How to level an alt painlessly: tips and tricks

Lately I’ve leveled several alts – as have some of my WoW-acquaintances and friends. I’ve also looked at other characters, who are obvious alts – and for some reason, it seems that players are clueless when leveling alts. They level their alts in the same way that they did their original characters… which means painfully slowly and not especially optimally.

Don’t take these ideas as absolute and ultimate truths – do not take anything in life as absolute and ultimate truths, always question everything. There is always a way to do things better… but if you follow the ideas in this small guide, at least you won’t make things worse.

 

Know the class and build

This is the one most important aspect not only with alts, but with any character. If your “main” is rogue and you are now in process of leveling priest – don’t treat the character in the same way. Priest doesn’t need agility and attack power, priest does not need to get up close and personal with mobs, quite the opposite.

Read about your class and build – look at WoWwiki and other sites. Even just read the tooltips of your abilities and spells – they are helpful, you know. I’ve met a paladin, who has reached level 80 without knowing or using Hand of Reckoning – which is simply a must-have battle opener for a Retribution paladin. I’ve met a feral druid, who had no idea how to attack from stealth. I’ve met a shadow priest who didn’t use Shadowform.

So, learn  about your class. Always read the spell description when you visit the trainer. Put the abilities to your toolbars and rearrange them according to the changing needs. Research the optimum build for your level, play around with talent calculators. It is worth it.

 

Heirlooms: get them. Love them.

Heirlooms are added by Blizzard to the game especially to support alts – they want us to fill the starting and leveling zones, not just Northrend. They keep adding heirlooms with every patch – 3.3 will bring Northrend faction reputation enchants, so you won’t have to grind reputation with all the factions over and over.

Right now there are three ways to obtain heirlooms: buy them from Dalaran with Emblem of Heroism, from Argent Tournament with Champion’s Seals and from Wintergrasp with Stone Keeper’s Shards. The items from Argent Tournament and Dalaran are the same, but Wintergrasp items are more PvP oriented. For leveling, it really doesn’t matter if you’ll get PvE or PvP items, especially on lower levels.

The heirlooms are comparable to high-end blues – and they grow better as you level. If you buy mail items for your alt, they will be leather until your alt reaches 40 and gets the ability to use mail items. One additional bonus is that heirlooms don’t need repairs – they are always at full health.

There are three heirlooms that are must-have: chest, shoulders and weapon(s). First two give 10% additional experience each – and you won’t get shoulders normally until level 17 or even later. Weapons allow you to blast through the content fast and painlessly.

Don’t forget to enchant your chest and weapon. For melee classes, Crusader is a must-have on weapon – but if you dual wield, remember that Crusader doesn’t stack.

Trinkets are good to have, but not really needed that badly. Blizzard created “universal” heirloom trinkets, which means they are good for all classes, but not desperately needed by any class.

If you have the heirlooms, you can easily solo group quests and take on enemies that are unthinkable with regular gear. And the best part – you don’t have to spend money to fill those slots until you reach the level cap – and they are awesome all the time until then!

There is one special heirloom: Tome of Cold Weather Flight. You can buy it from the flying trainer in Dalaran for 1000 gold – and it is worth every penny. This allows your alt to learn flying in Northrend at 68 (the tome is consumed when you use it) – and oh boy, does this make the questing different!

 

Must-have: big bags

Remember the excitement, when you got a new 6-slot bag at level 3 – and you had suddenly so much more room? Do you really want to experience that again…?

When you start your a character, you should send him/her some things: heirlooms, 100G and big bags. If the new character needs anything else at all from your main before the Tome of Cold Weather Flight, then you are doing it wrong.

Don’t skimp on the bags. Frostweave Bags cost only 60-80G in the Auction House – for an established main, buying four bags is not an issue. If the money really is a problem, Netherweave Bags cost 7..9G.

If you know what alt’s professions will be, buy also the specialized bags for them. Buy the best bag for the profession – that is one bag your character will always use, never replacing it. It doesn’t make sense to buy a cheaper bag and replace it later – just go for the best right away.

But why the big bags are needed so badly? Easy – they allow your alt to stay away longer from the cities and villages, questing for longer periods of time. And since you won’t have to visit city every few hours or so, you can concentrate on storylines, quests and enjoying the game.

 

Questing addons

Blizzard quest descriptions are notoriously misleading – they send you to northeast when the quest target is actually in southeast, they miss crucial details and so forth. That is especially true for vanilla WoW content, it gets better in Outland and Northrend.

Therefore, get help for questing. There are  two questing addons I’ve tried – Carbonite and QuestHelper. I prefer Carbonite, because I like the mini-map on battlegrounds, but Carbonite needs a bit more tweaking before it is ready to use.

Both addons show you where to go to finish the quest. Even if you liked searching for the quest end-point the first time, do you really want to do it over and over, again and again…

 

Leveling spec is not necessarily your end-game spec

This is something I cannot stress enough.

If you want your paladin to be healadin at 80… do you really want to level as Holy? You want an Arcane PvP mage at level cap, do you want to go through painful leveling as one, instead of blasting through enemies as a Frost mage? If you solo the content, which is better, Shadow or Holy priest?

If you have heirlooms, you can easily heal or tank with your retadin until you get dual specs, it really isn’t a problem. So pick the build that is most useful for leveling – you will get a second spec at 40 and can change your main build to suit your needs when you reach the level cap.

Pick the build that is most useful for questing – i.e. find an optimal trade-off between the survival and damage-dealing. Retribution paladin, frost mage, feral or moonkin druid, arms or fury warrior, shadow or disc priest, blood death knight etc etc.

 

Keep your gear up to date

Level 17 ring on level 43 druid, level 21 headpiece in Western Plaguelands… we’ve all seen that. While heirlooms compensate for the rest of the gear to some extent, you really should replace anything that is more than five levels old. This will help a lot with the mobs and questing – trust me on this. You don’t have to spend money on epics or blues – in fact, I discourage that – but get good, your spec greens. Everything gets suddenly easier – mobs die faster and do a lot less damage to you.

And as you have big bags, you can keep an eye on the AH and buy items before you need them. I have a habit of keeping an eye on items five levels above my alt – if there is a good item with a good price, I buy and keep it in my bags, equipping the item when I reach the appropriate level.

If I get an equal or better item from a drop or quest reward – no harm done, as the item has not been equipped, I can re-sell it and get my money back.

Don’t forget the glyphs. Getting the right glyphs at the right time can make a huge difference.

 

Set your hearthstone to Dalaran

Strangely, this is something that many players don’t get. So what does a hearthstone in Dalaran give you?

Answer: you can get to all of your faction cities, Shattrath and Tanaris every 30 minutes. If you need to go from Booty Bay to Eastern Plaguelands, it will take close to 20 minutes. If you hearth to Dalaran, take a portal to Ironforge and fly to the Light’s Hope Chapel, the time will be five minutes. It is faster to go from Ironforge to Stormwind through Dalaran then take a train or gryphon.

So find a guild-mate, friend or just pay a mage who can make you a portal to Dalaran. Set your hearthstone to Underbelly inn, because the loading time is faster there then in the faction inns.

 

Primary professions: what and why?

This is a very complex question, with a lot of things to consider.  One thing I definitely DO NOT recommend is skipping primary professions altogether. However, remember that professions are not set in a stone – once you reach 80, you can drop a profession useful for leveling and take up one useful for endgame. You can use materials collected during leveling to quickly grind your skill up in the new profession – if you have the materials, it takes but one or two evenings to max it.

There are professions are good for leveling and alts: skinning, mining, herbalism, enchanting and tailoring.

And there are professions that are not so good: blacksmithing, alchemy, leatherworking, jewelcrafting, engineering and inscription.

As you can see, I recommend primarily gathering professions for alts and don’t recommend crafting professions. Why? Because by design (i.e. intentionally by Blizzard), unless you grind or buy the materials from the Auction House, your crafting skill is always just a bit too low to create items for yourself. That is Blizzard’s way to make sure AH has items and materials – and that people buy what is offered.

Basically, all crafting skills have recipes that sell well and will make a tidy profit – but by and large you are forced to make badly selling or pricy items to get the skill higher. Therefore, it really doesn’t pay to craft things on your alt.

But if you have gathering skills, you can make a tidy profit from the materials. Very tidy – it is normal that your alt has the money to buy dual spec (1000G) and normal flight without any funds from your main. Also, alt should normally have about 2000G towards the epic flight.

Let’s go in details of the recommended professions:

• Skinning. This is a mixed one – leather doesn’t sell that well/is cheap and crit increase for the character is marginal. But if you have an alt with leatherworking or plan to pick it up on alt later, this can be a very good choice. If your main is a leatherworker, you can send the materials to make armor kits – which do sell very well and have a nice profit marginal.
• Mining is a really profitable profession. You’ll get ore, bars and occasional gem – all of which sell really well in the auction house. Downside is that it can be somewhat boring, especially before Outland.
• Herbalism is practically a must-have for classes who don’t have self-healing capabilities, such as rogues. Lifeblood is incredibly good in both PvE and PvP – imagine fighting on a battleground and instead of dying, your character starts to regain health. Instant cast and quite a nice amount of life – nice up to mid-seventies, after that the health gained becomes too marginal to matter. Also, herbalism is probably the most profitable gathering profession – by just picking up the herbs you encounter, you will earn nice amount of money in the Auction House.
• Enchanting  and tailoring are a match made in heaven. You can disenchant all the unsellable items crafted by leveling tailoring, gaining material for making scrolls or just selling them. You can disenchant all quest rewards and old soulbound gear; you can disenchant all badly selling green drops. Both enchanting material and scrolls sell really well and have a nice profit. And the material for tailoring just drops from the mobs you kill – and there is a good chance your main has loads of cloth in the bank.

 

Battlegrounds

This is not for every player or every class – some classes are weaker then others in lower levels and Blizzard has stated they care about balance in PvP only at the level cap.

However, now that battlegrounds give experience and have no twinks, there are no reasons not to do some PvP at the upper end of every range. This is not to grind honor – only exceptionally stupid players grind honor before reaching the level cap. This is to get experience and learn to play your class to the max.

Players, who do PvP, know their class better. They know when to use what ability, how to vary the rotation as needed and so forth. This is all useful knowledge for PvE leveling.

You will suck at first when you go to Warsong Gulch at 18 or 19. Accept and live with it, in the same way you have to accept that even at 80 there are players who have not a clue how to play battleground for the win. You will get quickly better in PvP – and if you got the heirlooms, you’ll have a nice advantage over players who don’t have them.

I have accepted that I have to re-learn PvP at every level range – especially big change is from 40-49 to 50-59, as the latter will bring a whole new class, Death Knights. Thankfully, my latest alt is a retribution paladin – and it seems that DK’s have been told that they are insanely op and should faceroll everything else. Otherwise, I cannot explain why DK’s attack a paladin alone and are surprised to die quickly with no noticeable loss of life on the paladin. Oh well, the revenge is sweet…

Whooshing through Trial of the Crusader

Yesterday we did Trial of the Crusader 10-man normal with Grumpy. We went through the raid like a hot knife through the butter – the whole raid in 40 minutes and not a single death! Talk about fast…

Deliorion finally got a new weapon, lovely [Fordragon Blades]. About time, I’ve been using ilevel 219 Trial of the Champion weapon. New polearm is only ilevel 232, but a huge upgrade nonetheless – it pushed my DPS nicely over 5.5k, depending on the fight, naturally. This will do until Icecrown raids, I think – and Deliorion will hopefully get the 4-piece T9 bonus this week, too.

Onyxia, revamped

Yesterday was a patch day – and nicely we had a raid planned with Grumpy. We cleared VoA without any problems, but had couple of wipes in Trial – mostly just bad luck.

And then we went to visit Onyxia.

I had never raided Onyxia in vanilla-WoW – but I had heard discussions how hard it was. All 40 people had to work hard to kill her.

I’ve described my experience with “old” Onyxia – it was easy even with quest blues. So I was quite happy to meet revamped Onyxia.

The fight is fun – it was easier for us, as we had people experienced with the old fight. I think I was the biggest issue at first, as I did not avoid the tail swipes *ashamed*.

But we downed her on first attempt, with just one death. On the other hand, another team wiped on her for three hours… today we are going to meet her in 25-man raid, I predict lots of deaths from deep breaths.

It would be really nice to get [Reinforced Shadowstrike], as Deliorion’s weapon is fast becoming his weakest gear – and one with the most impact on DPS. 2% drop rate… so I can just dream on, I am sure it will drop one day after I get a better weapon from the Icecrown raid…

Oh well.

Is Blizzard intentionally killing druid tanking?

Quite a lot of people, who joined World of Warcraft recently, probably don’t know that in addition of paladins, warriors, druids and now Death Knights, there was one more class that was able to fill the tank role – shaman.

Shamans were capable of tanking all the content, up to and including Burning Crusade heroic instances and Karazhan. They had no issues with aggro generation and only minor problems with damage mitigation, thanks to mail armor and shield.

But with Wrath of the Lich King, shamans became purely damage-dealers and healers. Who has even seen a shaman tank in level 80 content?! Blizzard decided that shamans should not be able to tank and removed that capability.

And now, more and more it seems that Blizzard wants to do the same with bear tanks. First there was an armor nerf with WotLK (roughly 25%, see chart here), then there was bonus armor nerf with patch 3.0.8 (patchnotes: “The mechanics for items with bonus armor on them has changed (any cloth, leather, mail, or plate items with extra armor, or any other items with any armor). Bonus armor beyond the base armor of an item will no longer be multiplied by any talents or by the bonuses of Bear Form, Dire Bear Form, or Frost Presence.”) – and there are fewer and fewer items with attributes wanted by bears.

What kind of items do bears want? Armor, agility, stamina and dodge – in random order. Remember seeing leather items especially aimed for bears? Let’s see some epic leather armor for level 80 with +agi, +sta, +dodge rating – from WowHead. Oh wait, there is none?!

There is plenty if you remove dodge rating requirement. Fair, bears are supposed to get dodge from agility anyway. So let’s see about bear trinkets. None with +agi/+sta. There is one high-level trinket with sta and dodge rating,  Heart of Iron. And that has on-use effect for dodge.

There is one trinket with agility, Darkmoon Card: Greatness.

Things are not much better with other slots. Most tanks use Naxx weapon to tank Ulduar, Trial of the Crusader and now Onyxia.

There simply are no bear-oriented items.

Ghostcrawler has stated that they want to simplify the stats and items. It seems that bears are aimed to be a casualty of said simplification. I truly hope it isn’t so.

Trial of the Crusader

Trial of the Crusader is truly the strangest raid that Blizzard has created. It seems that the goal has been just test out the ideas not fitting to main lore or storyline. Storyless bosses, weird mix of PvP and PvE fight on Faction Champions and so on.

I must admit, I don’t like most of this raid.

Northrend Beasts is too long – and quite frankly, boring as hell. Instead of three miniboss-fights, it should have been just one, perhaps Icehowl with more health and abilities.

Lord Jaraxxus… I hate this fight. Even with a good group, such as 15th Dusk tends to have, it is chaotic. Too much has been packed into one fight – and at the end of a day, it is still fairly easy fight. Just one of those “let’s get it out of a way” fights, no one will ever like or enjoy it.

Faction Champions (when will Blizzard finally fix the dialog? As of Wednesday, it still accuses Alliance of plotting against Horde – and that is with Alliance team…). Like it has been said many times, “if I want to play PvP, I will go to the battleground”. I wouldn’t mind this fight if it would be on equal terms – AoE working on enemies without 75% reduction, crowd control working normally and so forth – but as it is now, it is quite possibly the suckiest fight in any raid in WoW. We’ve learned to take them down fairly effectively, but… it is just “meh, whatever”.

And now the good fights. Twin Val’kyrs is a fun fight, even though it is taxing for both melee (more to run between portals) and tanks (half the aggro). The special abilities are neat, so are their screams and appearance. The (later added) AoE damage for the whole raid is kinda pointless, it taxes only groups with really bad healers – and last week we did it with one healer in iLevel 200 gear without problems.

And finally, Anub’arak. I must say I love the intro with Arthas – although, I am sure it will lose its appeal after seeing it few more times (also, the voice acting of Highlord Tirion Fordring is horribly bad). It will become boring waste of time, same as Trial of the Champion intro, which was fun for three times and skull-numbingly boring after that.

But the fight itself is fun – lots of variation and things to look out for. I cannot wait to try it in Heroic difficulty – should be much harder then.

I only wish we could skip the first three fights. They all are just “get it done” fights for me. Boring farming/grinding.

The Bear Tank Creed

From Big Bear Butt Blogger, The Bear Tank Creed:

I, the Bear Tank, do hereby promise the following;

I will place my big bear butt between you and the enemy.

I will take upon my face the blows that our enemies seek to deliver.

I shall normally be the first to pull, but will not be too proud to use crowd control.

I shall attempt to stand still so that the melee may get well and truly stuck in, for the greater glory of the damage meters.

I shall strive to drag the mobs into a small cluster within line of sight of the ranged DPS, so that the AoE can be bountiful for the greater glory of the damage meters.

I shall watch the placement of both the melee players AND the pets, that they may ALSO be within range and line of sight of the healers, and if not I shall move my butt accordingly.

I shall move my bear butt if we be standing in the fire, mon. And I’ll move far enough that the melee is out of it, too.

I shall watch the party, and if the enemy ignores me because one of the party looks tasty, I shall target him and taunt him and make him my bitch, because he has greatly displeased me.

I shall use my Demoralyzing Roar at will, that the enemy be made worthless and weak.

I shall use Feral Faerie Fire frequently, for in truth it is good to “light them up”.

I shall change my viewpoint often to watch the enemy AND the party both before AND behind me, because those who wish to survive the deep shit learn to “check their six.”

I shall Glyph for Maul, and revel in the destruction it causes.

I shall Glyph for Frenzied Regeneration, that the efforts of the healers be made bountiful when it matters the most.

I shall remember that Survival Instincts should be used before Frenzied Regeneration to really pack on the pounds, for normal bear butt plus bigger imaginary bear butt equals more powerfully regenerated massive bear butt.

I shall remember that my job is not to be highest on the damage meters, but instead to keep the enemies’ attention on me and only on me, to survive the attention, and to allow the rest of the party to deal massive amounts of damage without being bothered by pesky mobs in the face.

I shall endeavor to learn the capabilities of the enemy, for what we don’t know CAN kill us.

I shall use marks when the enemy can be a threat to the party, I will carefully note which of the enemy are the most dangerous threats to the party, and I will mark them for death first.

When in doubt, we shall kill the casters first, for they are squishy and taste good with ketchup.

Above all else, I shall remember that I am but one member of a team, and that no one member of the team contributes more to the success of the team than any other…

That if we succeed, it’s because the DPS and healers kicked ass…

If someone dies, it was my fault…

And that if there is a wipe, I shall not bitch about repair bills, for praise Blizzard we can tank without wearing plate.

I am not raid main tank with Deliorion – my main build and equipment are for kitty. But my bear equipment is decent enough for heroics or Naxx-10, maybe even a bit more by now. I quite like tanking, although I am far from best-skilled tanks.

There was one comment in the Big Bear Butt that is definitely worth mentioning:

“Without me, my healers and dps are worthless… without my healers and dps, I am worthless.”

This is very true and should remembered not only by tanks, but by everybody. Everybody are required to make the raid successful – there are no useless roles on raid.

PvP as a training for PvE

From a guildmate:

There’s a lot of spells in our spellbooks that we rarely use yet have a place when it comes to raiding and certain encounters – like last week while fighting the Faction Champions and I was told to stay in caster form and use Cyclone when needed. Uh, Cyclone, whassat *hunts through spellbooks* I’d never even used it before.. so it wasn’t even on my bars despite having the spell forever!

That is why I am always saying that PvP forces to play the class better.

Although, tbh, not so much with Deliorion – kitties have so few spells in their disposal that don’t require changing form. But even then, I still learned quite a bit about saving combo points and using them for the best result. And of course, one of the best things I’ve learned in PvP (although useless in PvE) is fighting hunters – Hibernate the pet, Cyclone the hunter, cast HoT’s on yourself, go kitty and kill the hunter. Devastatingly effective.

But with Lupia, PvP really forced me to learn to play the mage – when is something effective, how to distribute cooldowns – all those things that make the mage fun to play. And I must say that as a result, PvE became much more fun – there is no way I would have soloed Outland group quests without those skills.

And I can see how on Delanix my skills are improving thanks to very limited PvP I’ve done – judging the distances for Frost Shock root, escaping attackers when carrying a flag, alternating between humanoid and Ghost Wolf form to follow an escaping enemy, popping totems to benefit myself or the group in certain situations, etc etc. Although, I must admit I still have no cure for hunters…

I am not saying that everybody should do PvP, not at all. At first – on Delianna – I hated PvP. It truly sucked… well, I sucked. But I started doing battlegrounds with Lupia, to gear myself better – and at some point, realized I liked testing myself like that. Of course, having Knersus was a huge bonus – I truly miss that guy.

With every character I’ve thought the class is impossible to play effectively in PvP while the truth has been that it has been me – not knowing how to play. But I did not give up, I continued to learn from every battleground and every fight. I will never be a PvP king – but that is also not my goal. Now I am doing battlegrounds mostly for fun – and I am thinking about having Delanix’ planned second spec (healer) to be primarily for PvP – although I am sure it will be rather challenging.

Raid to the Karazhan, 2009-09-07

I did not understand, what was the deal with raiding. I figured it was just the same thing as instances, only with more people and better gear.

But then I joined 15th Dusk – to at least get a feel of raiding. And I realized I had been wrong.

Raids are where Blizzard spends a huge part – if not majority – of their creativity. No two bosses are the same, boss fights are long and complicated, often requiring many wipes before the team learns the tactics.

Another major aspect of the raids is the endgame. Raids are where the major storylines are tied up, where you meet legendary characters such as Medivh, Onyxia, Kil’jaeden, Illidan, Kel’Thuzad, Malygos, Anub’arak – and yes, eventually even Lich King himself.

And the third big aspect of raids is bonding, doing something together. All working towards the same goal, trying to avoid mistakes the best they can, knowing that the others trust and rely on them.

Shadowsteel is not a raid guild and it will not be a raid guild. We have no aspirations to be the first guild to clear a new raid or down boss in a hardmode. But I know that quite a few of us would like to see those legendary characters, in both retro and modern raids. We’ve been hoping even to go to Naxx-10 soon.

Yesterday we ventured to Karazhan, a level 70 raid. We had some issues with the content itself – side door did not open after the opera event (I posted a ticket about it this morning, although I am unsure if CM can help with this bug), we did not understand the tactics on Shade of Aran and managed to wipe there at first. Very big thanks to Artaar for guiding us, that was truly needed – and as big thank you for everybody who stayed with us until the end of the raid.

I like RP in raids and instances – as I have said before, in many ways it is my favorite type of RP. I did not expect to participate much in RP yesterday, as the raid leader rarely has time for it. But what I was hoping for was a nice raid where we can (re-)learn how to work together.

If your character is a bitch RP-wise, you must understand when to drop RP bitchiness and work for a team. Ruining the raid is not a solution – and even worse, causing deaths with your behavior is something everybody wants to avoid. No one likes repair bills – for well-geared characters, one death can mean 10G or more.

In a raid or not, everybody are expected at least to know the basics of their own class. What an aura, totem or buff does should be learned as soon as you get it from the trainer. If you are not sure, ask – no one will ever bite your head off because of it, at least not in Shadowsteel. Ask, but don’t be silent and hope that it will pass.

Consumables. I was horrified yesterday when I moved Deliorion to Kara gates – and found that I had only six Wild Spineleaf, reagent for 60-minutes Gift of the Wild buff. Thankfully, Aza had more and even my six would have been enough – but the possibility of letting others down by not being prepared…

And yet it seems for others it is not an issue to walk into an instance or raid without consumables. Please come prepared.

Behavior. Yesterday we spent quite a lot of time clearing trash that really didn’t need to be cleared. As a tank, it was my decision to do so. Why? Because I cannot trust people to avoid those trash mobs – instead of running on the side of the corridor, they happily jaunt in the middle. I left two of such trash uncleared at opera entrance – and naturally someone eventually pulled them both. Be aware of your surroundings – or, at least just follow the tank. When the tank is on the left side, there might be a reason for it.

Three first boss fights (excluding the servant quarters’ hound) were not started by the tank. People saw it fit just to pull or talk to NPC. In a real raid, this would have mean wipe every single time, but as this was a low-level raid, we managed with only few deaths – these could have been completely avoided.

Only tank or raid leader pulls or starts the fight. Many high-level bosses can kill clothie with a single hit. Wrong pull will mean deaths or a complete wipe. You don’t want to be the one who causes that.

I do not expect anyone to be super-raider, not at all. But I do expect you to try to give your personal best, not just give up without trying. I am not asking anything from anyone that isn’t something I am not willing follow or do myself.

Achievement Creator

Warcraft Achievement Creator by MMOCluster was very nice – except for the annoying ad at the bottom. However, now they want everybody to go through the registration hoops before allowing to generate an achievement.

So, I created my own tool to create achievements – http://dukelupus.com/achievementcreator/. Please let me know of any issues and suggestions you might have.

Shadowsteel quiz 2009-05-27

1. Who is the founder and ruler of Theramore?
2. Jaina Proudmoore has been rumored to have been romantically involved with three outstanding males, all from different races. Who were they?
3. This high-ranking member of the Kirin Tor council dabbled with black arts and ended up being a minion of the Lich King. He can be seen peacefully walking in Old Hillsbrad Foothills. Who is he?
4. This famous hat summons an incorporeal coyote spirit to accompany you. Who is the original wearer of the hat?
5. South of the Silverpine Forest lays Greymane Wall. What lays beyond that impenetrable wall?
6. Who was the last Guardian of Tirisfal, an ancient line of protectors bestowed with great powers to do battle with the agents of the Burning Legion? He was corrupted even before birth, and possessed by the spirit of the demonlord Sargeras.
7. The first paladin of the Knights of the Silver Hand led his Order in battle against the Horde during the Second War. During the Third War, he was betrayed and murdered by his beloved pupil. Who was the paladin and who was the pupil?
8. Speaking of Uther the Lightbringer, there exists an ancient human language known as “Latin”. What is the translation of his surname into Latin?
9. Being of immense power has been imprisoned under Northrend by titans. He corrupted the world tree Vordrassil when its roots penetrated his lair. Druids destroyed the tree upon discovering its taint, but corruption continued to spread to the Grizzlemaw furbolgs which later inhabited the tree’s stump and attempted to regrow the world tree. The furbolgs used the corrupted magic of the tree to resurrect the bear god Ursoc, who in turn also became corrupted. Depressing whispers from that being can be heard in Whisper Gulch (Howling Fjord), such as “They have turned against you. Now… take your revenge.”, “Kill them all… Before they kill you.”, “Give in to your fear.” Who and what is that being?
10. She is a queen of her kind, guardian of all life on Azeroth. She helped create Nordrassil, the World Tree, by placing a magical acorn within the second Well of Eternity. She could be the most powerful individual on Azeroth. She remains distant and aloof, avoiding the entanglements of Azeroth’s humanoid races and remaining strictly neutral in their wars. She prefers peace and solitude, although she will defend her lands with all her power against any who threaten them without due cause. She often uses her shapechange power to appear as a creature of nature, in order to see what encroaching mortals will do before revealing her presence.

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1. Lady Jaina Proudmoore founded Theramore as a refuge camp and a place to start uniting human kingdoms again.
2. Kael’thas Sunstrider, Arthas and Thrall.
3. Kel’Thuzad. He heard the call of the Lich King and willingly traded his soul for the power.
4. [Don Carlos' Famous Hat] drops from Don Carlos in Old Hillsbrad Foothills on Heroic difficulty.
5. A human nation, Gilneas. They never supported the Lordaeron Alliance in the Second War and after the war, they constructed the Greymane Wall: a massive barrier spanning the entire northern border. No one knows what is happening beyond the wall.
6. Medivh, the wielder of Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian. He can be seen in Caverns of Time: Opening of the Dark Portal.
7. Lord Uther the Lightbringer. His pupil was no other then Prince Arthas Menethil.
8. Lucifer, meaning “Light-Bringer” (from lux, lucis, “light”, and ferre, “to bear, bring”). It is also a name for the “Morning Star” (the planet Venus in its dawn appearances).
9. Yogg-Saron, an Old God, one of the malevolent deities who ruled Azeroth in the ancient past before they and their Elemental Lieutenants were defeated by the Titans. Saronite ore is named after him.
10. Alexstrasza the Life-Binder, Aspect of the Red Dragonflight. She can be seen (human form) in Dragonblight, on top of the Wyrmrest Temple, and later as a dragon at Angrathar the Wrath Gate after the completion of Return to Angrathar.