Friday, July 31, 2009

Scarlet Crusade: The Blogging Server

I am sure there are other servers out there that may have more bloggers than Scarlet Crusade, but I have really been noticing the sheer amount of bloggers from SC. There is me of course, in all of my Dwarven glory.

There is also Hall of Famer Phaelia at http://www.resto4life.com/.

There is my buddy Occeleta at http://occeletaaltaholic.blogspot.com/

There is Cow tank extrordanaire Tarsus at http://stupidtank.wordpress.com/

His guildies Seri and Jov at http://snarkcraft.wordpress.com/

More of their guildies at http://oneroguesjourney.com/, http://axiomofapathy.wordpress.com/ , and http://fagcraft.blogspot.com/ (perhaps NSFW).

Not to mention there is Bre of http://warcraftpets.com/ fame.

That seems like a lot of bloggers. I imagine whatever server BBB and Ratshag are no has a bunch of them as well.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Class Soloability

Obviously any class in any spec can get themselves to the level cap through soloing. That said, there are obviously classes that are much better suited to it. Some classes are more gear depended that others and the gear will have a huge outcome on how easy things are in the soloing world.

So far, I have three level capped toons and 3 more in the range of 69-73. They have all been very different and their soloability has been much different.

The first one I leveled was my prot warrior. I was decked out in all epics from the last expansion and had very little trouble with anything. I fact I soloed pretty much every elite mob on my way to 80 as well (Dungeon mobs withstanding). If I had been poorly geared, this would not have been nearly as easy. One other small problem is that before level 75, a warrior has to either rely on bandages and pots to heal in combat. Once you get Enraged Regeneration, it becomes that much easier. Obviously being well geared and prot has many advantages in this situation. You have tons of health and armor for starters. You also have a high amount of avoidance and dont tend to take much damage when you are hit. If you have the gear, I would advise prot leveling over arms or fury because of the amazing survivability.

My second toon to level cap was significantly different. It is a resto druid and was leveled a bit before dual specs came out. With a resto druid, you CAN solo things. It is just a long and painful experience. You damage output is very low and you are quite squishy as well. The one saving grace to leveling with this spec is that you can throw a bunch of hots on yourself. Hots allow you to do more pew pewing than would be possible if you were having to throw heals with big cast times. Most quests went pretty slow. If you are leveling a resto druid, I would advise to level them through instances (which I did a lot of). You can ALWAYS get into a group as a healer while you are leveling. My Druid actually had about half BC epics to start as I got into a Karazahn group at 68 prior to Wrath coming out (and was first on the healing meters against a t5 priest....go go nerf wild growth).

My third toon to hit the cap was my pally. All of BC, he was a flash of light spammer. Since I leveled my Druid, I decided to do him as Ret. My Ret set was as hodgepodge as it got. Several BC quest and dungeon blues, a few green items , and a few epic items that I managed to snag from Kara during my many flash of light fests in there. The biggest thing I had was Gorehowl. Having a nice weapon obviously helps. I picked up several new pieces of gear with the first few quests I did in Borean Tundra. Soloing quests was not really hard at all. If they were non-elite mobs I did not have any problems at all. Being able to heal yourself is a huge benefit and the Art of War procs were very useful. It was a big too much to solo some of the elites, but for the most part I could blaze through whatever was put in my path.

I am now in the process of leveling my Warlock (will be next 80), Deathknight, and Hunter. So far they have been very different. My Warlock can pretty much solo everything with his affliction spec. My corruptions heals me and I have haunt as well. I can basically run into a group of 6-8 mobs and kill them all without losing so much as a sliver of health. Obviously it helps that mych of my gear is Season 4 Arena gear. I have also soloed every mob I have encountered including the Prince at the end of the Thassarian quest line in Borean.

My Deathknight has pretty much been a faceroll fest as well. I am wearing pretty much all Northrend Quest items and smashing mobs to bits. I soloed everything except the prince which was two manned. I even soloed Harold Lane despite his annoying snare tricks.

The last of my toons to hit Northrend has had a lot more difficulty. My Hunter entered wearing Outland quest blues and greens and specced survival. Needless to say I died a few times at the start of my trip. I found it much more difficult to kill multiple mobs as my pet seemed to lose health quickly or I pulled aggro. I think I would recommend a Beast Mastery spec for leveling. Your pet is much stronger and will increase your soloability.

These are just my observations so far. You experiences may have been different. I am just glad I am not solo leveling a Holy Priest......shudder.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Fun with Macros

Many of us have macros for very specific thing. I have a nice intervene macro that I use from time to time. I also used to have a berzerker rage macro to break fear during BC before we could use it in defensive stance. Those are not the kinds of macros I am talking about. I am talking about the macros that you use to annoy your buddies during instance runs.

These macros were not really good for anything other than a bit of a laugh and annoying the crap out of people. While tanking I used to tie a /yell to specific abilities. Note that it will still yell what is in the macro even if the ability is on cooldown.

The first one I made quite some time ago was for the old school way we used to generate threat. The ole "Wait for 3 sunders before starting dps" thing. For that, I made a macro that yelled "COUNT MY SUNDERS NOOB" every time I threw up a sunder. For those that were too dumb to look for the sunder icon, it seemed to work pretty well.

One of my all time favorites was the macro I created for thunderclap once it was available to be used in defensive stance. Most AOE pulls looked something like this....

Charge
Thunderclap "Darraxus SMASH!"
Group: LOL
"Darraxus SMASH!"
"Darraxus SMASH!"
"Darraxus SMASH!"
Thunderclap "Darraxus SMASH"
"Darraxus SMASH!"
"Darraxus SMASH!"
"Darraxus SMASH!"
Group: Uhhhh...dude. You macro is covering up my screen....
"Darraxus SMASH!"
"Darraxus SMASH!"

Thats what happens when you have a bit of an itchy trigger finger with macros. Or possibly being put on ignore.

The one I have been thinking of creating recently is one for my shockwave that shouts "HADUKEN!". Then after all of the mobs are dead, I can make one that says "YOU WIN.....PERFECT". Man I loved SF2.

Anyways, give it a try. You may amuse yourself. Or make yourself look like a douchebag.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Favorite WoW zones

Everybody likes something different when it comes to zones in WoW. I for one do not like the desert zones. I also dont care for zones that are full of yellow like Westfall. For some people, it reminds them of home. For me, here are my top three zones by expansion.

1. Vanilla WoW: Since the upgrades they made to it during BC, Dustwallow Marsh has become one of my favorite zones. It has a very cool swampy vibe, tons of easy quests, and even an old school raid instance. It is also a very nice hub to get to the other places in Kalimdor. This zone used to more or less be a desolate wasteland with not a whole lot to do outside of visiting Tabetha for a few quests. They added Mudsprocket and a ton of other quests to spice it up a bit. Not to mention that it is the home to the dopest fisherman in Azeroth, Nat Pagle.

2. Burning Crusade: In BC, Nagrand was far and away my favorite zone. It may be my favorite zone in the entire game. It has absolutely beautiful scenery all around the zone. You also get to help out that crazy hunter Nessingwary wipe out the animal population yet again. The zone is full of lakes, green fields, trees, and awesome floating islands. There are even several waterfalls for your viewing pleasure. This is the one zone I always make sure to visit before I head to Northrend on any of my characters. The quests arent really the greatest, but it makes up for it in atmosphere.

3. Wrath of the Lichking: My favorite zone in all of Wrath has to be Howling Fjorde. It is just an awesome looking zone to me. I love the whole Braveheart/Higlander feel to it. The stories in the zone are decent, but the looks are what really get me. If you want some great lore, go to Icecrown and Storm Peaks. If you want a beautiful zone, Howling Fjorde is it. An honorable mention goes to Grizzly Hills which is a very nice looking zone as well.

What are you favorite areas in all of WoW. Where is your happy place?


Monday, July 27, 2009

Weeked Update

Well, my weekend in WoW wasnt terribly exciting for the most part. A lot of it was spent reposting auctions to make my mountains of gold. Sunday is absolutely the worst day in my opinion. I probably reposted 3 times and was undercut quickly the first two times. I think it took a while to undercut the third one and I still made over 1k gold after the last batch of posting.

I have been actually keeping up with all of my Argent Tournament Dailies and I am nearly at 100 marks. I am going to save them until the next patch so that I can check out the new shinies. I am interested in the squire that can turn into a mailbox/bank etc.

As far as rep grinds go, I am now exalted with Sporregar. As I previously posted here , this is actually one of the easier rep grinds. It took me three days to get from unfriendly to exalted. Those three days were only spent casually working on that rep. I now have the sporebat pet, and the ugliest tabard in existence.....which means I HAVE to wear it.

I also had the opportunity to chat with the Uber Tree over the weekend. She is 5 weeks out from having her little Druid. And of course she got the item named after her .

As far as money making goes, I am nearing 100k for my account. I definately want to shoot for the gold cap.

Also, our guild downed Yogg for the first time in 10 man, so grats to MeleeStorm.

How was your weekend?

Friday, July 24, 2009

Gold Making Progress

Sorry for the lazy post today As it shows, I am doing pretty decently. Nearly 50k auctions posted 0_0.

This is mostly from my glyphs with a few asorted other things thrown in.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Rep Grinding AKA Throat Punching Yourself

As I have recently posted, I have been working no my Shatarri Skyguard Rep. This is the BC faction that rewards you with a nice Nether Ray Fry pet and several Nether Ray epic flying mounts when you hit exalted. Prior to that, it is all crap. As a help to the community, so you feel less like you are punching yourself in the throat, I decided to make a quick and easy guide to gaining exalted. As a bonus, I will also throw in the slightly infected head wound that is the Sporeggar Rep Grind.

Skyguard: The skyguard are supposed to be an elite fighting force that fights baddies in high up places. They were basically patch filler and something to keep people occupied until something better came up. Lore Factor: Lulz

Getting Rep: There are several ways to get rep with the Skyguard. None of them are fun. The first way are the dailies. The quest line starts next to the flight master in Shattrath. Look for the floppy flying vagina monster flying next to the space goat with the ugly tabard. She will give you a quest to kill some Ogres hanging out above Shattrath. After that you get sent to Skettis which is in them mountains over Allerian Stronghold.

When you get there, you will get the first daily quest "Fires over Skettis". Basically you fly around and drop Dynamite on the sparkly eggs on top of the Aarakoa tree houses. You need to blow up 20. Try to avoid the Giant Kaliri. They are less annoying at 80, but I imagine they could still daze you off of your flying mount and to your death if you arent a tank.

Make sure to enable your low level quest finder. In a random tree house you will save a Skyguard who was captured. It is a short escort quests that has you killing a few baddies along the way. Do both of these every day.

Once you have done those, you will want to kill enought Aarakoa to get at least 6 shadow dust. Every six can be turned in to one of the NPCs at the base camp for a Shadow Elixir. When you use this Shadow Elixir, you will be able to see the invisible Aarakoa. My suggestion is to go in a circuit along the tree house and avoud the ground level. Clearing out every single tree top usually took me about 20 minutes, which conveniently is how long the potion lasts. Every mobs in the area will give you 15 rep. The big tree elites will give you 30.

The main thing you are looking for on these baddies are the Time Lost Pages. Once you have collected 10 of these pages you will be able to summon a mini-boss. When you kill this boss, you will get a random crappy blue to sell and piece of the mini boss. You will need to collect 40 pages to summon the 4 bosses. Each of these bosses will net you 100 rep.

Once you have summoned and killed all 4 bosses (Warp Chaser, Aarakoa guy, Rock Dude, and Wind Serpent), you bring their giblets back to the base camp and turn them into the Aarakoa locked in the cage. He will give you an item that will let you summon Terrok on the small island in middle of Skettis.

I easily soloed Terrok each time, but I could see where it would be difficult for some classes with less health and avoidance. You will beat the crap out of him for a while then he will bubble himself. Instead of hearthing, he will punch you in the face. The only way to burst his bubble (no pun intended), is to drag him over to the blue smoke. He will turn enraged and you will be able to do damage to him again. You may have to kite him to the blue smoke a few different times.

Terrok will net you 500 rep and some stuff to throw on the Auction House. He always drops at least a blue item (usually BOE). I also got a BOE epic cloak and a trinket that changes me into an Aarakoa.

BUT THATS NOT ALL......join today and we will give you MORE DAILIES IN BLADES EDGE MOUNTAINS....sigh.

Ogrilla How I hate Thee: Next step is to talk to the guy at the landing pad at the Skettis base camp. He will put you on a Nether Ray up to Blades edge where you get MOAR DAILIES! Depending on your "skills" these Dailies can be very frustrating. The first one is to bomb fel cannon ball stacks. These are conveniently marked for you with arrows. All you have to do is fly in at low altitude (damn bomb ranges is short), drop a bomb on a fel cannonball stack, and fly out before you get a green fireball to the face. This fireball will dismount you. You will take fall damage and fireball damage. And you will have to go somewhere and eat (unless you are a healer, yay you). 15 smashed balls later and you are done with that daily.

Next up is Aether Ray Wranglin YEEEEHAWWWW (spits tabacky). You have to find Aether Rays flying around, beat them up until it tells you they are ready to be wrangled. They you use the rope and wrangle them. You need to wrangle 5. Be careful when you are wrangling them. Auto attack will probably be enough to kill them during the wrangling process and will annoy the hell out of you. Deep wounds did not help my situation either. Once you get the 5, you are done. There is one other quest (think it is a one time quest) to kill a dragon. I soloed it without any problems. Grinding Pain Equivalent: Punch to the balls.

Well it is grindy, but how is the cash?: I am glad you asked. It is actually pretty decent when you are grinding rep in Skettis. I was getting tons and tons of Netherweave cloth which I turned into bags and sold on the AH. I was making 100-200 gold on bags alone per day while doing my grinds. You will also come across a lot of vendor trash and green items that can be DEed or vendored. Overall, grinding this rep was pretty decent for making money. Cash Flow Rating: Moderate.

Sporregar: Sporeggar are the little fungus dudes that live in Zangarmarsh. They are under attack from the Bog Lords and are getting soundly thrashed. They want your help. They also have a nice non-combat pet which is really the only reason to grind this rep. Lore Factor: More Lulz

Getting Rep: Well, there are several ways to get rep. For starters, there are a few quests in the Cenarion Refuge that have you do some killing in a cave down south. The mobs in this cave are available to be beat up until exalted for rep. They will give you 15 per kill. Probably a slow way to go.

If you are not yet friendly with the Sporregar, you can find a Sporelok walking around on the southern side of the spawning glen. He will give you two quests. One is to pick up 10 of the bulbs in the spawning glen for food. The second is to beat down Bog Lords for their tendrils. Any of the giants in that area will give you tendrils. These are both repeatable quests until you hit friendly. Then he will send you off to Sporregar to talk to the other natives. Note that the rep gains from killing the mobs in the spawning glen will only last you until Honored.

You can do all of the quests in the area, but the two most important quests are "Now that we are friends" and "Bring me a Shrubbery". Both of these quests are repeatable and will net you a whopping 750 rep per turn in. Both of these are available all the way to exalted.

"Now that we are friends" becomes "Now that we are still friends". This quest has you run across the pond and smash 12 Naga Slave Drivers and 6 Naga Enchantresses...ss.sssss. 0_0.

"Bring me a Shrubbery" turns into "Bring me another Shrubbery" (Monty Python FTW). This quests tasks you with bringing 5 Sanguine Hibiscus to the quest giver. This is the quest you should be focusing on. You get Sangune Hibiscus in Underbog. You can avoid most of the mobs and pick them up off the ground. If you aggro something, NO WORRIES. Many of the mobs also drop the plant. Gather all of the Sanguine Hibiscus you can find all the way up until the beginning of the Naga area. Back track a little and drop down into the water. Pick up a few more on the way out and reset the instance. Rinse and repeat. I picked up about 27 of them in less than 20 minutes of play. That is a metric shit ton on rep. Grinding Pain Equivalent: A paper cut.

Money Opportunities: Unlike the Skyguard grind, you will not be making any money besides the bit of vendor trash you get and maybe a few primal lifes. What this grind lacks in cash, it more than makes up for in speed. You could probably go from unfriendly to exalted in less than a day. If you are a vanity pet collector, do it. If you arent, skip it. Cash Flow Rating: Very Low

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

I R Casual.....

Yes, depending on what you consider casual, I would consider myself a casual player. This has nothing to do with my play time really. I do play a decent amount. This has to do more with what I do with that time.

There was a time when all I wanted to do was Raid. Log on, jump into LFG and pray for something good to be going down. This is not a motivation for me at the moment. I should be whoring out my uber leet skills to pugs in need, but I am about as interested as Ellen Degeneres at a Chip N Dales show.

The casual vs hardcore debate has been raging forever. While I consider myself to be casual, how many would thing I am hardcore? I have a blog, I have three well geared level 80 toons, and I make ass tons of gold playing the auction house.

WoW is like a delicious multi-layered cake. There are many different paths, and along those paths are different levels of "hardcore". On the PvP layer of the cake, I would be considered ultra casual. If I were a porno, I would be something on Skinamaxx at 11 pm. On the other hand, I cancel and post auctions several times a day, spying on my competitiors so I know when to strike. If I were a porno here, I could well be a compilation of DVDA and bukkake videos.

I consider annoying rep grinds to be somewhat casual. You dont really need to use any brain activity to do them. I am almost done with the Shataari Skyguard at the moment and will switch to Sporregar after that. Some people think rep grinds are hardcore. They are measuring the level of hardcore by time instead of challenge.

How do YOU define hardcore or casual. Is it based on the content you try to tackle or is it based on the time you spend in game. I have accomplished much more than my sister in WoW in a lot less play time. Does that make me hardcore?

I read blogs and outside resources. Does that make me harcore, or does it make the people who dont ultra casual. This is really a very tricky to figure out.

If you raid more than me, you have no life. If you raid less, you suck. If you make more gold than me you have no life, if you make less you suck. I read several examples of this in a blog recently. We make our own guidelines for determing what we deem casual or hardcore. Everybody is going to have a different opinion. I have babbled on for so long, I no longer know what I am talking about. Hey look over there, a penguin.

Anyways, how do YOU define hardcore and casual? What are you in that spectrum?

Jong Song

When I heard that Jong was going to stop blogging, I knew I had to do something classy for the flyest ret pally around. Thankfully he decided to stay (I think). Regardless, here is the Jong song.

This thing right here
Is lettin all the belf know
What Kael talks about
You know
The finer things in life
Hahaha
Check it out

Ooh dat judgement so scandalous
And ya know another belf couldn't handle it
See ya divine storming that thang like who's da ish
With a look in ya eye so devilish

Uh
Ya like to consecrate at all the raid boss spots
And ya cruise to the crews like connect da dots
Not just fly he likes to block
Cuz he was livin la vida loca

[BRIDGE]
He hits hard like a truck truck truck
Silky skin like what what what
Baby move your butt butt butt
Uh
I think to sing it again
He hits hard like a truck truck truck
Silky skin like what what what
All night long
Lets DPS LIKE JONG

[CHORUS]
I like it when the judgement goes da na da na
Baby make your crusdaer strike go da na da na
Baby I know you wanna know da na da na
That Jong th Jong Jong Jong
I like it when the judgement goes da na da na
Baby make your flash of light go da na da na
Girl I know you wanna know da na da na
That Jong th Jong Jong Jong

That Jong so scandalous
And I know another raiders couldn't handle it
And he DPSing that thang like who's da ish
With a look in his eye so devilish

Uh
He like to judge at all the raid boss spots
And he crusades to the crews like connect da dots
Not just fly he likes to rock
Cuz Jong was livin la vida loca

[BRIDGE]

[CHORUS (2x)]

Whoaaa
That two hander so scandalous
And I swear another ret pally couldn't handle it
See ya repenting that thang like who's da ish
With a look in his eye so devilish

(Whoa)
Uh ya like to wipe at all the raid boss spots
And ya crusade to the crews like connect da dots
Not just pimp ya like to rock
Cuz Jong was livin la vida loca

(Whoa)
HE can judge like a truck truck truck
Fly like what what what
Baby move your butt butt butt
(Ooh)
Uh think to sing it again
Cuz he can judge like a truck truck truck
Fly like what what what
Baby move your butt butt butt
Uh think to sing it again
Come on
Come on
Come on
Come on

Yeahhhh yeah

[CHORUS (3x)]

Whoa
Uh alright
Uh whoa yeah
Ooh
Whoa
(Like it when the judgement goes da na da na)
(Baby make your consecrate go da na da na)
(Jong I know you wanna show da na da na)
Baby
(That Jong th Jong Jong Jong)

(I like it when the Judgment goes da na da na)
(Baby make your halter top go da na da na)
(Girls I know you wanna know da na da na)
(That Jong th Jong Jong Jong)

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

The Summer Virus

The Summer virus is here and is hitting WoW bloggers and players like Chris Brown. Many players are going to take a bit of a hiatus from the game.....that does not include me. Im going to fight the Summer Virus like Bruce Willis fights asteroids. Liv Tyler will probably cry and touch my computer screen even.

Despite still playing and blogging, I have noticed that I am doing excessively grindy things instead of raids and instance etc. I should probably be leveling my alts, but instead im auction house whoring and grinding BC reps for vanity pets. It feels like I am turning down Megan Fox to hang out with Rosie Odonnel......very, very wrong.

I really think that patch 3.2 is going to inject me with a new shot of WoWdrenaline. The new Argent Tournament stuff should keep me someone busy, but the Heroics are what is going to consume most of my time. Heroics are my thing. I think the best part of the game is blasting those instances with 4 good and reliable friends. I love 5 man instances like Brittney Spears loves white trash.....which is a lot.

I had an in-game friend ask me what I do with all of my money.....I told him I swim in it.....like Scrouge McDuck. I want to make money, but I dont really want to spend it. I dont know what I am saving it for......well there is the Northern Barrier which has continually eluded me for the past few months. Then of course there is vitual bottled water and cans of spam the be stored in the basement for when Dec 21, 2012 rolls around (just in case the Bruce Willis thing doesnt work out).

GIVE ME SOMETHING TO DO. I want the motivation to raid and instance again. Because Im good enough, Im smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me!

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Waiting......

WoW seems to be a game that includes a whole lot of waiting. We wait to get from point a to point b. We also wait on new content that will eliminate the waiting for a while.

While waiting, we may not be doing nothing. Just not all of the things we enjoy. Lately for me, the waiting game has mostly included doing dailies and making as much money as I can. I prefer to raid. My work schedule does not really allow it right now. There are the weekends, but that is time with my fiancee.

I am waiting for next patch. Then I can run Heroics like there is no tommorow. Ever since pre BC, 5 man instance have been my favorite. You can grab 4 of your favorite fellow players and bullshit your way to glory.

What are you waiting for? Is it next patch? Arthas?

Friday, July 17, 2009

Keep Your Enemy Closer: Part 2

I previously wrote about the tactic of keeping your "enemies" closer by adding your market competitiors to your friends list. I would also like to add to keep an eye on /who when they go online and offline. Then maybe you can see who their main is and keep a double eye for when they want to ninja undercut you.

My new strategy for keeping your enemy closer is to kill them with kindness. There is a certain glyph seller who is probably not going away from a while. Many came and went, but this particular one has stayed. This person does things right for the most part when it comes to glyphs. They dont flood the market and leave them up for 48 hours, tanking the price.

When they first came onto the scene, they sent me an email just to say hello. I responded by telling them that there is plenty of room in the market and to enjoy the profits.

Since then, we have had peaceful correspondance from time to time. I also sent some advice about how to price glyphs. This person would use their heart to set a price rather than their brain sometimes. I would put it at 16 gold. They would undercut to 8 gold because they thought that is what it sells for. I educated them in the law of the market......things go for what you sell them for. If there are no other auctions of the same kind up, you can set the price. You control that. Not some abstract opinion of what someone would probably be HAPPY to pay.

They responded back that they would do that. I have seen much improvement already. This business arrangement helps both of us. We are going to undercut each other obviously, but there is a respect to not go to buck wild.

I keep an enemy close, and it helps my profit. And they think I am just helping a fellow scribe out. A win in my book.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Being Social. My favorite part of WoW

The last few nights I have been having a lot of fun. I have not been raiding bleeding edge content or grinding battlegrounds. I have not been running around grinding various reputations or refreshing my mass number of auctions. I have been doing what made the game great to begin with.....playing with friends.

Three of my former fellow night crew friends have been on last few days at the same time as me. We have all played together since pre-BC when we would run Stratholme on a daily basis just for fun.

The best part is that we have just been hanging out and messing around doing whatever we feel like. One night I ran my Aussie friend James and his brother through Scarlet Monastery a few times. Aussie Jason showed up after another of his many several month disappearances and brought a Warlock along for the ride. Jason was his normal self, finding ways to cause mischief.....ohhhh look how fun it is when I fear this mob....uhhhh.....now there are like 10 of them...../run. I also picked up the Scarlet tabard that had long eluded me.

A few nights later, we decided to make our way into Sunken Temple with 4 of us. I brought my 58 mage along. There were all kinds of summoning stone shenanigans which included me having to fly back to blasted lands to run over to Sunken Temple. When I got there, the server shut down counter started. As long as I have played WoW, I still cannot find my way around Sunken Temple.....I just usually skip it altogether on all of my characters. It took me 5 minutes to find the damn instance portal 0_0.

In the meantime, they are inside fighting along as Hunter, Bear Druid, and Healy Paly. I arrive just in time to pick up some new pants.....laughter goes up in vent.....what is so funny? Those are an upgrade for me! "They are leather noob". We got a nice chuckle out of that. Even better was when the Pally didnt get a heal off in time to save the bear from the 5 plus mobs beating on him.....then they came for us. Hunter (TJ) feigns death.......ICE BLOCK. Ok...THEY ARE STILL AFTER ME. The Pally (James) DIs me and I hearth a few minutes before server shutdown. Hunter ends up dying anyways as he feigned too close to the mobs. We were certainly playing like noobs on rarely played characters from me using frost nova when I meant to use Blizzard to our Hunter using Disengage and flyinh down stairs instead of using whatever he was trying to use.

We topped it off with a fun little 4 man Kara last night. We used to run the place every weekend for months. We had it down to two hour clears even before they nerfed it. We just took our time and laughed our way through. We had a huge laugh as we wiped on Attumen trash like serious noobs. We laughed as we pulled a whole room full of the actors before Opera and DID NOT move them out of the spotlights (wipe). We laughed as we pulled the entire room of explody guys a bit past Curator and we laughed as they tried to three man Aran without a healer. The key to this is we laughed we had great fun and got one of our alts a bunch of tanking gear.

These last few nights have really gotten me thinking why I love the game. It isnt making tons of gold or the latest epics. It is hanging with the homies and laughing our asses off into the wee hours of the morning. THAT, its truely epic.

Things we miss while rushing through content





Yesterday, myself and three friends decided to do Karazhan for old times sake. We had a blast beating up on our old enemies. It really made me notice how much cooler of an instance Kara was than Naxx. We werent just rushing through Kara, we were strolling through on our own accord and having a nice time. This brings me to some screenshots I found.

The one at the top of the page is in Medivh's bedchamber. It is a picture of dear ole Dad, Nielas Aran. Many people probably missed this entire area previously. To get to it, you take the long way to Prince Malchezzar and go left at the flesh beasts instead of right and up the stairs.

The one at the bottom of the page is Medivh's huge frickin bed. The dude lived in style. On the way to his bed chamber there are many statues and pillows adorning the ground.

The picture directly below, I did not know what to make of it exactly. Perhaps it is part of a quest or something, but it is Arthas running around and killing the scourge in the camp where you do Battle Before the Citadel. He was just randomly running around and killing gargoyles.

Sometimes when you just take a look around you, you will find a game that you didnt know existed.




Tuesday, July 14, 2009

We nerfed you to buff you to nerf other classes to nerf you buy buff you.

The title really seems like a typical blue statement from someone at Blizzard. Half the time it really seems like they are talking out their ass and just trying not to piss us off. Sometimes they dont care. The latest talks about the ongoing changes to block and other avoidance is just damn annoying.

Quote from Blizzard staff
The future of Block
I feel like we've been pretty candid about its future. You can probably find my previous comments relatively easily. We think block needs to mitigate much more incoming damage per hit, but to make that change we would also need to lower tank avoidance across the board and prevent every hit from being blocked (especially in situations with more than one target beating on you). To make Prot tanking more interesting, we have allowed block to become too much of a dps stat. In retrospect, we'd rather it remained a mitigation stat and that Strength was pushed up as the big warrior and paladin dps stat.
So what this translates to is NERF. We want you to block more. We are making a shitty stat slightly better for mitigation and diminishing your good stats such as parry and dodge. We also want to gimp your threat....even though threat is currently a problem at the highest levels.

You shouldn't overly worry about outscaling content. We said from the beginning that there would be three major patches to Wrath of the Lich King. We aren't setting up a system that is going to remain on autopilot for 10 more tiers of content without our intervention. It's totally valid for players to worry about scaling, and all things considered, we'd rather have mechanics that scale well. But if those scaling problems aren't going to manifest themselves until you have item level 500 items, then you're worried prematurely.
Translation: Umm....we forsee that there could be problems in the future, but we will sweep it under the rug for now mmmkaaayyyy.

We would like to get Prot warriors into PvP in a legitimate way, but our first priority is making sure every class has at least one viable PvP spec first. By "legitimate" I do NOT mean that you sometimes can do a 19K Shield Slam when all the stars align. That's not acceptable even if it is rare. Also consider that tanks do have a legit role acting like actual tanks when running flags or tanking AV-style NPCs. That may not be enough of a role, but I did want to point out that emphasizing BGs more and Arenas less also helps to carve out a niche for PvP tanks.
Translation: We dont want you stinking up our arenas with your dirty prot specs. Never mind that they were never legit before Wrath, and now they are barely legit. We want them to be completly useless other than a small amount of utility.

I know there are plenty of Prot warriors out there who couldn't care less about PvP. Sorry. We have to. Sad

We want Prot warriors to do decent damage in PvE. We don't want them to do as good damage as actual dps specs -- there needs to be a trade-off for such high survivability. This means we need threat multipliers or you won't be able to actually hold aggro. It's okay if Shield Slam can make big (yet not absurd) numbers, since you don't Shield Slam all that much. That's fun. As I said above though, it would probably work better if Shield Slam hit hard because your Strength was high, not because you built a gimmicky set. (Source)
This is true. I have thought that strength should have been a better stat for tanks all along. Block value sets are ridiculous. As a matter of fact, I think it would be better if they just converted all block value and block rating based only on strength. The there would be a nice reason to stack it. I dont ever see tank dps being too high from a Warrior's perspective. I out dps some , but that is usually due to a lack of gear. Druids and DKs may be a different story.

Avoidance changes in 3.2
The main goal of the change was to make parry not so much less attractive than dodge as an avoidance stat. Since tank avoidance is so high already, we wanted to do that by nerfing dodge a little, not by buffing parry.
It is right there in the sentence. NERF. We dont care for parry. It is nice, but we never gem for it. People are still going to gem for dodge most likely.

This hurts druids slightly more than other tanks, but the emphasis is on "slightly." This is not the big druid nerf that some forum posters have predicted. We will continue to evaluate tank survivability and threat generation based on PTR tests with "Patchwerk" to decide if druids need to be nerfed or DKs buffed or look at Prot warrior dps or anything else.
I dont know how much of an avoidance nerf Druids need. I dont think there have been a lot of complaints about their avoidance. I think most complaints have come from other tanks who see them doing superior dps and threat while carrying a huge health pool.

This is also not the big avoidance "come to Naaru" that some posters predicted. Overall, we think avoidance is too high and the game would work better with lower tank avoidance, but suddenly dropping everyone's avoidance by 20 or 30% would be a very big change with many ramifications for healing and gear among other things. It would also feel like a big nerf to the many players who didn't understand why it would be better for the game in the long term. But I still expect it is coming at some
Is avoidance really that high? My avoidance is not that high. I am not dodging every, blocking, or parrying everything under the sun. Who is we? I dont think that "we" actually includes tanks. Maybe you should ask the tanks what is needed before you go "fixing" our classes. All you are doing by lowering avoidance is making the job of the healers that much more difficult.....which they really need in Ulduar 25. You arent just nerfing tanks in this situation, you are nerfing any class who heals.

I really do not agree with the tanks changes taking place so far. I think they feel hasty and like a crappy bandaid for the problems that are actually present. Sure block being better would be nice, but not at the cost of the rest of our avoidance going to crap. A turd is a turd no matter how much frosting you try to put on it.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Cold Weather Tomes introduced, more QQ at 11!

Just as with every single patch that comes out, there are many many people complaining and whining about the changes. You have people who took almost a year to get one toon to 80 complaining that the tome of Cold Weather Flying is unfair if you dont have higher level alts and a raid ready toon.

Well boohoo. How you play this game is your fault. If you are unable to obtain something you like, it is your fault, not Blizzard's. These items make it easier for people that have been there and done that many many times. It is a very smart way to keep the long time players still playing.

For those who complain about the emblem changes....get over it! They are just emblems that are used to buy higher level epics. It really isnt the end of the world. If anything it can be a nice new start. You will be able to run the stuff that you enjoyed running and obtain the same emblems. This is great for people who prefer 5 and 10 man instances. You will still need to run the big ones for top end weapons and shields.

If you really think that people having access to higher level gear is bad, you are wrong. There will of course be noobs running around in ilvl 226 gear. There will also be many good players who replace all of their ilvl 200 gear with the 226 gear. All it does is keep the gearing curve a little more even.

Then there is the possibility that the Argent Tournament Raid bosses are too easy. Too easy for who? People who have full cleared Ulduar 25? We really dont know yet. I imagine that there will be easy encounters and hard encounters. Just like every other raid instance. Flame Lootviathan is incredibly easy. XT and Razorscale arent that bad. The curve shoots up from there.

What I am really trying to say, is dont go and get your panties in a bunch. This patch is more or less a filler patch until the time when they can release the Icecrown Citadel Raid instance. It is one more thing to tie us over. A little taste of new gear, some new pvp, and plenty of fun little vanity items. If you are that hard core, go play Darkfall or something.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Helping Friends

Helping friends is something that most of us do in real life as well as in WoW. We all want to see our friends exceed in what they do. There is also a sense of accomplishment when we help our friends become all that they can be. This can be through helping them gear or teaching them a new rotation.

Some people would say not to help these people. They would say that you are a "friendly helpful person" or "M&S". This is simply not true. When you are helping a friend, you are making an investment in that person. By helping these people, you are making them better players (usually). They will appreciate it and it will make you feel good.

WoW is not a game of black and white. It is all blurry and mixed. Just like there are two factions who are neither good or bad, there is a blurry line between good and bad for players.

You may have a person in the top raiding guild on the server in full Ulduar 25 gear who is terrible at PvP. You can have someone who makes ridiuclous amounts of money who just can't get out of the fire. There are several ways that people can be good or bad.

Good and Bad are both very vague terms as well. What is good to one person is bad to another person. A 2100 rated pvper probably thinks someone at 1700 is bad. Someone taking on Algalon probably thinks anyone who has not cleared Ulduar 10 to be bad. Of course this is not true. These are just generalizations by people at different points in the game. The scale of "good" and "bad" has a wonky slider that changes enormously from person to person.

When you help your "bad friend", they will become your "good friends" and likely help you down the line. This could be in the form of instance run throughs or even gearing up your freshly dinged 80 toon. People who think that spending time on people is a waste of time are a waste of life. Investing in people is one of the smartest things that you can do. There is no end to the profits of friendship.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Guild Reputation

WoW can be quite a bit different than real life. In real life, your personal reputation will usually take you much further than your company's reputation. In WoW, I find it to be the opposite most of the time.

You may remember that bad dps or person who stood in the fire, but usually they will be forgotten in a few days to weeks time. I cant remember people I ran with a few days ago. What I do remember is their guild. Guilds usually have a server reputation and a personal reputation (give by you of course).

With server reputation, you will pretty much bunch them all into one group. For example, if you see someone from the top raid guild on the server recruiting for a PuG run, you are probably more likely to try and get in than if you see someone advertising from a guild with all lower case letters.

It really doesnt matter that this person could be on a terribad alt. Name recognition goes a long way in WoW just as it does in real life. Is Pepsi really that much better than your local chain store's brand? Not really, but you pay for the label. You know exactly what to expect from Pepsi.

Despite sometimes not remembering soecific people, I will usually remember my experiences with members of that guild. If I have one really bad inciddent, you are marker.

Remember, when you are playing, you are not only representing yourself, but your guild. It is not fair to give them a bad name thru shady action.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Family Gaming

One of the most fun things you can do with the people close to you is play games. I play WoW with several of my friends, my sister, and of course my fiancee. This really helps to keep the game fresh and fun for me.

Thanks to finally getting my computer back, my fiancee and I were finally able to play together for the first time in a while. I managed to stress her out by jumping her into an instance first thing. She has not done any kind of combat in the last several months as she has just been fishing and herbing.

We choose Violet Hold, and went in with myself tanking and my sister healing. We are way overgeared and overleveled for the intance. We also brought along a long time in game friend, Hoy, on his mage, and my sisters RL friend Mike. It went pretty well, but my fiancee was stressed the whole time that she was not doing well. She did perfectly fine, clocking in at over 1k dps. She is rather over critical of herself in these games and thinks that everyone will think that she is a noob for dying.

After VH, we headed over to Heroic Magisters Terrace to see if we could get the pet or mount to drop. It went very smoothly with just one death, but no pet or mount to be found. I got the commendation of Kael'Thas which eluded me during BC :(

That run was much more relaxed and fun as we joked around and emoted each other and generally had a good time. It is odd how the mood can change from run to run.

On a grindy note, I have started Argent Tournament Dailies again, and I started the rep grind for the Skyguard that I neglected during BC. I figured it will be an easy way to get a neat pet.


Saturday, July 4, 2009

Celebrate



Not only is it independence day is the day I got my good computer back. I can now play with my fiancee again, which will be very nice.

I also picked up a spiffy new Logitech gaming mouse for a better WoW experience. I saw the actual WoW gaming mouse, but I was not that impressed. It had a lot of buttons, but seemed to be kinda clunky in my opinion.

Just because I finally got my computer back doesn't mean I am going to stop hitting the auctionhouse hard. It just means that I will be hitting the other parts of the game I enjoy that much harder. More instances and more raids.

It is also going to be nice not lagging in Dalaran and having a all of the pretty graphics that I got so used to. This is kinda like an early Christmas present in a way :)

With my glyph making business, I am not over 50k on my bank toon and 60k overall on my account. I would like to get to the 100k mark before I decide whether to slow down or now. The biggest problem for me is the competition at the moment. Beside the douche who was undercutiing by half (he has been posting a lot less lately), there is a new one who doesnt mind undercutting all the way down to 2 gold. Despite this, I usually make over 1k on a good day.

Anyways, everyone have a fantastic holliday!

Thursday, July 2, 2009

WoW....in real life (part 1)

Obviously, WoW is pretty much nothing like real life. We dont run around killing dragons and fighting off hordes of undead zombies. However, it is very interesting to think of specific people as roles that you may find in WoW. The first part of this little series is going to deal with tanks (naturally). This is not to be taken seriously in any way, shape, or form.

What do tanks do? They cause a lot of threat, take the hits for their team mates, and are very resilient. Who do you consider to be real life tanks?

1) The Wingman: when you go out to the club, you bring your Wingman along. This is a buddy who is trying to help you score with the lucky (or perhaps unlucky) lady of your choice. How is the Wingman a tank? This is really an easy one. You are going after the hot chick (purpz). Standing in the way of your loot? The big fat friend (Raid Boss). The Wingman swoops in and gets aggro with his witty humor and plate full of chicken wings. He takes one for the team....just like the tank.

2) Supermarket Kid: You know who I am talking about. If you dont, YOUR KID IS SUPERMARKET KID!!!! Supermarket kid it the one who is throwing a major tantrum because they did not get the fruity cereal they desired. Supermarket kids are perhaps the best AOE tanks in the game (world). Not only do they have a 500x embarassment modifier applied to their parents, but they also have everyone in a two aisle radius thinking about punching them in the face. Unfortunately, they are a squishy tank and easily distracted.

3) High School Nerd: High School Nerds are an all around tank apparently. Not only are they very good at holding aggro against bullies with such trademark moves as wedgie and trash canned, they also have a mass fear ability that effects all women in the area. They are also one of the most resilient tanks out there. No matter how many corpse runs they have to make back to their self esteem, they will probably end up winning the encounter with Life over the bullies.

Anyone else have any examples? I would be happy to add them to my post. If I dont get to post again before Saturday, Happy 4th.