Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Recruit A Lae

This is me!

So, I went and did it... I recruited myself to the game and paid for 2 months worth of game time so that I could get a mount. And... It wasn't the first time either. I did the same thing 2 years ago for the rocket. I guess I should feel bad about it, but the only thing I feel bad about is not getting the Zhevra while it was still available!


This means that until November I have two accounts. Which I'm planning on taking advantage of. You see, when there is no crazy achievement-hunting and no raid-progression going on, I'm a bit of an altoholic. Small-scale compared to other people I know (you know who you are!), but this week I got my 9th and 10th level 85. I don't do much with my alts as soon as they get max level, they're lucky if they get out once a month to visit the Darkmoon Faire. But I think it's an advantage in raids and in other groups that I know as much as possible about all the classes. My memory isn't perfect, but at least I can say stuff like "Paladins have a nice cooldown-thingie that could be useful for this, don't they?". My raid team is also dicussing whether some of us should have raidready alts for those nights when our composition is really bad. As a pure DPS-class, I feel like I should be one of the volunteers.

Anyway, back to me taking advantage of Recruit A Lae. There is as FAQ that really should be read before anyone decides to try this out. I'm gonna use it to grant levels to a monk alt. They have so cool martial arts moves, a spirit beast talent, a roll and they can use leather. But I don't want to spend ANY time at all in the level 10-85 zones. I want to spend time in Pandaria with my friends. I want to do scenarios, new raids, new dungeons, archaeology (yes), start a farm, do new dailies and perhaps (probably) pet battles. I don't want to do Shadowfang Keep, Hellfire Ramparts and Utgarde Keep. Not at the start anyway. So here's the plan:

Lae levels to 90. She levels professions, caps Valor Points, starts the quest chain for the dragon mount, tries out all the cool new stuff and makes sure she's ready for raiding when the rest of the raid group is.
Some time will have to be spent on an alt with Mining so that Lae can level up her Engineering and Jewelcrafting.
Any spare time after all that will be spent on the little monk. So it will be very limited.

For every two levels gained on the RAF-account, one level can be granted to the main account. It has to be the same server.

I did some testing on this today. I was curious to see whether

  1. the granted level sets the receiver at next level, but at 0 %,
  2. the granted level sets the receiver at the next level, at the same amount of "XP gained this level" or
  3. the granted level puts the receiver at the next level, at the same percentage of the XP bar as it had before.

The test:
I made a level 1 on each account. I leveled the character on the RAF-account to level 3. I killed mobs on the main account until the character was level 1 and 96,5 % (386 XP gained this level). The level 3 granted the level 1 one level. The newly dinged level 2 character was now at 96,4 % (868 XP gained this level).

Knowing that the granting can be done until the monk is 80, I'm gonna want it at a high percentage  so that it's almost 81 with the last level granted. As they're lowering the amount of XP needed from 80-85, that part shouldn't take too long and probably obtainable within 3 zones.

What do I have to do in advance?
  • Level a character to 80. I'll probably go with a hunter for fast questing, dungeons and battlegrounds. This character will be able to grant the monk 39 levels, starting when the monk is 41 and ~ 90 %.
  • Level a character to 41. This character can grant the monk 20 levels, starting when the monk is 21 and ~ 90 %.
  • Level two characters to 21. These characters can grant the monk 10 levels each; one 1-11 and one 11-21.
I'm gonna try to have some fun with this; there are still some reworked starting zones I haven't seen yet. :) Which is what happens when most characters I make are draenei of course...

Other things?
  • Embersilk bags.
  • Heirlooms for 80-85 (only helm and cloak for now).
  • Cata-greens for remaining slots. Some enchants.
  • Renowned Guild Tabard.

By the way, I had my 5 year WoW anniversary this month! Ten 85's don't seem that much if you spread it over 5 years... 5 years of playing, and still "the best expansion so far" is to be launched in a month! :) "The best expansion so far" are the words of a good friend and guild mate that has been playing since Vanilla. He has spent a lot of time on beta, and his credibility is high in my eyes. From what I've seen and heard myself, I think he is absolutely right.

Do you reckon I can do it? :) I'm very grateful if anyone goes over my math!

4 comments:

  1. Congratz on the 85s. I've been playing for 3 years in December and I currently have 6 85s. But I got my main goal of getting all 4 healers 85 and LFR capable before MoP hit (and I get to do it again with a Mistweaver) so I wish you luck in leveling your Monk in MoP! :]

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  2. I played a little of Vanilla, not much, but enough to retain some perspective. I've found that other Vanilla players not prone to the "those were the days" nostalgia are very critical of earlier expanisons, as they should be. Reducing the Grind and winnowing the illusions of choice have been a boon to the game.

    Anyway, as a fellow Hunter with many alts, I caution against having a "raid ready alt", for composition purposes. I have found that my Priest has gotten much, much more attention throughout Cata than my Hunter, because I always had Priest and Hunter ready, and of course, we always needed a healer more than another DPS. I think it's important to instead be adamant "This is the character I wish to progress with, other characters are alts, for alt runs, or for farm runs." LFR gear them out, by all means, but I wouldn't advertise it.

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    Replies
    1. I definitely see your point! But as the raid leader I think I have arrived at a point where I'm ready to do this. The most important thing is to raid with my team, and we've been missing so many classes entire Cataclysm. With all the buffs hunters can bring, I kind of imagine the "bring the alt"-person will often be someone else, but I'm ready for it anyway. Nothing can make me heal though, I'm too bad and stressed. :-)

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