0. Leveling to 70 only killing Boars 10/13/2008 12:27:12 PM PDT
Earlier this year I reached a point where my real life schedule would no longer allow me to raid with my guild. I had no desire to go out and find a new guild, so that meant essentially no more raids to
fill my WoW life.
No raids? What's a guy to do? I'd done the heroics thing and really, gearing up my main seemed rather pointless without new raid content as an incentive. Dailies and rep grinds? Meh. Level another alt? Maybe, but the thought of doing the same old quests again didn't exactly thrill. So naturally I turned to television for inspiration.
As everyone probably knows, in South Park's "Make Love, Not Warcraft" Cartman, Stan, Kyle and Kenny attempt to defeat a vicious griefer who is close to causing "the end of the World...of Warcraft." Unable to
quest due to the griefer's constant ganking, Cartman devises a plan to gain experience only by killing boars in Elwynn Forest. And so they do.
Brilliant! With this for inspiration I decided I would level a character to 70 killing nothing but boars.
That's right. No quests. No instances (sort of). No variety. Just boars.
On this mighty quest I decided to play a hunter. Partially because I hadn't played one in three years. But also because their abilities would be ideally suited for the task at hand. Easy grinding.
Detection abilities to find the boars and the nasty non-boar mobs who tried to force me to kill them. Feign death and trap to get away from those nasties without killing them.
OK, I admit I did cheat a little. I wasn't about to level a hunter without a pet. I'm not entirely insane. So I did have to do the short series of quests needed to tame a pet at level 10. And of course there was the exploration XP, since unlike Stan and Kyle I couldn't do all my killing in Elwynn Forest. But that's it.
I began my little crusade in Anvilmar, Dun Morogh. After the dwarf newbie zone I worked my way through Loch Modan, Westfall and Redridge. Small Crag Boars (3), Crag Boars (5-6), Large Crag Boars (6-7), Elder Crag Boars (7-8), Scarred Crag Boars (9-10), Mountain Boars (10-11), Mangy Mountain Boars (14-15), Young Goretusks (12-13), Goretusks (14-15) and Great Goretusks (16-17). Up in the north near the pass to the Burning Steppes I discovered a spot where the boars literally spawned as fast as I could kill them. I barely needed to move. And I didn't for three or four levels, until Great Goretusks went grey at
level 24.
At this point, the supply of boars to kill out in the world dries up. But there is Bellygrub (24), that unwelcome guest who had been continually trashing Martie Jainrose's garden for four years. As a
named mob he's on a limited spawn, around six minutes these days. So that's about ten kills per hour camping him. That made for about ten days of sitting in Lakeshire doing nothing but killing Bellygrub over and over again. I figure that I probably killed him 300 times in leveling from 24 to 26, considering rest state. By level 26 I'd had enough so I moved on to the only other option: Razorfen Kraul.
In some ways, RFK is a boar slayers paradise. The lower reaches of the instance has a long stretch of boars that mostly come in single pulls - Agam'gar (24), Raging Agam'gar (25) and Rotting Agam'gar (26).
Kill 'em, reset and kill 'em again. Never any worries about competition or respawning. They're all elites (L24-26), but that's not a problem for a decently geared hunter. (I was worried about this
initially but then I discovered how easy mode hunters can be :-)). Even the several two pulls aren't very hard with traps.
Of course, you have to go through a dozen mobs to get to get the ravine with the boars. Now, I'm sure I could've cleared these out but that would mean killing something other than boars. Out of the question. (I briefly considered allowing quillboars but then decided against it. If it doesn't have a boar model I wasn't killing it.) Lesser Invisibility Pots were the solution. Hat tip to hunters posting on Thottbot about how to solo tame a Rotting Agam'Gar using invis pots. I think I only died twice from forgetting to put my pet away.
The other challenge in RFK are the presence of "Blood of Agamaggan", red slimed that patrol in the boar ravine. Pre-feign death running into one of these meant it was time to reset the instance (usually after a suicide). Sometimes that meant stopping after only killing as few as 4 of the 30 or so available pigs. But after level 30 I was able to elude the bloods using feign and the occasional trap. Eluding multiple bloods and doing it quickly turned out to be the most enjoyable part of the RFK experience.
A side note: in RFK I picked up my permanent pet, a Rotting Agam'gar. The dark blue armored model is IMO the coolest boar model in game. Naturally I picked a fitting name: Cartman.
RFK was good for seven levels - starting at 26 and ending when I hit 33. At 33, the only available boars (non-grey) were the level 26 Raging and at about three per instance that wasn't going to work. So it was finally time to shift across the Southern Gold Road to Razorfen Downs.
RFD presents a much greater challenge than RFK. Instead of a nice long stretch of single pull boars that can be reached via invisibility or feign death, there are only a few pigs that mostly come in groups and are intertwined with other mob groups. Some boar groups are in fact linked to quillboar mobs. There is no way to reach the target mobs without killing non-boars and then no way to separate the Withered Battle Boars from their handlers. But there are no other boars to kill in the 30's so I had to find a way.
So I dual boxed it. My boar slaying hunter would sit patiently outside the instance while my L66 rogue would go in and clear out the offending quillboars while leaving the boars alone (running and vanishing as needed to handle the linked boar groups). Fortunately, the boar groups are all very close to the entrance so this could be done quickly. Then after the rogue was back out of the instance (don't want to lose XP) I'd run in and kill the Withered Battle Boars (34) and Battle Boar Horrors (36+). By the way, I know these mobs are undead, not beasts, but they're still boars.
Conservatively I'd estimate that I reset the instance about 375 times in leveling from 33 to 43. At five instances per hour it took about twenty days all told.
Instance silliness behind me, I now headed back to the Eastern Kingdoms and the Blasted Lands. Ashmane Boars (48-49) were the target from level 43 through 50. A very challenging target for the first level or two. Then Helboars (52-53) took me up to 54. Yes, Helboars are demons but again they look like boars!
at this point I grabbed a friendly mage and a after a quick port and some walking I set up shop at Honor Hold. Starving Helboar (58-59) were the target of choice and with Outland XP I shot up through the 50's. Around level 60 I moved onto Deranged Helboar (60-61) and then Hulking Helboar (61-62).
Finally at level 65 I made my way down to Shadowmoon Valley. Oh, if only they hadn't nerfed Domesticated Felboars! I could've stood in one spot at Oronok's farm and cut them down as they spawned. As it was I hunted Felboar (67-68) around the Magma Fields north of Wildhammer Stronghold. Once I learned the Vilewing Chimera paths it was easy to loop continuously through and slaughter the boars.
As a capstone, I intend to fly up to Blade's Edge Mountain and level my pet to 70 by killing nothing but Shard Hide Boars (70-71). I can't have Cartman sullied by killing non-boars!
Now I know I can't prove that I really leveled all the way to 70 by killing nothing but boars. But my armory profile does provide some evidence. I haven't gained any rep with any faction in the game.
That means no rep quests and no kills of any mobs that give rep. (I'm kind of disappointed that I have so many factions listed but hey, you gotta repair!)
So now what? I guess now I can actually play the game. But I want my Sword of a Thousand Truths...
5. Re: Leveling to 70 only killing Boars 10/13/2008 12:31:07 PM PDT
:O
Hmph... my RNG must be broken. I pressed the button and got nothing but an account ban for you in return. -Zarhym
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=10532281027&sid=1
