Not Slitherspear, though! He can pack a punch or deal with enemy’s summoned minions.
Yep, it’s not only new players — I’ve got a couple of non-maxed mercs, but I prefer Visitor tasks, since they can be fun or challenge me. On the other hand, new players have got plenty of ordinary tasks to do, but only so much time, so maybe the loss of potential visitor tasks is less of an issue.
What do you mean?
I think you get trade offers regardless of how much renown you have, but I might be mistaken.
Anyway, that’s not something I would worry much about at this point — the impact of a few random coins here and there is not that great to be worth worrying about.
To the previous point about the Frost party, there’s something I should add.
Getting Balinda is not all… The hard part is unlocking her equipment, which is very important, and it requires beating a heroic boss (Drek’Thar) that can be… demanding when it comes to the collection, and it also requires a specific strategy (although there are more alternatives now with Khadgar out). At this stage, he might be too much for you to handle, but in that case I’d recommend focusing on cheaper mercs like Varden and Lokholar first — the latter is very powerful, and his important equipment is obtained from level 30. You could do so much in e.g. heroic BRM just with these three…
PS My strategy for beating Drek’Thar (Heroic) with Fire. You can see if your collection is up to the task… I haven’t tested the new Frost approaches with Khadgar, though, but they’re probably not very cheap either.