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!