Tome of the Ancient

There’s Ironsally cowering on the Riplash Strand in Borean Tundra. How embarrassing Cat had to see her that way and now thanks to me you’ve all seen her too. Few levels have past since she last checked in but, wow, things in-game have changed and not in a good way. We’re not in Kansas anymore Toto.

Sally’s plan had been to stay in Outland on hitting 70 and trying to get to 71. She still had parts of Blade’s Edge, Netherstorm and all of Shadowmoon Valley ahead of her. It was a good plan in theory but after slogging away at quests and moving at glacial speed she noticed that with rested bonus a kill of a level 72 netted her about 120 xp. What? Then she noticed that quests were giving much less xp too, even though they were still yellow. Well hell, Sally wasn’t sticking around there anymore.

Off she went to Dalaran to get her shiny new Wand of Onyx which would be her last wand upgrade. Sally had been lucky in Silithus and by selling a Disgusting Oozeling  she was able to train Artisan Riding. Excited to be in Northrend she decided to just fly around for a while, discovering a few zones for easy xp. Little did she know what was coming.

When she stopped sightseeing and flew to Borean Tundra to get to work, boy did she get a rude awakening. Maybe everyone else knows this, maybe I knew this and forgot. The level 69 mobs in Outland are nothing like the level 69 mobs in Northrend. Holy Moly, we are getting our butt kicked! Help!

Ironsally decided she needed to up her intimidation factor in Northrend, sorry Cat.

My thoughts on how far Sally’s going? Sally has a synergistic relationship with her minion. The two make a whole and without each other they’re toast. My non-ironman Warlock isn’t quite the same. As a rule she’ll have three or four mobs going at once and sometimes she’s tanking, this is impossible for Sally. That minion is the only thing between her and certain death. If she loses the ability to keep him alive long enough to finish one kill then it will be over.

If Wrath plays out the same way BC did, then she should be able to get to 80. In BC, if she could survive the first zone the rest were doable. Her problem is that she is now having to Health Funnel the Void while killing one regular mob. Since she’s draining her health to do it, she’s in big trouble if an add comes along and finds both Sally and her minion at 50% health. At this point, remembering how hard Cata mobs hit I don’t feel real confidant about making it through to 85 but we’ll worry about hitting 80 right now. I’m going out on a limb and say she can do it, go, go, Ironsally!

The quests in the mine at Farshire resulted in numerous deaths. She’d run in, die. Run in, die. I think she’s now gotten over her fear of dying. I had noticed the mobs hitting like a freight train in Cataclysm but I don’t remember getting to Northrend and noticing anything. I guess that’s the difference in being geared.

There are things to be said for being underpowered though. Sally is the first character who didn’t accidentally and repeatedly kill the Beryl Sorcerer she was trying to capture to torture, so that’s something I guess.

She’s run out of quests with level 68, 69 mobs to kill in Borean Tundra so considering how hard these guys are hitting she going to head to Howling Fjord and do any quests with low levels to kill before returning to Borean Tundra. She’s hoping to complete enough quests to be able to get to 80 before, gulp, Icecrown. She doesn’t think the odds are good for her staying alive long there at all.

We’ll leave her enjoying herself, surfing. Who knows what’s in store for her next, she’d better have fun while she can.

Planning on trying the WoW Ironman Challenge? The Ironman rules are at Psynister’s Notebook.

Ironsally had planned on saying hello at level 70 but she takes copious notes, so to avoid an even longer wall of text she decided to say “Hi” from level 69.

How’s she doing?

Staying alive?

Not so much.

Dying, oh yeah.

Things didn’t really get noticeably harder until reaching the Blade’s Edge Mountains. The problem she’s having is that she can’t get any separation on levels like she could in Azeroth. Quests have to be done at yellow and she’s way too close in level to the mobs. My guess is that there are so many group quests in Outland that she has to pass on she can’t get ahead of the curve. Only time will tell but considering Wrath had many, many, group quests I’m guessing that 70—80 might be harder than 80—85 since Cata has no group quests that I can remember other than Crucible of Carnage. But then I remember just how hard Cata mobs were hitting a well-dressed character, geez, poor Ironsally.

Ironsally keeps whining about Healthstones, she wants me to lift the ban on them. I told her real Ironmen don’t need no stinking Healthstones but we might revisit that argument later on.

At level 66 irl it was thunderstormy and dark outside so I asked Sally to leave the dreary Bone Wastes for a while and move on to Nagrand where the weather was nicer. Higher level zone, but if you have to die it’s a lovely place to do it. She was really motivated to level as she had some level 67 clothes she was anxious to try on.

It’s interesting that on Zangarmarsh there are actually characters of an appropriate level in all the zones. I don’t think I’ve ever done a /who in Nagrand on Fenris and seen anyone other than an 85 in the zone. In Nagrand Sally finally gave in and started to take a death to thin a crowd if needed.

At level 67 armed with some new white armor (it’s hard to keep a straight face calling it armor) about the easiest quest she had in Nagrand was Murkblood Invaders. Three level 67’s, didn’t look good for her. First try she died, those Murkbloods seem a little smarter than the average mob. She sent in the Voidwalker, let him get aggro before casting and they still came running for her. Next try she decided to blow her mana and try sending in the big guns, the Infernal. That did the trick.

In Blade’s Edge, things started getting tough on Ride the Lightning. Getting hit by lightning 25 times took freaking forever as she could only live through two strikes, sheesh, wasn’t pleasant for Sally.

On dinging 69, the only quests that went green were Talbuk Mastery and Bring Me The Egg!. Sally went back to Nagrand and managed to take down Bach’lor but she didn’t try Bring Me The Egg. There’s been too much senseless death (Sally’s) lately and I remember the Matriarch being considerably harder than Bach’lor. She wanted a shot of her victory over Bach’lor and this was the best she got. She had to move on because the area was infested with Mountain Gronn and the Voildwalker kept complaining about the weeds cutting into him.

For anyone who actually finishes the Ironman I think there should be a new achievement, Catastrophically Common has a nice ring to it.

Ironsally had to pay 200 gold for her hat so thought she should at least see what it looked like. She was delighted, she thinks it makes her look very Harrison Jonesish. Hang on Harrison, she’s coming!

Planning on trying the WoW Ironman Challenge? The Ironman rules are at Psynister’s Notebook.

Ironsally longs for Azeroth, the land of mini hubs that send you out with 3 or 4 quests all nicely grouped together. The land of easy drop rate. Kill ten tigers, get ten tiger toes. Now she’s in Outland, need ten worg tails, kill eleventy billion worg. She shouldn’t complain, it’s xp however slow. You know those kill ten fill in the blank quests you get that you just blow through? Now they matter, everything matters.

Every little aspect of each quest is important now. I don’t know how long Sally spent hovering over Raastok Glade to be sure she knew the number of stealthed Warp Stalkers in the area so she’d know a safe position to land. All this for a kill ten Warp Stalker quest. Everything has slowed way down but I don’t really notice as I have to do so much planning and thinking over simple tasks.

There have been moments of terror. Sally had food she got in a Package of Identified Plants, she thought it was just regular old food and ate some. Imagine her horror when she saw a buff pop up. She clicked that off so fast and threw away the food, looking over her shoulder. Cheater, cheater, it’s like Sally thought the Ironman Police were lurking behind a mushroom.

There was a moment in Zangarmarsh that she felt almost godlike. She was on a killing spree. This isn’t that hard, I don’t know why I was thinking it was. She’d been killing Spore Bats for a quest and hadn’t noticed she got the buff Energizing Spores. You wouldn’t believe what a difference that attribute increase of 30 made. She went on a Spore Bat killing rampage but never got it again, it was five minutes of bliss.

She hasn’t had any lolnoob comments on her attire yet but I attribute that to the fact that she plays off peak hours and doesn’t go into town. She’s dying more now, sometimes it’s just stupid player mistakes like touring Zangarmarsh by air and not paying attention and getting one shot by a guard in Zabra’jin, another time she got swarmed by Ravagers. She had a hell of a hard time with The Path of Anguish particularly the Flamewaker Imps.

To be honest Hellfire Peninsula has always creeped me out so I was probably an influence in her decision to move on to Zangarmarsh to gain a level before coming back to Hellfire. The mobs were higher level but by picking easier quests, and not having the stress of listening for Fel Reaver footsteps she did fine and returned to Hellfire with another level under her belt.

As far as killing she opens with Curse of the Elements,  Immolate,  Corruption, and Bane of Doom  after that it really depends on who she’s fighting, what her mana and heath situation is and whether it looks like there might be the danger of adds. She just got Incinerate so once in a while if she’s sure there won’t be adds and she’ll have time to get her mana back after the fight she’ll use it, well, because it’s fun. She also moves mobs around with her Voidwalker a lot more than my regular Warlock does to minimize adds.

Occasionally the Voidwalker glitches and refuses to help, not a problem with one mob but a really serious problem with an add, I think he does it to make her appreciate him more. Sally thinks she’ll make it to 70 but after that she’s not so sure, just have to wait and see. Since it gets a little lonely out there and the Voidwalker isn’t much company, he just complains all the time like a kid on a long car ride, she purchased a cat. He’s good company although he keeps scaring the heck out of her by running up behind her out of nowhere. Silly cat.

She sends her love and says she’d imagine it will be a while before you hear from her again. She’s shooting for 75 next, I got my fingers crossed for her but we’ll see what happens.