WoW Monkey

So, most of us have gotten the hang of Naxx by now and judging by a lot of the search engine traffic I’m getting recently, many people are looking for information on Frost Resist gear for Naxx. Well you’re in luck, I’m going to attempt to compile a guide to Frost Resist gear — by class. Please be sure to leave comments if you have more information to add.

Warrior

Mage

Paladin

Druid - For druids, the easiest way to get over the cap for frost resist gear is by using [Polar Bracers][Polar Vest][Polar Cord]

Warlock

Shaman

Rogue - Shadow Panther’s Rogue FR guide/chart.

Hunter - Look here

Death Knight -

So there has been some discussion too about whether Frost Resist is worth the effort. Where I stand is basically if your guild has a shortage of healers or healers who are slightly undergeared, then any damage that is decreased is a good thing. Less damage  = less intensive healing = more mana. More mana is always good and reduces the stress. Especially on Heroic (25man), I’d say putting the effort forth for FR is worth it. Once the guild gets the fight down and the healers are geared, then its easy enough to do the fight without the added help from the resist.

Well, as the previous post mentions, life has been a bit hectic here lately. While the holidays are always a time of mixed emotions, they are also supposed to be a time to reflect on the past, the present, and the future. A time of giving, sharing, and making others happy.

So, what does this have to do with World of Warcraft? read on to find out!

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What is better? Questing or Instancing or a mix

I think traditionally it was accepted that instancing was not quite as good xp-wise as straight grinding. However, with the release of The Burning Crusade, many people had abandoned the pre-BC traditional leveling methods of endgame and moved to grinding the last few levels before 58 on the buzzards, boars or other fast spawning mobs outside of their respective home towns in Hellfire Peninsula.

With Lich King, once again Blizzard has made us question our methods of doing things. Especially so when the objective is to level fast. With The Lich King, Utgarde Keep has been proven to be quite a nice trade off when it comes to grinding XP.

So much so that today when I managed to get 5 runs done, I did nearly half a level from 72 to 73 doing nothing but Utgarde Keep. The fastest run being a very speedy 19 minutes.

To level fast, all that is required is a group of compentant people — a healer that heals well, a tank that can maintain aggro and dps that don’t pull said aggro off of the tank and can keep the pace up. Moving fast and pulling multiple packs of mobs is also quite key to pulling it off. Looting, or stopping to drink, only slows the pace down and ultimately leads to less experience gain.

So, for those who want to level fast, instances far outweigh the benefits of questing or quest-grinding.

Level 80 is an amazing benchmark to hit so soon after the expansion pack. Many many congratulations to Nymh. Many commenters on WoWInsider and other sites were completely and utterly shocked that someone would be able to hit such a mark so soon. But, there’s more to it than meets the eye. More after the jump.

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So, I’m sure many here are eager to get on their feet and go questing/grinding and get to 80 as soon as possible. In order to best optimize the experience of getting from 70 to 80 in Wrath of the Lich King the easiest method I’ve found is to utilize the great guides that exist. In this post, I’d like to compile a list of guides that are free on a number of topics from a number of sources to provide the readers of this blog with as much choice as possible.

First on the list, there’s the always excellent guides written by James over at wow-pro.com.

http://www.wow-pro.com/wiki/70-80_wotlk_leveling_guides

Next, Swagvault appears to also have written up a series of guides which you can find at the following URLs:

70-72 (73 , 74)

Borean Tundra

Howling Fijord

74-76

Dragonblight

77-79

Zul’Drak

79-80

A Few Choices

WoWInsider and WoWHead are excellent resources as well. I’ll be adding more links here as I find them but if you know of any other (free) resources or guides be sure to leave a comment.

There are many aspects to the World of Warcraft which we tend to take for granted. Item drops, dailies, and farming in general tend to consume the many hours that we spend trying to advance. In order to make the best use of our time in-game, it’s important that we have a system in place to deal with the clutter, the chores and the other aspects which may not be quite as fun as the rest of the game. Below, I’ll outline some of the steps, which, i hope, will lead to a better system for my own mail management.

1. Create a system.

No matter what you want to accomplish, it’s very important that goals are set in place for things to be successful. Personally, I’ve been trying to set certain characters mail and bank slots for certain items. I’ve bought my 3rd tab today which will be devoted to pots and raiding food only.

2. Stick to the system.

While I’m generally fairly good at managing my mail, it’s gotten to the point where I come on late at night, at the end of the day, just to see whats expiring. If something is expiring and isn’t going to bounce back, I place it in my bags and move it to a character’s mail which isn’t as full as the rest. This is the wrong thing to do. It’s very very important to keep things at the proper locations or the system will fall apart.

3. ??

4. Profit

Yes, it is still possible to profit. Sell whatever you feel will give you the most profit for time invested. Again, my problem is I have been a packrat. Part of this is due to having one character of each profession and many many lowbie alts which can always use the item drops. However, now that I’ll be raiding once LK comes out, more and more of my time will be devoted to my main toon, Shadowshiftr, and less to my alts. As a result, I’m hoping that I can vendor the vast majority of my lowbie crap.

A few tips:

* Mails can only show up to 50 pages at a time. Items past the 50 mark will not show and CAN and WILL be deleted after their 29 days pass.

* If you need more bagspace, or storage space in general, guild bank tabs are a relatively cost effective means to store items. In addition, if you have an addon like Possessions, tracking items becomes easy and effective.

* Guild Bank Slots aren’t cheap but new mules are! If you’re running out of space, make a new mule and form a guild. The first bank slot is only 100g and the 2nd is only 250. Easy 200 slots extra!