I'd like to give my congratulations to Neverdied the mage, who made it to level 80 with no deaths! He also did no quests, used no mounts and some other restrictions too. I think a frost mage was a good choice of character for this challange, as they seem to be able to get themselves out of sticky situations. I also think that the "no quests" restriction made this slightly easier in some way - sure it would take longer because he isn't getting the xp from quests, but I think you're less likely to die if you're not risking your neck to escort an npc somewhere or pick up quest items that are swarming with mobs. You can take things steady and at your own pace.
He says he did it because he wanted to add a new dimension to the game because he was taking a break from raiding. I'm reminded of Shaiya, where they have an "ultimate mode" setting which gives your character extra stats but also means that the charcter is deleted if it ever dies (unless you get someone to rezz you within 2 minutes). I can see why some people want this kind of challenge but I don't think I would be so dedicated as to do this - when my priest first died at level 20 I wasn't tempted to delete her and start again.
You can see Neverdied's youtube video here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeNaWYvKzb8
And so onto more dungeons! And dinging level 40...
I did another Uldaman run and weirdly was in a group with the same annoying mage as last time - still no buffs! I know the way in Uldaman now and I'm starting to like it. However, there are a couple of things that annoy me that Blizzard really needs to fix:
1. You need to be level 40 to take the quest at the end. Why not 38 when you can easily complete the instance at this level?
2. You need to create a staff to summon the second boss, but this requires a rod and a medallion - if two different people from different servers pick these items up then you can't trade between servers and you can't summon the boss!
While we're on the subject of annoying bugs, I think Blizzard needs to fix it so you can see everyone by the summoning stone outside ICC.
I was over level 39 at this point and I decided that I would grind to level 40 before I did another dungeon, so I could complete the Uldaman quests if I went there again. So I went to STV and did a couple of quests. Levelling seems to go really fast at this point, even without heirlooms.
So my record at level 40 is;
25 dungeons entered, 23 dungeons completed, 4 wipes and 10 deaths.
I think this shows that the pugging experience isn't as painful as some people think it will be - the LFG tool has really improved things. You just need to be a little patient with people - sure there is the occaisional mistake but I've had a lot more good experiences than bad.
I did another Uldaman run and finally completed all the quests. We even managed to summon the second boss (for those that don't know, you just need to make sure that the person that opens the box and takes the medallion is someone who already has the staff). We had a druid tank who was very good but it's noticable that druids need more healing then paladins and warriors - I wonder if this will change in higher levels. My main is a druid tank and I'm actually starting to understand that my guild healers need to spend more mana to keep me up than other tanks! I'm going to make sure I keep my armor stacked high to compensate.
We had a leecher in this run unfortunately - someone who joined the group then just went afk at the start to leech xp. We couldn't kick him and replace him for 15 minutes, so we had to 4-man the first parts. Annoying, but not too much of a problem. I hope I don't come across many of these though.
And finally, I got put into a random group for Scarlet Monastery Cathedral! This is an instance that I haven't been looking forward to. It requires a tank who knows how to pull carefully, and a group that is disciplined enough to clear everything steadily until only the boss is left. I was sure we were going to have at least one wipe here, but the whole thing went very well and we cleared it with little trouble. The tank did an excellent job, despite the mage who kept ninja pulling. We had a rogue to said "lol!!" to everything, though I don't know what he found so funny. I certainly wasn't laughing when he ninja'd the healing mace off the last boss.
I had some fun though and I'm really starting to love my disc spec - we had some runners in the last part who were heading for the boss before we were ready, and on two occasions I was able to nuke down stray mobs with my holy fire before they could reach the boss and cause us to be overrun. Depending on how much healing the group requires, and how my mana regen is doing, I can actually be part healer, part damage dealer. I'm getting braver now, and if the tank is being kept alive by my sheild, I'll start killing mobs instead of just waiting until they need me to heal again.
I'm up to level 41 now, and I've hit a difficult part in the dungeon levelling process - the horror that is Maraudon. I've now completed 12 dungeons in a row with no deaths or wipes, but I'm sure that must be about to change.
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