Variety is the spice of the Heroics

Fuubaar has some excellent ideas to spice up those daily heroics.

Go check out: So, you're bored, what do you do? Heroics Edition

Tonight, I think I am going to equip my easter flowers and give everyone bunny ears.

Lil' XT - Coming in 3.3.3

The first time I fought Deconstructor in Ulduar, I was surprised by the whiny little kid voice coming off this boss. It throws a tantrum, it stomps around, it even sits and pouts. Now in 3.3.3 (probably a purchasable pet like lil'kt), we'll see a lil'xt. I just wish these pets would (like the Calico cat + Stinker), they'd interact when put close together.

Burning a hole in my pocket

Last week, my playing on the auction house had netted me a little over 14,000 gold. Yipee! Gem sales are paying off nicely for me. Last night I got a 5x proc on the Cardinal Ruby, and they are selling for 180g on my server, so I am hoping for some nice income this week. Not bad from farmed eternals and a drop off Occulus "bag".

Either way, the mechano-hog is dominating my thoughts. Yes, I want my warlock to have a hog. Looking at the mats required for creating one, I am looking at immediately 12,500g out of pocket just for the basics, then it will require 12 titansteel bars (or 36 titanium bars and 12x3 eternals).

Luckily I have 2 engineers in guild that have the pattern and it looks like titansteel no longer has a cool-down. I am going to have to spend a few days in Wintergrasp farming eternals so that I can have them.

Hmm, per a comment on the hog parts vendor, they can be farmed from Ulduar bosses. Can hope that the weekly raid is Ulduar this week.. :)  (with a less than reasonable drop rate)


Recipe for  Mechano-hog x 1

     Titansteel Bar x 12
         Titanium Bar x 36
          - created
         Eternal Fire x 12
          - created
          - drop
         Eternal Earth x 12
          - created
          - drop
         Eternal Shadow x 12
          - created
          - drop
     Handful of Cobalt Bolts x 40
         Cobalt Bar x 80
             Cobalt Ore x 80
              - drop
     Arctic Fur x 2
      - drop
      - vendor ( 24 g)
     Salvaged Iron Golem Parts x 1
      - vendor ( 3000 g)
     Goblin-machined Piston x 8
      - vendor ( 8000 g)
     Elementium-plated Exhaust Pipe x 1
      - vendor ( 1500 g)

On the other hand, maybe I should take advantage of my Kirin'tor rep and just get the 3-man mammoth mount??. It's only 16k for the mount and has vendors!! Great for repairs while out questing (soon to happen again in Cataclysm). After pricing out all the mats I would probably have to buy, it will probably cost about the same.

From the 3.3.3 Patch notes

This is going to make me consider changing my affliction spell rotation (and talent build), so that I can start using Dark Pact instead of Life Tap. 

Warlocks

• Dark Pact now has a 100 yards range (up from 30 yards) and ignores the line of sight.

Interesting - Random Dungeon Finder Pool

The dungeon finder tool, takes advantage of the already existing battlegroup (aka closely related server farms). For kicks, I clicked on my battle group on the WowArmory and found a blue post by Nethaera.

The following realms are all a part of the Shadowburn Battlegroup (List subject to change):

Agamaggan- PvP
Azshara- PvP
Baelgun- Normal
Dark Iron- PvP
Detheroc- PvP
Emerald Dream- RP-PvP
Greymane- Normal
Kalecgos- PvP
Lightninghoof- RP-PvP
Maelstrom- RP-PvP
Malfurion- Normal
Moonrunner- Normal
Nazjatar- PvP
Sargeras- PvP
Staghelm- Normal
Twisting Nether- RP-PvP
Ursin- PvP
Wildhammer- PvP

 I find it interesting that most my heroic dungeons are run with PVP players. Of 18 realms, 5 are NOT PVP (including mine Malfurion). This puts a bit of a different light on the 5-man groups that I have joined. Now I am going to pay a bit more attention though.

Have you noticed any consistencies with your groupings? My 5mans are typically:

• Healer = Shaman
• Tank = Pally or DK
• DPS = Me (warlock)
• DPS2 = Mage
• DPS3 = Another Pally or DK.

Is this due to server make 1/5 Normal to PVP ratio, Blizzard maths or simply server population. Are most healers rolling shammys?

Isle of Conquest Holiday

The last weekend was an Isle of Conquest PVP holiday. Isle of Conquest is the new battlegrounds introduced with the 3.3 patch to Warcraft. This zone is resource race like Alterac Valley. As you grab various resources, you get different advantages. Own the dock, get catapults and Glaive Throwers (like a boomerang sword - unfortunately the only vehicle I didn't get to drive). Own the oil refinery, you get resouces (not sure if to build and power vehicles). Own the Hangar and you get a gunship that you can fire down upon your enemy base from above (ICC style).

The catapults are NOT like those in Wintergrasp, they are more like the demolisher's in Ulduar. You jump into the catapult and hit #1, and it will launch you into the air. Launch yourself into the air near the enemy base and you'll land inside. The alliance was loving this trick, because they would land on top our base then fire down arrow volleys from above. Worked wonderfully when they'd kill us rez'ing in the graveyard. Trick was to dot them when they got in range, then run as far away as possible to let them die a (slow) painful death.

I used the Bartender4 key binding, to bind mouse up to Death Coil and mouse down to Fear. This was really useful in the battlegrounds, I could tab -> scroll, tab, scroll, etc. and fear an entire crowd. It was NOT useful inside a Dalaran where I wanted to zoom in and zoom out. At least Dalaran blocks casting offensive spells when you have someone targeted. Need to retrain muscle memory to use ALT+mouse wheel...

If you're not into PVP, this is a good variety battleground. There are vehicles and turrets for those that like distance, there's lots of open space for melee battles and there's flags and bases to guard if you just like to take it easy. During the day, the horde managed to win 3 straight runs, but when I checked back in Friday night, the alliance had the upper-hand and won most matches.

New Pally mount?

Wow.com has a few 3d models data-mined from the PTR build. One is a celestial horse, that looks like it's made from a constelation, pegasus-style.  This, unfortunately, doesn't look like a very scary warlock mount, but darn-it, those pallys (the warlock's goody-two shoes cousin) could take this one for a spin.

On the other hand, this would be extremely cool as just a regular mount, especially if it could have the 310% flight.

Found this video of a orc warlock flying around on this mount: