Edit: I appear to have forgotten to write a title. Problem solved!

[thistlechaser]

First off, look at the amazing picture of Thistle done by Sego! Now look at this post's icon, then look at the picture again. Eeee, it's the same, but with Penny all grown up! (And Thistle dyed his hair between the two pictures.)

Secondly, last night's RP didn't happen. Le sigh! It kind of worked out, as I was seriously brain dead. I happened into a bit of random RP tonight though, so yay!

Thirdly, depending on what your WoW goals are, I can't recommend the RAF leveling experience. If you're just interested in getting to max level and raiding or whatever, then it's great. But for me, once an alt hits 85, I drop them and just use their professions, nothing else. I'm leveling a hunter/mage pair, and it's just such a lacking experience. The mage rarely gets touched, other than when I have to un-AFK him. I can't enjoy leveling the hunter because I'm always distracted by making sure the mage is following and that he picked up/turned in the quests, got his quest items, got credit, etc.

I feel like a horrible player because I haven't touched professions on them. Usually I do herb/mining as I level (free XP! lots of gold!), but how could I keep the two generally even while paired up?

Mage seems like it would have been fun to level. The abilities seem powerful and handy. (Seems like it would rock in PvP, too.)

Since the boys are leveling so fast, I decided to buy no gear at the AH and sell any BoE that drops. I figured, hey, the quest rewards would do them fine, right? They're level 66 now, and the mage is still wearing one white and one grey piece, both from the belf starter zone. Neither cloth gloves nor boots have been the reward from any quest we've done so far. It boggles me. Luckily a full set of heirlooms makes up for a lot.

On the other side of the RAF coin, I'm still in love with the mount. Easily my favorite mount ever. One thought did strike me though: The flying cat mounts from JC in MoP, I bet they're going to be just recolors of this, sort of like they're adding in a recoloring of the giant golden RL money dragon mount. That's going to be sad, they'll be a lot less special then.

...that whole RAF part came out sounding a lot more negative than I meant it.

Comments

[segoryder.livejournal.com]

Having alts with professions is super convenient though! When I transferred just my rogue over I was seriously stressing how I was going to juggle the professions because I was going to play both horde and alliance. I'm still sorting it out, it seems as long as you have a miner you're set for a lot of things.

Personally, I LOVE leveling! You're so damn OP and everything is easy! With MoP so close though, having a few 85's to start yourself off there would be really nice too.

I'M GLAD YOU LIKE YOUR PICTURE.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I have 10 85s now, so if these two both make it to 85 before MoP drops, that will be 12 alts to do 85-90. I don't know how I'll do it and stay sane!

And yes, we really are OP now. I did that whole questline in Nagrand, kill 15 birds/elephants/talbuks, kill another 15, kill the named one of each, kill the final boss. I "soloed" it all on the hunter (the mage cast maybe two spells total). In the past, I wasn't able to kill even the named ones, let alone the final one! I wasn't even above the quest level, either.

And YES! Love it!

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

They made it so the named ones aren't elites/group quests anymore, silly.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Oh! I couldn't remember if they had been elite or not before. Well that explains that...

[peppygrowlithe.livejournal.com]

Great commission. The glowy eyes are awesome.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Not even a commission! A GIFT! I nearly fell over!

[doxxxicle.livejournal.com]

I am flabbergasted at how you managed to get level 66 with some slots still using white/grey gear. I think on every character I've ever played, I usually have green gear in every slot by the time I leave the starter area and definitely by level 20. Are you skipping quests?

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Are you skipping quests?

Yep. That's the tricky part. Pre-60, I was doing just a couple quests before moving onto the next zone. RAF gives you a triple XP bonus on quests and killing mobs, so you zoom through areas. So mostly it was just bad luck that I wasn't hitting quests that offered cloth gloves/boots rewards.

I did get a quest with cloth boots late yesterday! So now I'm just down to the grey gloves.

RAF XP bonus stops at 80, so if I don't replace the gloves by then, I'll buy some.

But really, I could have kept the mage in nothing but greys and whites. He really does nothing, he's just on /follow behind the hunter.

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

That's how it is with RAF/granting levels. You level so quickly it's ridiculous. I've gotten to 80 with completely empty slots before, in fact.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I can believe that. I finally got a gloves upgrade in Northrend, so none of the slots are white/grey anymore! It's almost too bad, it amused me still having starter zone gloves on.

[prettyredeyes.livejournal.com]

Haha! I love RAF leveling for all the reasons you listed. XD I love zooming through zones and getting the max level. I hate hate hate leveling so I determine if a class is fun to play by all the shiny I can do at max level. X3 Mage is pretty fun to level though, but the experience is blegh because.. I'm leveling. >_>

Good on you to go with a pet class/clothie combo. I usually do the same, only I did a warlock with my mage for the felguard and did two casters because I have a slim little dual box program that echoes my keybindings and they could cast at the same time. :3

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

The combo was recommended to me by Kel, I believe! Clothie and "something you like and find easy". It's a sensible thing to do. Hunter makes things soooo easy, and I'll end up with a portal slave! Once I'm done leveling, I'm going to park him in Org and Dal and abuse him muchly.

I only wish Outlands had gone as fast. A week of torture! Ugh. But finally 68!

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

What's fun is true dual boxing. I did a pair of hunters. It was so funny how fast things died. I actually did a few dungeons like that, and other than the stress of trying to get stuff looted on both chars, it was amazing. Each one of my hunters did twice as much damage as the third dps. I don't know that I'll ever do that again, but I'm so glad I did it once.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah. If it was earlier in the process, I'd look up how to set it up. When the mage casts his one big spell, things die speedy fast.