So my Hunter, Syllvain, continued his furious leveling pace. After just 4 Days, 22 Hours, he’s level 65.

My hours per level increased dramatically from 59 to 60 - but that’s to be expected. If I devoted all of the play time to questing, I would guess that the average time would be around 4 hours. I wasted a good deal more - instance runs, pvp, professions, etc - so I averaged a little over 6 hours per level.

First Stop - Ramparts

When I first hit Outland, some of my guildies were excited and wanted to run me through the Hellfire instances. Although I avoided every instance in the Old World, I was ready to take a slightly different approach in Outland. The gear will last longer, and rep is always useful.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a very well developed guild on the Horde side. We all came from the Alliance - where we were part of a small guild (~20 people with 70’s). When I hit Outland, our Horde guild had 3 - two warlocks and an elemental Shaman.

Only one of the Warlocks was online, but he and the Shaman insisted that we could handle Ramparts and Blood Furnace. We grabbed another guildy (a 60ish Rogue) and we headed over.

At first, everything went chaotic but well. The Warlock and the Shaman nuked everything, while the Rogue and I poked away at a few mobs. We downed Gargolmar and Omor no problem. We had a close call with Nazan and his fire breathing, but we cleared the place. One piece of gear dropped - the leather bracers off Gargolmar - so I deferred to the Rogue.

Next, we hit up Blood Furnace. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t do it. The gauntlet before the second boss was too tough. Without any down time, the Shaman and Warlock eventually ran outta juice. After a couple wipes, we gave up, cleared Ramparts again, and called it a night.

Unfortunately, I was too low level to accept and complete the Ramparts quest. I also got no gear. I did get a decent amount of XP, but it wasn’t the most productive night of playing ever.

Returning to Ramparts

The next day, I kept questing. I hit 60, turned in the quest item off Nazan, and got the Ramparts quest. I figured I’d sit in the queue while I quested around Hellfire.

Bad idea. I eventually found a group that looked decent. Two Hunters, a Mage, a 65 Shaman to heal, and a 59 Paladin to tank. Eugh. Undergeared tanks are bad.

After wasting a lot of time getting ready, we finally started the run. We cleared up to Nazan, and the Paladin simply didn’t have enough health to live. We had a couple of bad runs where he missed the dragon, and when he did… the fire breathing wiped him out before the Shaman could do anything. Again, the quest was undone. Again, I got no gear. Waste of time.

Pushing On - The Itinerary

I decided to give up on instances and just push on questing. I’d had enough set backs and time wasted.

I swept through Hellfire and completed all of the quests except for the Ramparts/Blood Furnace. I found some help for two of the group quests, but the others I was able to complete myself. Pets are wonderful.

I was roughly level 62 when I headed to Zangarmarsh. Again, I swept through and completed all of the quests except the ones for Coilfang Reservoir. This was also a good chance to get my herbalism up to 375. With my pet, the elite quests were no problem and I did everything solo.

I was somewhere around level 64 when I left Zangarmarsh. I headed into Terokkar, did the quests with the Cenarion dudes, and moved down to Auchindoun. I caved in and tried to get another Ramparts group - which was a monumental waste of time without a single pull. While finishing up the quests, I dinged 65.

Where the Hunter Stands

Last time I leveled a character to 70 (my Paladin, Sythrick), I took my time and planned it out. I wanted to be Revered with every major faction - so I could easily jump into heroics.

Now, that’s not as necessary. I just wanted to be Honored for two reasons. First, this opens up Heroics. Second, I could buy the starter PVP set - and this Hunter was created mostly for PVP.

Thrallmar Rep was very easy. I got a jump start with the first couple runs through Ramparts, and I easily made it through Honored and part way to Revered with the rest of the quests in the zone.

I didn’t run any Cenarion instances, but I still got almost all of the way to Honored before I left Terokkar. I was a bit short (a couple hundred rep), but I wasn’t worried - there are some quests in Blade’s Edge Mountain to finish it out.

I also got some work done on my professions. Herbalism and First Aid maxed out at 375. My Alchemy only made it to about 325 or so - I’ll have to go back and finish leveling that later. I finally took the time to do the Fishing quest to level past 225. This also allowed me to fish up some Raw Whitescale Salmon and cook it up to bring my cooking skill past 300. From there I cooked up a ton of the meat in my bank and got to 350 or so.

All in all, he’s coming along quite nicely. Another day or two of play time and he should be level 70. Then the real job begins - getting some quality PVP gear so that I don’t gimp my team.