It has taken a while to get Skiffens to 70. Work, Warhammer, and discovering Final Fantasy Tactics for PSP have all contributed delays in varying degrees. This weekend I decided to make a push to get Skiffens to 70 and get him to Northrend.
I was concerned about gear. Farfrae had a tough time in Hellfire. Some of that was my inexperience, and a lot of it was because he was wearing blues and greens from Winterspring when he got to Outlands. Skiffens had a much better time of it because I had picked up Outland gear on the auction house, and ground out a good sword for him in Alterac Valley. Unfortunately, Skiffens was still wearing some of that gear as he approached 70.
I had planned on saving up honor and marks to buy S2 swords when Skiffens got to 70. With Farfrae I had enough honor and marks saved to buy two pieces of S1 gear when he turned 70 and it helped a lot.
It was really slow going with Skiffens. The swords take Eye of the Storm (EOTS) marks, and for a while after 3.0 characters level 60-69 got put in with 70's in EOTS. I didn't cue for EOTS much during that time, because I felt I would not be able to contribute to the team. There were not a lot of people in the cues for the other battlegrounds in 60-69. That meant the cues were long, and a lot of times the games were really lopsided because one side outnumbered the other by a lot. It was getting frustrating, and it only got worse as Wrath got closer.
I took a look at Wowhead, and some of the quest rewards available early in Northrend, and some of the craftable gear that Farfrae would be able to make. I cherry picked quests all over Outlands, and focused on quests that would give really good upgrades. I started picking up gear on the Auction house to replace the rest of the really dated pieces. This seemed like a better use of time than the battlegrounds.
Then Skiffens got on a bird to Menethil, and got on the boat to Howling Fjord.
So far so good.
It takes him longer to kill things than it did in Outlands, but he is killing things. Farfrae sent him two new pieces of gear, and almost right away he got two new swords as quest rewards. The swords are not as good as S2 swords, but they are still very good.