Power Leveling Advice - BSFollow

I want to level BS as fast as possible.

I have a 375 Tailor/Miner (Mage) and a 375 Herbalist/ 50BS (Paly)

Can anyone suggest a good guide or any pointers? I Leveled tailoring pretty easy. Mining and Herbs take care of themselves.

Any suggestions would help. It seems like BS just requires a massive investment in time/money/effort. Tailoring was so much easier.

http://www.almostgaming.com/wowguides/wow-blacksmithing-guide

I used this one, although I made some changes along the way. For example, making steel helms from 215-235 sounded way too painful and horrible on the old wallet. I made some different things along the way(some I could use, as I was at that level at the time) so I wouldn't be throwing gold at the vendor anymore.

The only thing I can remember is that picking up the mithril spurs recipe was a godsend. Its much cheaper than any other recipe for those levels. I also made a few blue chest armors along the way as well, since they sold for 1-2 gold more than the mats. Really not looking for profit, but any time you can sell the crafted materials for the same price or slightly less than the mats, do it. For example, on my server bronze darts, whirling steel axes, gold rods, truesilver rods and the lowest level mail helm(Don't remember the name. The first green quality helm you can make.) all sold for more than the mat costs.

Since I had more than enough gold to continue, I did. I just sent all those crafted items to my bank alt and he continues to sell them, 1-2 of each type every few days. In my eyes, powerleveling is quick, but making items that will give you all/most of your gold back is quick AND painless, so long as you don't have to wait for them to sell.

Edit: Lastly, start mining thorium/mithril now. You're gonna need loads of it, and I mean it. Plus, its some of the most expensive ore/bars on my server. Use this guide to start farming. Although silithus isn't on this guide, my friend had some VERY good luck in that zone. Make sure you have the gatherer add-on, and start searching the three hives. You'll find loads of rich thorium veins.

http://wow.thenoobschool.com/power-level-mining-guide-1-375

Good luck!

Edited, Nov 24th 2008 7:10pm by baveux

Yeah Mark, but one of the things I've noticed is even more mobs ignoring me.

When i was leveling my Herbalism, I was picking (Channelling) and was virtually certain that the mob walking by would agro me. It rarely happened.

I don't know the mob agro radius to level ratio, but hopefully those high 50s won't even look at me now...


Either way - I mine on my mage and anything that looks at him is dead in 1 shot.

Two great ways to get thorium:
1. Silithus. I did this on my Belfadin (engineer) and managed to get around 40 thorium per hour while killing stuff around my level (62 at the time). It was... ok. There's definitely a decent amount of nodes.
2. If you're a higher level, I highly recommend looking at DM East. I know, random, right? Well, if you clear up to the end boss there (you need to take out two-three other bosses), there is a path near him that is FULL of Rich Thorium veins. I think I saw 3 or 4 on my druid, who, of course, doesn't mine. They respawn presumably every time you reset the instance, so if you can clear all that in, say, 15 minutes, you'll be getting much more thorium/hour that way than Silithus (where you need to travel between the hives). You'll also pick up some loot to vendor off the bosses.

Really? Can you also get them if you go in the back door? I've farmed DM-East for ench mats, and don't remember any Rich Thorium veins in there. But I haven't gone through the front door in a long time...

Update:

I'm currently doing partial loops of Tarnasis. The area in the SW corner is the most productive for mithril and you usually get 1 to 2 small Thorium nodes. I also find some rare nodes.

I've found that steel is the worst method of levelling. There were a few easy recipes, but when you get to that helm - you might as well use the more expensive mithril....

As far as getting thorium, I'm not too worried. I know it will suck, but I know where it is located. I plan on spending time in EPL, Sith, and I'll drop into DM. I haven't been there in a long time.

Well I'm now at 350 and set to start mining in Northrend. As far as I'm concerned I've effecively lvl'd my BS to a point where current content will provide me the mats I need.


Here's a basic summary:

1. Always check the AH for some cheap ore/bars. Even the most rare mats are sometimes listed at well below the norm.

2. The speed at which you want to lvl a skill is directly related to the cost. If you want to take your time/save money - Mine all your own mats. If you want it fast - buy mats. I took the middle road, buying mats cheap or when I was frustrated with mining them.


* Vanilla Wow

Copper

- Unless you feel like wasting money - you're just plain dumb buying this stuff unless it fits rule #1. A few trips around any starter zone will do it for you. I'm not sure of the exact amount, but for Copper + Bronze (Tin and Copper) you can easily mine your own.

Tin

- This is not too hard to find. You should be able to do this as easy as copper. Alway look out for rule #1.

Bronze

- This is the combo of Copper and Tin. Again - no prob. Check AH for rule 1.

Iron

- This is the first annoying one. It's a bit harder to find and I noticed that my rule #1 was stretched.

Steel

- More annoying than Iron - Need to buy useless coal. Luckily coal is cheap. (I'll admit - I bought some steel.)

Mithril

- Suprisingly easy. I did the tarnasis loop. Didn't buy more than a few odd-lot stacks that were selling at big discounts. A lot of people complain about the cost of getting BS through the steal phase. I found that the higher ore (Mithril) was better to mine than the lower ore (Iron + Coal). So while I might have been making a higher end item (Which is generally frowned upon in P. Lvling) I found it to be much easier to get mithril - than make steal helms at something like 20x bars per helm.

Thorium

- This was rough, but not as bad as people made it out to be. I bought some, I'll admit... Best place seemed to be Sithilus. You could go into the bug holes and get 2 - 3 nodes. At 70 - they don't stand a chance. I did the EPL run, but it was too long and I didn't get too many hits. I must say - the above post is right - you get 1 node per "Scar" in EPL. Tried DM, but as a fire mage - it wasn't worth the repair bills. Much easier to nuke bugs, than run/kite elites in DM.

* Outland

Fel Iron

- Annoying that it's suddenly 2 for 1, but not particularly bad. I bought some, but it was just annoying doing circuits of Hellfire. If you do choose to circle hellfire - unlike many of the other zones - the nodes are fairly spread out. I did a 1/2 circle from the center (SOUTH) upto the Center North. (Basically move in along the edge from the entrance to Ter. Forest - Move counter clockwise till you get to the waste pools. After that - check the demon camps North of the horde base, then check the demon camps between the Allies and the gate. Don't circle the gate - nothing there.

Adamantine

- WoW - this stuff is cheap. I bought it on multiple days for about 10 - 15 G per stack of 20. (I point out that I bought it over multiple days because - it wasn't just some idiot dumping it on the market at stupid-cheap prices. Over multiple days - this stuff was dirt cheap.) Took them to 250, then Jumped over to Northrend to get cobalt...

Closing notes before I go off to Nothrend:

1. Save your stone. Even if you don't need it, you can vendor it for good money. We've all dumped loot for good drops. A stack of 20 stone will sell for upwards of 8 - 15 G in some cases. Don't dump a 1/4 stack of stone for a Vanilla WoW green.

2. Save the gems, but sell them individually. Yeah - back in 2004 people wanted 20 arcane crystals. Not so much now... Sell them at a slight rate over the market, but in singles. (Example: 20X of item sells for 200G. Sell your sigle mats for 11g each. But sell singles in groups of 2 - 3.)

3. Bringing a lower lvl guildie through a zone is easy. I had someone with me in Sith. He just tagged along, looted all the mobs we agro'd. He also completed his cooking quest for that stupid spider/serpent thing.

4. Be prepared to grab a few pieces of cloth to get you through mithril. (Mage cloth) Stop buy some of the Orge mounds in tarnasis while farming your ores.

5. Do the math. Look - those leveling guides are helpful, but strictly sticking to them... is tough. If you are faced with 2 decisions --- Craft 4 orange (100% chance of skill up) or 10 yellow (75% chance of skill up) - Go with the higher number of skill ups based on the chances of them happening. You are guarenteed to get 4 skill ups with the orange. You might get zero with the yellow. But statistics say that you'll get about 8 with the yellow.

6. Really this is 5A. Learn when things go green. If something is going to go green in 2 crafts and it will mathmatically make you lose the ability to make something else, perhaps it's better to go with the orange item you can make fewer of, if the yellow item is going to turn green quickly. (For example: If you consider the example in #5 - imagine your 10 yellows would turn into greens after two (2) craftings. Now you have 2 crafts @ 75% and 8 at 25%. That's equal to 1.5+2 = 3.5 skill ups. GO WITH THE 4 Guarenteed Orange...

7. Don't be lazy. Don't roll into the forge with 100 bars, start crafting "Create All", and get up and walk away. When that orange turns yellow - STOP. Re-evaluate your situation. When it turns green - STOP - you likely can get something else to craft at a better skill up rate. Check with the trainer every 5 skills. (aka 140, 145, 150, 155, etc.) Buy new recipe you will use. Ignore the junk you will not craft because it requires 14 bars, 2 Gems, 4 heavy leather, and 6 grinding stones....

8. Dense stone (the last stone in Vanilla WoW) was not highly needed. Don't waste a lot of time/money trying to build up stocks of it. Many of the recipes I used didn't need it.


Edited, Dec 12th 2008 2:12pm by Borsuk

Just to add my 2 cents:

Now that you can train in Northrend at 350 for Blacksmithing, the REALLY EXPENSIVE and annoying stretch from 350-375 has been eliminated. Also, the highest level plans you can currently learn in WotLK are at skill 440. Haven't seen anything above that yet. Getting blacksmithing from 350-440 was not particularly expensive at all, especially if you are a miner or have a mining alt...

You also have almost no reason at all anymore to chose Armorsmith or Weaponsmith, so just don't bother. Those quests take a lot of time and a lot of materials, and really are not worth it anymore.

As far as where to find ore, most of the suggestions I have seen are very good, but a few places got omitted:

The Charred Vale in Stonetalon Mountains has everything in it from copper all the way up to truesilver. Spending a few hours riding in circles around that area will net you huge amounts of mostly iron and mithril, but also decent amounts of copper and tin, and small amounts of silver, gold, and truesilver. It is a really strange place as far as mining goes in that regard. There are also 2 caves in Dustwallow Marsh (one with spiders and one with dragonkin) that seem to both have 3 nodes in them. These nodes will either be iron, gold, mithril, or truesilver. The caves are small and easy to mine quickly. I used to do a few circles around charred vale, take a griffon from Nigel's refuge over to Mudsprocket, hit the 2 caves in Dustwallow, then fly back to Nigel's and hit Charred Vale again. One morning of doing this back and forth will net you a LOAD of ore.

For outlands metals, just fly circles around the borders of Zangarmarsh for a few hours and you can have all of the fel iron and adamantite that you could want. Quite a few spawn points for nodes all along the outer borders, and the spawn rate is good.

I don't know the best places to get cobalt, but you don't really need a ton of it before you get to the plans that only require Saronite.

For saronite, just fly circles around Sholazar Basin (it is the Charred Vale of Northrend).
I have never seen any cobalt there, but there are plenty of saronite and rich saronite nodes and the occasional titanium. If it is too crowded there, go fly around in Icecrown. Less nodes in Icecrown, but usually much less competition too. (Everyone seems to know about Sholazar.)

Edited, Dec 12th 2008 3:37pm by jeromesimina