Author Archives: Donny Rokk
Twinking and Farming
Legion is one busy expansion.
Without a doubt, there’s plenty to do. For me, the trick comes with balancing advancing my main, and farming stuff to sell on my alts. This was a lesson learned the hard way, when I took my first alt to 110 to unlock his full Blacksmithing potential, just as smithing took a bit of a dive. It was hard to say whether the risk was worth the reward, but what I did know was that I wasn’t in any hurry to push another character to 110.
Gold, though. I like gold. Love is a strong word, but I can say that I’m definitely in “like” with gold. So, me being me, I started looking for the best way to optimize my gold-making without taking too much time away from my main.
The answer, oddly enough, was twinking.
There have been a number of YouTube videos made discussing how some people were actually soloing Legion dungeons at 101. How? By twinking their character. For those not in the know, “twinking” means equipping a character with gear that far exceeds his level. For the longest time, twinking just wasn’t viable at higher levels. But with the zone scaling in Legion, the process once again had potential.
I had a Demon Hunter that I was using as my Skinner. I actually locked his XP at 100, and he was tearing up mobs. I had another Warrior at 100 who was my Tailo/Herbalist. I decided that I would put the Warrior back in his Garrison where he could continue to make Hexweave bags. The DH would pick up Herbalism, enable XP, and pull double gathering duty until he dinged 101. Then I would lock his XP again, twink him, and see if it made a difference.
The experiment went like this – pick up some gear that could A) be equipped at 101, and B) had an iLevel of 780 or higher. I picked up a few pieces, geared up, and hoped it was going to make a difference.
Turns out it did.
I wasn’t planning on spending hours herbing and skinning. Luckily I found a route where I could pull double duty. The gear was good enough that I could burn down everything in my path, quickly loading up on herbs and skins. I donated some of those mats to my guild, and put the rest up to sell. Gold, baby. Cha-ching.
What does the future hold for the DH? Well I can tell you that he’s not going to see 110 anytime soon. I’m on a low pop server, so there’s not a pile of twink gear on the AH. But I’m going to keep an eye out, and fingers crossed I’ll have enough gold to upgrade his gear as it becomes available. It’s fun to feel so OP, and if I can make some gold while I’m kicking that ass, all the better.
Twinking. It’s come a long way from the Level 19 BG’s, baby.
Can You Level Too Fast?
I now have two characters at 110.
Oy.
Let me backtrack a second. In Warlords of Draenor, I had over twenty characters at max level. The leveling experience in WoD had the potential to be very, very fast. There was really no drawback in racing to 100 except for gear not keeping up, but if you upgraded your heirlooms to cap out at 100 they’d keep up with you until you could pick up a few pieces. So gear was kinda a penalty.
That, and flying.
The implementation of flying was what made many people backtrack over old content until they had repped up enough, or completed enough quests, or explored enough of the new content. People were upset, but they did it. And Blizzard let them know that they’d probably have to do it all over again in Legion.
You’d figure I’d learn.
My Pandaren Warrior was insanely easy to level. First, because he was a Pandaren he had double the normal rested XP as other races. I’m not sure how that worked exactly, but what I do know is that from 100 to 110, I was never OUT of rested XP. That was pretty sweet.
Second, I leveled him as a Protection warrior. At 102 he picked up his Arms artifact weapon, and I dumped all my artifact points into it. Still, even with what would be considered an underpowered artifact, from 100 to 11o I died a grand total of TWICE. Both were due to being drunk with indestructibility. I died more than twice during my first World Quest as an Arms warrior. Much, much more.
Third, I leveled using the Legion Companion app. I had followers running the XP missions when I was at work. Each successful mission netted me an entire bubble of XP. That’s actually how I dinged 110. I completed a mission on the app, logged in a little later in the day, and I was 110. How about that?
I’d already been through most of the content on my DK, and my Warrior was going to be my profession mule. He was all about the Mining and Blacksmithing, both of which don’t really kick in as far as making serious gold until 110. I’m greedy like that, so the push was on to cap him.
Dinging 110 was somewhat satisfying until I started finishing class hall quests and found myself rewarded with followers who were 103. Clearly, I had some work to do, like:
- Gear. Much like during the WoD crunch, much of my Warrior’s gear fell behind. He had some quest rewards that brought his iLevel up, but when I had to enter a dungeon as part of the Blacksmithing questline I didn’t have the iLevel to get in. I had to go to the AH and buy a bunch of 780 gear just to finish a quest.
- Rep. World Quests related to professions were going to be beneficial at end game. Unfortunately, because I blitzed through only a couple of zones I found myself lacking the Friendly reputation with a few factions. I had to go back, start over at 110, and go through quests until I hit Friendly with the faction in question. Then off to another zone, rinse and repeat.
Leveling in Legion is more about being efficient than it is about being fast. Truth is, you’re going to have to visit every zone if you’re interested in World Quests. You’re going to have to finish every zone, or at least to the point where you receive the dungeon quest for the zone, if you want to fly.
As the Pandarens say, “Slow down.”
(Editor’s Note – I realize the irony of a post warning against leveling quickly, right after a post discussing the quickest way to level. Relax and follow what you will.)
Rokk Talk 