Stormrage - Odd question for Gnolack

[Kevin]

Warning I do have a question in here, but I take my typically long time to get to it. :) So I've added a few bolded phrases for when you just can't take it anymore and need to see the question. :)

So I've been putzing and putzing on getting the mats together for a lionheart helm for Gnolack, putzing for more than a year actually. I probably could have done this months ago, but regardless he needs better DPS than what he has especially since I'm often doing DPS jobs in raids now. You can even argue that lionheart is better than helm of endless rage.

Lionheart: 18 str, 2% crit, 2% to hit OR 36 AP, 2% crit, 2% to hit
Endless Rage: 26 str, 26 agi, 29 stam OR 52 AP, 1.3% crit, 290 HP

As far as the damage you wil do wearing one or the other, Lionheart will be better if you don't have much other +hit. It's a lot of HP to give up in DPS gear for sure, but I can make up for that with a few other choices. Part of the reason I had been holding off was I really wanted to make my own, but well I'll never get the pattern so eh.


So the helm takes a fair chunk of mats. 12 arcanite bars, 40 wicked claws, 10 blue sapphires and 4 azerothian diamonds, 80 thorium.

I'm sitting at 4 arcanite bars (I had more but I turned some into converters for the dungeon 2 upgrade quests for people), 34 claws, 8 sapphires, 2 diamonds, 67 thorium.

The rest of the claws will be simple, the thorium will be simple as I keep mining, and if I get the 8 more arcane crystals I need I'll likely get the 2 diamonds and sapphires. If I collect mats on mats on my own, I might be able to get it done in 2 or 3 weeks. That's fine. I'm not asking for donations and I will actually turn them down if you try to make them.


OK GG, I've read all this, what is the question? - Well I do plan on buying some of the mats, but I'm not a huge fan of any type of farming that doesn't help character progession. In the past, before I capped Balador I used him to do level grinding in the Blasted Lands collecting and storing mats for lung juice cocktails, R.O.I.D.S., etc. Got a couple of levels doing that with him and finally used up most the mats the other day. So I've thought about cheating a bit.

Here's some of the plan. Gnolack actually has a couple of epics, and hopes to get a few more soon, that are DE or Vendor bait at this stage. There is no situation or potential respec that would have me wear them again. The most valuable, the Obsidian Edged Blade, sells for just over 12 gold. That doesn't seem bad, but these things will DE into 1 or 2 nexus crystals that seem to be 50-100 gold on the AH. I could if I get lucky on the DE's end up with 2-6 crystals or 100-600 gold or so worth of DE's of items that I won't use anymore (there is one item I'm still debating on). That would be enough to buy 3-20 arcane crystals to make bars with (and Eth can make the bars I've got her sitting on another mute).

Gnolack is a miner/armorsmith. I'm not dropping armorsmithing, there are some rare patterns I've gotten, the whole enchanted thorium line for one, that I don't want to lose even if no one wants the product I can make with it anymore. That would mean dropping mining.

There are two advantages to this. As I reskilled mining after doing the DE's the copper, tin, iron, mithril, and thorium could be sold for profit and I could potentially even get more of the mats I still might need from the still back up.

OK GG, you still haven't asked any questions!. So finally here is the question. About how long, if you don't buy or get ore to smelt from others, does it take to go from 1-300 mining? I've got tons of nodes mapped and don't think I need help planning it out, but I'm wondering if the 6-8 hours of game time that I'm thinking (since some of this would have to be done in peak times where there could be strong node competition) is too long or two short. I know there are some people that have done this before and I'm just wondering.

My plan is to farm up at least 2 more arcane crystals before I do anything at all about it though, so there is time.

The other factor is that Balador is also a 300 miner (he's a goblin engineer) so I might not even have to skill up mining again on Gnolack and leave him as an armorsmith/(dis)enchanter. Thoughts on that? I see more value in having a chanter at high levels and the fact that I will outgrow some of these epics and the value of nexus crystals just makes me think it might be a better revenue generator for me than mining is since I just don't grind or farm much at all anymore with him.

[Mirajj]

I guess the easiest answer to your question would be "It depends". It depends on when you are doing this, what kind of competition can you expect from the nodes. Would you feel guilty running around lowbie areas on your epic mount getting every node you can possibly find and then some?

I would imagine that you could go from 1-250 pretty quick. But when you have to start competing for hotly contested spawns, it'll slow down some. I don't see 6-8 hours /played as out of the realm of possiblity, though. But it would really depend on when this is done.

[Concillian]

I just did 1-300 mining again on Lianne after powering up tailoring to make Robe of the Void.

It took me about two weeks of mining in my spare time.

Copper -- circle Mulgore (Loch Modan works okay here, but Mulgore has a way to smelt while you're circling it) took me about 2 hours and I saved all the copper
Tin -- bought some at the AH and did some 1k needles mining to level up high enough to smelt bronze and milk that for all it's worth.
Silver -- I had a small stockpile of silver ore that helped here, otherwise this is a real sticking point between tin and Iron
Bloodstone Ore and Iron -- Arathi Highlands. "That Cave" is good for skillups, and once you're done with Bloodstone Ore, there is plenty of iron along the way south into the troll areas and 2 nodes in the cave there.

Mithril -- Southern Tanaris, I didn't hit anything in a hive, just circled between the hive in the far south and the one just north of the path to Un'Goro. Go along the edge, then come back across by the Ogre camp, there are two spawns in the mountains there.

I assume you have a similar luxury to me in that you can leave a char logged out and off in the middle of nowhere for a while, because Tanaris mining Mithril takes a while. I never really had to compete with people in these locations, but I don't know if Stormrage is different.

Be sure to have a set of mining gloves, this get's you up quicker and helps get over the hump on the worst sections (tin --> iron and mithril --> small thorium).

As for the decision, I don't think I could mine with sanity if I only had one miner. The way I mine is to leave Conc and Lianne logged out in different places with RTVs and go back and forth between about 5 or 6 different spawn locations within the respawn timer. I start going crazy if I have only one, since I'll often end up going for some of the more out of the way veins (the ones that mainly rogues get by stealthing past stuff or like the one in Un'goro in the Volcano) and I get off-track and inevitably lose my rhythm with the vein spawn timers.

[Kevin]

I just did 1-300 mining again on Lianne after powering up tailoring to make Robe of the Void.

It took me about two weeks of mining in my spare time.

Copper -- circle Mulgore (Loch Modan works okay here, but Mulgore has a way to smelt while you're circling it) took me about 2 hours and I saved all the copper
Tin -- bought some at the AH and did some 1k needles mining to level up high enough to smelt bronze and milk that for all it's worth.
Silver -- I had a small stockpile of silver ore that helped here, otherwise this is a real sticking point between tin and Iron
Bloodstone Ore and Iron -- Arathi Highlands. "That Cave" is good for skillups, and once you're done with Bloodstone Ore, there is plenty of iron along the way south into the troll areas and 2 nodes in the cave there.

Mithril -- Southern Tanaris, I didn't hit anything in a hive, just circled between the hive in the far south and the one just north of the path to Un'Goro. Go along the edge, then come back across by the Ogre camp, there are two spawns in the mountains there.

I assume you have a similar luxury to me in that you can leave a char logged out and off in the middle of nowhere for a while, because Tanaris mining Mithril takes a while. I never really had to compete with people in these locations, but I don't know if Stormrage is different.

Be sure to have a set of mining gloves, this get's you up quicker and helps get over the hump on the worst sections (tin --> iron and mithril --> small thorium).

As for the decision, I don't think I could mine with sanity if I only had one miner. The way I mine is to leave Conc and Lianne logged out in different places with RTVs and go back and forth between about 5 or 6 different spawn locations within the respawn timer. I start going crazy if I have only one, since I'll often end up going for some of the more out of the way veins (the ones that mainly rogues get by stealthing past stuff or like the one in Un'goro in the Volcano) and I get off-track and inevitably lose my rhythm with the vein spawn timers.

Copper - I can get just fine in Dun Morogh (the gnome/dwarf start area outside IF and I could smelt it there as well. I think Durotar has a higher node density than Mulgore as well.

Tin - I can get some in Loch Modan while copper is still green for skill-ups as well just have to get up to bloodstone like you said, that cave is simply awesome for pushing the skill.

Iron - Arathi is fine to finisht that up

Mithril - You went to the wrong place for Mithril. You can not beat circling Charred Vale for Mithril. I've done round-ups in there I literally get more than a mithril a minute doing it and there is generally very little competition doing it.


I can leave people logged in remote places, but I generally don't simple because I generally don't mine that much anymore. I've never pushed myself to make money in the game unless I have a specific goal, most of the engineering stuff that my paladin can make has very little use in the raids he mostly goes on, and for the smithing I don't need mats to make anything anymore. I don't have any real use for high level ammo or anything like that. I pretty much just go out now and then to get enough stone to have enough sharpening stones (elemental or dense depending) for my warrior.

So I have two methods of mining, when I want to be a zombie and just doing countless circles is fine. Or when I'm doing it as a side thing to kill farming. So lately I've been primarily focused on killing the elementals in Un'Goro and just getting ore every now and then (and since I know that if a node pops on the Volcano that one or two nodes have popped in Terror Run I can usually hit 4-8 nodes in an hour of killing fire elementals). I don't know how long it takes for a node to repop, I've never bothered to even try to learn it. I don't think I would enjoy your method of mining even though I know I would get more ore per unit of time doing it. It would be just like playing the Auction House. I could do it, and in ways I would be happier in game because I would have all 3 of my epic mounts on Stormrage instead of just two, and I would already have had a Lionheart Helm and Stronghold Gauntlets and anything else I wanted (some of the darkmoon decks for instance) to buy instead of hovering around a certian gold level. But I am very rarely driven to do anything like that. I need to find more enjoyment in the process of getting to the end goal than that provides.

My motivation for doing this now is more for an excuse to play one of my high level toons on Stormrage in a method that allows me time to socialize more often than anything else. There is some motivation to progress the character and to make him better thus making the raids he is in better, but not a lot. I still end up having much of the time I play WoW outside of the raids broken down into 1 to 2 hour chunks which starts to eliminate instance runs (15 - 20 minutes of getting the group ready and traveling doesn't leave enough time to run many places even at the zerg speeds we can push). So running around mining seems like it could be an effective thing to do.

The only other option would be some of the solo grinding for the Darkmoon or CC rep items or some of the solo AD rep grinding I can still do (I've only got 1 of the 3 L60's to revered on Stormrage right now). I'll likely end up doing that at some point too the darkmoon amulet especially would be a big upgrade for the druid in feral form, but I'm still "along for the ride" most of the time when I'm playing recently. I'd have to look.

PvP isn't an option on SR becuase it takes longer than an hour or two to get into a match. If I could get matches like I could on Terenas after at most a 15 minute queue I would do a lot more PvP.

So there is more of the motivation behind this. Remember this is the guy who generally doesn't fixate on gear for any reason. If I did, you would be doing nothing but tribute runs on Terenas or nothing but hearing about them when I was on Marn. :)

[Tuftears]

I can toss you some wicked claws if you want!

[Ruvanal]

For doing some of the skillups to rebuild mining, I suggest some of the following. Estimate the amount of skill ups you will get from smelting copper, bronze, silver and gold* prior to dropping mining. Go out and collect about that amount raw ore on each and then drop the mining. Then when you go back you can do a fair portion of the reskill from just hitting the create all button when reach each of those smelting points. The copper can be very important in this reguard as you can get a lot of failed mining hits during those first few skill points.

gold* I have enough gold ore stockpiled on Zosca that you should be able to go from the point of learning gold smelting to the point of no longer skilling on it from the smelting. I had done a similar thing with skilling up Shadrack at the gold smelting stage and it took less than half of what I currently have stockpiled to do so.

[Kevin]

For doing some of the skillups to rebuild mining, I suggest some of the following. Estimate the amount of skill ups you will get from smelting copper, bronze, silver and gold* prior to dropping mining. Go out and collect about that amount raw ore on each and then drop the mining. Then when you go back you can do a fair portion of the reskill from just hitting the create all button when reach each of those smelting points. The copper can be very important in this reguard as you can get a lot of failed mining hits during those first few skill points.

gold* I have enough gold ore stockpiled on Zosca that you should be able to go from the point of learning gold smelting to the point of no longer skilling on it from the smelting. I had done a similar thing with skilling up Shadrack at the gold smelting stage and it took less than half of what I currently have stockpiled to do so.

See this is a good plan, but part of the reasoning for not optimizing it is so that I can simply be on Stormrage talking with people while I wandering around looking for low level nodes to mine. :) Sure I would be on getting the stuff stockpiled in the first place, but the whole process would be faster and I would have to store the ore as well (which would simply be a mail off and bounce back later). If I don't optimize I just smelt and Auction the bars as I go.



And on a general note, I've still not really heard comment on the idea of just dropping mining and leaving it dropped and just being an armorsmith/enchanter. I do have an actual enchanter, my L41 mage (258 skill now I think), but I'm curious. Nexus crystals have value, more than what epics sell for, and I will grow out of more of my epics.

[Kevin]

So um I got the helm of endless rage tonight. Didn't expect to get it this soon, so now I have to think again about if I want to bother with this or take up some other task. :)

It's not a simple thing because I'm not at +5% to hit yet, I could get there with lionheart, but I can only get to +3 without it. Probably best to spend time looking at other gear. Getting the X-bow reward from the Perfect Poison quest would be good on that front. Ah well I might still do it anyway, the lionheart that is. :)

[Concillian]

It's not a simple thing because I'm not at +5% to hit yet, I could get there with lionheart, but I can only get to +3 without it. Probably best to spend time looking at other gear. Getting the X-bow reward from the Perfect Poison quest would be good on that front. Ah well I might still do it anyway, the lionheart that is. :)

Well if your DPS pants aren't incredible, Titanic Leggings are almost like Lionheart Helm for your legs, and the mats are similar. Some of the best DPS pants around with the only major weak point being lack of Stamina, and I'm guessing you have a reasonable amount of stam gear.

[TheDragoon]

There aren't many good plate DPS pants out there. Titanic is ok (but lacks stamina) and the blue pants off of Rajaxx in AQ20 are getting upgraded in 1.11. Otherwise, it is either the Silithus pants or Eldritch Reinforced Legplates until you can get Scaled Sand Reaver Leggings or Conqueror's Legplates from AQ40. Titanic might be a good thing to look for. Plus, if you have the money, you could buy the pattern and make them for yourself (which getting more armorsmithing done!).

[Tuftears]

Hey, any time you want to do the Perfect Poison questage, you know who to look up.:)

Oh, and Legplates of the Qiraji Commander are going to get significantly buffed as DPS pants in 1.11.

[teske]

Hey, any time you want to do the Perfect Poison questage, you know who to look up.:)

Oh, and Legplates of the Qiraji Commander are going to get significantly buffed as DPS pants in 1.11.

For those, wo are like me, wondering what this means:
Old Legplates of the Qiraji Command
35 Str
15 Sta
New Legplates of the Qiraji Command
+20 Str
+13 Sta
2% crit

Can someone point me to a list of which items in AQ20(/ZG?) will change?