More n00b questions

ravydavygravy

Heyho,

So I started WoW about a month ago, and I'm playing a NE Hunter:

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Wildhammer&cn=Garnath

I'm having a great time playing, and alternate between levelling sessions and auction house / farming sessions - is it bad that I find the auction house almost as good as the rest of the game?

Anyway - a few questions:

1) Whats the deal with dual speccing - it seems crazy expensive to me with no mysterious benefactor alt. It would take me forever at my current level to generate 1000G, even if leather is selling for ridiculous money.

2) Is leatherworking a crap profession - I quite enjoy it, but its costing me a lot of time/gold to get the raw materials to make stuff and level up. Also, the stuff I make won't currently sell for cost price to make. Should i consider an alternative? I had mining, but it was a pain in the ass to find reliable routes to mine low level minerals.

3) Is my current gear OK for my char? Or am i doing it wrong? What should I be looking for as a hunter?

4) Pets in dungeons - he's generally well behaved, but sometimes I worry that hes pulling aggro off the tank, or chasing fleeing mobs. Do other players prefer if the pet was put away or set on passive for the instances?

Anything else I need to think about? Currently questing in Tanaris, which is a pain since its miles from an alliance AH... The neutral AH on wildhammer has ~100 items TOTAL, so its no use...

Dave

Noxin

1) Dual Spec is very handy. Simple reason is if for example you play either a tank or healer class it allows you to switch spec when running an instance or when doing some solo play. Again for any class if they are switching between PvP and PvE spec. The cost is expensive and if you do not have a high level available, do not worry about getting it straight away. It gets a lot easier to make gold from Outlands on.

2) LW is a fine profession for a hunter as long as you took skinning with it. Else, yes. You will be spending a fortune on materials. At later levels you can make yourself some nice armor and other items that earn nice amounts of gold.

3) Dunno. In work and cannot access the armory. :P

4) Pet in an instance is fine but make sure you turn off growl. Else he will keep taunting off the tank and it will just pi$$ him/her off. Also watch for the running and get ready to call him back when needed!

Neutral AH are indeed useless. Most don't bother with them. Not much else.
Just enjoy leveling. Hunters are very easy to level but can be good fun taking on mobs quite a bit higher. BM spec ftw!

Drakar

1) 1000g is alot at the start of the game, but as you level up it becomes alot easier to get cash. You can't dual spec until 40 anyway methinks so by then many people have the money saved (or these days sent on down from their main). As a hunter I guess you might want a spec for PvP, and one for soloing. Essentially at lvl 80 you'll definately be interested in getting it to allow you quickly change between specs for raiding or soloing / pvp. So any money you spend respeccing now is essentially wasted (since dual spec switches are free). Obviously don't leave yourself skint after getting it though!

2) I dont run a gathering profession, but The Instance podcast was recommending http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/routes.aspx as an addon to help planning if you'd like another look at mining. The story with crafting professions is you can expect them to cost you time and money till you get the best recipes, and then depending on your AH etc it might work out that you can make a decent little earner out of them (making stuff for people who dont have that profession).

3) Agility is king!

4) Your pet pulling aggro isnt a big deal (worst case is he dies), generally chasing fleeing mobs is good as if they flee into other mobs they get pulled anyway, the only bad thing you can do is accidentally send him off to attack another pack instead of the one the tank is pulling. Pets are usually a decent proportion of your damage, and giving that up is bad. Be ready with traps and feign death just incase

bad2dabone

hey man,

dont worry about gold for dual speccing, in Northrend its quite easy to make 500g a day from just quests, and besides dual speccing is more useful for end game or near end game content.

Leatherworking can be pricey indeed, its again more useful at the business end of the game.

your gear is grand, in 18 levels youll hit Outland and have everything replaced with far far better items within a day. the difference will be incredible. below lvl 58 just try to get a nice range of agi stam and a little int. remember str does nothin. If you want to level quickly you cant go wrong with Beastmaster spec, your pet will be an absolute monster.

if i was you i'ld make an Alt character who lives in the AH that way you can post stuff to him/her and not have to travel for miles between where you are questing. Saves you time. and what's that that the goblins say?

ravydavygravy

bad2dabone wrote: »

if i was you i'ld make an Alt character who lives in the AH that way you can post stuff to him/her and not have to travel for miles between where you are questing. Saves you time. and what's that that the goblins say?

Good idea - I'll do that, the trip to the AH in darnassus from Tanaris takes ~10 mins...

Dave

2 Espressi

Since all your roles are DPS, Dual Spec won't make a lot of sense until later.

For levelling, I'd recommend changing your spec to Beast Mastery with a Tenacity/tanking pet as it's quicker. Gear is less important with BM spec as well, though you'll still want +agi.

Raiding is cheaper than crafting to get gear. I spent too much time looking for good patterns and crafting rubbish to upskill when I could have just mined & skinned, and farmed instances for gear. I did the opposite to you, dropping LW for mining at about L50. While craftable goods are good to have at 80, cash is good at every level, especially on your first character. However, I do miss being able to convert scraps and make heavy leather borean leather, so you might want to hang on to it now. There's a ton of cash generating advice in one of the stickies at the top of the page.

If you do go back to Mining, Gatherer is a good addon, shows where you've mined in the past.
And if you're in a guild, then you can see where other guildies are mining/herbing, if they have it installed. I also found this to be useful. http://www.wow-professions.com/wowguides/wow-mining-guide.html#1

And a bank alt is indispensible, I was making 20 or 30 g every couple of days mailing greens and mats back from Tanaris/UnGoro. If you've got WoTLK, then get a mage to portal you to Dalaran, you can then use the Caverns of Time Portal to get back to Tanaris quickly.

Dustaz

With regards to Duel spec , ignore it till your 80. it might be worth it to you then, but untill then find a good spec for levelling and stick with that.

You wont make any money from LW untill your 80 and you have it at 450. You will make MASSIVE money from any gathering profession as you level up (skinning, mining, herbalism). What i do on most chars is pick two gathering profs, make money and then reroll a crafting prof at 80.

You definitely need a bank alt. Id recommend Ironforge though (or stormwind) as the bank/postbox/Auction house are MUCH closer together than darnassus. Its a longer run from the dwarf starting area to IF but its worth it in the long run.

settings

Hey.

I also got a hunter a similar level to you after returning to warcraft after some time out. Your gear looks good and as someone said strength on your axe is no good. You dont want to melee at all so you only want weapons that add to your ranged damage. "of the bandit" and "of the monkey" are generally the better items to take when it comes to stats.
If you pick up bloodthirty pet talent you more or less dont have to worry about ever feeding your pet. I had both of your glyphs at one stage and didnt find either of them too useful. Hunters mark is good for questing if you put it up everytime but in instances etc everything dies so fast/you use aoe that i only really use it on bosses. I think im using the serpent sting/multi or aimed shot glyphs now. As BM with spirit bond and bloodthirst i literally dont have to heal my pet ever when i quest so I would definitley say pick up a cat/raptor or whatever the dps category is called. They will do more damage and hold aggro better if your soloing.
Definitely make a bank alt and get a few cheap bags to store your items. After im finished questing etc i send everything that im not gonna use to my bank alt to sell/store so i always have lots of space for ammo/items etc.
I also took LW and skinning. Skinning makes alot of gold especially some things like rugged leather and heavy hides. LW is useless to me. I made one item ever that i used and it cost me about 100g (large fangs, stupid perls etc) but i wanted the skill point. Any items that are easy to level your LW flood the AH so you either sell them cheap or wait for a good time. I think I will abandon LW since at 80 you'll probably get much better items easily.
As for your pet in instances I always have mine on passive and definitely turn growl off. I would be careful with mobs that run i usually switch my pet to another target as they run off and shoot them down as your pet can easily pull another group or even look as if it was the cause and not the fleeing mob. If you gotta jump off a ledge or something I would dismiss to be on the safe side as they can take some stupid paths when you wouldnt expect it. Another thing which can help you is to turn off autoattack on tab targeting, if you tab around alot its easy to tab into a seperate pack and autoshoot them.
I have dual spec on my hunter but like everyone says its not needed. I like to pvp a good bit so use MM for that -Bm to quest. MM is a good spec to level as you will learn alot more that you will as BM where your pet hold everything to it like glue.

ravydavygravy

Dinged 53 last night, fairly motoring through the levels. The random dungeon finder is now presenting me with fairly long instances, like Blackrock Depths - should I ignore these, since I'm told any gear I get will be rendered obselete when I move to outland in a short time?

Shougeki

If its your first time playing, i would suggest doing them for the fun, and to experience them. They used to be great crack in vanilla, and take AGES. At least thats what i would do.

papajimsmooth

U should get a mage to port you to Dalaran to increasing your skinning levels as you can take it to about 330 in azeroth while you level the last few levels there. Also make sure you have 400g going to outland so that you can buy a flying mount at level 60 it will speed up leveling more than dual spec will.

uncle_sam_ie

You will never have gold if you try to level leather crafting at your lv. Why, because you keep running to the AH to level up. Dump it and take two gathering professions. Mining and herbalism are the best money makers.I started a deathknight and two gathering profs has got me 1000 gold in just three days. When you hit 80 and have your epic flying mount and about 2000 gold, dump one gathering profession and then take up leather crafting. It should take you just a couple of days to it lv up. I did this with JC and it took 1800 gold and two days.
anyway good luck

Anti

Personally, i would skip them. If you get a group of other people like you who have not played the game before then it will just be a headache. I would personally power through the quests to hit 58 and then get to outland. IIRC for a hunter the first 4/5 starting quests give you some huge upgrades.

ravydavygravy

uncle_sam_ie wrote: »

You will never have gold if you try to level leather crafting at your lv. Why, because you keep running to the AH to level up.

Yeah, i've spent a good bit of gold levelling it alright. Might just leave it be for a while, and just sell the leather i gather - reckon I need to save for the flying mount anyway....

Anti

To be honest, the epic flying mount isn't that important these days. Especially as you can teleport to the dungeon you are going too. I have a few 80's i didnt bother getting the epic flying mount on, as its just a huge waste of money. Althought i do have epic flying on any toon with a gathering prof like herb/mining and skinning.

jabberwock

ravydavygravy wrote: »

Yeah, i've spent a good bit of gold levelling it alright. Might just leave it be for a while, and just sell the leather i gather - reckon I need to save for the flying mount anyway....

You have LW+Skinning right? What are you spending gold on? The whole point of having the 2 together is that one feeds the other.

Flying at 60 costs 250g for training and an additional 50g for the mount. This is before the reputation discount kicks in. So you should be at least looking at 10% discount usually if you have quested quite a bit.

ravydavygravy

jabberwock wrote: »

You have LW+Skinning right? What are you spending gold on? The whole point of having the 2 together is that one feeds the other.

Flying at 60 costs 250g for training and an additional 50g for the mount. This is before the reputation discount kicks in. So you should be at least looking at 10% discount usually if you have quested quite a bit.

Theres a disparity between my leatherworking skill and the beasts I'm currently hanging with - level ~50 beasts are dropping thinck or rugged leather, and my leatherworking needs medium/heavy leather. Time is the other factor - i only play in the evenings a few times a week. This means I end up buying a lot of heavy/medium leather - to go up 10 leatherworking levels might easily need 100 heavy leather, and i don't have the time or will to travel to lower level zones to hunt 100+ beasts for the leather I need. I just sell the small amounts of leather I skin, and buy the large amounts of medium or heavy leather I needed. i normally end up roughly breaking even, since my leather sells for much more then the stuff I need to buy, even if i need to buy far more than I sell.

Hence, I'll stop levelling LW for a while, until I have cash to burn. I'm making a small sum (~50g) every few days selling leather, greens and whatever trade goods i find, in the AH.

Anti

Try and make friends with a enchanter. He can DE all of the items and send you back the mats, which sell for more generally. Which you can also use to enchant your own gear if you need too.

Blowfish

Anti wrote: »

Try and make friends with a enchanter. He can DE all of the items and send you back the mats, which sell for more generally. Which you can also use to enchant your own gear if you need too.

The LFG tool has killed the price of Infinite Dust, so after 70 this really isn't worth it as it's generally only weapons which DE into Greater Cosmic's that'll get you more than Vendor price.

From 60-70 it's definitely a good option though as you get Arcane Dust which has far less supply and is still somewhat in demand for stuff like Mongoose.

jabberwock

Cosmics will drop from anything now. They changed that from outlands where planar would only drop from weapons.

I'm not sure exactly how you think that selling the leather you can skin now to buy the leather you need (lower level) for LW is going to help in any way. I would be saving every scrap of leather at the moment. You will need alot of rugged in a while for your LW.

if i was you i would just take 1 timeslot to go and farm enough leather in one go to get you to an equivalent LW skill to your level/skinning level.

All in all this is only my opinion on the matter. I have leveled A LOT of professions to max over the last few years.

Blowfish

jabberwock wrote: »

Cosmics will drop from anything now. They changed that from outlands where planar would only drop from weapons.

They do, but at such a low percentage chance that it isn't worth it.

jabberwock

meh, i always DE greens. Never know when i am going to need an enchant.
It helps that i have 3 max enchanters. (2 realms)

Dr Bob

ravydavygravy wrote: »

Theres a disparity between my leatherworking skill and the beasts I'm currently hanging with - level ~50 beasts are dropping thinck or rugged leather, and my leatherworking needs medium/heavy leather. Time is the other factor - i only play in the evenings a few times a week. This means I end up buying a lot of heavy/medium leather - to go up 10 leatherworking levels might easily need 100 heavy leather, and i don't have the time or will to travel to lower level zones to hunt 100+ beasts for the leather I need. I just sell the small amounts of leather I skin, and buy the large amounts of medium or heavy leather I needed. i normally end up roughly breaking even, since my leather sells for much more then the stuff I need to buy, even if i need to buy far more than I sell.

Hence, I'll stop levelling LW for a while, until I have cash to burn. I'm making a small sum (~50g) every few days selling leather, greens and whatever trade goods i find, in the AH.

not sure if you know this ,(and you may be too low level to solo it yet), but if you go to dire maul north (you have to do part of the east bit first to get the key)go in the door , walk down to the main grassy bit , and kill and skin all the dogs to the RIGHT, you get a load of rugged leather, go back out , reset the instance , go back in , rinse,repeat. you may have to wait a few minutes every half hour or so until you can reset the instance .On most servers economies Rugged leather sells for a lot more than most other leathers so you can buy a shedload of medium or heavy leathers for it (I'm assuming your skinning is ahead of your lw).
I did this a while back on a level 70 char and made loads (I needed rugged leather for raising my LW, and I sold the excess to fund the next stage of leatherworking)
If you're too low level it may be worth borrowing an 80 guildie for a bit.