WoW Ironman Challenge - Ironstevo Update

For anyone wondering, Ironstevo is still alive and well. He is about 75% of the way through level 83 and he is very slowly and steadily inching his way toward 84. He is also getting a little more nervous as he's moving forward. Heck, he's practically afraid of his own shadow right now.

Random disconnects are the biggest fear at this point. I've been pretty lucky recently as far as those go (knock on wood). When I first created Ironstevo, and the original Ironsteve, I was disconnected several times and thankfully saved by my pets each time while I was frantically trying to log back in. If I get dc'd with my poofy blue marshmallow out now, I think I'll stand a chance against wotlk mobs, but not cata mobs. For this reason I am sticking to Northrend hopefully until level 85, so long as I can continue gaining xp as I have been the last few levels.

That isn't the only reason I'm sticking to Northrend however. Cataclysm mobs have FAR more hit points and hit incredibly hard compared to npcs in Northrend. One cata mob I can take on, and it's not easy. If I make a sloppy pull and grab a second -- that could be the end. With Northrend quests only giving slightly less xp than cata quests, I'd rather not take the extra risk and just do a few more Northrend quests to get there.

I've managed to make it to this point without touching any of the quests in Icecrown or Stormpeaks (minus the ones to open up the Knights of the Ebon Blade dailes). Hopefully the quests in those zones will still yield ~20k xp at 84. I started the opening quest-line to open up the Sons of Hodir dailies as well, but then got too chicken to finish them. I know that a couple of the other Ironman challengers that made it to the end were able to open them up but I'm not willing to try the quest The Drakkensryd. The thought of not having my marshmallow by my side scares me, but what scares me more than anything is the thought of falling to my death. I know I can complete the quest without my pet, I've done this quest several times on pet classes before (both a hunter and my gnome lock, each at level 78). Ironstevo has enough health now (20489hp) to be able to stand a very good chance against those crazy blue ladies. The mobs can even be dotted up at range before moving to the next drake and killed with minimal risk. As far as I know though, there is still an incredibly tiny chance that I could be dismounted by another player while doing the quest. A couple of years ago I fell to my death when I was fighting one of the drake-riders. The drake I was fighting on just...vanished, and I had no idea what happened. The same thing happened to my husband a few weeks later, and after some research we figured out that when another player spears the drake that your fighting on it de-spawns. Just *poof* gone. I'm not sure if this is still the case, and the odds of it happening are probably incredibly small if it is, but those are odds I am not willing to take. Without some type of slowfall and not being allowed to use potions, a vanishing drake would certainly = death.

So that being said, I have still opened up a decent amount of dailies. I've been doing the Argent Tournament ones where I snagged Ironstevo one of the only titles he will probably see until they become an account-wide thing in mop. In Sholazar Basin he's done enough to pick up his Mysterious Egg, hopefully we'll see some Green Proto-Drake love in a few days. I've been doing a couple of the Knights of the Ebon Blade dailies as well, but the two dailies which are giving the best experience right now are The Way to His Heart (which scales by level, 44k xp at level 83) and Thieving Little Pluckers (32k xp at 83).

Treasure chests are still proving to be a HUGE added chunk of experience for Ironstevo as well. The ones in Howling Fjord, Borean Tundra and Grizzly Hills have just started to decrease in the amount of xp they give (roughly 17k rested at level 83), but experience is experience so I'm still looking for them. The rest of the chests I'm finding in Northrend are still giving about 44k xp.

When dailies are finished and chests have been found I do a few green quests. I recently did a good portion of Sholazar Basin where I came across a pretty cool ring called Flores' Lost Seal of Approval. It filled a blank ring slot for Ironstevo, and after looking it up on wowhead apparently people actually farm for this thing for their bank toons. =)

Ironstevo's sweet new ring!

I've got a lot of painting to do around my house this week, and this weekend coming up I'll be away visiting my parents out of state; so I won't have an another Ironstevo update for probably a couple of weeks. Until then, cross your fingers and hold your breath!

Eversong Woods Rare Spawns

Eversong Woods is one of my favorite zones in the game. I absolutely love the landscape -- the trees, the colors, the blood elf architecture; it's all so gorgeous. In fact it's so beautiful, that I have to stop myself from taking screenshots just about every two minutes when I'm there. Eversong Woods is also home to only two rares. Blizzard really skimped out on newbie blood elves...

Those rares are Tregla - a level 10 troll, and Eldinarcus - a level 11 mana surge (elemental). Neither are particularly difficult. My naked iron priest had no trouble downing either of them at level.

Their spawn timers are fairly short, and with so few people leveling through Eversong nowadays they are fairly likely to be up if you go looking for them.

Click Map to Enlarge

Treasure Chests & Why you should be looking for them

Reason #1: This screenshot below~

Ironstevo finding a treasure chest in Howling Fjord

Getting experience from treasure chests is one thing, but this is just insane! Granted this chest was found while Ironstevo was rested (which gives double xp), but even not at rested this chest would have given 21k xp! There are chests all over the world (not just in Northrend) that give experience for those who find them. Even after hitting level 80 Ironstevo has still been getting full experience from these.

Reason #2: Treasure!! These chests can contain some great loot. My ironman toons are nearly drowning in all of the blues they've gotten from these. I've also gotten multiple Books of Glyph Mastery, blue quality jewelcrafting designs, potions, elixirs and gems out of them! Even Ironsteve (my level 46 druid) is nabbing experience and low-level blues from chests; so whatever level you are, and wherever you are you should be looking for these!

Reason #3: They really aren't difficult to find when you know where to look.

If you want to start finding these things, the first thing I would recommend doing is download the addon GatherMate2 along with GatherMate2_Data. GatherMate2 (the newest version of GatherMate) shows the locations of not only these treasure chests, but also herbs, mining nodes, fish pools and other sought after items once you've found them. It is also important to download GatherMate2_Data along with it, because this will import the data required to show locations of treasure that you haven't found yet.

WoW Ironman Challenge - The Final Countdown

"Always watch your back..."

I wanted to give a quick update on Ironstevo before I dive straight into talking about the lovely treasure chests he's been finding recently (I'm saving that for it's own post which I'm currently working on). Ironstevo has hit level 80 as of two nights ago and he's still alive!! I honestly can't believe that he's made it this far! ^-^

Ironstevo finds another Treasure Chest

Hold your breath, cross your fingers, pray to whatever deity you can, these last five levels are going to be treacherous. Northrend mobs now only give 10% xp, so Ironstevo is relying on quests and chests to move forward. I have no intention of taking him to any of the Cataclysm zones until I have exhausted my options in Northrend. At level 80 Ironstevo has a mere 7874 hit points, even his squishy voidwalker is only sitting at 11326. I imagine the mobs in the Cataclym starting zones would easily destroy him in 2-3 hits at this point.

Ironstevo Dings 75 & Finds Some "Safe" XP

Ironstevo hit level 75 last night. Holy moly, I can't even believe it! He's the number two warlock in the world currently on the wowironman.com leaderboard. He's also number one for the forsaken! Hurrah for the undead! =D

He's had a few close calls in the past week, but no deaths yet...thank kittens!

Ironstevo is currently questing through Borean Tundra and The Howling Fjord, and has been popping back and forth between those two zones since he hit 72. From 70-72 he did a mixture of Outland quests in Blade's Edge, Shadowmoon Valley and Nagrand, as well as dailies on the Isle of Quel'Danas. He did a bit of grinding to kill some of his massive rested xp as well in Borean Tundra on neutral mammoths for about half a level. He's also finally opened up all of the Kalu'ak dailies, and has been doing those religiously since.

A Close Call: