Fifty Levels

Ding!

Aeven hit 50 in Un'goro last night. While the stat increases and the new levels of Consecration, Devotion Aura, Lay on Hands and Flash of Light were nice, the real benefit I saw was in gathering.

After about 90 minutes of running around the crater, killing dinosaurs, and slimes and gorillas and raptors and whatever else happened to cross her path, Aeven had managed to accumulate almost 10 stacks of thorium, a bag full of leather and hides, and more crystals than you can shake a stick at. In the process, she got her mining skill up to 310, and her skinning up to 317.

I've always looked at Un'goro as a bother... it's got a couple of interesting quests, sure, including the Linken quest chain. Which I'm going to have to do; my eldest daughter is currently enthralled with Legend of Zelda, and she'll appreciate my helping Link... er, Linken, find his boomerang and sword. But in terms of mining, it's always been heavily farmed, and killing 50 petrodax to find 8 wing webbings or whatever has always been annoying. When you're the only miner in the crater, though, and every critter killed means extra hides, then your view on the whole place changes. It used to be speed bump in leveling; now, I'm thinking that I'll hang out here for a while and maybe go slow, grinding a bit in between quests just to give myself the opportunity to linger a bit at the all-you-can gather mineral and leather buffet.

Other changes... that last talent point went into the protection tree, as well, bringing her up to a 30/11 prot/ret spec. Which means that next level, she'll be able to plunk down a talent point in prot and finally get Holy Shield. Courtesy of level 50, she's also got Holy Wrath now, which should be useful now that she's of a level to start thinking about heading into Felwood and the Plaguelands.

For now, though, it's a brief rest in Ironforge, a new mace to start using as a primary weapon, and then back to the crater to whomp on dinos and keep the cash rolling in. Life is good.