Stew's Misadventures - Mushrooms Are Bad

Zangarmarsh was a lot of fun. The first stop in this area is at Cenarion Refuge, just inside the border. One of the very first quests I was assigned here was to kill an elite mob just south of Cenarion Refuge named Boglash. At 62, I figured this was going to be a rough fight. Almost immediately I tracked down Boglash. I sent in my Felguard and let him have at for a few moments to get some good aggro. I then laid down my traditional DoT (damage over time) attacks, and proceeded to turn on my health funnel to make sure the big guy survives. Once I went through the routine, I check-in with progress of the fight to see how it is progressing. Much to my surprise this level 64 "elite" dropped like a bad habit and the Cenarion Refuge was safe for another day! Back to the Refuge now to see what other trouble... err I mean... what I can do to help the good people of the Cenarion Expedition. Like their brethren, the Cenarion Circle, the Expedition has its own faction bar. There is a vendor with two pages of rewards including new arrows. Every quest assigned out of this town earns you a pretty sizeable reputation gain. By the time I finish with this area, I find myself almost to Revered, but I''m jumping ahead of myself¡­

The good folks back in town ask me to check out a disturbance at nearby Umbrafen Lake, just off to the southwest. Naturally I agree, and off I go into to ride through the marsh again. While there are lakes and smaller watering holes in this area, most of the water is very shallow making it very easy to navigate while on a mount. To my surprise Umbrafen Lake was infested with Naga. I discovered a giant pumping station that seems to be causing the problems in the area. As instructed by my quest, I report this back to this Ysiel Windsinger who asks that I take a little trip around the zone in flight-form to check out the other four lakes in the area and to further analyze the problems involving pumping stations erected at each. This quest transforms you into a Stormcrow, which is the Druid fight-form; however you do not get the luxury of controlling the flight pattern. The quest guides you on a trip to each of the four lakes, then back to town. When I report back to her, I''m sent out on foot to take care of the problem. Being the problem solver that I am, off I go to wreak some havoc. At this point in my morning, I find that Sprawl is also in the midst of causing the same trouble so we team up to do double the damage! Just say I''ll be surprised if the Naga get those water pumps up and running anytime soon. Soon after this I find my way to the northeast of the zone to a not so healthy looking area called the Dead Mire, and it appears that the afore mentioned pumping station has already done it dirty work here and drained the entire lake! I set to my tasks to doing what I can to help what''s left of the area and to make a few things right.
As I continue with my romp through Zangarmarsh, I start to make friends with a race know of plant people called the Sporelings. They haven''t quite warmed up to my gnomish charms just yet, but maybe some day. I have been making progress as they at least don''t attack me on sight anymore and I''ve gone a long way toward saving there home from the Bog Lords terrorizing the area. After completing all the local quests, I finally reached honored reputation with the people of the Exodar. Many of the quests in the city of Alliance Telredor earn you reputation with this Draenei faction. All in all this area is very cool and very well designed. Quests start on the eastern side of the map and gradually moves west across the map. By the time I get close to the end of the quests in the area, I''ve hit level 63 and have made some significant progress towards level 64. 64 is of course when I get the next batch of new spells. At level 62, the new Fel armor buff replaced Demon Armor and at level 64, Incinerate will be replacing my trusty shadow bolt as my basic attack spell. This fits very well into my play style while I am leveling up. You get an added damage bonus if you have immolate already up and running on your attacker, and so far I''m finding that by the time I get my 2 instant DoTs on and then immolate, by the time I get a single incinerate off, the attacker is dead. I''ve been going through my routine very quickly and with very little downtime anymore. Unfortunately I have noticed that the Felguard seems to be falling behind in keeping the aggro off of me. I think that''s mostly because it is getting close to time to get new Grimoires to further strengthen him again.

[ Incinerate Tooltip ]

Unfortunately I didn''t get into any instances this week to tell about but I should have some more coverage of that in the next installment. The Coilfang Reservior is on the top of my list. Seeing how that''s one of the few quests I have left in Zangarmarsh and it needs to be finished. So I should have some info on that next week along with my trek through Terokkor Forest and maybe I''ll finally be able to make the push into the newly opened Shadowmoon Valley to at least get that last flight path that Blizzard hasn''t let me get yet!