Improving Thousand Needles

[siofral]

I'm running Thousand Needles with my mage. This is my third or fourth time through TN and I'm not following the script as closely as I did originally.

In the cannons/southsea sailor/Tony Two-Tusk sequence, it flows much better if the quest to kill 15 (or 16?) southsea sailors is broken up and the turn in for A Little Payback, Negotiations and Quiet The Cannons is delayed after the series of quest involving Tony Two-Tusk.

First, kill SSS (southsea sailors) as you go up the ramp. Take out the first four SSS/cannons and then go into the stockade to get the quest from Wizzle Brassbolts.

Next head back to the cliff edge and take out the same four cannons as they've spawned. Go down the path taking out SSS on the way.

Get the 8 treasure chests.

Kill SSS on your way back up the ramp and on the path to the stockade. Turn in the treasure chests and get the next Wizzle quest (ogres/fake gold/kill Tony Two-Tusk).

Kill SSS on your way to the cave. Kill Tony Two-Tusk. Kill SSS on your way to Ajamon Ghostcaller. Turn in the TTT quest and get the Mates quest (captains of the three ships). If you have float or jump and not die capability, jump off the cliff (there are pits you can get trapped in so aim for the water).

Kill the ship captains. Return to Ajamon up the ramp. By now you've easily fulfilled your quota of SSS.

Finish the TTT quests before turning in the first quests in the series.

I'm in the middle of the TTT quests so if there's a glitch, I'll come back and post the cleanup. Otherwise, that's my recommendation. Don't flit back and forth between the speedbarge and the quests. If you must turn in the first quests, do it when you're harvesting turtle carcasses.

[cabby]

Thanks for letting us know. I've added this to the list to get looked at.

[mzanker]

I've just done these quests today and honestly don't see what's wrong with the guide as it is. By the time I'd taken out all 8 cannons I only had a couple of sailors left to kill and I did this on the way down to get the treasure. I think the above way I'd have saved maybe a minute at the most.

[siofral]

What class are you running? I'm running a mage with tissue paper armor so clean and quick is vital for her. With a hunter, I go in and bang away. The mage (and my druid) take a little more finesse, but I take your point. It really comes down to class and experience.

[mzanker]

Yes, that's true - I'm running a warlock with Dark Apotheosis so I can just run into groups of mobs and tank like a prot warrior

[Cartman]

For the mage it seems to depend on your spec, frost currently seems to be much easier to level. At least I did not find aracne mage easy in the Pandaria zones while friends did not have trouble with their frost mages.
Boomkin also was a pain to level, feral is easier.
So at least you should try other specs, if you have enough bag space it's easy to collect gear for two specs while leveling just to switch to an easier spec if needed.
I normally play my DK as frost but when I ran into areas which may have caused problems (for example the last Klaxxi quest where you have to kill 25 mobs) I switched to blood and laughed at them, at level 90 with mostly green gear I was able to fight about 10-15 mobs at once...

[siofral]

My issue isn't so much what I'm doing on top the cliff, it's putting the turnin for two of the quest BEFORE the Tony Two-Tusk quests. Why come down off the cliff just to turn in? You don't get any additional quests regarding the cliff and the cannons so do Tony, get him out of the way and do the turn ins when you're already coming down off the cliff to get the carcasses or after that whole section is complete. It saves over five minutes. Add that to the minute saved in splitting the cannon kills and you're ahead by a bunch.

I ran it again a few days ago and it flows so much better if you do all the stuff on top the cliff in a bunch. You don't have to fight your way in and out that additional time. Saves effort, saves time, flows more smoothly. JMPO. And for someone like a mage who can't fight like a tank, it's the little things that count.