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Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Yay for Maintenence

Actually, wait, never-mind that last bit. I don't care for maintenance one bit!

Actually, wait, never-mind that last bit. I don't care for maintenance one bit when I have the time to play.

So Blizzard, if on the very obscure chance you are reading this, send me an email and I'll let you know what my schedule is so we can plan things better.

In other news, my realm was down today- but that was okay for the most part because I was working. Yay for money.

But, when I got home, I rolled up a DK for the "It Came From the Blog" Server Maintenance Day Party. It was actually pretty fun doing the DK starter quests again because  there were approximately 150 new DKs to join the guild, plus associated others who were just interested in playing WoW while their server was down.

Anyways, the fights were actually really fun. The town was constantly at a low population, and the drake quest was ridiculous- we had 5-10 drakes flying around lol-facing the mobs on the ground.

Sheer epicness was epic.

Blizzard did a really good job there. There were enough mobs for the hundreds of DKs to complete their quests, but if you do it alone, you are never really overwhelmed.

And then there were the multi-boxers. There were two of them who each had 5 DKs.

And then there were the DK-only-premade BGs.

Anywho, I got bored of the event and left because I had been on for a while waiting for it to start, and walking the distances required and waiting even more every few minutes for everyone else to catch up was a bother. So I tried soloing it and then took a nap. By which I mean I read a book.

Plurgh. Plus, Ruby Sanctum was released. Cool beans.




Really cool beans. They were in the freezer. I need to defrost my lunch.

Pwitty!

So, you remember when I got Malkhelm to 80 and I had a bunch of screenshots?

Well, Ziyzik is getting that treatment now. Welcome to The Hinterlands.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Entertainment

I've been running some Alt-Naxx's to gear up lesser geaered people. Right now, I think we've gotten enough gear the Ulduar makes more sense than Naxx, but in anycase, we did a full clear of Naxx, getting loads of achievements and having a good amount of fun.

Eventually, except for two or three people, it was all people in ICC/TOC gear. Which made many of the fights ridiculously easy, but there were still problems. (Cough plague quarter cough).

We had one of the Gargoyles stoneskin twice. And he was alone. We were focusfiring him and he just waited it out.

Then, we wiped a  on Heigan- because of some dance-failing. It was really fun trying to see how long we could survive as they fight is not very healing intensive nor dps intensive so long as you stay out of the slime.

And then we wiped a coupla times on the gauntlet run.

In all, it was a good good night, but now, since my day is all work, and just work, I need sleep.

Blinded by the light

Yeah. This is Ziyzik just a few days ago, when he was trying to get to Dustwallow Marsh to level.

Monday, June 28, 2010

On the fifth day...

He hit 60.

I really do have a problem. I really like the way this is going, I'm leveling quickly and smoothly and having quite a bit of fun.

I'm not sure why I'm doing this though. I mean, the rogue- while a fun class- isn't a very interesting class to play while soloing. Most of my work involves spamming Sinister Strike and then hitting Eviscerate. If I see too many mobs, I either Shadowmeld or Vanish. Or, if I think I can take em, I hit Blade Flurry, Adrenaline Rush and Lifeblood before going back to my normal rotation.

I don't get awesome procs, like Hot Streak, I don't get a pet, I don't get ridiculous crits, I can't even aoe for my life.

But I really am enjoying leveling this toon. Perhaps it is the breakneck pace that I'm leveling him at. Perhaps it is the change of pace from doing a ridiculous number of instances on my other toons. I mean, my main is a tank, and the vast majority of what she does is instances, then my warlock is just to help out other people who need a dps for their instance, my DK was leveled as a tank in the RDF and continues to tank instances, without much questing involved.

My druid is currently being leveled as a feral tank and so he is tanking instances. Perhaps its the fact that I'm not tanking, or that I'm not in instances anymore. Perhaps its the fact that it is something new.


By that reasoning, I should love my new job. I've never had a 9-5 before. I've never had an office job before. I've never been an intern before. I've never worked in the publishing industry before. Thus, if I like new, this is going to be fantastic. Now. Sleep. Because you get to wake up early for 9-5s.

Booty Jay

Doesn't it look kinda like a jay? Kinda? yeah. Ok. I should get some sleep.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Good lord

I have a problem.

On the 23rd of June, 2010, my Rogue was 39 (maybe 38).

That same day he hit 40.

By the 26th of June, 2010, Ziyzik had hit level 50.

By the 27th, he had reached 55.

So, I have a problem. I'm leveling at what even I consider to be a ridiculous rate. I got Ziyzik up to 31 using a friend with Recruit-A-Friend. When you recruit somebody, for every two levels they gain (up to level 60) they can give one of your toons (who is a lower level) one level.

So, I have learned my class in the intervening 24 levels since then- I'm not a complete noob.

What is weird is how quickly I'm leveling. I very rarely have to stop and eat (high dodge/parry+Lifeblood).

It is not really shocking to get 1-10 on your first day of a toon- but those earliest levels are only minutes long. Even 1-20 isn't that difficult, it can easily be done in three days.

But 40-50 should take (imo) a day and a half /played. At the very least.

Anyways... I need to get back to leveling.

Early Work

When Putricide was a little boy, he worked in the desert, trying to make water...

Friday, June 25, 2010

The day of Wrath hath come!

Seriously, this is one of the first things a person sees upon starting WotLK (if they're Alliance and not a DK).

A Paladin in recolored T2. Called Judgement Armor. Yes. Wrath and Judgement all in one.

Naxxramas Retrospective

A few thing you should know.
  1. I started playing the day before patch 2.4 (Sunwell Plateau)
  2. I never raided before Wrath (except a couple retro raids)
  3. My guild did not make significant progress in Ulduar.
  4. We're not a raiding guild, we've gotten to reliably down the lower spire and festergut- usually.
Anyways, a retrospective on Naxxrams!

Lets start with the Arachnid Quarter:
  1. Anub'Rekhan: a fairly straight forward fight. It taught how to manage a single add, getting out of non-visual fire, and spreading out.
  2. Grand Widow Faerlina: My off tank is a Faerlina, so I don't know if this is anything special. Anyways, another straight forward fight that taught how to manage adds, that you want to kill at a specific time, in a specific manner.
  3. Maexxna: Teaches how to deal with incapacitations, either breakable single target, or raid wide.
Plague Quarter:
  1. Noth the Plaguebringer:  Noth was another simple fight, decursing and add management were the raiding traits exhibited here- simple stuff really.
  2. Heigan the Unclean:  Also known as the "The Dance Boss" Heigan is all about positioning, mobility and knowing where to not stand. He also dropped my first epic: Demise.
  3. Loatheb: He taught about positioning, buff management, shoe-throwing and ridiculous healing parameters.
Military Quarter:
  1. Instructor Rasuvious: He taught us how to deal with unusual circumstances- meaning, the MC'd adds that needed to tank and be healed.
  2. Gothik the Harvester: He worked on making the raid leader be able to balance his raid, by splitting in, and having each group be sure to not hurt the other group by going too fast or too slow.
  3. The Four Horsemen: This fight was about debuff management and fulfilling roles you aren't used to. We usually had a ret pally, a enhance shammy, or a affliction lock do tanking- a weird experience for those classes.
Constrcut Quarter:
  1. Patchwerk: was a simple dps race and taught us about tank threat and dps threat management.
  2. Grobbulus: He helped teach tanks how to kite and other members of the raid how to move to avoid hitting other people with aoe effects.
  3. Gluth:  He taught the DPS  how to kite and the tanks how to taunt off at appropriate intervals. He also taught healers how to not panic when everyone almost died.
  4. Thaddeus: Again, similar to Gothik, there was the balancing, but then, in phase two, there was movement and debuff management.
Frostwyrm Lair:
  1. Sapphiron: This lovely dragon showed what a dragon could do: cleave, breath attack and tail swipe. Additionally, she showed us how some line-of-sight mechanics can work, via her ice-blocks.
  2. Kel'Thuzad: KT taught us add management, positioning, cast-interrupting and add/boss tanking.
Looking at it, Naxxramas pretty much taught everyone whatever they could need to know, in simple mechanics. None of the fights were hard to learn, and most of them had a single phase. If they had multiple phases, the phase shifts were distinct- eg, boss being there/not being there and similar situations.

The one thing that it didn't really teach was 'don't stand in the fire'. There aren't any persistent fires anywhere in the instance. The only thing that could be considered as such is Heigan's plague sprays, but that kills players too fast for it to be something that you can run out of realistically.

I forget what I was gonna put here

I also forgot what I was going to put here, so I'll ramble about whats on my mind.

First off, being a rogue is fun (I think I've mentioned this before).

I got to get some on-level decent PvP in. I even killed a on level prot paladin. It made me feel special.

Then I had a lagtastic time in ICC today, lagging out on Festergut a couple times so that we wipe.

Then we wiped on Valithria. We did start to get add management down, but then we died and it was unwell.

Anyways, I have no idea what else to say. nark nark nark.

Its a Boss!

Seriously, Theramore is a boss of a town. Its just ridiculously fortified and I think that there are all of two civilians in the entire town (both in the inn). Every single other person is military personnel.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Patch 3.3.5

So, its here. Now what do we think about it?

I for one like it.

I enjoy the small features that they put in- they really just make life a little nicer.

I have a couple RL friends who I added to my Real ID- its an interesting idea, and I like it so far- but I'm not sure how far I want it to be able to go.

It does mean that we can now cross-faction and cross-realm chat if we want, which is pretty cool because I have some friends who are diehard hordies and others who are all for the alliance. So now I can chat with both of them

I haven't seen the effects of the new vote-kick workings, in which those who stay in groups and kick less are given the right to kick more whereas those who kick more and drop often have left privileges.

Finally, the 'report' button has been fixed, so that you can complain about their name, spam or (I think) innapropriate behavior.

Anyways, its pretty nice, plus I got to zone into the ruby sanctum. Well, I saw the loading screen and was then kicked out, but...

Gween

I'm tired and allowed to act like it.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Growing Pains

So patch 3.3.5 was released today.

Along with some painful owiness.

I did not get on until 8:30 (servers up at 8) when they expected the servers to be running by 2 (EST). I mean, cmon Blizzard, can't you expect that maintenance will be extended severely on a patch day?

And, a couple times I was forcefully disconnected, because the game wanted to much memory (perhaps infinite loop?).

Ugh... anyways, I managed to spend my fortune on getting some nice 264 tanking boots.

In anycase, I can't wait to see how painful the Cataclysm launch is gonna be.

Array

I can't help myself from taking idle-raid pictures. They just look so cool!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Leveling Guide: The Early Priest 1-20

This came out of nowhere. Also, I apologize for missing my posting time. But it is done. So it is good.

Anyways.

Priests have lotsa healing abilities. Therefore, you would think that they would do well at surviving. I don't agree. Anyways, when you start out, you have Smite and a Heal. By the time you get to 20, you should have a couple other attacks, including Shadow Word: Pain (a dot) and Holy Fire.

Additionally, as a priest you will have Heal, Greater Heal and Lesser Heal. You will have Inner Fire, an ability that grants you a small armor bonus. Power Word: Fortitude is an early catch and grants you extra stamina. Finally, Power Word: Shield gives you a nice absorbing bubble, making you (slightly) more resistant to death.

If you choose to go with Discipline, I would suggest that you start healing at 15. You primarily use your bubble to absorb damage people take, rather than actually healing. I would suggest starting with this spec and filling out Meditation so as to get the mana regen.

I would try to avoid holy to start, because it does not have access to such quality mana regen as Disc does early on. In any case I would suggest this spec.

Finally, if you want to go shadow, be prepared to kill stuff slowly and die alot (at least thats what I did). Also, I would suggest starting with these talents. That specs for a lot of regen and mana efficiency. Also, I'm not sure about the quality of Mind Flay, so you can choose to dump that.

Anywho, best of luck.

BQL

... is not a Bacon Quesadilla with Lettuce. Its a boss.

On Patrol

I may not be an exemplar of The Law, but I do my duty to impersonate a guard so as to reap the benefits and create a weakness in Theramore's defenses.

Death by Shaman

More death!

Lets get right to the nitty-gritty.

Elemental: Its a good, old fashioned rent-a-turret. You be walkin along, in your garden, when a glowing giant blue half-demon appears. He throws some rocks onto the ground and blasts you. First with lightning, then fire, then lightning. You are nearly instantly baked, broiled and thoroughly cooked.

Enhancement: First, you get spammed by emails.... Right, so again, with the giant blue half-demon and the totems. He goes into a frenzy, hitting you with all of the elements, rock to the face, fire to the gut, wind to the eyes, water to the nose. And he tenderizes you with a couple of awesome looking, glowing weapons. Then wolves eat you. His wolves.

Restoration: So this be another one of them boring ones. First you get bored. Then you try killing it again, but you get bored again. So you leave, but they cyclone you. When you fall out, they manage to get off a cast. Then they continue to be bored. Finally, you jump off a cliff because you are bored. Then the other player won.

Monday, June 21, 2010

All about Al!

I just wanted to throw out some more shots of Al- cuz I like that. Yay for pictures!
Sometime in the nebulous future, I'll share more of Al's favorite costumes

Death by Rogue

This one is going to be easy! (and therefore, sadly, short).

Assassination: You are walking along, and- all of a sudden, and masked man leaps in front of you, he flips behind you, draws his daggers and plunges them into you. You fall over, the world becoming a haze. He disappears into the shadows.

Subtlety: You are walking along, and- all of a sudden, you feel a sharp pain in your back. Theres a dagger there. You fall over, dead.

Combat: You're walking along, and- all of a sudden, a crazed looking beggar draws an axe and an mace and charges at you. He swings wildly, swiftly, windmilling his weapons. You get weaker as you bleed out, and what blood you do have left is filled with poison. Then you die a painful death. You don't enjoy it.

The Clown Effect

Back when TBC came out, many people had either the standard, dull looking armor from 5-mans and others had the uniform, excellent looking armor from the raids.

Then they went to Outlands. There, they picked up greens and blues that were vastly superior to what they had and put them on.

They turned into clowns.

I don't have any Outlands toons at the moment, but look at Erthu:
His gear doesn't really go together. Admittedly, he is still in old world, but his gear is not set gear.

Compare what he has, to Alenena:
Her gear goes together, its not all of one set, but in Wrath, gear began to look less clownish, and return to the earlier armor styles in WoW- simple, semi-realistic looking. The earliest armors were unadorned, plain sheets of metal. Now, while the armor has advanced, players are no longer expected to wear a mish-mash of red, green and purple as they were in TBC. Anyways- the clown effect.

Ooops

So I missed a day and you will be rewarded with many images and two posts.
A month back or so, I ran about a half dozen ZGs and took screenshots of most bosses. And here we are...

Friday, June 18, 2010

Death by Priest

Wow. Long time no death.

Anyways, we're back on schedule. Tomorrow, or the next day, or sometime in the nebulous future, I will get around to looking at my older series and finishing them off, once and for all.

Discipline: Fighting a disc priest is all about hitting their bubble. Occasionally they might give you a little disease, but most of the times they're gonna sit their in their little bubble. And make more bubbles. They don't use soap tho. They use magic.

Holy: You're walking along with your undead minions and lo and behold, there is a holy priest in your way. First she smites you. Sets you on holy fire. Then she smites you again. And again. And again. Because smite is their only decent no-CD damaging ability. They might turn into an angelic being and heal themselves once in a while, but for the most part it is the smiting.

Shadow: You're not gonna be a fan of this. They blast you with evil and then mind-screw you. Your mind is destroyed and all you can think about is how the whole world is going to follow, then you can very depressed and run around in mindless terror. Because your mind is gone. And then you die. Alone, cold, and without even your consciousness to give you consciousness of the events.

Da Moon

Good night moon! Good night demon-slayer-turned-evil-demon-overlord-not-shown-in-this-image.

Don't hit me with that... please?

Warlock does not like it when boss with pointy puts pointy in warlock.

On the trail again

So about a year ago, with some guildies, I went down to Booty Bay and slaughtered every guard there.

Repeatedly.

Then I did a quick little quest to get my pretty little achievement, my hat and my uniform and got my rep with the Bloodsail Buckaneers to Honored. Go me!

Then I began the painful task of bringing my goblin rep back up. I managed to get about halfway out of hated (started at a 1/4 out) by running Dire Maul too many times.

So I started killing pirates south of Ratchet. They are Southshore pirates, and are unaffiliated with the Bucks- so its all clear sailing there.

Anyways, I've killed the several thousand that I need (at 5.5 rep per) to get my rep with Ratchet up to Neutral.

The other parts of the Steamwheedle Cartel still hate me, so I have to go through Hostile and Unfriendly phases with them.

But now I can do low level quests for those short little guys in Ratchet, and that will be more entertaining than killing pirates over and over again while on auto-run.

Yeah, I want to get to exalted with them. I'm Insane in the Membrane.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Draconis Explodicus

I really like the intensive waves of explosions that just burn out of this guy. Vrey nice.

Fancy raiding!

This evening, after our first bit of guild ICC-10, I saw someone lfm for ToC-25, I volunteered and ended up tanking it.

It was really cool, but 25 people is a lot more than 10. So there was a huge amount of lag when I was running it at full capacity.
Here is a nice shot of the entire group. I really like this kind of shot.
Here we see the mass chaos that is the Faction Champions.
Now, the slightly less chaotic Valkyr Twins.
And finally, the kill shot.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Shrunk

I gotted shrunk! One of the things I love about WoW is the way you can change your character without changing anything at all.

A distinction

Between Science Fiction and Fantasy:


This past semester I took a class in Speculative Fiction, and for a significant portion of several classes, we debated the line between Sci-Fi and Fantasy.

Therefore, I have several sets of definitions for each.
Sci-Fi: Takes place on Earth, past, future, or modified present. It does not have to technically be on Earth, but there has to be a connection to Earth. Examples: Star Trek, Dresden Files, Harry Potter, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.Fantasy: Takes place on another world. No connection to our Earth is allowed. So- if it is on Mars, it is not legitimate. Examples: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Codex Alera.

I don't really like those definitions, they don't seem to get to the essence of the experience of the genres.
Sci-Fi: A world that we might live in. Examples: Star Trek, 1984, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.Fantasy:A world that we would want to live in that is not wholly ours. Examples: Star Trek, The Giver, Star Wars.

I don't like these definitions either. It is not a good classifier as Star Trek fits into both categories and stories that are generally not considered either, are classified as one or the other.
Sci-Fi: A world where the unusual elements are explained by science. Examples: Star Trek, Star Wars, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.Fantasy: A world where unusual elements are explained by magic. Examples: Dresden Files, Harry Potter, Codex Alera, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars.

There is some contention on parts of these last definitions. For example Star Wars is classified in both categories again. The Force is explained away as magic, whereas everything else is explained with technology. Some people in my class argued that Star Wars was not Sci-Fi because the technology is not explained. However, the elements that are beyond the current standards of earth are explained by the existance of advanced technology, 
not some magical hocus-pocus.

Now to the question at hand. I would argue that although the above definitions say otherwise, Star Wars is distinctly Sci-Fi. The fact that it is not of Earth is not a strong enough barrier to not call it Sci-Fi. If we want to get technical (and I do) it is based in a Galaxy, although far away from our own, it is still in our universe. Then, although, technically incorrect, I would say that we could live in a world similar to Star Wars. With a large enough Human Empire, that world could come to pass. The only part that would be missing from it is the Force. Of course, it is vital to note that the number of Force sensitives is very low. At the beginning of the Clone Wars, there were only a few thousand Jedi in the entire galaxy. So it is possible that there have not been enough human births to statistically create a Force sensitive (this is me trying to keep my dream of becoming a Sith Lord alive).

Finally, although the Jedi do have a staggeringly huge impact in the Star Wars galaxy, the vast majority of the population are not affected by them, whereas many, many more are affected by the technology of the time, indicating that from the final definition we can grant more to the vote that says it is Sci-Fi.

So- just my two cents.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Sindragosa

So, according to the tankspot video, Sindragosa is tanked vertically on her platform and all dps are off to one side. When she goes into the air phase, everyone scatters and hides behind whoever got freezed. When you get yanked in, you all run back to your position.

On phase three, they had a specific spot near her front leg where people could go if they were going to get frozen and kept her in the same position.

With the Nemeton, they had her tanked horizontally, parallel to the stairs. Everyone was on the stair side of her and wailed on her as best they could.

When she took to the air, the two marked militants ran to predesignated, easy to remember locations. Then, everyone just pivoted around those points.

On the yank in, they had their hunter pop Aspect of the Pack, because A) it doesn't matter if the tank gets a movement speed reduction and B) if you do get hit while you're trying to escape, you got hit by what you were running away from so you're in a world of hurt.

As a Warlock, I found it immensely helpful to use my teleport as that got me quickly out of range of her as well as reorienting me immediately towards the dragon's flank.

As a side note, when you get Unchained Magic, you get a stack of Instability for each of your casts, getting above four stacks starts to be bad for your health. It lasts for only a few seconds so you can stop casting when you get to four. However, it has a DBM timer for you so you can see when the Instability is going to fall off. If you have 2 seconds left, and a spell has a three second cast, it is OK to cast. Also, they either do not register, or DBM doesn't register them as hits until they connect with the boss. This means if you're casting something with a low cast time, you may get five stacks before you realize it. This is OK as long as you stop casting.

A work around for Unchained magic is that wanding is not a spell, so when you have your stacks, if you want to be risky and try casting, you can, or you can actually use that stat stick you carry around with you.

Finally, in phase three, rather than keeping the two tanks together, they had them at opposite ends of the dragon.

Once you were marked for freezing, you would run towards the current front leg. There you would be frozen and everyone would try to break the block. The tank at the other end would taunt and she would be facing away from the raid.

I don't know what advantage this gave over having the two tanks next to each other (it ended up not working- no down). But it seemed to be an interesting strategy. However, I would like to try the first two phases their style, as that worked very well. Phase three, though, I think, should be done the Tankspot way.

Look into the void

And see a weird face looking back at you.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Its... cold

Here I am, entombed in Ice, however, it is hollow. So I can breath. But I can't move. And I run out of air in about 30 seconds (or less). But there is lots of open space. Its probably transparent jello. Weird, I know... but whatcha gonna do? Eat it? It came from a dragon. A dead dragon. I'm rambling and I know it and I don't care. This is a looooong screenshot post. But I don't care. Hey, look, loot!

Forays in Icecrown Citadel

In addition to my walks in that icy palace on my paladin with my guild, I have had the privilege of going there on my lock as a guest for another guild's alt-10s. Recently, the leader has announced that it will be extended until we manage to down the Lich King.

Last week, we one shot everything up to Putricide and three-shot him. This week we one shot the Princes, two shot the Blood Queen, and rescued Valithria on our first attempt.

Then we proceeded to bring Sindragosa to phase three four times, before the raid was called.

Now, all of their raiders were significantly better geared than those of TOC, but it was an educational experience nonetheless.

For the Blood Prince Council, they used only two tanks. They had their paladin tank Taldaram and Valanar while the bear tanked Keleseth. One hunter was on Kinetic bomb duty- he shot at one and his pet was on the other.

Proceeding to BQL, they had the ranged put themselves in the middle ring and had the her tanked on her platform. They called out who should be bitten. Those who were connected ran to the middle (which was empty) and those who had the flames ran to the outer ring (also empty). When she flew up and feared, the tanks and dps scattered on the platform and the ranged and healers were already spread out.

For Valithria, they had the two tanks call out the adds that spawned on their sides.

Priority was as follows:

  1. Blazing Skeletons: have pets on passive and bring them to the middle. They do not cast Lay Waste until they have cast a fireball on their initial target, so they can be kited to be in range of everybody. (or so it appeared- this is not fact, only observation).
  2. Rot Worms: A little AoE should handle them easily.
  3. Suppressors: They only have 35k hp, so they can be taken care of easily. If one (or two) dps are assigned to them, it shouldn't be a problem.
  4. Risen Archmage: Their Frostbolt Volley should be interrupted, rogues, DKs and Shamans are good at this job.
  5. Blistering Zombies: Have a Hunter (or some other kiting class) kite these guys around so as to avoid the armor debuff on the tanks.
  6. Gluttonous Abomination: Its not much of a threat (as compared to the rest) so it can be low priority.
Their strategy for Sindragosa was quite different from the Tankspot video and consequently deserves an article of its own, probably in a day or two.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Another Rogue Story

So, a standard test for a Rogue is to nab the Scarlet Key without killing any of the mobs in the SM Library.

In a kind of jerk move, I queued for the library and walked to the doan. There, I picked up my key and considered porting out.

Then I realized that I (in my heirlooms) could try and challenge myself. So I blew my cooldowns and tried to solo a level 34 boss at 37.

As a Rogue, I can be fairly disruptive to a caster mob. I begin by kicking him during his first cast, and then dismantling his weapon. From then on I proceed to wallop him with my strikes and heal my self.

I didn't quite manage to take him down, and I ported out before I died.

In any case, stealthing around is fun, and being an invisible killing machine is fun too.

Fire bright!

Its hard to hide effectively when you're holding two weapons that are on fire.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

The Dungeon System

From the perspective of a Rogue.

I decided to start playing my rogue again, just for little bit, for entertainments sake.

I've tricked him out with a couple of heirlooms with Fiery Weapon on em, so he looks really cool.

Anyways, I do alright DPS, although I have a looooooooooong way to go before I get the combo point thing mastered. I feel like I'm always out of energy so I'm just meleeing the mob. And when I do have energy, I don't have enough to get combo points and use a finisher. But, I'm learning and having fun so thats good.

I can go around the mobs and pickpocket a bunch of them which is always good fun.

And then when the tank overpulls, I can Vanish and sneak off. If I get found I can sprint away and shadowmeld into stealth, and sneak off some more.

I have low repair bills.

Oh my.

It scares me when the bombs have faces. And they look at me.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Screwing up

I did that today.


We got to the blood prince council without any major hiccups. So that was good.


Our warlock tank got smashed into the floor the first two times we tried it. He didn't have enough orbs and got squished.


I talked to him and earlier he had said that he was willing to try to respec. He did and he managed to survive until the boss got empowered. Then he lost threat. Blasts for 80k hit the squishies who were killing him.


Then at one point he charged before I was ready. So the guy in cloth got hit by the boss who hits with physical damage. The Warlock did not have armor. The caster tank died. Then the boss went wild. (This may have been because his VW had his taunt on so whenever I taunted it got taunted back).


Then the warlock asked for help with increasing camera distance, so I looked up my macro and told him to


"/script SetCVar("cameraDistanceMax".50)"


However, that is not the proper code. That set his max camera distance to 0. So he was fully zoomed in and couldn't change it.


I looked at the code again (from my source) and it said


"/script SetCVar("cameraDistanceMax",50)"


You'll note that there is a comma, not a period.


So that didn't go well. (I did fix it in the end).




Then I got to play headless chicken running around as the Keleseth tank running all over the room doing my best to pick up Dark Nuclei without killing them or stealing aggro from the other tank, while keeping aggro on Keleseth so that when people got the chance to attack him they wouldn't pull off me and insta-die.


It was ridiculous. And I was a ridiculous screwup. And it was good.


I love raiding for moments like those.

Doom

I like the colors in dragon blight- when it isn't too crowded. Thats the problem with Borean Tundra and Dragonblight. They try to do too much in too little area.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

How far can you go?

This is to ask the question about how far you feel comfortable insulting/bashing/complaining/arguing with (either directly or indirectly) some you are playing WoW with.

The other day, I was DPSing H-CoS on my new to 80 DK, with me were a healer friend and a tanking friend, the healer well geared and the tank with even less gear than myself.

So this hunter joined our group, and about a pull or two in, he said that he need to go afk. CoS is on a timer, so the waves spawn automatically. He missed six or seven pulls coming back when we had a boss to down. Then, in the Inn, he also left, although the waves there also automatically spawn and you have to keep up with Arthas.

Then, during the gauntlet run, he asked if any of us would like to run any of the Icecrown five mans to help him gear up. At this point I said something along the lines of "I'm not going to work to get you gear while you afk."

He responded with a remark about how comparatively poor my gear was. I made a remark about how my DPS was twice his and my damage done several times higher. He responded with "I'm not trying."

It ended with a boot to the hunter after pulling the last boss.

In other scenarios, when there is someone who plays a more regular role in my playing I try much harder to be polite- mostly when there are people in my random from Ursin.

In those cases I am extra cautious so that I don't get a bad rep. I do my best to be polite, humorous and helpful.

However, sometimes I snap. Sometimes a DPS is really annoying me, and since we're early in, I can't kick him, so I ask him to step it up. I always look at their gear and talents before doing this just to make sure that my complaints are reasonable. However, because of my high level of gear, if they start yammering on about how well the dps/their important role and they link meters, I can counter link meters showing me (or someone else) at the top, or focusing on the correct target.

But the one group of people who I work to keep happy and never insulted are my guildies. My guild is a primarily social guild and the point of being in a group together is because it is fun. If I risk insulting another Ursinite, but to protect one of my guildies, I'll do it. Even if the other people have strong ties to TOC, I still feel that guildies are due utmost respect.

The hidden man

I doubt that this was intentional, but hey! Look at that face!

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Do the wave!

I really like the way the blood elves decorate, what with their sharp curves and all. Really nice. Like the Warglaives and stuff. Yeah dawg.

Blood Prince Ranged-Tanks

After running the Blood Princes and having our Keleseth tank we a specialized tank spec/gear, I came up with some specs of my own:

Warlock
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#IcxMbhbhoZ0GchohZVfhVbhuhcb:jdw
In the affliction tree, I wanted to get to Siphon Life and thus put points to improve corruption where I could. I put points into Suppression to decrease the frequency with which the warlock would need to life tap and to increase hit chance so that they can garner more threat. Soul Siphon and Fel Concentration make it so that the lock can cast Drain Life, to make the healers' lives easier. Grim reach allows the lock to hit Kinetic Bombs (disco balls) and the Dark Nuclei from a greater distance. Also, if he gets knocked back, he can get back into action faster. I chose to glyph Siphon Life because it will increase the self healing by a good portion.

In Demononlogy, I didn't put points into the improved healthstone (nor did I use the Glyph) because I feel that it is not as useful as some of the other available talents. Demonic Embrace is an obvious choice and Fel Synergy will help keep your pet up via Soul Link. The pet of choice for this spec would be the Voidwalker and Demonic Brutality helps him immensely. You'll be using him mostly to soak damage via Soul Link and Sacrifice. Fel Vitality gives the Voidwalker a lot more health and increases the mana and health of the warlock- more survivability and less Life Tap. Demoic Aegis helps with Demon Armor. Demon Armor increases armor as well as healing received, a 30% boost is fairly significant. Finally, Soul Link will reduce all incoming damage by 20% and with the glyph, by 25%. This essentially makes your Voidwalker an extra Dark Nucleus.

For Destruction I put points in Bane for faster cast times, meaning that if the warlock needs to hit something quickly- ie: Disco Ball, Nucleus or a runaway boss, he can. Molten Skin increases survivability and Cataclysm is a going to be a great expansion. It also means that the warlock Life Taps less and so he is less likely to get insta-gibbed by an incoming shadow lance. Aftermath helps a little with maintaining threat via Immolate as well as keeping the disco balls up. I put a few points into Ruin, because a big crit with Searing Pain will garner a lot of threat, and that threat will be useful. Intensity again allows the Warlock to cast through being hit by a lance and so can hit what he needs to hit sooner. Searing Pain is probably the best way for the warlock to grab and hold onto things as it has a decent increase in threat. Devestation will also help with Searing Pain and with the Warlocks DPS. Improved Immolate is a point-dump, but it does help with damage and disco balls. Nether Protection can also act as an emergency Dark Nucleus- after getting hit by a shadow lance, it is possible that the warlock will take significantly less damage from the next (of the same class). Keleseth's cast time is about 1.5 seconds, so in an 8 second period he can get off five or six Shadow Lances, more likely than not, one of those will trigger Nether Protection, so it would constantly be up- which is another great damage soak. Soul Leech helps with healing via crits and I chose pyroclasm over emberstorm because it also effect corruption.

Priest
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#bVcbuhh0oZfVtZGbcVRfzff:hbfVMc
I need to preface this by saying that my only priest got to level 21 before I stopped, so you priests probably know a huge amount more than I do. Like the Warlock spec, this is just a huge mish-mash of useful talents all thrown in together.

In the Discipline tree, I focused on improving Power Word: Shield, as that should be a useful buffer to have as it essentially adds to your current effective health. If there is a Disc priest in the raid, I don't think that it will be necessary to go that far into the tree, but it could be helpful. Imp Inner Fire is a point dump to get to Imp PW:S. The other points in that tree may not be entirely necessary if the caster does not have any mana problems or there is another Disc Priest in the group. The glyph for the shield just makes you last that little bit longer.

For Holy, I focused on getting some talents to help improve direct damage spells and healing. You can stick renew on yourself and any of your spells that have cast times- Holy Fire, Smite etc... won't be as slowed down, so you can hit the Nuclei more efficiently. Desperate Prayer should be very useful as a 'tanking' button to push when you get almost killed. I'm not sure how good the glpyh of renew is but it can be traded out for Glyph of SW:P.

For Shadow, I focus on more mana regen and getting those DoTs to work. Sticking SW:P onto the Nuclei should bring them to you. Spirit Tap increases mana regen and Darkness helps with threat. Shadow Focus drops mana costs andmakes you more likely to hit- which in turn means more mana. Imp MB lets you cast it more often, which we always like. Mind Flay will probably be the main workhorse of the spec, grabbing Nuclei and the bosses and potentially hitting Disco balls as well. For the rest of the shadow tree we continue to improve Mind Blast and Mind Flay while picking up Vampiric Embrace and Devouring plague for the healing abiltities. We stop before picking up Shadowform, because of the immense threat reduction that would make it very difficult to hold off other players.

As a final note on priests, it may be possible just to get a PvP Shadow spec to do the work and hit dispersion when he begins to cast his empowered lances to avoid that damage.

Mage
http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=8&tal=03202520012003212300000000000000000000000000000000000000000533030310203103230132211100
This is Kyabetsu's build exported straight from his armory page. I definitely don't know mages as well as he does, so I'm going to throw together my own and compare the two

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#ocbfbubhdfZZVIccobksfzTbk:Rj
Here's what I came up with. 

The Important talents in Arcane are Prismatic Cloak for the damage reduction, Presence of Mind, in case you need to toss out a huge spell to grab aggro back, Improved Blink to dodge more spells and Arcane Shielding to increase the effectiveness of Mana Shield. Arcane Focus allows more hits and consequently more threat.

Fire doesn't really have any damage reduction talents, so its not necessary to go into that tree.

Frostbolt is the main nuke of this, so most of the points are in frost. Precision fills the same roll as Arcane Focus. Arctic Reach is our usual range increment, useful for reasons already mentioned. Frozen core reduces your damage taken further and Cold Snap can refresh the cooldowns on both Ice Block and Ice Barrier. Finish up by improving your frost spells some more, and poof. A spec.

Hunter
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#cVcGzxRZcZe00i0fMhxhA0so
Again, this is a class that I'm not very familiar with, so I had to look at all of the talents and figure out how to best alot them.

In Beast Mastery the Important talents are Endurance Training (for the HP), Imp Monkey (for the dodge), Aspect Mastery (5% damage Reduction), and Spirit Bond which increases heals to you(and has a steady HoT on you).

The Marksmanship talents are just for the hit- if you're capped without em, put em into Surv, where most of the points are. 

For Survival the Important talents are Hawk Eye, for the extra range to snag the Nuclei and K-bombs, Survival Instincts for the Damage Reduction, and Survivalist for the 10% Stam.

You could take all the points in Surv out of there and stick them into BM if you think that filling up that tree would be more effective than what I did. Again, since I don't know Hunters all that well, I don't know what would be best at holding aggro.

While doing this, the hunter pet can either be attacking the main target, or, using a simple macro, can be chasing after the falling K-Bombs:
/tar Kinetic Bomb
/petattack

Shaman
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hec0qcdIthfzqo0xxbcV:s
Finally, another class that I don't know. I'm going to look to amph to point out any obvious deficiencies.

I put points into Enhancement to get Anticipation and Toughness, for the survivability.

The (imo) vital talents in elemental are Elemental Warding for the damage reduction, Eye of the storm for fewest interuptions, Elemental Reach and precision for the normal reasons. And after that I just tossed in points to fill out the tree.
It may be a good idea to specialize in making the shocks really good so that you can just snap one out on a Nucleus (or a K-bomb) if you absolutely need to hit it immediately.

Druid
I ruled out Druids because of class mechanics. The useful talents in the Feral Tree would not affect the druid when it was in a caster for (either normal or boomkin). However, it could (in theory) be done. I just don't know how.