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Showing posts from February, 2010

Decision made - 95 emblems spent.

Last night, after a VOA-10 and the daily dungeon, I had the last 4 Emblems of Frost necessary to purchase a new chest. 95 emblems is quite a bit of work for someone who doesn't raid in ICC often . With that in mind, I ran over to Threads of Fate and picked up my new chest piece. (Note: Rueben Lauren in Dalaran standing next to her, sells the T10 pieces, for easy comparison). I decided against purchasing the straight tier-10 chest piece and get the Meteor Chaser's Raiment . I feel that in the long run, this was the better piece. I gemmed it with a Runed Cardinal Ruby , Rigid King's Amber , and a Purified Dreadstone . I took rigid, because my T9 piece had a good bit of hit, that I lost on this piece ( Dark Coven is missing it also). Took the Dreadstone to get the socket bonus. I much rather put a +haste gem, but it was orange. Since the purchase, today I ran, a PVP (strand of ancients is on holiday) and VOA 25. Despite a 100 point upgrade in my gear score, so far, I ha

Pet Collectors: Start farming mats

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In 3.3.3, Blizzard is making two engineering pets, open to everyone. Using a script I've developed, I've put together all the mats you'd need to build each. It will break down each item into key components. For example, you could just buy the " Big Iron Bomb ". Or you could have the engineer build it. To build it, they'd need an iron bar, heavy blasting power and a silver contact. The Silver contact requires a silver bar, which a miner can be make from Silver Ore. Big Iron Bomb x 1 Iron Bar x 3 Iron Ore x 3 - drop Heavy Blasting Powder x 3 Heavy Stone x 3 - drop Silver Contact x 1 Silver Bar x 1 Silver Ore x 1 - drop - vendor ( 3 s) Pet Bombling Ingredients: Big Iron Bomb x 1 Iron Bar x 3 Iron Ore x 3 - drop Heavy Blasting Powder x 3 Heavy Stone x 3 - drop Silver Contact x 1 Silver Bar x 1

Good bye farming holiday bosses...

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As posted to Wow.com , changes coming down in patch 3.3.3 will drastically change how you get into a holiday boss. As lock, I was often utilized in guild, to summon everyone's alts, their brothers and kids toons. Great since I "could" get my warlock flying mount , with EACH possible kill. In 3.3.3, you use the dungeon finder, and only get the 'rare' drops on the first kill. As Wow.com points out, maybe the individual drop rate will be higher than it was previously. Personally, there is nothing I'd love more than a flying felsteed . IMHO, every lock should already have this mount.

PVP can be a lot of fun...

...if you have the right gear! This weekend, I bought a few more PVP pieces, bringing my set to 5 pieces: Wrathful Gladiator's Cuffs of Alacrity (nice a bit of haste) Titan-Forged Shoulderpads of Salvation (gemmed with a Kharmaa's Grace ) Furious Gladiator's Felweave Raiment (IIRC) Furious Gladiator's Felweave Handguards Titan-Forged Cloak of Ascendancy At 400 resilience now, my lock is actually PVP viable. I was stunned by a rogue in Wintergrasp last night and actually survived more than one hit. With an active healer, I lived through his cds and was able to fear and flame him to death! Woohoo! Guess, I might actually live long enough for 10,000 honorable kills..

POS Pinch Hitter

I don't know about you, but as of recently I am feeling like a Pit of Sauron Pinch Hitter. If I am not already in a group (of say guildies) going into POS, if I see that POS load screen, I am going to be filling in for fled DPS. Last night was my worst. The tank was in i200 gear for the most part and hadn't ever run the POS gauntlet before. (I do like to help them and banish the elemental parked on the mid-point.) At the end of the run, he let the mobs run wild waiting for Rimefang to take them out. Waiting 15 minutes as a DPS is getting tiring, especially to only fight in the last boss fight. Or, I guess to put a positive spin, in only takes about 10 minutes fighting Scourgelord Tyrannus , to get 2 Emblems of Frost.

Storm Peaks Icecrown "Log Ride"

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A couple weeks ago, I found the log ride in Grizzly Hills. Now how about this!? Starting at the Grom'arsh Crash Site, talk the flight master there, when you chose the new Temple of the Storms stop, instead of a griffon or wyvern, you'll be equipped with a snowboard. 10 second later and a few half pipe, double flips later, your down at the base of the hill. Mount up, and do it again! Oh, it would be fun! Blizzard, are you listening?

What if Alton Brown was a tauren?

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Well, instead of Good Eats , he'd be making Raid Eats . Here's what it would probably look like: Found at WoW MovieWatch

Stratholme Repairs!

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Today we lost our tank before the daily random even started. Out of boredom, I started exploring the city. Don't bother trying to explore the coutryside outside town, it is surrounded by a thick fog once you get past LOS of the road. Inside the town, I checked out first the orphanage (empty, immediately inside gates). Next, Leeka Turner (50,58) for a quick repair. She stuck around until Malganis appeared, then she simply faded away. Look for her in "Leeka's Shields & Maces" in King's Square . Note: there's a hay cart in front of her business. Looking at WowHead, I see there are 7 interact-able NPCs inside the instance. Hmm, interesting twist to her: Before After

Sartharion Surprise

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After a leisure night of putting the kids in bed, tucking in my wife, I logged on to Warcraft. Bank toon, cleared her mail, picked up another 500g (thank you very much) and then swapped over to my main. Upon logging on to Elk, he was both told to sign up for Saturday's raid on the Guild calendar, but also received an immediate invite to a raid. The raid was for 10-man Sartharion , which happened to be the weekly raid . I accept the inv, jump on my drake, then receive a summons before I get off the platform. By the time I get into the raid, they are already working on killing the first trash. Soon after, we've skirted the 3 drakes and cleared all the trash. On to the boss. First pull on Sarth, 3/4 of the raid (including myself) died when the first drake engaged. Some large POP that spike damaged everyone. Wipe and reset. This time Sarth went down like clockwork. Watching the boom-chicken standing next to me, I avoided the lava waves and never got hit. Sarth went down and we clea

Time to take after the Jones'es?

I was reviewing the Warlock Spreadsheet for kicks. One of the cool things about playing with a spreadsheet like this, is I can quickly play with different talent builds, or play what-if on equipment or gems. One item I been throwing around is changing my current talent build ( 0/16/55 ) to the oh-so popular 0/13/58 build. Based on the calculations of the spreadsheet, I can theoretically see a +1000 dps increase. WoW! Hmm, OK, what happens if I change my chest from the Guldan 's (t9) to the Dark Coven (t10) piece and gem for +sp and +crit? +100 DPS. :) I feel validated by my plans. The Maths speak to me.

100th Post: The Infestation of Peddlefeet

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As I was firing up the editor, to rattle off a quick side-note about the crazy influx of Peddlefeet in and around Orgimmar, I noticed that this will be my 100th blog post. That mini-milestone seems to make this post a bit more important than a quick one-liner. Reading through the Valentines day 2010 story plots, it sounds like the scourge are on their way. Perfumes and colognes that are ' infused ' with something odd. A lone detective looking into the changes and what maybe going around. Notes: I am glad that I have completed this last year. 12 Charm bracelets ? OK, but I guess that may be easier than collecting gift baskets. Pilfering Perfume : The perfume cases are outside Orgrimmar, between the entrance and the UC zeppelin landing. Crushing the Crown depends on your level. My bank toon stayed in Orgrimmar. My 80-lock had to go to Dalaran and basically fall off the Krasius Landing into the Sprayers. I've only heard the v-day boss(es) are tough. Haven't played them

The Making of WoW

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I just followed a link to this article on EuroGamer today and started reading into this interview about World of Warcraft from last year. Very interesting stuff if you're into the game design aspect of Warcraft.

Warcraft Backgrounds

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For the last few weeks, I have been enjoying the Blizzard Warcraft themed backgrounds. I went so far as to create an automated script to pull them down each day from the WorldofWarcraft web page. Putting this in either my Startup, or as a group policy on logon makes it so I never worry about getting the latest background. This Month, Blizzard has slightly improved their wallpaper. Simple, but cool, the background includes a basic holiday calendar. Sundays stand-out in a different color, and then it lists each of the in-game holidays ( Lunar Festival and Valentines ). Speaking of Valentines, it looks like they may be expanding the holiday a little. There some speculation around the quest " Something is in the Air (and it Ain't Love) ". I would guess, maybe heading back into Naxx Plague wing, but??

Time to finish Classic Dungeonmaster

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I just read on Wow - The Queue : "Can Horde queue up for Stockades and Deadmines, and can Alliance queue up for Ragefire Chasm and Wailing Caverns?" Assuming you're in the appropriate level range, yes! There's no threat of a bunch of Horde zoning out of the Stockades in the middle of Stormwind because the tool drops you back where you queued, not outside of the instance. It's a good opportunity to see content that normally would have been incredibly difficult to access. EXCITING! I have 3 dungeons left to run for the Classic Dungeonmaster achievement. Now what does appropriate level mean? I know I can't use the summoning stone for Scarlet Monastery. Does that mean I'll need to run to Gnomeregan ? Does that mean I'll need to wait for 5 lvl-80's, or will it group me with some level appropriate toons? Sadly, when I checked and I select specific dungeons , I see no dungeons outside Northrend. Guess I'll need to start walking..