Enhancement Goblin – My First Horde Character

Here I go again. This time I’m leveling another enhancement Shaman on the horde side, and again without the benefit of Heirloom gear. Actually, I had enough points on my paladin on the Alliance side that was able to purchase one Venerable Mass of McGowan.

Yes, I know there is the chest and shoulder piece that give me extra XP, but I so love the dps this amazing mace can produce, and it has served me well keeping me at the top of the dps meters on just about every random dungeon group I have been in. The only time I would lose the dps race is when I was grouped with someone in full heirloom gear. Considering I am usually in greens well below my current level, I am extremely pleased with my performance.

Sadly, I only had enough points for the one Venerable Mass of McGowan, and I was in no mood to run any more dungeons with my tank to get the necessary points for a second Venerable Mass of McGowan.

As far as the losing out on the extra xp boost from using heirloom gear, I believe Blizzard has made it a lot easier to level a new character even without the boost. I managed to reach level 60 in 2 days of /played time, AND I am leveling a Horde character – my first! Not easy since I am unfamiliar with Horde zones and the best places to quest.

As you may or may not know leveling your gathering professions takes time away from leveling your character since you are not usually killing mobs. Blizzard made it worth the effort in Cataclysm to level your gathering professions by giving xp when you mine ore or gather herbs. So naturally I took advantage of it by leveling mining and herbalism.

I almost always choose to level herbalism AND mining until I get into the 70s or 80s before I will switch to a crafting profession. There is rarely anything useful at lower levels worth crafting, and frankly I would much rather have a few thousand gold in the bank from selling herbs and ore than crafting an item that will only be useful for a couple of levels.

The only exception to choosing a crafting profession at the beginning would be enchanting. As you quest and run dungeons you will gain tons of green and blue armor and weapons, most of which will not benefit your class. It only makes sense to disenchant those items as they represent the raw materials you will need to level your enchanting. And anytime you outgrow your gear you can disenchant that too.

Now, I plan on dropping Herbalism to pick up Engineering soon. In fact, I am at level 71 now and I am currently gathering the necessary materials to make the switch to Engineering at level 72. I spent 2 hours gathering Fel Iron and a few other items I was missing from Outlands. I will be spending most of my time this evening mining Cobalt ore. I wouldn’t be surprised if I leveled to 72 simply by mining ore. I have about 6 bars to go. I managed to gain 1.5 levels on one of my characters simply by mining.

I will miss herbalism – it has made me a lot of gold… a LOT more than mining has, but I do want my first epic, Truesight Ice Blinders, and I want it sooner than later.

That’s it for now. Until next time…

Take care and aloha!
~Mòóse