Fridaymacfay

Ah, a comfort zone. That's what worried me about leveling the same toon through the same stuffs that the original went through. So Friday2 ends up on a PvP server. The quests and zones are comfortable and familiar. But there's always that added element of danger.

Of course, I just started in on Redridge (prolly skip most of it... sigh...), so I haven't been ganked or anything like that. My only run in with the Horde so far was outside of VC and, of course, none of us are flagged in Westfall. I'll know soon enough if being flagged all the time is a pain-in-the-ass or if it's actually is fun.

I suspect a little of both. In Redridge and Duskwood I imagine it'll just be a pain in the ass. Not a lot of level 16-25 something Horde running around in those areas. Which means any horde there will most likely just be higher levels epeen ganking low levels. That's pretty cowardly, but the nature of this kinda Realm, I s'pose (And yah, I'm perfectly aware that Alliance players do the same... that 80 Rogue at Crossroads killing the FP and Inn Keeper over and over was a grade-a bunghole). It'll be more interesting when she gets to more of the mixed areas. Hillsbrad or Stranglethorn? Hmmm...

Leveling Friday is easy-sauce. Just keep the gear updated and we fly through stuff. I really wanted to get all the VC quests (which is a blast at level), so I just stayed in Westfall. And suddenly she was Level 17 and hadn't even made the run to Redridge! Got that taken care of, but still haven't done VC. As embarrassing as it sounds, she also hasn't taken the tram yet. Gonna have to take her exploring soon or she'll be one of those toons with no flight points and always whining for a summons. I don't think so!

Money-wise, Friday isn't doing nearly as well as her green-skinned counterpart. Did you know Orcs weren't always green?!? Hmmm... anyhoo...

I think this has mostly to do with the fact that she runs straight to a quest, smashes it, then runs straight to the next one, without taking any time to stop and enjoy the scenery... or mine nodes, or kill a random animal for skins. Rox bumbles around trying to find stuff and, in the process, runs into Raptors and various other skin'able beasts that he has to fight to get where he's going. He stumbles onto mining nodes all the time. Friday knows the paths to where she's going already and how to avoid unnecessary fights. So unless it's in that path, she misses a lot of money opportunities.

On the other hand, she levels way faster. I had to stop playing her for a couple of days so Rox could catch up a bit. I'll take her out exploring and mining and skinning for a couple more days. That'll give Rox time to get a smidgen ahead level-wise, and get Fri some decent gear and a good bankroll.

It's interesting, but when you're leveling a new toon, the impulse is to just level as fast as you can. Use to be this was a good thing. You leveled slowly, so always pushing ahead made sense. Now you level so fast, you miss half of what's there! If you have a guild and some higher level alts available, that makes sense, particularly if you're just trying to get to the higher level stuff for some reason. But when you're out there on your own in the big, wide realm, ya gotta slow down and take care of business.

If you're just starting out on your Warriory path, do stop your questing long enough to level up your secondary professions. First Aid is a must for a Warrior. While doing pre-quests for WC on Rox the other night, he got stuck in combat. Ergo, he couldn't eat. Without First-Aid he'd have been stuck near the entrance portal with a looooong way to go back and very little healing.

Fishing and Cooking are almost necessary, as well. Cooking particularly. Don't waste a lot of money on enchants and such in vanilla WoW. By the time you need the enchant, you'll be replacing the gear anyhow. Cooking, however, can provide that nice buff ya need from time-to-time and it's free! Fishing is also handy because it's an easy way to get mats for leveling Cooking. See El's Extreme Anglin' guides for some great ideas on how to level both at the same time almost effortlessly.

Of course, you could always figure it out for yourself, and that's kinda fun too. :)

Next: Yet more rambling on leveling and why it's borked. Bad. Fix, Blizz ,Fix!

-Fri