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Horde has some pretty odd locations for trainers, resources, etc. But, when you are leveling engineering to 225, if you have a guild bank with the mats or your bank account with the mats and don’t need to continually buy mats from the Auction House, Rachet is your place.

The engineering trainer is right near the flight master, the bank and guild bank are right there, and the smelter/anvil is in a little house just to the west of the bank. A mailbox and Inn is just up the hill in case you have another Alt in a major city next to an Auction House in case you need to buy a few mats and mail them over.

All told, I was able to raise engineering from 80 to 225 making some quick runs back and forth. A few tiny miscalculations on just how many Mithril Bars I needed, or Heavy Stone, but, it sure beat running back and forth to the bank and Anvil and Trainer in Orgrimmar. Alliance, if you’re on a PVP realm, I’m sure you might find Rachet a bit tricky, but, the time savings on a PVE Realm for both Alliance and Horde or, for Horde on a PVP Realm is substantial.

Enjoy leveling Engineering.

We were running a new guildie through to twink out his rogue and decided to farm Arcanist Doan for [item]34227[/item] which dropped on the first run. Having farmed 6 of these over the course of many trips, it was a bit of a shock, so, we decided to farm for [item]7682[/item] since we had time left over, and, wouldn’t you know it, it drops on the first kill.

Getshanked is one lucky rogue. Short of quest gear, he’s got all of the drops and crafted items. Now we just need to level him to 27 to start doing the rest of the quests to get the rest of his gear.

A while back I had a bank alt that I needed to level to 35 to get Alchemy and Leatherworking up to a more respectable level. Along the way, I figured I’d make another low budget twink with relatively easily obtainable items. I didn’t really like the 30-39 bracket much, and now that level 30 players have mounts, I believe that will have changed the entire dynamic of the game. I played this bracket for a while, and will probably leave my hunter where he is, but, I doubt I’ll play much in this bracket. Here are my notes for making a budget twink hunter in the 30-39 bracket.

Head:
[item]8176[/item] Crafted
Neck:
[item]15200[/item] PVP Reward, 20 WSG Marks, 95 Honor
Shoulder:
[item]10774[/item] Boss Drop, Glutton, RFD
Chest:
[item]8175[/item] Crafted
Waist:
[item]13117[/item] World Drop
[item]4131[/item] Quest, Zanzil’s Secret, Obtained at 35
Legs:
[item]1718[/item] World Drop
[item]14605[/item] World Drop
Feet:
[item]9398[/item] Drop from Uldaman
Wrist:
[item]14654[/item] World Drop
[item]33250[/item] Quest, Twilight of the Dawn Runner, Obtained at 33
Hands:
[item]10765[/item] Drop from Bonefinger, RFD
Finger:
[item]29158[/item] Crafted
[item]4135[/item] Quest, Bloody Bone Necklaces, Obtained at 30
Back:
[item]11858[/item] Quest, A Grim Discovery, Obtained at 37
Weapons:
[item]7941[/item] Crafted
[item]1602[/item] World Drop

Ranged:
[item]2825[/item] World Drop, not as rare as you would think
[item]19560[/item] PVP Reward, 30 Warsong Gulch Marks, 469 Honor
[item]9400[/item] Boss drop, Uldaman, its possible while farming the boots that you will get this as well

Trinkets:
[item]21568[/item] PVP Reward, 30 WSG Marks, 118 Honor
[item]21116[/item] PVP Reward, 30 AB Marks, 258 Honor
[item]18846[/item] PVP Reward, 2805 Honor
[item]2820[/item] Quest, This is going to be Hard, Obtained at 36

In this bracket, I dislike guns. You’re a lot more powerful than you had been in the 29 bracket where guns do make a lot of sense. There’s nothing more frightening to the defenders in the flag room to hear the boom of a gun as it hits one of them. They believe the entire team is on the way. With a bow, you can catch people offguard because they never hear their teammate get hit.

As for pets, I’ve seen a few and it depends on what type of player you are. For Defense, I like a cat. They have a little better stealth detection and parked in the right place, rogues cannot get by. For FC/EFC support, I like boars for their charge & stun. Scorpions are interesting with their poisons. Cats also are very good for targeting casters with as they have a very fast attack speed and that interrupts casting. Ravagers do pure DPS in this bracket and since you don’t need to worry about taking aggro from a tank, killing your target fast is a great benefit. I chose a cat for the Caster Interrupting and the increased stealth detection as I run D quite a bit more frequently than I run O. In WoLK, there will be a number of different pet skills added and the entire pet mechanics are going to be changed, so, you might find yourself getting a new pet when WoLK is released.

Remember to put your [item]29534[/item] or [item]29536[/item] on your legs before you equip them.

Again, there are much better items that you can get, but, the goal here was to create a bank alt/transmuter that I could also run battlegrounds with.

While I loved being on my rogue, I thought it was time to make another character. I love defending Blacksmith or Lumber Mill and I love the offensive capability of going forth, sapping a guard at a node, and killing the other guy, vanishing and killing the other guy to take a flag. On our battlegroup, there was this two-shammy team and they just rolled over me. I’d get one of them but with their totems, heals and shocks, one of them would get out of the flagroom and it was up to the folks midfield. I love my rogue, but, the Rampage is short on versatile utility players. Too many times we’ll get 2 twinks on our side and have noone that will carry the flag, or, worse, someone that will carry, but no healers that can keep up with the kind of damage dealt by the twinks on the other side.

While I have run into the glass cannons or twinks so deep into a tree that they have sacrificed utility, I thought about making a hybrid shammy twink. The tough part is getting all of the quest gear that requires level 28 or 29 which allows me to switch from FC to Offense to Defending to escorting our Flag Carrier or supporting DPS. Unlike many of the players that can heal in our battlegroup, I’m not afraid to heal even though I am not specced for it. My shadow priest constantly topped the damage and healing charts in the 29 bracket.

While this set of gear isn’t necessarily easy to obtain, the survivability and the ability for me to switch roles when needed will be a huge bonus. I’ve thought a lot about what gear to have, and going after 3 different weapons and 3 shields along with a few other random item sets will be difficult in terms of experience, but, I believe while I won’t be at the top of the HKs, our side will have a considerable advantage because I can carry and have a good HP pool, or I can heal with a decent healing bonus and mana pool, or I can dish out the DPS when needed.

Head:
[item]6688[/item]
[item]10501[/item]
[item]9492[/item]
Shoulders:
[item]15140[/item] of the eagle
[item]7727[/item]
Cloak:
[item]10518[/item]
[item]19529[/item]
Chest:
[item]4119[/item] (quest chain starts at 28)
Bracers:
[item]4049[/item]
[item]18948[/item]
[item]2032[/item] (To Steal From Thieves, Obtained at 27)
Gloves:
[item]6732[/item] (News for Fizzle, Requires 28)
[item]15355[/item] of the Eagle
[item]6727[/item] (Safety First, Obtained at 29)
Belt:
[item]20198[/item] (AB, 20 marks, 175 honor)
Legs:
[item]5963[/item]
[item]7414[/item] of the Eagle
Feet:
[item]20157[/item] (AB, 20 marks, 175 honor)
Weapon:
[item]9459[/item]
[item]6738[/item] (Parts of the Swarm, obtained at 29)
[item]17039[/item] (An Unholy Alliance, obtained at 28, RFK drop on Razorflank, BC enchants)
Shield:
[item]17508[/item] (Compendium of the Fallen, obtained at 28)
[item]6746[/item] (The Corrupter, obtained at 25)
[item]6725[/item] (A Vengeful Fate, obtained at 23)

While the above list is no means complete, I will try to farm for [item]34227[/item] and will have other engineering items. Some of the trinkets that I had were just absolutely great. [item]4388[/item] isn’t cheap considering the Jade, but, it is a lot of fun.

The enchants are the tough part. I know I’ll put the [item]29536[/item] on the Barbaric Leggings and will put [item]24276[/item] on the Infiltrator’s Leggings. Skullbreaker will definitely get Enchant Weapon – Major Healing which will give +81. From those two items alone, I’ll be at +147 healing. I know that WoLK brings changes to the healing bonus and coefficients, but, they say it will even out. Coupled with the +27 healing from the Headdress and the Cloak and the +30 that I can put on the bracers, I should be able to hit +204 healing just from a midfield gear change. That is a considerable bonus for someone that won’t be specced for healing. I’ll be a utility healer for clutch situations. With some of the basic gear, I’ll easily have +600hp over the average player. With full enchants, I should be in the 1700hp range with about 2100 mana. My build will have Instant Ghost Wolf which limits some of the talent points I have to spend, but, I think this equipment will allow me the flexibility to run hybrid, or, when running with guildies, I can respec elemental or resto and be a little more specialized.

Looking forward to the battlefield.

If you’ve got a 70 that can help you farm some items and quests, it doesn’t need to be extremely costly to make a budget twink Rogue for the 20-29 bracket. A friend had asked what it took to make IBJammin, and while I am not a true twink, I am still able to kill enemy twinks rather effectively. Knowing how to play your class helps tremendously. I’ve seen extremely well geared twinks drop in a flash, and I’ve seen twinks that have the gear and know how to play well. I’d like to think I provided a challenge to them.

If you wanted to make a 29 twink rogue without spending bucketloads of cash, here’s a good starting point. I chose a Troll for a few reasons including the improved Regeneration and Berserking.

Each race has different advantages. On the Alliance side, Humans have perception — combined with [item]10501[/item] you are great for D. You also have a sword bonus which can be helpful. Dwarves have Stoneform which is nice along with added frost resistance. Night elves have an extra 1% dodge and Shadowmeld. Shadowmeld increases stealth passively. Of all of the Alliance races, Gnomes take the cake if you’re going to level engineering. With Escape Artist you get another way to escape snares, and, you get a 15 point skill bonus to engineering, allowing you to use the [item]10506[/item] which has great stamina and allows underwater breathing. In addition, you get some arcane resistance.

For Horde, you can choose Orc. The axe specialization isn’t really handy, nor is the pet bonus. The 15% resist to stuns is quite nice at times. For a rogue, you would hit hard, but, I believe you lose some of the finer points of the other classes. Undead is quite viable. Undead has extra shadow resistance, which is quite nice, but, has Will of the Forsaken which gets you out of a Fear, Sleep, Seduce, etc without needing a trinket. Undeads are very good warlock killers and the 29 bracket has plenty of warlocks. Trolls have berserking and a passive regen bonus. Berserking increases your attack and casting speed from 10% to 30% depending on how little health you have. The less health, the faster your attack. Combined with Slice and Dice, you can do a lot of damage when you’re about dead and there is no healer around. Blood Elves have a Jewelcrafting bonus, and, a limited range silence effect to add on top of the other spell interruption abilities. I’ve run into a few Blood Elf rogues and I’ve never seen one use Mana Tap, but, I’ve often thought rolling a BE for a Rogue might have been cool.

In any case, here’s a relatively inexpensive starting point for a Rogue. For the Alliance, I believe you would need to find Humbert’s Helm on the neutral Auction House. Its a pretty good helm and is relatively easily farmable for Horde. You can /pray to Rousch which is said to make the item drop more frequently.

Helm:
[item]15339[/item] of the Monkey – Auction House/World Drop
[item]7413[/item] of the Monkey – Auction House/World Drop
[item]4724[/item] Farmable in Dun Garok

Neck:
[item]19537[/item] PVP Reward

Shoulder:
[item]15140[/item] Auction House/World Drop
[item]2278[/item] Auction House/World Drop
[item]7408[/item] Auction House/World Drop

Chest
[item]4119[/item] Quest Chain, Obtained at 28, Raptor Mastery

Waist:
[item]20191[/item] PVP Reward

Legs:
[item]7373[/item] with [item]29534[/item] or [item]29536[/item] Crafted
[item]7414[/item] with [item]29534[/item] or [item]29536[/item] Auction House/World Drop

Feet:
[item]20188[/item] PVP Reward

Wrist:
[item]18948[/item] Crafted

Hands:
[item]6727[/item] Long Quest Chain that starts at 29 – Safety First

Ring:
[item]24118[/item] Quest Chain that starts at level 27 – Never Again!
[item]19513[/item] PVP Reward
[item]34227[/item] (if you can farm it)

Back:
[item]9860[/item] Auction House/World Drop. Almost any cape is fine to start.

Weapons:
[item]19545[/item] PVP Reward
[item]6681[/item] Boss Drop from Razorfen Kraul

Bow:
[item]3078[/item] Boss Drop from Blackfathom Deeps

Your necessities will be the crafted items and the Quest items. You can always try out twinking and decide to buy Bind on Equip gear later on. If you get the easily obtained items, and then fill in the rest of the items with either ‘of stamina’, ‘of the monkey’ or ‘of the bear’ gear, you should be ok. Of the Bear gear is usually pretty cheap for leather gear. The main thing that will make the difference are the legs. Between that and the chest, with the enchant, you’ll have over 450 more hitpoints than the non-twinks in the battleground. That alone is a significant advantage. Once you start stacking on the PVP gear, you’ll feel yourself getting more powerful. Adding enchants to your gear will make a huge difference as well.

There are better weapons if you want to farm them. I’ve seen rogues with two [item]7682[/item] or [item]2912[/item] with [item]7682[/item]. [item]6681[/item] drop 67% of the time and is still not a bad weapon. For a good portion of my career, I ran with [item]15241[/item] of the Tiger as my offhand after getting the [item]19545[/item]. I’ve seen a few dagger rogues with [item]776[/item] main hand.

For a sword rogue, the common combination is [item]8226[/item] and [item]13033[/item]. As for a mace rogue, I’ve not seen too many in the 20-29 bracket, so, I don’t really have any suggestions there.

Hopefully from this you can put together a cost effective rogue twink for the 20-29 battlegrounds. The most expensive part of this build will be the [item]29534[/item] or [item]29536[/item] which are almost a necessity. Over 8000 of my kills were done with the Clefthide kit on the Dusky Leggings and no other enchants. To this day, I still have the Dusky Leggings with the Clefthide, but, in the last two weeks of my membership, finally got Thornspike and put enchants on most of the items. The difference was incredible.

If you want to spend some money, Engineering adds quite a bit to your build. [item]10518[/item] is very helpful for rezzing at BS and dropping down to take or defend mine. With Sprint or [item]10724[/item], you can make it from LM to defend BS rather quickly. You cannot ‘use’ the cloak while stealthed, but, you can use it and then stealth. [item]10721[/item] comes in very handy. In addition to these items, take a look at Toys, Toys, Toys for some other fun engineering gadgets along with some farmable items.

I hope you enjoyed the quick guide.

I loved my shadow priest when I was leveling up. So, I created a 29 Shadow Priest after my main turned Holy. While that was fun, we had an army of alts that were all level 20 for transmutes and I decided one day to turn Ibjammin into a twink rogue. The first 7k kills on him were gotten while I was level 28, without the better offhand dagger, and without any enchants. The next 3k kills were a lot of fun, and in the last two weeks of my WoW membership, we leveled up a guildmate’s Blood Elf Warlock, farmed a few items and twinked him. Our last two weeks were a lot of fun — more fun than playing my main. I figured I would rejoin when Wrath of the Lich King comes out so we’ve been preparing a list of items to get for a flexible Shammy that could carry, dps or heal. Shammy’s are one of the few classes that I had trouble with. On Rampage, there was a shammy pair that would just kite me and slow me when I ran solo D in WSG. One on one, no problem, but, if they played smart, they would usually make it out of the flag room, and if they could get past the GY, it was up to the players in midfield.

At that point, I decided to make a shammy twink for the 29 bracket. My guildie was going to make a Pally twink and we decided to make a druid twink for him as well.

Twinking was something that I really hated when I leveled up. I ran battlegrounds in the 20-29 bracket and 30-39 bracket and was completely dominated. I’m sure it was my quest obtained gear or partially that I was following questlines and didn’t learn how to PvP. Other players fight much differently than a pulled mob. But, to get the PvP mount at 60, you have to grind 30 WSG, 30 AB and 30 AV tokens. We figured, since the battlegrounds in those two brackets pop frequently, it would be easier just to slug through 30 games of each. My experience of AV at 59 was just awful. Horde on our battlegroup was steamrolled every time and it was so bad that I vowed never to play AV again. When I hit 70, queue times on Rampage for AV were close to two hours and I didn’t care. When it came time to gear for Kara and the other instances, things changed. I didn’t have the time to do much more than Pug instances, and while our server did have a number of Kara Pugs, to get geared for Kara you needed some battlegrounds gear for healing that were easier to obtain and better than any quest gear/instance gear that could be obtained at that point.

So, I hit the battlegrounds, doing my dailies to get the honor bonuses, Blizzard made a change to AV and all of the sudden, we had 2 minute queues. It took no time at all to get my boots and bracers and I sort of enjoyed it. I never did arena, but, got almost the full S1 gear through honor (my welfare epics) before getting really bored with the honor grind.

But, 70 became a grind. Every day you had to run your dailies to get your marks and honor to buy the next item, and then gear up a little more, then arena gear came out that was a little better and you continued to have to earn points to buy that. I saw an endless honor grind — preform groups were running to eliminate the time factor almost taking things down to a mechanical 12 minute AV win for 630 honor, but that took the fun out of it. Honor weekends had several groups running preforms for the quick honor — steamrolling the other side while everyone was on vent coordinating the mass attack. It wasn’t fun.

I saw an interesting signature on the WoW forums that really hit home.

70’s play the system, twinks play the game

Truer words were never spoken.

My Shadow Priest and Rogue twinks became my salvation. I didn’t really like steamrolling the other side’s weaker players, but, there was a certain honor in doing what most people didn’t want to do. For some reason, in our battlegroup, Horde classes that can heal, even when they are watching their teammates die, will not heal because they are not ‘specced’ for healing. My guildmate was a Shadow Priest running AVs in the 60s and often times topped the healing charts while hitting the upper end of the damage charts. Horde hates to heal, Horde hates to defend. On my shadow priest, I would often outheal and outdps most of the team. Escorting the FC was the same old, renew, bubble, dispel if needed, prep for the incoming attack. When I started my rogue, I figured I would be on the front lines. I found defending the flag room or defending nodes to be much more rewarding. I didn’t top the HKs or damage meters, but, when I ran D, Horde had a tendency to win a little more frequently. I would run O, sometimes carry the flag, but, usually, I would play D.

The one thing Horde lacks in our battlegroup are versatile utility players. We have the hunters that know how to play, know when to take the Free Action Potion, how to kite properly and in general are great at assisting the FC and killing the EFC. I’ve got a 38 Hunter, but, it wasn’t that much fun. I figured, why not pick the one class I had problems with. I have a number of alts so that I could figure out how to play each class and I know how I can best take down each of them because I’ve played those classes in battlegrounds. I watch what other people do, I know how to attack, what to attack – I’ve had rogues that outgeared me by a long shot that would have to call in another teammate to take me down — and I didn’t go down quietly. Often times when I saw a twink down a potion, I was that much more determined to not take a potion. That is when you generate some serious aggro. I’ve had games where their twinks were so focused on me that they completely forgot about the rest of the game. I started to recognize names from time to time — Cogman was one of the few that really had it in for me it seemed.

I was defending Mine one time with my guildmate on his lock. Cogman drops down from BS with his parachute cloak, gets to the ground, I ambush him, nail him, boom, he’s dead. Ok, he won’t try that again, but, here comes a hunter inbound from the sky, he lands, he dies. I don’t know how many times we killed him while he tried to take the mine, but, it was more than a handful. Thank goodness for no diminishing returns.

One on one, cogman was tough. Two on one, cogman was tough. But, the battle generally was very close and a lot of fun. There were a number of notable twinks that we played against somewhat frequently, and it seemed that there was an innate honor for twinks to battle twinks and let the rest of the people run the battleground. I can remember one game where I let our 20 shammy pick up the Alliance flag rather than me carrying it and the gnome rogue twink I had killed to get in there left our FC alone and went after me. I don’t know if he told everyone to ignore us, but, its was a 1v1 duel in the middle of a game. After he killed me, he didn’t /spit, he /bow’ed. Our 20 shammy FC got all 3 caps that game and he loved it. He didn’t have the totems, he didn’t have the gear, he didn’t have the heals to keep up with the damage that was dished out, but, the thanks we got for letting him carry the flag not once, but three times for the win made it all worth while. I find it strange that when its 4v1, the alliance have the audacity to /spit on me after two or three of them are dead and only one or two survive. I’m sure horde do the same thing.

I’m not the kind of twink that goes out just to kill the lowbies. I’ll actually let a lowbie pass and go after the twinks if I’m doing battle. Get near my flag or my node and I’ll kill you dead — twink or not. There isn’t much real honor out there, but, once in a while you do run into it.

I could care less about the tokens or the honor. I love the battles and I love fighting in the face of sure defeat, and somehow, with a trinket or cooldown that I saved for just the right instant turning it around. Maybe I’m dead, but it took three or four of you to take me down — and we just capped the flag while you spent 40% of your team taking me down.

Andy Crowther used to have time to play a lot of computer games. Not any more. At 33, he is now a supermarket manager in North London and has a girlfriend.

Despite the intrusion of real life, Mr Crowther still enjoys slaughtering hordes of monsters and capturing treasure in online games such as World of Warcraft and Star Wars Galaxies. But, like increasing numbers of gamers, he no longer has endless hours to earn the “virtual gold” needed to buy weapons and upgrades which make the game more fun. Luckily for him, 400,000 geeks, mostly in East Asia, are available for hire at the click of a button.

Read the Article here

What do you think? I know plenty of people buy their way into the 70s and have talked with people that have paid real dollars for a 2250 rating. I’ve also seen the farmers on and the GliderBots running around and its frustrating when you’re trying to farm mats for an item or to make some cash. Technically, if you kill a farmer multiple times, you’re griefing. Same if you steal their kills or train mobs over them. Are they creating their own economy by forcing you to buy the gold to get the items that they’ve farmed?

Twinking is all about Engineering. So many times we would just have fun. Seeing the reactions from other players, both on Horde or Alliance, is always quite enjoyable.

Some of our favorite toys:

[item]10518[/item]
[item]10501[/item]
[item]4852[/item]
[item]10716[/item]
[item]10720[/item]
[item]10724[/item]
[item]10721[/item]
[item]4388[/item]
[item]4384[/item]
[item]4397[/item]
[item]10646[/item]
[item]10726[/item]
[item]2091[/item]
[item]4381[/item]
[item]4395[/item]
[item]4397[/item]

Due to a lot of circumstances, I ended my WoW membership in July.  Before I stopped, IBJammin was pretty darn close to 10000 Honorable Kills.  While this game wasn’t particularly noteworthy, I did take a screenshot for posterity.

Cogman, a dwarf hunter was my 10000th kill.  It was always great facing him.

Ibjammin's last game after hitting 10000 kills

A lot of times on Rampage, we’ll get into an AB and the odds will be stacked against us. For some reason, it is very common for us to start being 6-8 players down. Maybe Alliance clicks that ‘Join Battle’ button quicker than Horde — I don’t know, but, very often we start with a serious disadvantage. Usually, we give advice in the channel to send 3 to farm, rest to BS and call out the incs until more players show up. I remember we were 4 capped early in this one, it was deemed a total loss by several players that said, lets just kill and get it over with.

Qwaitxtwo, a recently twinked Blood Elf warlock and I decided to join the rampage doing the 2 man from node to node. We took farm, headed to LM and took that, headed to Stables, took that, headed to mine, took that. We never defended, we did notify the group that we were OMW Stables with Qwait, or OMW Mine with Qwait and we let our team know what we were about to leave. Qwait and I run Capping which is a compact battleground scorekeeper/timer. It doesn’t bark out the status in the channel every time there is a change so, it isn’t annoying to the entire battleground, but, it does give us a good indication of what we need to do, whether we can win or not and whether we need to hold or attack. Sometimes, the game is close enough that all we need to do is stop the counter.

In this game we rolled from one node to the next, and somehow turned it around. At the end of the game, there was a quite a bit of surprise by some of the other players. Its not a strategy that works often, but, the fact that we turned it around from sure defeat sure did feel good.