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Alpha to Omega – Mists of Pandaria
“Rise and Grind, Nerds!” – Odingreen
Out of the entire leveling stretch, Mists of Pandaria was the expansion I was dreading the most. I HATED leveling in MoP. I know hate is a strong word, but it’s the best I could come up with without getting too colorful or graphic. It gets the point across without me telling you that leveling through Pandaria was the drizzling shits. Back in the day, just the thought of questing through MoP gave me a frustration headache, a stress-clenched jaw, and the sensation that I’d just swallowed a swarm of bees that had dined on nothing but tequila and bad intentions. It was during that expansion that I actually walked away from WoW for an entire year. Unsubbed, never looked back.
It was that bad.
I tried to put my finger on what exactly red-lined my stress when it came to MoP. The quests were… fine, I guess? I think it was the sheer distance to get from point A to point B by land that made the whole procedure feel like it took sooooo long. Riding from hub to hub felt like someone slowly dragging their fingernails across a chalkboard. Even after the xp squish that comes with old content, I only leveled two characters through the content. Luckily they’d already started the grind, so it was less of an issue to get them through.
But Odingreen had to get through Pandaria from start to finish. Even with a few Elixirs of the Rapid Mind, it still wasn’t a walk in the park. It probably took twice as long as the Cataclysm stretch did. There were a few times when minutes of travel ticked off the Elixir of the Rapid Mind without anything happening except travel. There were a few good quest hubs, followed by saddle sores.
Odingreen’s Tips for Leveling From 85 to 90 Using the Elixir of the Rapid Mind
- Patience, Grasshopper. Pandaria was not RM friendly, that’s for damn sure. It took three RM, with questing in between to fill in the gaps between hubs, to get from 85 to 90. With no flying, and quite a bit of space between hubs, the time dragged like an anchor. Kun-Lai was a beast to get around. Avoid that piece of property if you can.
- No Dungeons. If you’re going lone wolf, stay away from these dungeons. There’s too many cute little mechanics going on that seems to befuddle groups. If you really want to enjoy the experience then run them solo once you get to 100.
Yeah, not much to sing about when it came to Mists of Pandaria. The best part was leaving it in the rearview mirror when Odingreen flew to Timeless Isle, went for a swim, and took the shortcut to Draenor.
Alpha to Omega – Cataclysm
Had to take a picture to remember even being there.
As with most things I do, it isn’t until after I finish something that I realize there’s something more there to discuss. Sometimes I’ll backtrack, sometimes I’ll address it in the future. I mentioned things in the last Alpha to Omega post that I should have put a bit more focus on. I feel there were topics that just didn’t get their due attention.
Take now, for example. Specifically the Elixirs of the Rapid Mind. This is great for leveling when you’ve been through the process a few times, give or take a dozen. I was actually starting to get to that leveling burnout point with Odingreen once he’d reached level 73. I was so tempted that I mentioned my dilemma on Twitter, hoping to stir some kind of conversation or at least get some feedback.
The retweet was nice at least.
So to help to get through the leveling grind, Odingreen bought a few of these elixirs from the AH and put them to work. As I mentioned in my last post, they really helped me push through the burnout wall.
Now that Odingreen had jumped into a new pool of content, the question became how to make the most of these elixirs in Cataclysm content. We’re talking five levels here. How fast could Odingreen get through those levels using the Elixir of the Rapid Mind?
Answer: Less than an hour.
There are guides on Youtube, quite a few in fact, for leveling quickly through Cataclysm. The key to them, so they say, is by grinding dungeons under the influence of the Elixir of the Rapid Mind. But those videos, for the most part, are a bit misleading. What these videos forget to mention is that for the dungeon crushing to be effective, you also need a level 100 friend to carry you through them. He (or she) kills the dungeon while you either stand at the entrance, or follow behind at a safe distance.
Of course, if you have a well-geared friend who is willing to subject himself (or herself) to this, then by all means go for it. However if you’re solo for whatever reason (we’re all friends here, we don’t judge), then just pop an E of the RM and quest. It might not be as OMG WFT BBQ fast as being carried repeatedly through dungeons, but it’s still pretty damn silly fast.
As far as Cataclysm content goes, well here’s some “sage” advice from the Muscle Mage himself, Odingreen.
Odingreen’s Tips for Leveling From 80 to 85 Using the Elixir of the Rapid Mind
- Avoid Dungeons when using The Elixir. “It’s just not worth risking your time. Sure you can drink it just as the final boss is about to die, but if you’re in a PuG then you definitely don’t want to risk wasting the elixir (and gold, cause these damn things aren’t cheap) by chugging it when you first start your dungeon run. You may have facerolled through Outland and Northrend, but in my experience there are more people who tend to, how should I put this, have their head stuck up their ass as they push content. They wouldn’t know hard work if it jumped up and bit them in the ass. Adversity, for them, involves whining and kicking people who don’t overpower the content and can’t carry their lazy asses. There’s no leveling gainz to be made that way. Don’t waste your buffed time and precious gold on Johnny Waddafak knowing how to work the boss mechanics. If you want to run dungeons for loot, achievements, or whatever, then do it without wasting an elixir.”
- Quest hard and often. “This is where you make fast and sizeable leveling gainz. I took a hit of the RM just as I was about to hand in four quests at a group hub, and just bounced from there. There’s plenty of questing hubs available in Mt Hyjal, Deepholm, and… well I can’t speak for the other places because I didn’t have to go there. Yeah. Five levels, two zones, fourth wall be damned.”
- Finish off your RM before leaving the zone. “Cataclysm is the Land of the Song and Dance. There’s cutscenes for the cutscenes, for Chrissake! Every new zone you go to involves a production of some kind. The last thing you want to do is have RM rolling while you watch video roll, and you have to knock off a quest or two before you even get into the zone. If you’ve got plenty of time left, then risk it if you want. But generally I’d suggest sticking around and getting more quests done until the RM wears off rather than waste precious time moving from zone to zone.”
- Pull the pin at 85. “That thing I just said? Yeah, about that. I did 80 to 82.5 in Mt. Hyjal, at 82.5 to 85 in Deepholm. Once you reach 85, the experience from quest rewards drop off a cliff, headfirst. I went from around 50,000 xp at 84, to 14,000 xp a couple of quests later at 85. As a mage my transition from Cataclysm to Mists of Pandaria was pretty quick because teleports. Also, I’m good like that. It probably took me about five minutes from the time I ported to Stormwind to the time I completed my first quest in Pandaria. Granted there were a couple of quests that I had to complete on my way to Panda Land, but those rewards easily offset the low xp I would have earned had I stayed in Deepholm to finish off my RM.”
Elixir of the Rapid Mind + Heirlooms = powerleveling in a bottle.
Rokk Talk 