Leveling Goddess! and Other Things

In a grand total of 4 hours, I went from level 56 to level 58 on my RETRIBUTION (add CRACK-POW sound effect) paladin.

Then, since I'm going to stick with Teppou, Fyzzgig and Zeshura, I stopped leveling experience wise and instead went to get my mining skill up from 239 to 300, ready for Outlands! Otherwise I'd be 70 by the time they got to 58! (I jest! ... slightly, but it is a jest! I'd only be 68... not 70.)

So, I needed to get from 239 to 250 for Thorium. Right. Mithril it is. Badlands I went. Not too shabby if you ride back and forth across the southern zone wall. I hit the 250 mark and I said, finally, now I can go get Thorium. I went to a mining map website and looked at where they recommend. They recommended the Burning Steppes and lo and behold, the Burning Steppes isn't all that far from the Badlands. So that's where I went.

Big Mistake.

I spent 4 hours (long enough I could probably have been almost 60, if not truly 60, if I was actually leveling) getting to 300 mining skill out in the Burning Steppes. There were simply no nodes to be found. I had no competition (except one donkey's butt hunter that stole a node out from under me. No, really, he did. I was fighting something RIGHT ON TOP OF THE NODE, and it was almost dead. He rides up and starts to mine and stays in 'loot box' mode on the Rich Thorium that I was wanting to mine. I said, 'Uh, do you mind?' but apparently he didn't. I only saw him the once, otherwise, I was the only person in the zone it seemed.)

Afterwards, Teppou says the better place for thorium is EPL and Winterspring. Of course, he said that after I was 300.

Now I'm looking at leveling up my jewelcrafting on my paladin to 300.

I will admit, I am HEAVILY biased AGAINST leveling guides for experience and going up levels. Not that they aren't useful for people who may not know where to go and what quests to do. But I don't like them. As I mentioned above, I don't have a problem with leveling fast. (This probably has a little to do with having leveled 6 characters to 70 without a guide. I kinda know where to go now. I POSSIBLY would have used a leveling guide if it was my first or second character.)

(But then again, possibly not. I'm stubborn and hate 'following the crowd', as my asinine brain insists on calling it.)

(This probably explains my non-conformist warlock spec.)

(Are you getting tired of parenthesis yet?)

(I'm not.)

However, I am an absolute idiot when it comes to leveling crafting skills. My jewelcrafting is (was) 206. And I sit there and look at what I need and say, "Ooh, let me go get that." and I run out and I grab what I need and I make 4 items to get to 210. Then I look what I need and say, "Oooh, let me go get that." and I spend HOURS getting the materials to make 3 things. (I didn't do that second part yet. I got to 210 and then I said, 'Crap. I'm in Ironforge. I don't think there's a JC trainer in IF.'

I is dumb.

So I caved... I'm going to use a crafting guide to get my jewelcrafting to 300. I can hear Owaru now "It's not worth it!" he shouts. But you know me (or if you don't...), and I have to have a jewelcrafter. I have one of everything else (granted, my engineering is craptacular, but I do have an engineer!), so it's only natural that I have a jewelcrafter, too. I've been hoarding outland gems for a while so hopefully I can turn a little profit from them when I can start cutting gems... that and no more running to the AH everytime I upgrade a PoC piece and need 2 or 3 gems.

On a warlock aside...

I took Fyzzgig through Sunken Temple and my only wish is that SoC could have an instant proc the way Shadowbolt can with Nightfall. Owaru's words to that were, "The last thing you need is an instant SoC *shudder*.".

But truly, when you're mass clearing a low level instance, even though they aren't doing a lot of damage to you, you still get knockback on your casting bar. Which makes it really frustrating because the best way to clear something is to have a bunch of SoC on things so that when the first goes off, it sets the others off too. And then you have a bunch of dead mobs with 4 casts.

I managed it once, to get 4 off before I started to get hit. It was beautiful... bunches of purple lights and explody sounds, then the agonized groans of multiple dragonkin dying and hitting the ground. And clearing Jammal the Prophet's room was fun too, I'd SoC two things, then run over to a third group. Then I did the 'back up and DoT' thing, to avoid the ghosties. 'Twas much fun.

The best quote of the evening... well, there were many, but the funniest-warlock-related one was...

Owaru: "You think I go Ogrila?" (talking about the most heart-rending death saying.)
Kvasira: "No, you're going to HELL! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Kvasira: "Oh wait, sorry. I was channeling Kikidas."