By that, I mean that you can simply run about and kill monsters until you level; no quests required.
Sometimes that "grinding out a level" is a side effect of doing something else in the game, and in my particular case that's because I've been grinding out materials I need for leveling professions: cloth of various forms and some magic items I can disenchant for their basic components.
This system has worked for me, keeping Era Cardwyn in relevant gear as she went up in levels, but when I looked back on the previous month I realized that of the last ten levels she gained she got most of that experience through the grinding process than anything else.
Unlike, say, Retail WoW, the crafting professions provide viable gear that remain useful throughout the entire leveling process. Are you a Frost Mage? A Fire Mage? Guess what? You can get the majority of your useful gear through simply making it yourself rather than having to constantly run dungeons. That doesn't mean that you can skip running dungeons at all, because there are still really good gear pieces in there, but you'll find that if you don't get the drops you want off of the bosses, your "back up" gear courtesy of the crafting professions will work nearly as well.
And a nice thing about working on crafting professions is that you can plan ahead more easily because you might get the recipe early enough that you can start working on what you need beforehand.
Like what Era Card is doing right now, which is killing demons --always a noble concept-- for Felcloth. Card can turn that Felcloth into Mooncloth, and then subsequently make a Robe of the Archmage, which is a Mage's best non-raid chest piece.
Little things like that are why I enjoy hanging around in Classic Era, because when I went back to Wrath Classic I found that the crafting professions I prefer aren't nearly as useful. With Tailoring, you can make bags and the odd item, but being useful for the leveling process? Eh, not really. Some of that is the focus of the game, where it shifted away from being a world that you inhabit and more toward the raiding process to finish the story, and some of that is the developers' better understanding of what works and what doesn't, so they increasingly put the majority of what works behind dungeons and raids. And if what a crafting profession did supported the raids, it got the lion's share of attention. Otherwise... Not much.
I'm happy to keep plodding along, however. It's stress-free playing, and I'm all for that.
#Blaugust2023
EtA: Corrected some grammar.
Crafting in Retail has radically changed this xpac, both for the better and the worse. Getting two pieces crafted is almost mandatory for people pushing, and you rely mostly on others to make your BoP for you through an AH-like request system. I kinda hate it as it makes leveling alts for a stable of crafters nearly impossible and you still have to get things from the content you are running.
ReplyDeleteI do have to say that I liked the buffs you got from Cata and Mists content. A Destro Warlock in MIsts almost had to take herbalism for the haste buff, but seeing as I had already ground that out, I was a happy camper.
I can see where being highly reliant upon others to fill your crafting orders could backfire, especially once people get geared and people just wander away from crafting. If you come in fairly late to the expac --or even a year in-- and you need that gear but can find no takers, you're kind of screwed.
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