Crow for Breakfast

So, yeah... Apparently I can't take my own advise. Last night sucked. It was awful, and it was all my own fault. Around level 10 I chose Mining/Blacksmithing for my professions. This turned out to be a bad idea. So, I dropped Blacksmithing and picked up Herbalism basically for Lifeblood (I linked the rank of Lifeblood that matches the level of herbs that I should be picking, 300+ skill) which, when combined with Cannibalize, means that I will hardly ever have to stop and eat, or bandage, ever. That's great in theory, but since I'm a screw up, things did not go as planned.

Screwup number one: I tried to level both Herbalism and Mining at the same time. BIG mistake!! Herbing and Mining have completely different skill-up ranges. Every 10-20 skill points the herbs can go from orange difficulty to green and this is true almost all the way through the progression of herbs. This forces Herbalists to continuously move from zone to zone in quick succession, since herbs are inherently more plentiful than mining nodes. Mining, on the other hand, is, in essence, the opposite of Herbalism. There are only 10-15 different kinds of minerals in vanilla wow, but each one has a much much wider range of skill ups, 50-75 skill points to go from orange to green and each type is spread through out many different zones. To do this while leveling at a normal pace is great, it's awesome! Trying to power level both at the same time, though, is fucking awful!

Solution number one: Focus on one skill at a time. Since I picked up Herbalism for Lifeblood, and since is such a cool spell, I have chosen to level it first. I am up to 209 skill points (Firebloom) and well on my way to 300.

Screwup number two:
Before I logged on last night I went to the offical WoW forums and looked up the power leveling guide for all professions. Where I failed was when I read that there were some Kingblood, I was at 120-something skill points at the time, in Swamp of Sorrows so I bebopped on down there... and was sorely disappointed. After 30 mins of riding around I had grabbed a grand total of 4 Kingblood spawns. This was bullshit. So, I stormed out of SoS and rode north to Burning Steppes, through Blackrock Mountain, over to Thorium Point, and finally to Kargath in the Bad Lands (Flight Point gathering) where I hopped a bird headed for Arathi. After landing in Arathi I headed south to Wetlands. 30 minutes later I was back in Arathi and had hit my 190 skill points. It was glorious. Thanks to some lucky picks off of Liferoot and Goldthorn I hit 205. Time for Firebloom. Which is where things start slowing down again. Firebloom is found in only two zones, one of which is Tanaris, but it's such a big zone and so spread out that it will just take some time to get the skill points. After that the progression is pretty easy: Firebloom til 230, Sungrass (Feralas) til 250-260, then hit Felwood and just farm that place out til i hit 300 since there are a lot of different herbs there of a lot of different levels.

Solution number two: Don't be a 'smart guy' and try to jump too far ahead, it will only waste a lot of time and cause mountains of frustration. Also, K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid) and go with my own gut feeling. If I think to myself that I should just go ahead and go to Wetlands and farm there, then FUCKING DO IT. Jez.. what a noob.

So, yeah. Last night was a complete and total bust, and it was my own damned fault. -sigh- Oh, well. I will just have to suck it up, and forge ahead with a new plan, one that doesn't involve power leveling two professions at once.

The plan for tonight: Level Herbalism with my new game plan, then once I hit 300 head back to HFP and get back to doing what I do best, leveling. Rawr!