finbogg

Yeah my Night Elf left "home" at level 15 and never looked back. I have my porting stone set to Iron Forge, you can get to almost anywhere with a couple of Griffen rides from there plus you have the bank and the auction house.

DaveNinja

I havent had much chance to play since last week. I'm jonesing for it. Im almost through the westfall stuff (level 18 mage). I have a hard time keeping money since i end up disenschanting lots of green items instead of selling them.

timewaster

any of you high lvl mages? (lvl 40 and up)?
I'm a few levels from maxing my char and looking to start a new char.
with my hunter I can solo stuff 3-4 lvls above me.
Can you do that with a mage?
I'm worried about resistance.
How viable is it as a solo class?

DaveNinja

As a lower level mage (level 18) i can do great one on one and ok against 2 mobs (sheep one of them and then kill the other before the sheep turns back). More that 2 is tough if they're higher level than you. You get hit too much and it makes casting the spells take forever. Also if you get jumped and cant in get range attacks, its harder. If you can pick enemies off one at a time, you rule and usually kill them before they get into melee range.

DaveNinja

Oh yeah, i was going to ask a question:

ABout instances, like the deadmines- how many people do you need for a group? 5? or if you're higher level can you do it with less? Does the instance let you in if you're not in a group?

KirstenS

5 is the max for a group, but you can do an instance with less. I finished one with 2 yesterday, although that isn't recommended unless you're at a much higher level than the mobs. This was Shadowfang Keep, a lvl17-27elite instance, and we were both 30's. I'm a hunter and he's a druid.

Groucho

I bow to you if you can kill Arugal with only a couple level 30's.

I finally got him with a group of four people, all level 30-32 (2 Warlocks, a Mage, and a Shaman). The mage died right before Arugal went down.

KirstenS

We've been playing together for a long time, so we have our system down. I send my cat in for the distraction then hit him with a concussive shot. The druid swoops in and nails him from behind, healing himself if we run into any trouble (I bandage myself with my first aid) while I'm shooting away with my gun and healing my cat. We both have excellent ranged attacks so it works well when Arugal is bouncing around. We died twice during that instance, once when I made a bad pull in the banquet hall, and once when the head wolf guy called all of his wolves in on us. We went through a second time with 4 people (hunter, druid, warlock and warrior), and we breezed through it in about 20 minutes. The druid stood back and did nothing but heal while the rest of us wailed on everything.

trigun

I'm a 51 mage and can solo ok. Fighting enemies 3 levels above might lead to death if your spells get resisted a lot or if a non-sheepable add jumps in. 4 levels above, run.

You will kill things pretty quickly, but will be sitting around drinking water a lot when you solo. In groups, you will use your weakest spells most of the time so that you don't aggro or run out of mana and drag the party down. If things get hairy, then you can burst damage or hit the AoE's.

DaveNinja

I was thinking of trying the Deadmines soon. I'll be a level 18 mage and my wife is a level 19 paladin. Probably not enough. Maybe i'll try to get a guild mate who is a level 21 or 22 hunter to help out. Smaller groups seem like they'd be the best since its more loot and exp for each member.
If you die in the instance, do you get booted from it or does it take your whole party dying to get thrown out?

DaveNinja

trigun: do you end up using a wand a lot in a group to conserve mana? also what talent tree did you put most of you points into? At first i was going to go for frost then decided on fire just to get the big initial attack (100% critical on big slow-casting fire boulder spell).

Groucho

Death in an instance:

1. A rezzer is highly recommended, preferably one with a rez stone.

2. In the case of a full party wipe, or if you release your spirit for any reason, you go back to the nearest graveyard as normal. Depending on the location of the instance, this can sometimes be a hell of a walk.

3. When you get close to the instance, you get the message "You must enter the instance to retrieve your corpse."

4. Upon entering the instance, you are resurrected at the instance. This can lead to ugly situations when the dungeon respawns, seperating the group in two.

If the instances didn't respawn, and played more like the missions in Guild Wars, I'd like them a whole lot more.

KirstenS

To add to this, instances do not respawn for 2 hours. If you've spent more than 2 hours inside, you're going to have a pain to deal with. Also, if you missed a pickup item, you won't be able to return to try to get it again until 2 hours have passed. I believe you can also disband and reform a group to force a respawn though. A warlock can not summon group members if they are not in the instance, but if they are, they can summon them past the respawns.

hardcore

If I were you I'd level a bit more before hitting the Deadmines. Well, you might be able to get away with doing the Miner Card missions, but leave Van Cleef for a bit. I went in with a full party in the low to mid 20s and one level 34 paladin the other night, and everyone except the paladin got taken out in one fight where it looked like we got swarmed from behind. Doing the instance will probably take 1.5-2 hours, so you want to make sure you get through it the first time. On the plus side, I can see 3 19-21 level guys getting killed fairly quickly, so there won't be that much time lost...

DaveNinja

OK, i'll wait a little while before doing the deadmines. I may also try to get my brother in law to help (level ~38 hunter) to help if he's logged on.
Are the instance monsters all elites, thus tougher, or are there lots of adds?

Groucho

Both.

CaptainMarvel

I did the Deadmines this weekend at 19 with my rogue. I was easily the lowest on the team, with the highest being 23 or 24. We had one priest and two paladins, as well as a mage, so we were okay for healing, tanking, and damage.

There are lots of regular minions in the deadmines. There are also lots of groups of 2-3 elites in the initial part. Once you get to the later part, there are LOTS of elites.

It's great loot though, and it's a really neat level.

bee01

This is trigun posting under my new nick

I might cast the wand a couple times to start with while everybody else is building up aggro. I used it while I was lower level to kill runners, but wouldn't risk it now due to the high resist rate leading to runners pulling adds.

Scorch is a great spell for groups. It's fast, low mana, decent damage, and doesn't create lots of aggro. You'll cast it a lot, which will lead to lots of clear casts if you have that talent (highly recommended). Clear cast makes your next attack spell use 0 mana, which is great for mana expensive arcane missiles or a potential blizzard.

Right now I am pretty even between arcane and fire. I won't be able to hit the top of either tree. I went with a build that would help me kill things quickly while going solo or when blasting AoE's in instances. I will respec after battlegrounds comes out or if my end game mage is struggling, but have been doing fine so far.

Fire Mastery

Improved Fireball Rank 5
Impact Rank 5
Ignite Rank 5
Flame Throwing Rank 2
Incinerate Rank 2
Pyroblast Rank 1
Critical Mass Rank 3

Fire Total: 23

Arcane Mastery

Arcane Focus Rank 1
Improved Arcane Missiles Rank 5
Arcane Concentration Rank 5
Improved Arcane Explosion Rank 5
Evocation Rank 1
Improved Counterspell Rank 2

Arcane Total: 19

I'll probably put 1 more point in arcane focus, and then get presence of mind so that I can do a fireball, instant cast pyro, fireblast burst on a single target, or instant cast flamestrike, cone of cold, arcane explosion on multiple targets. I'll spend the rest of the points on arcane instability for 3% increase on spell critical rate, and arcane mind for more mana.

DaveNinja

Clearcast you get from the arcane talent? When i looked at it before i thought it was only for the next arcane spell cast, now that i see it is not, it is definently something i'll pick up.
I already put my first 6 or 7 points into frost. How much does it cost to redo your talents if you only have like 9 points?

bee01

Most agree that frost is a poor tree to start in because you don't get very good returns on it until much later. Early points spent in fire (faster, longer distance high damage fireballs) and arcane (uninterruptable arcane missiles for close up fighting) are very nice to have early on for being able to take down mobs quickly. Frost is more mana efficient - but it will take longer to kill things solo.

I think it costs 1 gold to respec your talents the first time, 5 the 2nd time, and 5 more until it costs 50 g to respec each time.

timewaster

Ok, I have this idea on how to get more than 5 into an instance, but don't know if it will work.
(they're some instances where you would want more than 5 for example the divine rod quest in Zul Farrak)
If you get a group of 5 in an instance and get 1 person to disband from the group when you are in the instance, can you then invite another into your group to get 6 people in the instance?

Groucho

The person that disbands will be kicked from the instance (after a 60 second timer I believe).

You can do a raid group in any instance, of course, but I think that'll mess up your quests and XP.

DaveNinja

So raid groups are basically just groups of groups? are they just used for taking out towns/villages for fun or are there quests where you need to 'raid up'?

Also, i found a 'tunnel' in the mage quarters of stormwind thats supposed to lead to Westfall, but it seems to be a dead end. Did i miss something or is this for later on in life?

Groucho

At the high end of the game, there are actual "Raid Instances" which are intended for a full, level 60 raid group (40 people). An example would be Onyxia the Dragon.

DaveNinja

Thats crazy. 40 people against one monster? Does everyone get treasure or is it a lot of dice rolling?