Twinkies? Yes please!

Let me start of by saying that I’ve always eschewed the practice of twinking. I’ve never understood spending (potentially) hundreds of gold on a level 19 dude. Heck everyone else I’ve ever focused on lived in their motley collection of quested gear and made due. If I got the chance at a good blue on a drop, I’d always take it, but I never went out of my way to acquire them.

I’m currently in a three-person agreement to level some guys up. Someone I got into the game has never really been able to play with me because I focused on 70s and hoped he’d catch up. Well, it’s been a year and he hasn’t. Not anyone’s fault really, but we finally decided that if we didn’t set out to make it happen, it never would.

For lack of a better term, we came up with this “business plan.”

The Plan

1. He has a dwarf warrior he wants to play sitting idle at level 29. The other two members of the group are creating new dudes and catching up to him.
2. The two of us are pausing at level 19 to let our rest xp build up and to get a little honor and marks while we’re at the top of our bracket. We’ll also pause at 29 and 39. The rest of the nines are still up for discussion. What we did at about 17 (and presumably do for the other sevens where we’ll be doing BG) is to start acquiring some gear. Here’s how I did it.
   • I went to Lootables and set the filter to display rare items from level 15 to 19 that were cloth. I went through each of the equipment slots to find the best armor I could get at that point. I researched where the pieces dropped, whether they were BOP or BOE, and got some runs. I’m playing a (shadow) priest. I managed to pick up both the staff and wand from Deadmines and the cloth chest from Shadowfang. I also purchased a blue belt from the AH.
   • Played a few BGs. (Queue times in the 19 bracket suck)
   • Tried to analyze where the weaknesses are. I’m still running on high level alts to see if I can pick up a few blue BOE pieces. Also I’m looking at what enchants make sense for the various slots. I know that all pre-BC stuff can go on twink gear. But the really awesome stuff is going to cost in materials. If I can get by for a week or so with being unenchanted I’d rather do that. Since this isn’t a true twink I’m not willing to blow multiple high-level shards, dusts and essences to fix up gear I’m going to be jettisoning in a couple of weeks.
   • The enchants I do decide to buy aren’t totally wasted because they’ll be good for the next push of ten levels to the next nine.
   • I’m focusing right now on a couple of areas for BG: stamina, intellect, health and armor. If I can get some +healing or +damage as well, I won’t object.
   • Save honor to fill in key areas where there are holes for the next bracket.
3. We’re only going to play (once the two of us hit 29) when all three of us can be on. I expect that’ll be two or three times a week for a few hours. Sum total probably 8-15 hours per week.
4. Hit level 70 sometime this year. Yeah. Probably not going to happen.
   

Experiences So Far

Well, we’re 19 and have done three BGs. We won all three, so I’m sitting there with some pittance of honor and 9 WSG marks of honor.

I’m noticing a few things. First off, movement before horses makes WSG a totally different BG than I’m used to. There isn’t a mad rush for the other stronghold; it’s more of a leisurely stroll – with dots. I’ve not run into a situation where I needed the PVP trinket. Yes, it would be nice to remove some impairing effects; it hasn’t hampered me too much.

Rogues don’t scare me much. At 19, there is no real stunlock capability. I get quick casts where I can do any of three instants – psychic scream, shield, or renew. If I get a chance to respond, I don’t have a problem with rogues, although I did stock up on antivenins to take care of their poisons.

Finally, even a little healing goes a long way. In games where I was really the only healer, my new friends could take care of opposition if I kept them up. Cleansing the hunter marks, dots, sheeps and fears also kept my guys pushing out the damage to them.

All in all, I really enjoyed my WSG 19 experience. I’m only at about 15% rest as of last night, so I’ve another 9 days or so of idling. I’ll see how my experience changes before I hit 150% rest.

Next steps

Right now, I’m not terribly worried about gear and enchants. I’ve not seen any urgent need to kit myself out better. What I have is adequate and far exceeds what some other dudes are wearing. Granted, I think all three horde teams I fought were scrub teams where folks were just trying to get a little honor. I don’t think I’ve run into any pre-made twink groups, so I’ll have to assess as we go. I’ll keep you all posted.