Elkagorasa the Casual

Shared Topic: Stacking +Int

2012-02-10T06:00:00.000-08:00

OK, so this orc went into the dental office the other day for his cleaning. It is nice to finally get that fish feast taste out of my mouth from Northren. Yuck! After the goblin hygienist finished grinding off 2 years of plaque and buildup, threatened punishment if I didn't floss more, I realized that this little goblin, probably stacks a lot of strength and agility on her gloves to deal with DPSing down my tooth bugs.

In my job, I DPS down computer bugs. They are nefarious beasts to kill sometimes, they have a ton of evasive abilities, and even cause fear when attacking executive management. If I was given the opportunity, I'd love to apply these enchants to make my DPS higher.

head = +Int so that I can think a little clearer without the need of massive amounts of espresso.
gloves = +agility so that I can type with less errors.
shoulders = +haste to get the work done faster. More free time for personal hobbies.
chest = +resilience so that I can deal with the office politics.

Given the opportunity, what enchants would make your real-world raid role easier? I'd like to hear what your leader (aka supervisor) says about your new recount stats after applying those enchants.

Does 4.3.2 mean MOP Beta for me & you?

2012-02-08T13:25:00.000-08:00

4.3.2 brought about only minor, minor class changes, and a consolidation of the game installed on my drive. I may just not been paying attention, but I don't remember this happening before; not with Vanilla, BC or Wrath. Shrink my install down, before adding a bunch of new content??

The forums over at MMO-Champion, estimate a Summer (July?) expansion timeline. That would mean (I'd hope) we should see the beta very soon, to work out any bugs, of course... ;-)

So, are you going to do the Beta this time? I did with Cataclysm. It was fun to see the early stages of the environment. I signed up on Battle.net to beta WoW and I signed up for the season pass!? Good or bad, I'll be there when they finally let us in the dojo.

64-bits = 64 fingers :)

2012-02-06T14:45:00.000-08:00

OK, so with patch 4.3.2, Blizzard provided a non-supported 64-bit client. I am fairly excited about this news. I have a 4 year old PC that is running a recent install of Windows 7 in 64bit. My gaming PC has 6gb of memory installed in it.

What are bits?

it's right here!

Low-tech explanation. Your computer is very simple. It keeps track of, remembers, things that is doing by assigning it a location in your machine's temporary memory (RAM), a bit. Once we've used all of our bits, we have to drop/complete something before we can move on.

stateful counting

Now, your computer is 'state-ful'. This means that it treats if your finger is up, different than if it is down. That means you can expand the number of locations referenced. Using the hand example, you could use your right hand to count 0-9 (aka ones column), then your left hand to keep track of 10-90. This means you could count from 0 to 99 just using your two hands.

watch out when counting by 4s

Closer still. We assign values to each finger (i.e. thumb = 1, pointer finger = 2, middle finger = 4, etc.), we can start combining values and get more locations (now thumb + pointer finger = 3). With 10 fingers, we can count from 0 to (2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2)-1 (or 1023) locations.

Now your computer, 20 years ago had only 8 bits; nowadays typical your consumer grade computer can have 32 (say older laptop) or 64 bits to work with. This means that your computer is able to reference (theoretically) 2^64 or 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 locations.

Work PC w/ Win7 - right-click My Computer, select Properties.

For this to work, everything your computer does, has to be able to reference 64-bit locations. Assuming your operating system is currently installed and running in 64-bits, you are good to go! Windows / Mac OS has found the drivers to necessary. (The article linked above has how to check your machine. )

If your computer has more than 4GB of memory, you will probably experience a performance increase running the 64-bit client. I wouldn't suggest trying this right before a raid, as a number of people have reported issues with various device driver conflicts.

Raid Finder Attempt 3 - Success!?

2012-01-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

Friday night, I tried the raid finder one more time. Happily, I popped right into a raid, no bugs ('cept for I fell to my death ) and they weren't finishing the last boss fight. I found them busy clearing the trash mobs before the slime boss.

Slime boss is basically a game of follow-the-leader. Attack boss, kill slime add (usually first on DBM list), follow prompts from DBM, repeat. Token for tier shoulders drops, I lost. Last boss, Hagara, kill everything, don't stand in frost, run from the bad looking things, kill the pilars, kill adds near little towers that popup, zap all of them with lightning (exactly opposite of what the boss yells at you "you can never charge all my towers!! buwahaha"). Token for pants drop, I lost again. OK, I wasn't expecting much, but the frustrating part, even though I lost both rolls, I can't roll again on these bosses again this week.

I'll try again tonight and hopefully get to see the first three bosses.

RL Congressional PVP

2012-01-18T15:36:00.000-08:00

The Protect IP Act and corresponding SOPA is a broad reaching act coming up to Congress that has some dangerous implications.

Establishes a system for taking down websites that the Justice Department determines to be "dedicated to infringing activities." The DoJ or the copyright owner would be able to commence a legal action against the alleged infringer and the DoJ would be allowed to demand that search engines, social networking sites and domain name services block access to the targeted site. In some cases, action could be taken to block sites without first allowing the alleged infringer to defend themselves in court.

Unfortunately for a blogger like myself, this could be rather painful and detrimental to my blog. My blog could permanently disappear off the face of the earth.

See, despite my unique URL, I am actually hosted on blogger.com. Google is an international company, with an indeterminate number of blogs hosted on their service. Potentially if only one of these bloggers posts something controversial/copy-protected, the DOJ has the option to block that server (and all sites hosted by blogger.com). Sure, this is a last resort, assuming the client does not take down the offensive material, but this is a slippery slope..

Needless, this is the wrong way to do it. This is the Internet. We still haven't been able to permanently block spammers, and this legislation thinks they can fix piracy by blocking individual sites? Block this? I move to another host, move my domain to a UK blog provider. Block my domain, and I'll change from .info, to a .com, .tv or ?? who knows, what's on sale on GoDaddy? (have you ever looked at the expired domains list?) It only costs me money and you get to suffer in trying to find me.

Today, FelConcentration has links to more info and methods to contact US representatives. I suggest reading the full text at OpenCongress under "Read the Rest" on the Official Summary, it may help answer questions.

Great Reference for Traveling around Azeroth

2012-01-18T06:00:00.000-08:00

The Wowhead blog has a great reference posted on Sunday that details many of the methods of traveling around Azeroth. You might find other methods of getting from point A to point B. Outside of /camp setting up a little tent for you, this provides a nice break down of all the portals, zeppelins and trinkets available in-game. There are numerous tabs on each destination, so poke around.

Raid Finder #2

2012-01-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

The fates are conspiring against me.. Tonight, I tried my second run at the Raid Finder tool. Tonight, I had to accept that 0 of the bosses were down, then ported in. When I got there, 3 seconds pop by and I am back in Orgrimmar. Teleport to dungeon again, "you are not in a raid, please port home, or you will be sent to closest graveyard.". Happily that graveyard was back at the AH in Orgrimmar.

After 2 minutes of this, and requeueing to fill blank spots, I gave up and went to run the dungeons 3 times. Valor - no gear.

By the time I actually get in there, I won't remember the fights!!

Raid Finder Attempt 1

2012-01-13T13:50:00.000-08:00

Today I decided to try my first run at the Look for Raid finder. I click on the button, queue up. Walk away from my desk "13 minutes: 1 DPS, 0 Healer 0 Tank".

I come back 5 minutes later, and I see I am now in a raid. Ok, let's get in there...

Followed by in 1 minute.

I finally zone in, and they've just killed Hagara the Stormbinder.

Woot! I win! But since I wasn't there, no loot.. :(

Now, does this mean someone zoned out in the middle of the fight of the last boss?

Resource Site: L2PTV.com

2012-01-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

OK, so I am finally ready to run the Dragon Soul LFR raid. Gear iLevel 378, enchanted with as many cheap enchants as affordable and fitted gems in all slots. To prepare myself (and not look like a total raid noob in front of a bunch of strangers), I like to read strat guides, or watch a video revealing the fight mechanics.

One site that's just come up is L2PTV.com. L2Ptv or Learn 2 Play's main focus is to provide new and learning players guides and videos on how to play their class, guides for various zones, and even raid boss mechanics. The part I took advantage of, was, the raid bosses. The videos, each about 2 minutes long, provide a quick over view of the boss, visuals of the mechanic plus a nice how to deal with each mechanic. Morchok = run to crystals to decrease damage, stand back for stomp, stand behind pillars to avoid aoe when he throws them off him.

As a subscription service, there is a lot of content they've marked premium and has some interesting potential. I really look forward to checking out the PoV videos for each boss, for each class type. Where on searching Youtube, you can find a few boss videos, but you're not likely going to find (a good) video specifically highlighting your class. Yeah, not a lot of warlocks making raid videos out there.. (Still not). L2P has the groundwork down to provide this, with their Balance Druid videos starting to come on line.

For subscribers they provide one additional service that really sounds intriguing. If you're having major issues with your game play and just can't seem to reach the DPS that you should be, l2p, will take your video and review it. Providing you with details on how to improve play, review your armory for gearing suggestions. Sort of like having that guild member that always knows how to help out and is willing to provide you more pointers.

If you're interested, I highly suggest checking it out further. L2Ptv has drawing for the first 1000 people who subscribe to their site. That's like a 0.1% drop rate of L2PTV swag. That's a better drop rate than the trinket I am trying for..

Who said I wanted to date my add-ons?

2012-01-04T06:00:00.000-08:00

With the 4.3 patch, a number of my favorite add-ons have quit working "Out of Date". While I can simply work around the error pop-ups (or even suppress them), I'd rather not have that overhead, especially while in the middle of a battleground or dungeon. Nothing more irritating, than having that 'inspect' dialogue box popup while in the middle of a fight, over and over again. Unfortunately, as minor addons, I don't expect any updates on them very soon.

TBag by Shefki

Way back in BC, I had an issue with my install of Warcraft where my bags would not display correctly. Instead of simply reinstalling the software (it was on 4+ cds, plus all the patches up to BC and my internets were not very fast), I went with an addon. TBag is my absolute favorite for this purpose. It's biggest strength is that it SORTS. Yeah, sorts your bag view into areas. Food, drink, bandages and pots are at bottom, quest items at top, gear is along the right, and other miscellany around that. Hearthstone is always in the bottom right hand corner. I've been looking for a replacement, but they show all-in-one, or they sort, but they don't do both. My fix? Hack the code of TBag so it no longer reports it is out of date. Looking at the LUA code it was just a matter of commenting out the code (from 408 beta) surrounding the version info. I can post more details, if you're interested.

Minimalist

Now, Minimalist had a number of minor functions that were nice to have. I liked having the rep-counter, where it posted in chat my current rep score with various factions, "20999 until exalted with Cenarion Expedition". It was nice to have it auto-repair when I went to a vendor (except now I am using Guild funds instead of my own!), it was nice to have it auto-accept resurrection requests. The biggest item I wanted was to auto-sell my gray items. I am happy to say that I love BagSaver now. Not only does it sell grey items when I visit vendors, but it also makes suggestions when my bags are full. My bank toon went to grab everything from the mailbox, and repost it. During that process my bags hit 0 space free. BagSaver popped up and suggested items to dump. "These two items are your least value items" I dragged one directly from the popup window and trashed it. It is also configurable to auto-sell non-usable items (plate on my warlock?) second or old soulbound items (vicious instead of ruthless). I haven't tried either out yet.

If you're interested, here's my current add-on line-up for ...

All profiles:

Addon Control Panel - ACP lets me setup profiles for each of my toons, plus the roles they may play. Change to priest, set to AH view, reload, queue for PVP, when it pops, reloadui quickly and battle.
Outfitter - Quickly change and define various gear sets. Also adds info to tool-tip to see what set it belongs to.
FishingBuddy - Change to FishingBuddy outfit (gaudy pole, jaunty fishing hat), then double-click to cast, uses hat lure, drinks fishing buff beer and even summons a fishing buddy.
TBag and BagSaver - as mentioned above.

Raiding and PVP:

X-Perl and Bartender4 - Allows me to move the user view and re-allign my buttons on the bottom.
Skada - might go back to Recount as it reports me having higher DPS!?!?
Vuhdu - Disc priest primarily, but also works nicely as the raid viewer.
Omen - not that I need to worry about threat much any more.
BigWigs and DBM - love those 'get out of the ___ ' alerts.

Auction House:

Auctionator and Auctioneer - Both play slightly different roles. Main differene is Auctionator is great for posting single items, where I still rely on the Batch Post function in Auctioneer.
AuctionFilterPlus - Don't want to see items you can't afford?
GoingPrice - Aggregated prices of items off Wowhead.
Lil Sparky's Workshop - Price to buy pats vs price to sell on AH
Postal - Quickly open and process all your mail items.
Swindler Preventer - Tell you if that pet/recipe that you are consdiering to buy on the AH is sold by a vendor.

I'd love to get back to a fully supported all-in-one bag replacement. Maybe it's time to start self-publishing the addon myself. Coding isn't that far from what I do in RL. On the other hand, I am not sure I want to take on that much work.. :)

A-Caroling We Will Go - PVP FREE method.

2011-12-28T22:15:00.000-08:00

I logged on earlier this afternoon to be greeted by one of OOT's resident altaholics, Taurohtar, finishing off the Winter Veil achievement A-Caroling We Will Go. This achievement has you fly around to each of your enemy's capitol cities and sing a little festive song. Intrigued, I joined her along on one instance of completeing this achievement. Funny enough on her warlock. Gratefully, Taur went through it one more time for me and sent along these instructions and screenies.

So, here's Taurohtar un-edited.

1. Take the portal to Dragonmaw port (Equip your sweater!) (Don't leave it in the bank as I did).

2. Travel in an almost straight western direction

3. Towards Ironforge

4. When you pass through the wetlands, you’ll know you’re on the right track if you see these hills.

5. You’ll fly past the front of IF by way of the eastern side.

6. Hopefully you’ve been smart enough to fly high enough to avoid trouble, you’ll see the tops of the gate.

7. Here’s a nice squarish spot – use it.

8. Quickly mount and fly southwest-ish, keeping more south than west.

9. I make this ugly sweater look good.

10. In the northern area of Stormwind, there are many unoccupied towers,

11. find one (this one is near the dock area)

12. Head towards the furthest dock, all the way south. You’ll catch a boat called “The Bravery” (We mounted the boat sitting up on the boom of the sail. Just to avoid any drive-by alliance.)

13. Disembark once you’re no longer in ‘open water’ (fatigue) so as to avoid detection.

Flying up up up up up

14. head towards the city

15. Find this landmark

16. Land once the zone text turns red

17. Down down down

18. fly back to the docks, but stop at the first (eastern most) dock. Again.. fly high enough to avoid attention.

19. Get on the boat to Exodar – flying mounts won’t work here, so be cautious…

20. jump off and there is the back door to the Exodar!

21. use the shirt for the last time and hearth the hell outta here lol (Make sure you use while on the bricks. I clicked a little too early and had to wait for the 20s cooldown)

Win like Charlie sheen

SSOTD:Shirt.Woot Derby 229

2011-12-21T16:20:00.000-08:00

Shirt.Woot, the clothier of this blogger in humorous T-shirts, just closed their latest derby "Roleplaying in everyday life". A number of their shirts tugged closely on my "i want" factor. Evidently roleplaying means wearing dull-armor grey. ??

This looks vaguely familiar.

and so does this...

Now that you have it, what are you transmogrifying?

2011-12-20T06:00:00.000-08:00

I have been excitedly running dungeons again. No more troll-fail-roics in my queues. Over the last few days, I believe I've hit each of the 3 dungeons about 3 times a piece. This has mean some wonderful upgrades and a good amount of valor points (~1500). I have slowly managed to upgrade all of my basic gear with i378 something-or-other. I currently have 2 items with spirit, but the the rest is all dps. Down to the trinkets, weapons and rings. Next adventure, LFR?

On my disc priest I am still avoiding the new dungeons. Healing is much more demanding than PVP. She's at a gear score of 377 PVP gear. Tonight we are planning our first jump into Season 11 arena, I am hoping for the best, but considering she hasn't maxed out on Ruthless gear yet, I imagine she'll take a beating until we get adjusted for the right match-making index.

So, are you morg-ing anything?

For Elk, I went with a skull-cap, everything else is running the default model. I thought it matched the mostly browns and blacks coming across with the new gear. I am trying to place that quilted look. I keep thinking I've seen this style before in RL. Even if he upgrades to the Tier helm, I think'll be replacing it with this model. Much less freaky. I am sort of glad to finally get rid of those deepholm theme'd shoulders.

For Eride, she'll headed into the Arena tonight in her close approximation of a cloth ninja outfit. She's gone for as much black as possible, including a black cloak. Last weekend, I had a guild mate craft the Shadoweave Mask and then changed her top to something more color appropriate (less red than before). Then she went and upgraded her PVP Pants from Vicious to Ruthless, so need to go re-transmogrify. Looking at the recently changed WowHead, I found these pants which are a better 'black', and only 770 JP (in dalaran). I am not sure the shoulders look PVP though. I have been looking for something different, maybe these? Less 'magey?'

Maybe I should be putting more of my gold into gems and enchants and less into making the outfits look nice together. I should be almost done, assuming nothing crazy drops in the next few days. Mr Robot says I am almost BIS (pre-LFR).

Vote for MrRobot - 1 hr left to vote...

2011-12-13T10:58:00.000-08:00

Mr. Robot is trying to get nominated for the "Best Bootstrapped Startup" on the Crunchies (an award program run by TechCrunch). All you have to do is follow this link and nominate Team Robot! http://askmrrobot.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=21d8a1f2ca860f0ce081e26d5&id=36f521e9b5&e=d5835fab56

Voting ends tomorrow (Tuesday) at 11:59pm. Also, if you share this link with friends, on your guild forum, Twitter or Facebook, it will help Mr. Robot's quest to unlock the Crunchie achievement!

So Mr. Robot... what is a "bootstrapped startup"?

This basically means that we didn't get a ton of money from rich people to run our company. The three founders (Yellowfive, Zoopercat, and Revulva) now run Team Robot as a full-time job, trying to make it entirely on profits from the website and services that we provide. We really like video games and helping people improve and have more fun, so we hope to continue making enough money to keep the servers running! And... pay rent and buy food. We're still working on that part.

Sincerely (we really mean that),

Team Robot

Working towards a 378 iLevel

2011-12-09T06:00:00.000-08:00

Saw on Emberstorm

With a group that knows these fights, this round of end-game dungeons doesn't seem as painful, as say Wrath when we finally made it into ICC. There was a definite dread last expansion when ever you randomly landed in Halls of Reflection. So far in the runs I've had, Dragon Soul seems fairly well balanced and no major surprises. Even picked up 3 new upgrades on my first time through and that's only because I lost the chest drop to the guild mage, typical. :) Now, I am sporting the healie helm, which isn't ideal, at least it's a gear score better than my old dog-collar.

I did sense some irritation by the people who've ran these dungeons much more than me, especially the role-play segment on the dragons happen. "Click the darn dragon...." remarks in chat.

Looking around at my guild members, I see those who are logging in, quickly trading in their i359 gear for shiny new i378. Holiday's over, we MIGHT even have enough to jump right to the new raiding environment. OOT first, hit the raid before it's nerfed!

If you are raiding, you might want to check out Poneria's gear spreadsheet. Link to download found here. It provides as a wonderful resource for what are warlock gear is out there and where to find it, segmented into the various slots. Personally, if for nothing other than to peek at what items are better bought with Valor, than vs Quest or Heroic Dungeon drops.

IT: Save Me Plz!

2011-12-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

As I am sitting here, trying to get motivated about wiping over and over again in the LFD/LFG queues, I start to think of each wipe, as a crime scene. All those corpses over the place, just waiting to be processed, photographed, bagged and sent of to the morgue.

Then I take the leap from in-game to real world. Take one major car accident, mix in some WoW. Instead of the morgue showing up, there's just a bunch of people sitting around a roast pig, eating, while a shaman has thrown up totems to heal everyone. Maybe a few people still a ghost running back from the local 'graveyard'.

Of course, then I fall over to a short story I read, where the game world starts to mingle with real-world.

They ride two white unicorns down a forest path blanketed with fresh snow, and by some strange twist of magic or fate they come upon something that should not exist. It lies half-buried in the drifts, but Leena can see that it was once a sort of carriage made from black metal. It has a roof, and its underside is all manner of piping, rusted now. Long ago, someone had sliced it in half. Where its other half may now lie, none can say. (Save Me Plz by David Barr Kirtley).

The entire story was read, back in 2007 on Escape Pod and is now available on their archive CDs. Another fun story, go check it out.

As for the new dungeons, I am still skeptical. Maybe need a guild run (tonight) to start them rolling.

Blizzard Having Black Tuesday Shopping?

2011-11-28T16:43:00.001-08:00

The Arena season is ending tomorrow.
4.3 patch is most likely going to drop too. (Season 10 arena buy back issues).

With this means, the usual currency devaluation. All your high-value Valor or Conquest points, will be converted to the lower value Justice or Honor points. Gear that was formerly out of reach (like that beloved Tier 11 warlock set) due to ill-performing raid team. Combine that with a late start to the Arena team making only the 7800 limit to get the weapon. I am personally looking forward to some transition recession upgrades.

Sleepy Gladiator Set

Elk is STILL running around with that 353 "dog-collar" of bones. I know, there is no helm money can buy, but there does appear to be a decent one dropping off the new dungeons. At the moment, my priest is running around with 3 pieces of Ruthless gear (chest, weapon and belt). I'd love to see the legs and head replaced sooner than later. As soon as the next arena season fires up, I am sure we'll be right there stacking up Conquest for those "Cataclysmic" gear pieces.. (I can already see the Panda gear names in my head.. adorable gladiator, and gentle gladiator).

Call this Black Tuesday. What are you going to buy?

Leveling Enchanting /Facepalm

2011-11-23T05:30:00.000-08:00

When leveling enchanting, don't bother going to the auction house and purchasing a level appropriate item to enchant. I suggest going to the Enchanting Supplies vendor and purchasing Enchanting Vellums. When combined with a ATSW, I click create all and then simply click on my stack of vellum. One, two, three and done. No longer need to confirm that I want to replace +5 spirit, with +5 spirit on this pair of gloves.

Malefic Guild COT:Hyjal Combo Pack

2011-11-21T06:00:00.000-08:00

Last night we were (again) a few people short of a full 10-man raid. Darn you school and work, how dare you. So, being the ill-tempered warlock, I demanded that we run the BC Hyjal instance. I really, really wanted to pickup the Malefic (Tier6) warlock helm.

After much discussion, we had 8 people convinced to run the raid. (Only 8% away from guild level 25 was a selling factor). By the time we all reached the raid entrance, we had 10, picking up a husband and wife team who just happened to log on to level up. This was a first time for a number of us, so this was a learning adventure.

Items learned:

Raiding has changed quite a bit since BC. Hyjal focused on numbers (trash mobs coming in 8-10, boss had 8 million health), less on 'don't stand in the ___' mechanics.
A raid group with, average level 84.5 and iLevel of 360 can get through the entire raid without a healer. OK, yes, after several consecutive trash fights, running around doing hellfire, I was down at 60% health, but that wasn't due to the trash, but hellfire. Just to give the healer something to do, I life tapped down to 40% one time.. :) (Then harvested souls to recoup health).
We did have 4 deaths. Falling off a cliff, still does kill. Riding in a 2-man rocket doesn't count as a flying mount in this raid.
It was a given, but pointed out on Vent, there is no Death Knight Tier drops in this raid.

The final boss was dead, 0%, before his first phase transition. Oddly enough, he continued through his ability and fell down promptly when it was over. He dropped 3 tier piece tokens and 2 weapons. I would have loved to grab the apostle of argus, if simply to transmute over another staff, but couldn't see rolling on it as well as the tier piece.

In all, I picked up the tier gloves and helm, plus a nice set of shoulders that match the tier ones. Chest piece and I'd consider this set done.. :) (ok, maybe a belt that doesn't look so cata).

Giving Thanks To My Fellow Bloggers

2011-11-18T06:00:00.000-08:00

November is the time of the year to reflect. Look back at those people that have made a substantial impact, providing support, and

My Mentor Warlock Bloggers - When I started blogging about WoW some 2+ years ago, there were only a few people out there. These bloggers actively posted new content on their sites; helping others play the game and improve their blogging. As I started blogging, I wanted to find a niche that these bloggers didn't currently fill. I never saw raiding in my future. I hadn't realized how much fun PVP was going to be. I wanted to communicate about my warlockery, but as a dad of 2 who needed a place to place links.

Nibuca, Fulgaris, I couldn't have lasted this long, without your blogs, comments and linkage. Even without posting anything for months, Nibs you are my still #2.

Elkagorasa.info all-time highest traffic source.

Other bloggers that I liked to bounce ideas off - These bloggers have been around at least as long as myself. I have found their input in the WoW warlock community useful, insightful and even fun to bounce ideas off of. Sometimes on my comments, sometimes in theirs, we share ideas, we share readers??

Cynwise - PVP has never been the same since your Battlefield Manual.
Poneria - You and your guild has some of the best ideas. I still want my guild to run a naked classic raid run.
Mortigan - Even with your on-again, off-again blogging, you made me reconsider blogging as a less-serious sport. Rules for Raiding always the inspiration.
Aphroditi - I still use add-ons you suggested in your AH guide.

Twisted Nether Blogcast - Hydra and Fimlys - I started listening to TNB when Nibuca was there, and continued for almost a year or two afterwards. Now it's just an on and off thing, unfortunately. The interviews are interesting, and fun. Earlier this year, I was the blogger in the hot-seat. There is nothing more humbling than to have directed questions about why I did this or that in game. A public job interview. In hindsight, I know I could have done better. I am sure of it. Maybe I could have even pronounced my character's name better and remembered how to spell it. /facepalm

Reminder to self: Name was built like this (slightly different image in mind for 'gore').

I thought I was prepared for everything, but you really helped point out how little I was. Thanks Fimlys and Hydra.

Blog Azeroth - Those wonderful forum moderators at BlogAzeroth have long been a source of content for this site. Shared Topics are a not-so-regular but usual feature on this site. This content ranging from humorous, useful or even insightful is often some of my best received. It's knowing that other bloggers are considering using the same topic to generate ideas. Thanks for all the fish.

MMO-MeltingPot - Lastly, Hugh Hancock and his voracious appetite for all things WoW. I can't figure out how this one guy has time to read all the blogs that he comments on. Plus it's not just WoW, but numerous MMOs. Compiling short reviews of other posts, and providing a discussion board for it all. Appreciate all your time and effort Hugh.

Moving forward, I see blogging continue as long as I play WoW. Now, that's at least a guaranteed 11 more months (yep, I signed up). Thanks to all the bloggers out there that have helped me (directly and indirectly). I appreciate your content, your time and your efforts. I look forward to next year when I can include more people in this list.

Thanks

4.3 HAS TO BE CLOSE!

2011-11-14T06:00:00.000-08:00

With the arena season ending later this month, my estimate is that it will correspond with the drop of 4.3. Numerous guilds have reached Ragnaros and are going to start getting bored. Players who can't reach Rag, like myself, will be excited when the new dungeon content comes about and the valor point system changes to 150 valor for all heroic dungeons. But my biggest reason why?

The downloader has 15gb of data downloaded to my PC.

Now, this means, my arena team has possibly two more nights before the season ends. I am hoping that my disc priest is able to reach an 1200 arena rating before end of season. My druid partner, thinks my arena skills are improving and we're definitely sticking around. He's already looking to start me in a 3's group next season. If only our timezones weren't so disparate.

Until then, time for some shopping..

Beware of the Gnome Clone-inator

2011-11-10T06:00:00.000-08:00

This looks like fun, if you're interested in starting to play PVP. A bunch of Gnome Clones are going to take over. This based on a long forgotten run done by Alas and a few of her friends back in Vanilla. 5 gnome locks running battle grounds, both a cuteness and deadly combination.

If you're interested, head on over to http://revengeofthegnomes.wordpress.com/ and signup. They have all the details and name variants taken. They're planning on all playing, shudder, mages! (Which based on my arena experience, is a good combination). I can just see hitting a battleground as Horde, being tagged constantly morphed into an animal (sheep then frog then cat...) or ice blocked. With 10 mages, all with their elementals out, ouch!

IT: I miss my non-druid, non-channeled, instant mount

2011-11-09T09:22:00.000-08:00

Halloween, er Hallow's End, brings along with it a ton of nifty toys.There's that helm that laughs out loud. There's that pet jack o lantern, that follows you around. There's that flaming flying warlock mount, that should be given to every warlock at level 70. There's all the cool, vomit inducing candy that no longer provides a useful buff (candy that's good for you, bah!) Lastly, there's the non-druid, non-channeled instant mount. It comes in two flavors, magic and flying, both of which are magic and fly. After 2 weeks with this mount, it's loss is measurable.

Gathering - Sure, I can dismount, pick flowers (1s), mount back up (1s). Now using the broom.. dismount, pick (1s), mount again. That's a 100% decrease in time spent per node!! Now, if I really wanted to pick enough plants for say, 10 flasks, that's an approximate (80 twilight jasmine/ average 2.5 per stop) 32 stops. That's a half hour of my life lost, simply because I rolled a warlock and not a druid.

PVP - The enemy has taken off with your flag and has escaped the flag room at 30% health, then turns into druid cat form and runs off top speed (or make it worgen gallop). I channel-summon my mount and now the efc is already a third of the way across the gulch and on his way to victory. If I only had my broom, I could mount up, keep pace until around more hordies. Dismount and heal them, while they take him down.

Dailies - Ugh. I hate doing dailies. There are a number of pets out there, just a few dailies away and I just don't have the time or enthusiasm to get them. Anything to make them 'easier' is appreciated.

Here's to wishing the Magic Broom was a permanent fixture on my mount rotation. If not the holiday themed broom, an instant-cast mount that is available to all. I'd be good with non-raiding achievement based, like the Long Strange Trip. A vendor would be great, as long as it didn't involve the dreaded dailies. (Still over 200 hyjal tokens from finishing the avenger's series.) Or even, making just the Warlock mounts, insta-summonable via the soulburn mechanic, like our minions.

SSOTD: Blizzcon 2011 Gallery

2011-10-31T10:54:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned, a co-worker/friend was down in Burbank during Blizzcon. While there he hit the showroom floor and grabbed a few picks from Blizzcon. Some pics from the Panda starting area, Diablo III and the showroom floor.

MoP : My Casual Review

2011-10-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

Reading through some of the release notes on Mists of Panderia, I think Blizzard is really pushing to involve the Casual players. The main evidence I see is their work on expanding the end-game content that is available to players.

Scenarios: These scenarios are ranging from 3 people (i.e. close friends) to 25 people (nice pug size). Raid fail anyone? The timing fits nicely with new parents, 10 - 30 minutes, short enough in case the kids wake-up. The immediate-ness of them, i.e. defend Goldshire, makes them sound more 'important' than a simply group quest. I think this will have the advantage of not feeling like a 'daily', but still provide something for those that want the extra credit/points. Note, I personally hate doing dailies.

Challenge-dungeons: Now, this one has an interesting twist. Complete a dungeon in a certain way and be rewarded things like gear, pets, mounts and achievements. Ok, but the cool twist is it will change in complexity as your average groups gear score improves. Or, you will always run this dungeon in the same level gear, no matter what. For a casual player, who isn't a gear hound, this could be great. You won't be vote-kicked from a dungeon simply because your gear stinks. If you have the skills, you'll be good.

Pet Battle System: Because we all want to play Pokemon, I have "captured" 108 pets! This will give the casual player one extra thing they can do in their down time; level up their (~~non~~) combat pets. One thing Wowhead mentions is the capability to capture new pets so that you can level them up. (I want a bomb-throwing mokey pet (that loots)!) With now 108 vanity pets, I am curious which will be the strongest ones to start with? If I can capture critters and tame them as pets, will there be animals that I can grab? How about go out to Elwynn and grab a Cow?

In my best announcers voice: "Are you ready to rubble?? Appearing in the left corner, the pet every raider has met, don't kill him if you want to get, the cat of KT, Mr Bigglesworth. In the right corner, the pet for pvp, he loves the horde, the black cat of BS, Underfoot."

Stronger, better, faster minions!

shivan!

Revised Talent Tree: Oh this is going to be fun. Gone are the class distinctions. "I've played ____ type warlock since Vanilla". I am now going to be a Affl-emo-struction lock, or is it Demo-struct-liction, or Destro-lict-ology. In addition, I look forward to having SUPER versions of each of my minions! Didn't they promise boy/girl warlock minion models? So is the Succubus going to turn into a Shivan?

Personally, I am looking forward to Mists of Pandas.

Off-Topic: Why AdWords?

2011-10-27T06:00:00.000-07:00

I am not a fan of ad-sponsored anything. If I could spend just a few bucks more (/nudge Amazon), I would rather purchase the ad-free version, instead of having to deal with something inappropriately asking me to buy something. In the long run, I don't want my kids grabbing said device and clicking one of those links. I've almost got full copies of games on my mobile phone one afternoon. "Daddy, I don't know what they want here.."

Why would I want to create income from you? Are you going to click on links simply because they came up in the word-association algorithm created by Google? I don't think so. In addition, I don't want to have any association to gold sellers, pawn shops, etc. that might come up. I'd want control. I tried the Amazon Associates thing and well, it didn't spawn anything. Honestly, my account has $0.10 in it. I wasn't hurt when Amazon pulled the whole thing due to our current Governor's failed sales tax policy.

Will I put random ads on my site? Nope. I don't want the manliest soda ads showing up.

Do you know someone who has? Has it paid off for them?

PVP Tidbit - Where's my Season Honor score?

2011-10-26T11:29:00.000-07:00

I know this may seem obvious to the seasoned PVP vet, but I have only recently gotten back into PVP. Loving demo in the battlegrounds, but lately the horde hasn't been on a winning ~~streak~~ anything. Maybe 1 lucky run in 10; making for frustratingly slow Honor point accumulation.

So, I was wanting to grab a shiny Season 9 weapon, namly replace my 346 wand or PVE weapon with something new and fresh (Vicious Gladiator Spellblade?). Unfortunately, such shinies come with a hidden price tag.

"Requires earning a total of 7250 Honor Points for the season."

I hadn't been keeping track. No achievement tracked it. Not on the PVP interface. There must be a place to find this value. Finally, the other day I was fumbling around at the vendor, when I came up with the popup. Floating over the icon on the corner, I see that ...

Ugh, 2100 more points to go. Well, if I don't buy anything else, at least I'll have the points to buy the weapon when I meet the pre-req.

Addon Review:Reforgerade

2011-10-25T15:36:00.001-07:00

Of the two red Xs, one has an invalid reforge
(hit to stam) on it.
I was testing to see if it would
remove them as well.

(Elk pats imp, "Slow down Volham, we haven't even written the post yet". Revert to Draft)

We are both a little excited about a 'new' addon, Reforgerade. This simple little addon takes reforge priorities and presents them in a nice little interface when you visit that reforge guy.

"Reforge Priorities??" you ask. "Where do I get those?"
I don't know, go AskMrRobot? :)
Click the EXPORT button, then the Export Reforges button. I know, go figure. Copy the contents.

When you visit Enchanter Faradine, the Reforgerade window will popup, paste the AskMrRobot content and hit the Reforge button. Now you don't have to think to blindly follow our robot overlords.

Love ya Mr Robot (and legowxelab2z8 the addon PM)

A Bit of Blizzard History

2011-10-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

Right before Cataclysm, Blizzard did a server refresh. Yank out that old computer hardware on domains doing sub-optimal and toss it. Businesses do this all the time. My office, we replace the old hardware probably every two to three years. These old pieces of equipment are either recycled (like into website servers) or returned to the vendor to lease to smaller companies.

Blizzard has donated the hardware to St Jude's Children's Hospital, so that they can auction it off as a fund raiser. On their eBay store, you can place bids (starting $100) on a domain server. IMHO, could be really cool mounted on the back wall of my cubical, but.. well.. their $100 starting bid and $300 shipping kills it for me. (plus I haven't found Malfurion yet).

Is it usable? Maybe? If you have a blade cabinet that is capable of housing this type of server (looks like HP or Compaq). It has memory installed, but (looks like) the CPUs removed.

Bidding ends tomorrow (noon 10-24-2011). Go check it out..

Blizzcon News! Playable Pandas!

2011-10-21T12:25:00.000-07:00

Coming soon to Azeroth.

Co-worker just texted me that coming in the next expansion, Mists of Panderia, we'll be able to play a panda monk. I had hoped that they'd bring out a new class that would be cross spec, like a druid. You can be a tank, you can dps, and you can heal.

I can't help, watching this video, pulling comparisons to Dreamworks Kung Fu Panda series. Especially with this list of racial perks:

Bouncy: reduces fall damage by half.
Inner peace: double rested XP.
Gourmond: +15 to cooking.
Epicurean: double stats to food buffs.

One element that has me thinking. Panderans will be both factions. At 10, you chose Alliance or Horde. So, this will be the first time we will fight in PVP against the same class. You could potentially have 30 people in a BG, all playing pandas. How will you tell them apart??

Annual Pass:
In addition, they are creating an 'annual pass'. Starting today, you can signup for a 1 year contract for WoW. This commitment comes with perks, like a special mount (winged pally mount!), access to the Panderia beta and access to Diabo III. As a contract, you cannot cancel your subscription for 12 months. To get the perks, you need to have an active account as of 10/18 and signup before 11/18 (which I guess is about when 4.3 will drop). (from faq). You use your current payment method (Elk's on a 6-month recurring plan) of payment.

Review of WoW Monks:
Melee, cloth class, that has some magic abilities.Uses staffs,

Crimson Monk - Stratholme - cloth melee, abilities: kick, thrash
Auchenai Monk - Crypts - immune to CC, summons ghosts to assist. Uses staff
Condemned Monk -
Scarlet Monk - Scarlet Monastery - cloth melee, abilities: kick, thrash
Argent Monk - ToC - melee - flurry of blows, mediation, pummel, shield ability

Creepy Crate (107) and looking to pet 108 - Hallows End

2011-10-21T06:00:00.001-07:00

Last night I picked up a strange little pet, Creepy Crate. This guy hides in his crate peeks out, then snacks on nearby critters. He was rewarded after a quick little, 6 step quest chain; mostly completed in and around Orgrimmar. Culminating in a zep ride to Undercity to kill a level 84 npc.

Goblin boat, not Vashjir

Missing Heirlooms - Go to the Inn near the entrance, there's an undead in there complaining about his missing heirlooms. (Wasn't there someone in UC complaining about this?) If you haven't been to Vash'jir, but have the quest in your logs, you may only see the Vash'jir boat. I had to drop the quest with my alts to see the goblin ship.
Fencing the Goods - Go to the AH, one of the goblins will chat with you.
Shopping Around - Go see Droffer and Son's in the Drag.
Taking Precautions - All items available in town. From around the Tauren AH, I found all 5 Blood Nettle, Crystial Vials sold by Isashi (opposite the AH), Arcane Powder (Magenius is closest).
Blood Nettle grows like a weed.
(Note:If you have a the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth, Drix sells both the Arcane Powder and Vials.)
The Collector's Agent - Go kill a void walker.
What Now? - I picked the Edgar Goodwin, since he gave me the initial quest. After you return the heirlooms, a crate next to him pops up a quest. On the second time through, I went to the Blood Elf. Go this way, as it has a bit more humor to it. (reference to Raiders of the lost ark). Collect pet.

Now to see about those 150 tricky Treats. I really want to get the Feline Familiar.

He walks when you walk,
he flys when you fly.

Let The Hallows Eve Alt Leveling Begin

2011-10-18T10:18:00.000-07:00

If you have a lower level alt, now is the time to start running them around Azeroth. Find yourself a friendly guildie with a 2-man rocket and start flying around to all those Inns. Grab the flight paths and (based on last year) a nice bit of XP. It's a quest, so wear your BOA gear (and guild tabards) to get an extra bonus.

This year, Blizzard (reference) has removed some of the randomness in getting the achievement, by making the Sinister pet a vendor item (instead of solely a random drop). I like, now if I could just BUY my warlock mount.. Still a little angry about that.

Day 1: Tuesday 10-18-2011 - Got on at 1AM, Tricky Treats and a mask.
Day 1.5: 10-18-2011 PM - Hallowed Helm (that I couldn't loot because I have one in the bank).
Day 2: 10-19-2011: Sinister Squashling
Day 3: 10-20-2011: Sinister Saber (now I can summon pumpkin men in BGs, reforge off the agility and it MIGHT be viable??).
Day ?: I now have 5 Squash, thinking about making pies.

IT: Guild Recipe Exchange

2011-10-12T11:13:00.000-07:00

Elk has been patiently stationed out in Shattrath for the last two weeks. Each day, he works with Rokk to provide the Lower City denizens a bit of food prepared to order. Elk's primary goal is a bit of accidental luck, the recipe for Stormchops. (Why a recipe would be left in a barrel of meat is beyond me??)

This got me thinking. Guildies have the recipe. I have a few recipes they don't have. How about we meet in town somewhere and trade recipes? Sit next to guild member with recipe, open guild-professions interface, click new button "Learn". Probably have to give something in return, so that it's not a 'free' exchange, but it's guild sharing. (Note: It reminds me of what I envisioned Inscription could be, before it was introduced in Wrath. Inscribe documents from other sources to create tomes of important knowledge. Translate documents from other languages (NE -> BE?) so that they could be used by opposing forces.)

It would sure make some achievements easier. Hmmm...

SSOTD: PTR Fodder

2011-10-03T08:46:00.000-07:00

The 4.3 PTR was up last night, so I spent about 15 minutes looking around.

Funny because you can run a pre-made (ungemmed, unenchanted)
in fully decked out tier (balespider) gear.

No more Troll only option. 150 for all Heroics.
Does have separate option for Bastion series.

Queueing up for a raid could be interesting...

shadow bolt. no, I didn't see any
other spell changes for locks.

SSOTD: Warlock PVP Season 11 Gear

2011-09-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

Found this on WoW Insider. Only got one question..

Does the eye on the belt blink??

IT: Repurpose /CAMP

2011-09-28T06:47:00.000-07:00

Elkagorasa want's to go camping. He wants the option to setup in some off the beaten path and visit there on a regular basis. There's a tent, a basic campfire and accessibility to some location uniquely his own. He want's to be able to simply invoke some command and go back to this location at will.

Why? For one, Elk is only 1 batch of stormchops away from Chef Elk. This recipe only drops from the cooking daily out in Shattrath; a portal and long flight into town. Shattrath were the cooking daily has you flying all over the continent. If he could simply plop down in front of Rokk, it would be lovely.

Speaking of cooking dailies, I just recently found that there are cooking dailies, with related achievements in all of the various Horde cities, "Let's Do Lunch!". Elk has completed the those in Orgrimmar, but now if he wants those achievements, will need to start regular trips to Thunder Bluff and Undercity. Ugh! (where are those portals??)

Next, Elk is still working on the Fireland's dailies. Same thing as above, portal and short flight from Orgrimmar. If he's ambitious, we go Joust and get one step closer to another shiny pet. Still, if he could setup a tent outside the Sanctuary.

Finally, Elk needs to always get back to Orgrimmar; every week with raiding, now Brewfest and auction house work, he needs to repair and put stuff up for sale, etc..

Now, to do my dailies, I am not totally without options. Blizzard hasn't left us totally high and dry.

Hearthstone - One guildie has set her hearthstone to the city where she is working on the dailies. Then she simply hearths back to that location does the dailies then uses another means to get back to Orgrimmar.
On-Use Teleporters - These are items that you can pickup from vendors (typically) that have an on-use proc of teleporting you somewhere. The advantage here (partially) is that you don't need to set your hearthstone here. You can simply port to that destination. Dalaran has one, Orgrimmar has one (One even to Argent Tourney). The Dalaran one is rather expensive and last time I checked shared the cooldown with your hearth.
Legit Portals - Getting from Dalaran or Shattrath back to Orgrimmar is easy. There's a big mage-portal there sending you home.
Profession or Class specific: i.e. Engineering/ Mage/ Shamman etc. All things not available to this Warlock.

There's got to be a way to do it all? Setting down a campsite would be great! I could really see getting exalted with a lot more factions, or running a bunch more old world content if I could at least set my hearth to odd coordinates. I want to park outside Stratholme until I can acquire the Rivendare charger. I want to cuddle up with Rokk until he gives me the Stormchops recipe. I want to get achievements, but I don't want to fly all over to get them. I want my wall of portals that we had in Dalaran.

we miss you

Guild Challenge: Dungeon + Brewfest = Free Guild XP

2011-09-23T14:45:00.000-07:00

My guild has a really hard time completing the guild dungeon challenges each week. Typically we only get 1 or 2 of the seven completed. In fact, it took until last night for us to get the Challenging achievement for 50 guild challenges completed. (Not bad, considering we're already level 23, that's a lot of questing).

Thanks to Coren and Brewfest, we completed 7 guild dungeon runs last night in less than 1 hour (guild tank, heals and 1 DPS). So, if your guild is like mine, at least try to max out your potential with this event. Brewfest ends October 5th. You can potentially do this 3 more times (now until Monday night, next week & night of Tuesday 4th). That's 300k guild XP * 21 dungeons. To get to level 24, we need a total around ~53 million XP. That's basically a free 6 million guild XP while you grind for trinkets (and the occasional mount).

Brewfest 2011 - Excellent write-up

2011-09-20T09:29:00.000-07:00

Over at Icy Vein's they've done an excellent job with a new 2011 Brewfest achievement guide, even down to a mini-map of the various vendors in both Horde and Alliance zones. I am happy to see that they put out a new 2011 edition of the mug.

I'll probably be pugging Coren tonight until I see that dagger drop!

Is it Time to Drop Destro?

2011-09-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

I played Affliction from Vanilla through Wrath. In a pug, someone griped that I wasn't doing enough DPS. Basically telling me to "Stop letting that DOT ramp up, BLAST IT!!" Soon after, I picked up my second spec and started playing Destruction.

Destruction was great, until raiding Magmaw. Then I didn't have enough AOE damage to kill the worms. Along comes Demonology. I have pretty much played demo until recently. The other night, I pug a troll dungeon with guildies and we land another warlock, he's also running Demo. So, for kicks, I flipped back to Destro. He's new to the spec, so let him have fun.

Along the way, he asks if he can make a comment. Sure, I am thinking, I am a blogger, this could mean a post! He had some good points. Take points out of Demonic Aegis and feed into Empowered Imp. Put points into Dark Arts, etc.. Looking at my talents, they made sense. What was wowpopular, wasn't any longer. Yesterday, I grabbed the 1/7/33 spec and applied it to my talents. (BTW, I love the macro 'use in game' they have. Very nice!)

Today, reading through the class feedback, it looks like destro is no longer the favorite. Common thread items are similar Donsinn's comment:

What’s on your wish list for your class?
Fix the damage coefficients for destro. CB / SF hit like wet noodles.

This makes sense. Even being in a slightly off optimal talent spec, I was doing a good 6-10k dps less than Muju. I ended up switching back to Demo form for that last fight. After we were both demo, we then had enough focused DPS to take out all the adds and finish the fight (yeah, first time clearing ZG and it's with Pally tank, Pally heals, warlock * 2 for DPS + a mage).

So... Is it time to go back to Elk's roots? Drop my Destro spec for the more popular affliction spec? This 32/3/6 spec looks vaguely similar to what I ran way back then.. On the other hand, I did love using drain life on those healers in PVP..

Something to consider..

DPS Killer - Revisited

2011-09-18T19:19:00.000-07:00

The worst kind of DPS killer. Latency

We had to call the raid last night because of lousy DPS on even the easiest BH bosses. Here's the culprit.4 second latency.The raid went something like this:

Raid leader announces we're all ready. "Let's go!"
DBM pops up for bosses special ability.
I am still standing at the feast waiting for everyone to move.
All the sudden, the last 4 seconds of fighting zip by in half a second. Bosses special ability is triggering.
I run to join the fight, but aren't in location.
I cast my dots, then the game pauses. Tank is running in place again.
We're dead and I am now asked to release from my dead body.

3 attempts at the boss and I called it. It was not going to happen. After about an hour of diagnosis, I was able to fix my problem.

wiring cabinet

Here's a basic idea of what I am working with:

Coming into a wiring cabinet I have my Comcast router, feeding into a D-Link router. (each room in house has a cable drop, hence the full assortment of black coax cables)
The DLink has a 4 port switch which feeds my BluRay player in the master bedroom, TiVo in family room, Kids PC upstairs and my gaming PC downstairs. (Yeah there is a lot of blue wire above, that's a drop for the kitchen, kid's rooms and 2 more drops in the family room)
The DLink also provides wireless connectivity to the house. This is primarily used to support my wife's and own cell phones, but I do have a printer that sometimes get turned on.

To troubleshoot my issue:

Downloaded Wireshark. This freeware application does a scan of packets across your network and returns traffic on my network. The biggest bit of information that helped here was the trace. It displays a large dark colored line when you get resubmits. I was seeing a ton of them on my network.
Eliminate gear. I went around the house and turned off all of the extra equipment. Wireshark returned a ton of traffic from various hardware bits chatting with each other. I wanted to make sure I wasn't saturated just because of a chatty piece of hardware.
Then I popped open the wiring cabinet and started unplugging pieces. Unfortunately, the network cables weren't labeled well. I grabbed port 1 on the switch and plugged it directly into the cable modem. Master bedroom. Checked the Internet connectivity, 16mbs!
Flipping through all 4 cables, I found that each device was getting wonderful speeds when directly plugged into the modem.
Router or Cable from modem to router? Luckily I had another patch cable (aka short 1ft network cable) and replaced the one there. Plugged everything back in, rebooted both components and tested.

Looking back, I should have noticed that the resubmits on wireshark detailed corruption on the line. I bet, 99% of the time this is a faulty or lose cable. Reseating all the cables in the switch and modem (yeah, the modem is hanging upside down) could have likely solved this issue.

Here's to a happier raid this Monday!

Update 9/26/2011 - After a short stint of really great Internet access, today, I tried to get onto the Internet over the weekend and it was down again. I believe they had hardware issues over the weekend and possibly replaced something on the back-end. When I called Comcast this morning, and they informed me after a little testing, that my modem had gone bad. I picked up a new modem from the local office and will be setting it up after work today. Hopefully, this solves my problem for good.

1337 PVP Strategy Guide - Pillar Humping

2011-09-17T06:02:00.000-07:00

UnderCT has posted a great article on Pillar Humping. Using this technique to maintain no-los with the enemy will help improve your arena performance. I use a variant of this in Eye of the Storm. My disc priest loves to sit in the little BE hut and maintain heals on who ever is outside guarding the flag.

Go check it out. Great read..

Time Life Audio Presents: WoW That's Some Background Music

2011-09-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

Background: I started this post back in June (2011) to fill a lull while I was on a vacation. I had the bright idea of going to various areas and posting short videos of load screens to capture the music. Fraps was a flop. I didn't have time to get the video settings correct to work, so it all had a green tint. Now Blizzard has announced they are posting all the music on iTunes..

Blizzard Audio is happy to present
Taverns of Azeroth.

Is your Brewfest party plans coming up short? Are you lacking in the entertainment portion of your festivities and just don't know what to do? Blizzard Audio is happy to present you with 50 wonderful minutes of pub crawling music. Ramp up your party with band from the Bad Juju Bar and Grill, then swing on over to the Pig and Whistle.

But that's not all. For the one low price, you can also bring in the Bloodsail pirates, the Taurens from Thunderbrew and the Salty Sailor.

Order now! Operators are standing by.

And for those of you, who don't have an iPhone. Too bad.

IT: Would you trans-down-ify your weapons?

2011-09-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

Based on my comment on KeS, I had a light bulb moment.

Can we transmogrify our weapons (in 4.3)? I thought I read we could. With Brewfest we'll be able to get the new i365 dagger. It's an agility weapon sure.. but if I could transmodify my, say, Incineratus, with this model?

"You put Power-torrent on a wine bottle?"

Or how about the old, plank with a nail model from Vash'jir? Instead of looking scary and menacing, you could look more hoodlum. Personally, nothing better as a PVP brain basher than a board with a spike!

Just an idle thought. What WHITE weapon might you transmortify your epic Firelands weapon into, if you had the chance?

Drown Your Sorrows (Achievement)

2011-09-12T05:45:00.000-07:00

One of the easy achievements I still have to complete is "Drown your sorrows". Basically you are to drink each of the various beverages introduced with Cataclysm. I wanted a quick break down of where I can get each of these items. This WowHead comment sums it up for Alliance, here's my Horde breakdown.

Batamsi in the Troll District will vendor:

From the Orgrimmar Cata recipe vendor (Shazdar)

Starfire Espresso for 3 chef's awards. To make it also requires cocoa beans from this same vendor.
Highland Spirits is available for 3 chef's awards. (materials sold by Batamsi)
South Island Iced Tea is available for 5 chef's awards. Lizzy Lemons sells the fruit, Batamsi sells (refreshing spring) water.

From cooking trainer, Arugi:

Darkbrew Lager is a trainable recipe. Required materials can be purchased from Sarah Brady in Dalaran's underbelly. Or the barmaids in Shattrath. Which ever is closer for you.

From drops/ remote vendor:

Fungus Squeezings is a reasonably common drop from Cata instances, but can also be found on select mobs in Tol Barad, Hyjal, or Vashj'ir. Sold by Grunka in the Hyjal or Zungam in Z'A. Grunka ~~is phased out, by the time you are doing the Fireland's dailies~~. is a member of the Twilight _____ (darn if I forget). She is only accessible when you do the undercover missions and are friendly with this group. If you are not on the quest, she is inaccessible. If you've completed the quests, she's gone.
Greasy Whale Milk is a drop from Vashj'ir or Uldum, or purchasable from Caretaker Movra at Silver Tide Hollow.
Murky Water is bugged as of this patch.Sold by Grunka in the Hyjal or Zungam in Z'A.

So to complete this achievement, I need 4 more beverages. This means going to

Go see Batamsi and buy Fresh Water. That's easy.
Go visit Sarah Brady and buy the alcohol for the lager (ugh, where's my portal again?)
Grab the port in Dalaran back to Orgrimmar and hit the portal to Vashjir, get the Greasy Whale Milk.
Hearth back. Fly my alt (who hasn't worked in Hyjal) out to Grunka and get 100 murky water. (sell 98 on auction house).

The Gearheart

2011-09-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

I want to share with you an audio-book that I am currently about half way listening to. This is a really fun and entertaining story that combines both magic and steam-punk. Top it off, the voice acting is excellent. (The author, Alex, does all the male voices and his wife, Renee', does all the female voices.). Reading through the News page, and following links to JC Hutchins site, I learned that Alex also composed and performed all the musical score for the story. (Now, even more impressed.)

From the About page:

Jonathan Andrews, Initiate in the Seekers of the Arcane Unknown, joined the society two years ago with the hopes of protecting the secrets of magic from the greedy world beyond. However, a ravening shadow appears with a hunger for Seekers and Jonathan finds himself out of his depth. When Jonathan’s friend is attacked and the young initiate is assailed with apocalyptic visions of the future, he must find a way to uncover the past and stop the beast before it tears his group, and the world, asunder. It’s a ripping tale of magic, adventure and gunfights!

The story has finished, so you can listen to all 37 (~25 minute long) episodes. It is available as a RSS feed on the author's site, or on Podiobooks.com. If you like it, the author has published both a prequel to Gearheart, and put out a CD of the music from this prequel.

Who brought the snacks?

2011-09-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

My guild starts raiding at 9:30PM local time and typically runs until midnight.Somewhere around the way, we take a 5-10 minute bio/snack break. No alcohol, coffee or soda for me. For my snack options, I have some basic criteria.

Easy to grab in a hurry. I tried making toast and popcorn once and that took too long to prepare. I was the last one back from break and people were tapping toes.
Desert-ish. No, I don't want to be eating seasoned meat or garlic fries at 11PM, I want something sweet or maybe salty and sweet. (Yeah, kettle corn is great, but I only really enjoy the kind from the craft fairs, not the microwave kind.)
Clean. While I love a good, messy cinnamon roll or bowl of cereal sometimes, I don't want to damage the hardware. The current rig is all I have and don't want to text a gulidie-friend saying the keyboard is broke because of my bowl of frosted flakes spilled.

My favorites:

option

reason:

These chewy granola bars are primarily peanut and peanut butter. Coming from Planters, you can expect tons of peanuts. I can grab one of these and get back to my desk quickly. The quick boost of protein keeps me awake for the rest of the raid, no problems. (drink: chocolate milk)

Freeze-dried apples are easy, sweet and healthy. I first tried these while vacationing at Disneyland a few years ago and loved them. They are a bit 'lighter' (and fluffier) than your air-dried apples, so the package seems really small and disappears way too quickly. (drink: cold water)

I am a HUGE fan of cinnamon. I will choose a snickerdoodle over a chocolate chip cookie, every time. I love these little bite-size cinnamon cookies with a tall glass of ice-cold milk. Unfortunately the kids also like these, so they seldom stick around for very long. (drink: ice cold milk)

Cookie jar!

These are great, simple animal crackers. I like to grab a big handful of them, and enjoy them one at a time. Yeah, they are Winnie the Pooh themed.. Not very warlock-y, but I am munching down on his head. Think of them as souls, happy, gentle souls. Like the graham crackers, the kids love these in their lunch boxes, so they disappear quickly. Buy these at costco. (drink: chocolate milk).

Dry cereal is always an option. I enjoy frosted mini-wheats because they are easy to grab and can eat just a few; very filling. Plus, having them around doesn't require any fore-thought; they're always in the house. (drink: ice cold milk)

I am curious. Do you snack when you raid? What do you enjoy?

Elkagorasa Jenkins

2011-09-06T00:54:00.000-07:00

After the raid last night, I decided to fly around the mountain and finally finish off the Leeeeroy achievement. This video was very helpful, since I've never ran this content before. Only difference from this video, was now you can fly inside of the mountain, so I just flew up to the balcony for the entrance.

After completeing the achievement for the title, I went through and killed the final boss to get the UBRS achievement. Just need LBRS, to complete the Classic Dungeonmaster achievement. Tried to run COT:Hyjal also, but needed a raid group and I had dropped.

Shared Topic:One vs Many?

2011-09-01T22:18:00.000-07:00

StringTheory posted a topic on BA that I thought I should discuss:

While there are some quests that specifically call for grouping, most don't... but do you group anyway? How many of you pick up a friend or guildie to quest with and how many grind the lonely roads alone?

Warlocks are solitary by nature. We're brooding, we're loners, we despise awkward social situations, we'd rather set you aflame than to talk to you. When out in the world, we tend to stick to those that follow us, not want to talk to us.

"what you talking to me?"
/dismiss

While out questing, typically late at night, I avoid the crowds. I have my minions to do my work for me. I can call on body guards for short term work. If they can't handle it, I don't want it. Problim? No problem. Troll dungeons? Yeah, those trolls stink, let them rot in there.

Have I tried being social? Sure, I tried. Two years ago when Wrath dropped, a couple guildies took some time off work and played all day. Leveling up from 70-75 while I was warming the seat at a new job. I missed leveling due to they were already flying into Dalaran, while I am still working through the Borean Tundra. Come the Shattering, this lock tries to play nice with his friends. Only to be shunned. No one else in guild was playing. (cue crickets).

While this lock would rather skip questing all together, sometimes it's necessary. Even so, I am going to work my hardest to do each of those quests solo. Situations where I have to wait on others, smell their undead mounts or even just watch them take the beating while I set it on fire are despicable. Me and my Minions, FTW.

Solo Hyjal??

2011-08-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

Very serious about grabbing that helm from Hyjal, so I can get the wings! No tank, boss fights can be tough, but we do have Bluey and/or the Felguard. The head piece drops off the final boss, so we have a bunch of killing to do.

From the video, it looks like this is the lock, Firedemon, is fairly well geared, running 130k health. Can't tell from the armory page when he picked up the latest tier pieces, July? Maybe I have a chance.. If you like this video, I suggest you subscribe, I see recent drops from Malygos in the Eye on his recent activity page.

Transmogrification Options!

2011-08-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

DiscoPriest has put together an excellent breakdown of the various options out there for priest, mages and locks. If for nothing else, I'd love to get Elk out of the Tier robe and into PANTS!

Need an outfit for (TLA) Pirate day (Sept 19th)?

I am King of the Spider Hill

2011-08-29T06:30:00.000-07:00

Last night after completeing my Firelands dailies for the upteenth time, I decided to take on one of the "Flamebreaker" achievements. King of the Spider Hill has you go out to the Widow's Clutch and use the spider's ability to pull you up to the top of the hill.

The hardest part of this achievement, is finding where to where to start. You need to have line of sight with each of the spiders to get them to attack you. I found two spiders around the back side of the largest rock both fairly low to the ground. Both are on large platforms. I started with the guy on the right, and then worked my way around the spire.

I started on the right, but looks like the guy
on the left would have worked as well.

From that first vantage point, work yourself clockwise around the spire. I was able to make the entire progression in about 7 different hops.

Notes:

I went Destruction for the progress. I used the Imp's ranged attack to help. The Felguard sat idle during the fight. He would hop with me, but did no fighting.
The spiders are friendly until attacked. One platform had two spiders on it, and using my Fel flame, I aggro'd just him. Then when I was done, killed the second because I accidentally clicked on him and whacked him with my weapon.
I didn't need to use any crazy AOE for LOS issues. Every spider I killed nicely had something sticking out over the edge of the pillar.

From the top, it all seemed fairly obvious.

Have fun!

Idle Thought:Raiding Socks

2011-08-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

My lucky raiding socks?

I was just discussing a recent run of Atramedes the deaf dragon in BWD. We've recently downed this boss and I was expressing my love for the sound mechanic. As you progress through the fight, the boss sends out sonar waves, like a bat. If you get hit by these sound waves, you're sound level increases. I felt like bat-snacks. No guano in this group.

Hi, I am the tank!

One of the elements, I asked about for this sound mechanic was Shield Bash. Does this add to the tank's sound score? Heck, all that metal armor, it should add sound points here and there. clang, clank, clang, squeek!

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I am a warlock. We don't wear plate, mail, or even leather. We wear cloth. This means that I am basically wearing cloth sandals or maybe even simply slipper socks at best. Besides the grass stuck to the bottoms of my feet, I should be stealthy and quiet.

Watch out! I am sneaking up behind you..

zap!

Mini-Milestone: 50,000th Customer!

2011-08-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

Here at Elkagorasa, I am happy to celebrate over 50,000 individual page views. Sure, it may seem like nothing, in the long and short of things, but it means to me you like what I am posting. No, I am not going to see the 7,400 hits again for the month that Cataclysm dropped.

Blogger only started tracking back in May 2009.

If you're curious, here are my top 5 blog posts of all times.

Wrath Honor to Cata Honor conversion (2990 views)
Shared Topic: Prepare for Cata (1930 views)
Horde - Get your Ravasaur for only one daily (1740 views)
Cata Beta Mounts (800 views)
[Using] Wowhead [as a] Quest Tracker (700 views)

toast!

Thanks for all the fish!,

Elk

Problems with Personalized Domains

2011-08-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

Back when I started this blog, it was the standard blogspot.com domain, http://elkagorasa.blogspot.com. It was simple, you could find it easy enough. Then GoDaddy came along, whoo'ing me with cheap domain names ($1 for a .INFO domain, why not!! Heck of a lot cheaper than some silly .COM site) and Scott Sigler with his podcasts, gave codes for discounts. I was sold.

Take one part GoDaddy, combine with ZoneEdit (for free DNS hosting), add one free blogspot web site and you are golden. $1/year and you're a blogger..

A long comes the issues. See, I've been using ZoneEdit for years. (going on 8 years IIRC). Along the way, I've used up my 5 free DNS zones. Sites have come and gone, now Elkagorasa.info is #6. Sites 6 and on, cost, $1/month. August 18th, was the end of my year.

So, behind the scenes, this blog faced a minor financial snafu. Gotta pay the bills in order to keep the lights on. Unfortunately the bill arrived in the email the day it was due, and I missed it. We're up for another year, or until September when the domain expires (again). This time, I might even invest in the 2 year renewal..

Kungaloosh!

2011-08-19T06:19:00.000-07:00

You may not know this, I didn't, but the alcoholic mana regenerating drink found in Dalaran, was a nod to Disney. According to the irrefutable source, Wikipedia, Kungaloosh was a greeting (and drink) within Walt Disney World's Adventurer's Club on Pleasure Island. Reading through the post, it sounds like the club would have been a lot of fun! Animatronics, stage shows, musical numbers, rowdy signing, and even improv comedy!

We climb the highest mountains,
just to get a better view.
We plumb the deepest oceans,
because we're daring through and through.
We cross the scorching desert,
martinis in our hand.
We ski the polar ice caps,
in tuxedos looking grand.
We are reckless, brave, and loyal,
and valiant to the end.
If you come in here a stranger,
you will exit as a friend.
KUNGALOOSH!

Unfortunately, Disney closed down the Adventurer's Club back in 2008 and dismantled it. This warlock would have really enjoyed hanging out with adventurers, Harrison Jones and the likes (go check out Fulguralis' stories). For our enjoyment, the recipe for Kungaloosh has been posted. (Sure, this link is one to help me win a trip to Booty Bay, but every little bit helps.)

"Some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you, but always dress for the hunt!"

4.3 Gives Me WINGS!

2011-08-18T06:20:00.000-07:00

When I was reading through the 4.3 announcement on VideoGamer.com, I wasn't that excited. Woohoo, dungeons, random RAID finder and transmorgri-blahblah. I am still working on the first tier of raids, so my gear is i358 average score; not THAT bad. Still not going to be killing Deathwing for quite some time.

Then I got thinking, hmm, convert one's armor to look like something else you own. This got me thinking, I would absolutely LOVE to have my current shoulders have WINGS! Remember the Malefic Warlock Tier 6 set??

Deathwing ain't got nutting on these.

Only thing? It looks like the transmogrify process requires you have the original to 'apply' to the new ones. Guess I need to go hunting...

Darkmoon Un-Faire

2011-08-16T06:36:00.000-07:00

Last night, I found a deal on the auction house; the last card of the Volcano deck. With this, I ran over to my bank, picked up the other 7 cards on hold and assembled the deck. Yeah! I have a completed deck, just need to turn it in at the next Darkmoon faire for the official Card.

Soon the realization kicked in. The Darkmoon faire just left town. Next stop, Stormwind in September... Not that bad of a deal, considering nowadays I can simply land on top of the vendor, turn in the card and fly off. No need to run across the continent to get myself tagged 'PVP' and have to deal with potential corpse runs.

Next month, I'll finally be able to replace that i346 trinket with a i359 epic! Looking at Wowhead, it looks like Brewfest will drop some nice new i365 pieces this year. Maybe if I don't have Firelands opened up by then, I'll try for the new Mithril Pocketwatch.

Check this out - Great Beginner Gold Guide.

2011-08-15T06:58:00.000-07:00

I wanted to refer you to a great post over on Just My 2 Copper. This gold making blog had a great post on getting started in the AH. Leo has posted a few pointers on more successfully selling items on the AH.

"If you sell gems, scrolls, glyphs, ores, bars, enchanting mats, herbs, volatiles or cloths, than you will be competing with farmers and other people that produce these as a routine. These are high supply, but also high demand items. And these are the items I am writing about. I want to show you how to increase your sales on these."

Take a look at the rest of the article. It has a bunch of good ideas for making some nice in-game gold. Check other posts in this category for other gold making ideas.

Firelands Daily Achievements - The Flamebreaker

2011-08-11T06:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday over lunch, my friend mentioned that I should really start working on the series of achievements related to the Daily quests. The series of 14 meta achievements roll up into a single achievement that grants "the Flamebreaker" title. Along the way, you will finish you will complete the achievement, The Molten Offensive, (where you get that sweet mount) and have opened up both factions and all three vendors. The first 9(.5) items below you could complete right away.

So, here's my skim of the achievements and their best rated WoWhead comments...

Have... Have We met - everytime you head out to Sethria's Roost for the daily and you're army of epic joins you, wave at a few of the famous. This macro will help you find them midst the crowd.

/tar linken
/tar chromie
/tar thassarian
/tar nat pagle
/tar mankrik
/tar hemet nesingwary
/stopmacro [noexists]
/wave
Hunt Fiery Lords - These 4 all appear around Sethria's Roost. Supposedly the spawn one at a time, soon after the last is down. No apparent order.
- Kelbnar - A Charhound. He appears at the southern end of the first ledge.
- Fah Jarakk - A Molten Giant. He is located on the second ledge.
- Searris - A Bound Fire Elemental. He spawns on the third ledge, right where Sethira was fought.
- Andrazor - A Firehawk. He flies above the third ledge, and needs to be pulled down with a ranged attack.
Ludicruous Speed - While on the daily to summon birds, use the item and then abandon the quest. You won't get knocked out of the bird form and then all the birds are fair game. Grab 4 or 5 of the goldenwing hawks and bam, this ridiculously impossible achieve gets done in 2 mins.
Gang War - Start a duel with a friend, then one of you /forfeit or /yield. (or actually win)
Master of the Molten Flow - It requires killing certain mobs in certain method. Pyronus has a nice long description. The hunter sounds to be the hardest. "Position yourself on one of the vents, and aggro the Hunter. As soon as he starts channeling his ability, jump up! Quickly move to the next vent and keep going until he stops channeling. It helps if you explore your jumping path beforehand so you know exactly where to run for the next vent."
And the Meek Shall Inherit Kalimdor - Let the birds finish off the phoenix, stand next to a squirrel throwing nuts at fire elementals, punt turtle at elemental, throw bear at corehound. For more, check out Zzeke's comment.
Infernal Ambassadors - These are the meta bosses that you summon after you do the collection series (i.e. punt turtles, howl over dead bodies, collect birds, save bears, or spirits of malorne). (Zzeke again)

Nemesis - (Punting Season / Echoes of Nemesis) - When Nemesis begins to erupt, run over to Tooga and hide under his protective shell.
Millagazor - (Call the Flock / Wings Aflame) - His special attacks will place patches of fire under you. Just keep moving as to not get popped in the air by them.
Lylagar - (Perfecting Your Howl / The Call of the Pack) - Simply move out of the way of his breath when he casts it.
Pyrachnis - (Those Bears Up There / Nature's Blessing) - Only use the Emerald provided to summon him, never to cleanse the stacking poison his attacks apply. Kill him quickly and it won't become a problem.
Galenges - (Between the Trees / The Power of Malorne) - After summoning him with the staff provided, a spirit of Malorne may appear and greatly weaken Galenges. All this one requires is heavy DPS so he dies before another Spirit comes.

Flawless Victory - Solo kill a molten behemoth and avoid all damage. Jump before stomp and avoid black circles for the meteor. Hardest part is going to be the solo kill (considering the competition).
King of the Spider-Hill - From [the Molten Front], just ride north east to reach the area marked on the map, and look for the largest of the odd mountain things. Ride around until you can trace out a path to the top (remember to account for LoS) where you can hit spider after spider, so that they web grip you up to the higher step. I found it best on the south side. Using a target-able AOE (like Rain of Fire) worked nicely to grab spiders out of LoS.
Fireside Chat - When visiting various areas, click on the 'chat' button with these NPCs.
- Dorda'en Nightweaver - Through the Gates of Hell. Can be found in the Sanctuary of Malorne. Cannot be accessed in later stages!
- General Taldris Moonfall - Through the Gates of Hell. Can be found in Malfurion's Breach.
- Commander Jarod Shadowsong - Through the Gates of Hell. Can be found in Malfurion's Breach
- Malfurion Stormrage- Through the Gates of Hell. Can be found in Malfurion's Breach.
- Matoclaw- The Sanctuary Must Not Fall. Can be found in the Sanctuary of Malorne
- Arthorn Windsong- Druids of the Talon. Can be found in the Furnace.
- Thisalee Crow- Druids of the Talon. Can be found in the Molten Flow.
- Deldren Ravenelm- The Shadow Wardens. Can be found in the Forlorn Spire.
Death From Above - This one requires that you open up the Druids of the Talon to get the bombing run daily. Bomb the large elementals and kill them. Sounds like this got easier after the 8/8 patch. More than one elemental appear in the zone each time.

Note: Just got this last night... Bomb does not mean kill... I use bartender, so the macro was useless. Just fire off at each target as you fly by.. 2 days, 6 hits. Easy peasy.
/target Ragepyre
/target Flashfire
/target Heatflayer
/target Blazefury
/target Hatespark
/target Singeslayer
/stopmacro [noexists]
/run SetRaidTarget("target", 4)
Ready for Raiding II - The idea is to kill an elites in the area, while not taking any damage due to their special abilities. To get the quest for this area, you need to open up both the ShadowWardens and Druids of Talon. SacredDevil has a great explanation of their abilities..
Legacy of Leyara - The quickest way to complete this achievement is to complete Filling the Moonwell/Nourishing Waters before Additional Armaments/Well Armed and Calling the Ancients/Aid of the Ancients, as it unlocks Into the Depths.

I love the title associated, especially considering it will come without that much RNG. Sure, I got to find certain NPCs, but at this point, I have over 400 (150+125x3) more marks to complete. I am just about to turn in my first 150 (probably for the Druids).

WoW Loses More Players, Oh My!

2011-08-10T06:35:00.000-07:00

In the news this week, Blizzard reports another loss of 300,000 subscribers. This comes closely after last quarter's report of losing 600,000 users with a half year total at over 1 MILLION subscriptions. More on this after the break...

So, after careful consideration, this warlock doesn't really care. See, Blizzard still has 11 MILLION customers paying for the game. In my honest opinion, a 9% loss of paid subscribers can safely be accounted for. A drop in the subscription numbers doesn't really account for the game going to hell. It isn't necessarily because another game has drawn players away. (As a casual player, I am not that fickle. I am not about to restart my entire characters, just for flash.) For example:

Cost - During this odd economic situation in the US, a lot of people are re-evaluating their finances. People who are looking for means to save some money. Sometimes, this means the Warcraft subscription. Renew subscription or eat? Buy the Expansion or pay the mortgage?
Window Shoppers - Cataclysm was advertised to the hilt. TV, Print ads, blogs, game sites, magazines, newspapers. You couldn't look at a piece of media without Blizzard's logo on it. We are far enough into the year that those people brought into the game via this media blitz have either decided to stick around or move on.

This is not the end of the world as we know it.. This is the thinning of the heard. People who want to play, will continue to play. Everquest has been around since 1999 and still has an active community. Warcraft has the same (or even better) staying power. As we watch more people let their renewal run out, subscription counts will go down.

What I haven't seen is how many people are signing up?

Even in WoW...

2011-08-08T06:38:00.000-07:00

It appears that even Undead females have lines to get into the restroom.

Have you done the Virtual Ticket?

2011-08-05T06:19:00.000-07:00

I have long wanted to go to Blizzcon, but due to family commitments, this Warlock has never attended, and in all honesty, probably never will. My wife would literally kill me if I "abandoned" her to play games out of town on a school night. Work conference? Totally acceptable. Warcraft? Um, no. So, why would I even consider it?

Blizzcon is the big reveal. This is when our game grows, or the company throws out new concepts to an eager crowd. I can imagine that Blizzcon will define the next major patch (4.3) coming out. Since this expansion is about the elements, I am guessing a water raid encounter to be coming soon. (Back to Vash'jir we go) The chance to see this new environment and bring that to you sounds exciting!

How about the in-game rewards? Oh sure! When I first saw the bear mount appear in Shattrath, minutes after Blizzcon started, I was jealous. That was before the Virtual Ticket was available (IIRC). Spotting the flaming murloc while running my (dreaded) Fireland's dailies and he's spewing fire, I am jealous again. I want! (at 106 of 125).

My biggest problem is work. There is no way my employer is going to allow me to stream hours of video to my desk. I would absolutely need to watch the Instant Replay of the entire event. I am not sure I really have the time or patience to sit at my desk at home, after the kids are asleep, watching people talk (and not play Warcraft).

So what's it worth? I've mentioned before, that I thought the 'recruit-a-friend' mount is cool. I'd pay $30 for it; by setting up an account for my kids, then canceling it after the mount arrived. Would I pay $40 for a Blizzcon pet/mount?? I think that may be a bit too much.

How about you? Have you bought a Blizzcon Virtual Ticket? If so, will you do it again this year?

Tailoring 1-345

2011-08-01T06:02:00.000-07:00

My disc priest has been using the Wow-Professions.com guide to leveling her Tailoring. Over the weekend, approximately 5 hours of play time, I have leveled her from 0 to 345. This has cost me approximately 2000 gold. The best return on investment has been combining tailoring with Enchanting, or Disenchanting. After I create a bag full of items, I disenchant all those items and sell the enchanting components. The dust and shards that come back, return a good portion of the gold.

For Horde, I found the best area to level this profession is the Valley of Wisdom. Within 20 steps of each other are the three primary hot spots, AH, mailbox and trainer, and thread vendor. Only when I needed to grab a bunch of a odd color dye or the pattern from Shattrath, did I need to fly out of this area.

Process?

step 1

step 3

step 4

step 5

Train a new pattern.
In Advanced Tradeskill Window (ATSW), queue up the number of items I need for the pattern. Not necessarily the bolts of cloth, but the tailored pieces.
ATSW provides a clickable shopping list, use that to buy up all the cloth for the pattern from the Auction House.
Back to mailbox, use Postal to grab all my AH purchases.
Run across the street to Isashi, ATSW is set to auto-buy the thread. Process my queue.
Disenchant them using a mapped button.
By now, the recipe is grey, go back to step #1.

Not bad. When I was trying to run this loop via the downtown Auction House and the tailoring trainer in the Drag, it was quite a, well, drag. I am now starting the Wrath recipies, so maybe it's time to start revisiting those wrath dungeons. Only problem is that I'd either need to run solo or with a guild group, LFG tool no longer allows me to queue up for them... One bubble from 84, I don't imagine that Hellfire Ramparts will be that hard...

:)

I think it's time for a change ... of professions.

2011-07-28T06:21:00.000-07:00

My Disc Priest, fka Bank Alt, is coming up on level 85. Guildies have already expressed interest in having her start filling in as a healer for pinch situations. With raiding on the horizon, I need to seriously consider what perks that she can get to help her be best healer available.

While leveling her up, I made a few considerations. First, I wanted a profession that provided me a bit of gold. With Elk being an Alchemist/Herbalist, I had my transmutes and flasks covered. No need for those. Gathering professions didn't look good considering I was leveling solely up via the LFG tool. There is no way I wanted to go back to the starting areas and level up mining, or skinning (and therefore no leatherworking or blacksmithing). Inscription and enchanting seemed the perfect fit. I could DE while in PUG and create glyphs for big money.

Looking forward, I think it's time for a change. Inscription is not the big money maker it was. In fact, I am not sure I really need a big money maker any longer. What I need is perks; perks that help me be a better healer, without making me revisit the starting areas again. My current consideration is Tailoring. This profession, besides allowing me to create a full PVP set for her, also has perks that increase my stats.

Leveling Tailoring. Starting over with a new profession means work. First off, you're going to need a bunch of mats, and sometime just sitting there clicking 'create' for each (group of ) item(s). I love the addon AdvanceTradeSkillWindow (ATSW) for this. (I know, I was looking at TSM, but I haven't gotten it configured yet...). ATSW allows you to queue up a series of recipies, then simply click "Process Queue" for each item to build. Additionally, it provides a nice clickable shopping list to all your toons.

What to create? Wow-Professions has a great guide for leveling. My friend/guildie has used their site a number of times to level several professions. I love that they have laid out the materials and # of each item that I need to level. Do read ahead on the list though. You will be weaving together items through the various levels, so don't throw away or sell extra items, until you reach the next training spot. For example, you are to create 130 bolts of linen cloth for levels 1-45, but don't use all of them until you reach skill level 100.

So, now the plan is made. I need to go get a kitten and sewing basket. Go to the local guild bank or, I mean auction house and start grabbing materials. Sit down in the corner and start whipping out bags, clothing and maybe a few carpets! If I am lucky, maybe I can sell a few of these items back. If nothing else, she can get a 'smart' looking top hat to wear (if it ever appears in game).

Battlegrounds are (Mechanical) Ducks

2011-07-26T06:54:00.000-07:00

Part of the reason is that Battlegrounds are like ducks. A duck looks like it effortlessly glides across the water, but their little feet are actually working madly beneath the surface to make it happen. Battlegrounds are the same way. They may look simple -- even static -- to a casual observer, but in reality there's an incredible number of very complicated processes going on behind the scenes. Part of the reason for this is due to a lot of technical hurdles that need to be jumped to make them perform as seamlessly as they do, battle after battle. As a result, it's actually extremely difficult to design Battlegrounds, partially due to the technical limitations that are currently in place. (source)

I loved this blue comment posted on the forums the other day. For one it gave me this wonderful image of a mechanical duck swimming around a lake. Looks like a duck, swims like a duck, but really it's a robotic duck patented back in 1738.

Second, it continues detailing the underlying complexity of designing a new BG. Mainly, if there is a technical exploit that can be had by either side (early start, tripping on floor transitions), someone is going to complain. "It's an advantage for the ___ because of this!!!"

I love a good battleground. The kind where the game is fair and both sides have an equal chance of winning. I don't want Blizzard to throw out a new battleground that has an exploit, especially when there is a high chance that it can fall into the random battleground cycle.

" the PvP community is ultimately more interested in having perfectly balanced and bug-free maps to play on"

Shared Topic: If you became a NPC...

2011-07-22T06:04:00.000-07:00

This isn't an official Shared Topic, but a question posted to the Blizzard Forums. I thought it would be fun to answer in the form of a ~~song!~~ ~~haiku~~ blog post.

What if one day, your character magically became an NPC?
What do you think he/she'd do? Would you be a quest giver? Would you make armor for the army? Would you be like Topper McNab, begging on the streets of Stormwind?

I think if I became an NPC, I'd be a flight master :p (source)

When my friends first described the game of Warcraft to me, they talked about the ability to create things and then sell them to other players. As I mentioned before, this functionality intrigued me. I was coming from a FPS background, so having a player 'craft' something seemed surprising, and unusual. In that frame of thought, all players could act like NPCs; buying and selling items to anyone else in the game. This is the type of NPC I'd like to become, an eccentric vendor.

My NPC would be a little different. First off, I think I would want to roam around. One day, I'd be sitting in Orgrimmar, next time I'd be traveling to Thunder Bluff, possibly setting up a small table in the middle of Crossroads. I'd have a 'flight path' so you could hunt me down.

I'd love to sell pets. I want to be like Xan'tish the troll snake vendor and have little critters following me around. Maybe if you found me, you could pickup all the Horde vendor available pets. Ok, nah, that would be too easy. How about only those from Outlands?

I'd like to participate in the holidays. OK, sure they'd be limited supply items, but they're all non-buff items. Maybe a series of Woot inspired T-shirts (since that's my casual gaming shirt of choice). "I <3 Thrall anyone? Only available during Valentines!"

Finally, I would like a witty dialogue. I think it would be fun to act as a side-show barker and call out to players that run by.

"Hey (class), have you considered upgrading your gear? My I <3 Thrall undershirt is guaranteed to boost your DPS ... by 2 points ... during "Love is in the Air" ... while under the ..!"

It would be fun. If only I could, and then reap the gold that such a vendor would possibly make.

Companion Pet 106: Westfall Chicken

2011-07-21T07:36:00.000-07:00

. Last night, our raid group had 12 people who wanted to go. Being one of the best geared DPS in the group, I gracefully dropped so that my guildies could get some upgrades. Of course, first boss down, and they announce they got Valor points for taking down Magmaw. (Yeah! There back!)

My #1 priority last night was to complete the "CLUCK!" quest. This hidden in-game quest has been available to the Horde since patch 3.1, but hey, I was busy. Prior to this patch, a horde player could only get this pet if you knew an alliance player to do the hard work, and you were there to loot it. As of 3.1, you could now buy the special feed from William Saldean (undead) in Brill.

This comment sums up the Horde process.

Go to Brill (Yeah, Brill, not Westfall)
Buy Special Chicken Feed from William Saldean
Target a Chicken from Brill

Spam this macro until it turns green:

/chicken
/chicken
/chicken
/chicken
/chicken
/chicken
/chicken
/chicken

Get the quest
Turn in in the same time (it requires the feed you already have) and wait for an egg
Loot the egg
Gratz for your new pet

Some notes:

If someone shared the quest with you, you'll have to abandon the quest and do your own chicken dance.
I had to spam the macro probably about 30 times the first time.
If you don't accept the quest quickly, the chicken will stop offering it. (wait on things like taking screenshots or annoucing it in guild chat).
The egg is BOP, so only grab enough food for yourself.
Do wait for the egg. I ran off to get more food, came back to the chick and an egg was sitting there, waiting to be looted (by ANYONE!).

Thursday Tidbits: no LoS = SoL.

2011-07-14T06:27:00.000-07:00

Have you started the new Firelands dailes yet? Me either, but the quest rewards look very appetizing. I did re-complete the rescue Thrall quest line again. This time, I was rewarded with the epic i365 back, nice upgrade from my valor point haunt of flies.

I did also start the quest chain for entry into Firelands. I finished the quests, picked up the first 2 dailies then said, "meh, it's late, another time..". I haven't been back, but I should. According to guild-mates, really quickly I can pickup about 5 gear upgrades. See, doing the entry quests, I picked up some 16 marks. Zen'vorka, resides in the area you reach after you turn in 20 marks. Next comes Damek Bloombeard, which requires a total of 425!? marks (fed from a growing number of dailies).

Phase 1 takes 20 marks to unlock the Molten Front zone (this has recently been hotfixed to be accessible the very first day).
Phase 2 takes 150 marks to unlock either the Druids of the Talon or the Shadow Wardens. ("you can choose which one to quest for every day - but you can only choose one")
Phase 3 takes an additional 150 marks to unlock the faction you didn't choose in Phase 2.
Phase 4 will consist of unlocking each of the vendors for 125 marks apiece. (source)

To get to Damek, you need to complete:
Calling for Reinforcements -> Druids of the Talon and Shadow Wardens -> Additional Armaments

The other 2 vendors picked up from:

Calling the Ancients - Unlocks the Strike at the Heart daily, as well as the vendor Varlan Highbough who sells epic gear.
Filling the Moonwell - Unlocks Into the Depths, the vendor Ayla Shadowstorm (who sells patterns for 36-slot profession bags, as well as some gear), and an infinite supply of food in the Molten Front. (source)

Looks like if you complete all that, there's an achievement and pet reward!

I Still ~~Hate~~ Extremely Dislike Stonecore. Last night, I decided to play my healer alt again. She's only level 83, so this was a normal run. Still, the second boss, is NOT healer friendly. Her first dungeon total wipe in quiet some time was on this boss. See when Slabhide takes to the air and knocks down the stalactites(?), those immediately cause LoS issues. I tried moving to line up with my tank (who was barely staying alive, as is), but he'd move again and then I'd be SoL. Long cast and moving tank make for tank RIP and soon run from graveyard. Second run, I still had issues, now because I had to run to stay out of the pools of lava and the tank not moving.. Hence second dead tank, but at least this time, the DPS was able to take him down.

I talked with a fellow healer, and he gave what should be a wonderful solution. I will macro to party chat to the effect of:

/p If you don't want to {skull}, be a {star} and wait for me to regain some mana.

OR?

/p No LOS to %t. Incoming {skull}

She is coming up on 85, so I have under geared guildies that might start running dungeons with me. They'll be on Vent and I can let them know that they need to slow down. Also coming up on the possibility of actually raiding on this healer..

Just Announced: Real-ID Party Goes Test: This sounds like a cool idea. You're online, working through some content. One of your Real-ID friend's come online; possibly working on a completely different realm, possibly not even part of your standard battlegroup. You invite them to a party, plus those guildies local for a dungeon run. Jump on the Random Dungeon Finder to fill empty slots and have fun.

I see this being most useful when you have people coming back to the game after some time off. They start up in a new location (like my co-worker who came back to the game after a hiatus). She has toons on her old realm, but doesn't want to move them over, quite yet. With this, as long as her druid on that other realm is Horde, we can party up. Very sweet. Next step, Real-ID raiding!! :)

Unfortunately, Blizzard may consider this a premium service. So enjoy the test while it lasts...

Q: Will aspects of the Real ID Party system be premium-based?
A: We'll have information on the premium-based aspects of the Real ID Party system toward the end of the testing period.

The Quest for Mr Grubbs

2011-07-13T06:58:00.000-07:00

Saturday night, after picking up Wither's, I started the quest chain to pickup Mr Grubbs. This non-combat pet is maggot grub dropping from mobs in Eastern Plaguelands while under Fiona's Luck Charm buff. I started this adventure around 10PM and found Mr Grubbs around 2AM. Considering, I've heard of drop rates ranging from 5 minutes, to 5 days, 4 hours isn't that bad.

Based on the comments for Mr. Grubbs, I learned that the more quests you do, the 'luckier' you are. This meant to me, the drop is basically a reward for doing the quest chains in EPL. At level 85, the slowest portion of this running between the dead bodies and looting. (again, where's my loot monkey?).

Fly to Lights Hope Chapel and pick up the breadcrumb quest from Lord Maxwell. He has you fly all the way back out to the Bullwark and find the worgen Gypsy Fiona. She is the leader of a traveling caravan. As you complete the quests in each area, you board her caravan and ride to the next quest hub; the various towers in EPL. (There's a nice running dialog between all your traveling companions while you ride. ) At each location, you'll need to complete about 10-12 level 40-ish quests before you move on. (all just target and fel flame to kill even the mini-bosses in the area) When you take a quest from a riding companion, they often will appear in that area and help you. Sometimes you'll pickup an additional person or two. (Note: There's an achievement for picking up all 8 riders.)

Working through all the quests in the zone, it took me 4 hours and 4 riders to get the drop. I was in the middle of collecting 30 eyes in Zul'Mashar (at least it was 2 per kill!) when the pet dropped. After the drop, I found looting the bodies pointless, so it moved quite a bit faster to finish the area. I still haven't finished the quests in EPL, but I did finally get the Argent Dawn Silver Hand recovery quest for Stratholme (mentioned in Loot Monkey article above).

I missed this back in December on Wowhead, but there's a nice writeup on the 6 pets that Blizzard put out with patch 4.03. Next, I want to start working on a tiny flamefly.

Blue's Chews

2011-07-11T06:25:00.000-07:00

The Armory was the topic two Blue posts on Friday. First off, it appears that we now have a wowhead or WarcraftPets type view into our pets and mounts.

Still pursuing a particular pet? Mad for a magnificent mount? Just mouse over the object of your desire in the Companions & Mounts page and you’ll see information that should help make your next hunt a success. You can filter the results to make it easier to find pets and mounts from a particular source, or sort them by rarity to help you plan future collecting expeditions. (source)

One thing I really like about this feature is the advanced search functionality. I set my query to show all pets still available via quests. This brought up 2 pets that I had not known about; Withers and a raptor pet. For the Alliance, Withers is a quest reward in Darkshore. For the Horde, just go buy it for 30 silver from Apothecary Furrows. The raptor is from a short quest chain that starts in Stranglethorn, but ends in heroic ZG. This comment on Wowhead details the Horde's process (and later the Alliance).

Unfortunately the filters are not class specific. When I go and search for items still available from Vendors, I see a number of the Alliance Argent Tourney rewards. I guess technically, I could buy these, but it would not be for 50 tourney certs, but 5000 gold on the AH.

Reminder to self, go finish the pet quests that go into Blackrock Spire. I still don't have those pets.

The second blue post is about the title mixup. As of Friday, characters are showing up on the armory with various titles that may or may not exist. For example, my Alchemist/Herbalist has a GM Miner title. A guild mate is showing up with "Of the Ebon Blade" which was a Wrath Beta-Only "realm-first level 80 DK" title.

Even more interesting when your character has a title for a capital city from the opposing faction, like mine does!
Anyhow, we're aware of this little glitch and we'll look into it.

Looking at the forums, people are finding that the titles reliably wrong.

I logged in.. and out quite abit and tested all of my titles, this is the outcome:

My title => Armory title
Bane of the Fallen King = Obsidian Slayer
Blackwing's Bane = None
Brewmaster = Doctor
Champion of the Frozen Wastes = None
Conqueror of Ulduar = of the Alliance
Defender of the Shattered World = None
Dragonslayer = None
Flamewarden = Rival
Jenkins = of Quel'Thalas
Patron = Grand Master Jewelcrafter
Starcaller = Champion of the Frozen Wastes
Twilight Vanquisher = Prophet
of the Ashen Verdict = the Immortal
of the Four Winds = of Sen'jin
of the Nightfall = Grand Master Miner
the Argent Champion = Grand Master Enchanter
the Astral Walker = Ambassador
the Explorer = Conqueror
the Kingslayer = of the Nightfall
the Light of Dawn = Patron
the Patient = Matron

the Exalted = Scarab Lord
Flame Warden = Rival
the Noble = Conqueror of Naxxramas
of Gnomeregan = The Seeker

This would be wonderful if the titles actually granted the status or achievement that created it. For example, if my orc really did pickup the "of Stormwind" title and could go purchase those Argent Tourney pets. In actuality, it is probably a simple fix. My guess is that the table that keeps track of titles is corrupted. Now the game title index no longer matches the website title index. (sorry for geek speak). This will probably be fixed on the website before this posts lands.

Don't Help the Gold Farmers

2011-07-08T06:48:00.000-07:00

About 2 weeks ago, I posted that I thought my account was hacked. This happened after Blizzard publicly changed their security policy to no longer request the PIN on authenticators when they see people consistently logging in from a similar location.

Today, I'd like to point out a legitimate hack. Skimming through my top secret warlock email, (yeah, we all get those) I received a notification that my Blizz account info has been changed. Nefarious deeds definitely at work here. I bet it was those Mages; mad that we got sparkly soul harvest.

hello!

This is an automated notification regarding your Battle.net account. Some or all of your contact information was recently modified through the Account Management website. If you made recent account changes, please disregard this automatic notification.

If you did NOT make any changes to your account, we recommend you log in to Account Management review your account settings.Log in link below, fill in your account information and other relevant information.
http://us.battle(dot)account-riso(dot)net/blah/blah/blah

If you cannot sign into Account Management using the link above, or if unauthorized changes continue to happen, please contact Blizzard Billing & Account Services for further assistance. (snip)

I followed the URL to investigate and was presented with a Battle.Net website. The site has all the links buttons and wording that I am familiar with on the Blizzard sponsored page. Looks good. Well, sort of. When I look down at the localization for the site, down in the lower-right corner, I see that the localization says "International". Interesting. I like to think of myself as worldly, but International?

Let's investigate. How about the hover-over? Being a little curious at this time, I hover-over some of the links that are embedded in the site. When I put my mouse over the link for "Forgot Password", I am presented with a URL that matches my International side, but considering I am accessing the site from California, most wouldn't consider it exotic. I went to a "US.Battle" website, but I am redirected to an EU.battle.net resource for changing my password. Definitely fishy.

As a final straw, I open the site using the URL that I know and love. http://us.battle.net Once there, I see one more thing; the hacker did a really good job, but they missed the favicon. The site is using a blank page icon, where the official site has used the battle.net logo.

My point? Trust no-one. Don't click on links in emails, go to the website by hand. Look twice before you enter personal information into any website, including ones that look official. If you simply copy and paste the URL from the email, READ IT carefully. Looking closely at the URL, it references a non-Blizzard site. This website, very likely will not ask for a PIN, but by then they have your Real-ID username and account password. How long til they find a way to actually get your authenticator removed. Finally use an email solution with a good spam filter. This warlock uses GMail, it does a wonderful job of filtering out the sludge. (Also is a blogger's best friend as a free provider)

It's not news. Google claims to "Don't Be Evil", but still manages to get into a lot of trouble. Warlocks everywhere, protect yourself from those more practiced in shadow magic than yourself. You can ninja-loot from those mages and priests in-game, just don't let them return the favor outside the game.

Armory Glitch today granted me
a title for a profession I don't have.

Your Very Own Horde Balloon

2011-07-06T05:50:00.000-07:00

So, you like pets and you see everyone with those great balloon pets, but haven't asked where to get one? This pet is a reward from a strange little gathering quest, seems like a good candidate for Children's week, but hits closer to the State fair.

Ok, go find Jaga. He's standing right out side the Drag, near the little pond. He's a young orc boy. Jaga has a low-level quest for you. He's lost his balloons and they flew away (in town). Go get all 5 for him.

The balloons are easy enough to find. Look in corners of the Drag. I found all between him and the cooking trainer. The furthest out was by the mailbox out by the stairs at the far end.

Once you hand over all 5 balloons, he lifts off and thanks you for allowing him to see the world. I followed him up to the top of the zeppelin tower, then he disappeared.

I wonder if we'll see Jaga again out on the country side? Maybe trying to build himself a zep of his own?

Positive Platitudes for RL Vacationing

2011-07-04T08:16:00.000-07:00

Here in the States, it is that time of year, when we love to get away from it all. Take some time and enjoy the summer season to visit far off places. Our kids are out of school and away from learning. So, what better excuse than to take some time away from the gaming keyboard and mouse, to visit the beach or the House of Mickey Mouse.

Outside of the positive health benefits of getting a little sun, there are (IMHO) a number of positive benefits to take a week off from the game.

A Time to Rest

The purpose of vacationing, is to get you away from your work and let you forget for short time. Let your brain recharge from the work-induced coma and wake up. While enjoying your time off, you recharge, ready to face the long fall and winter seasons back behind the keyboard, tucked into a cubicle with no windows and that rattling vent over your head.

While leveling up an alt from 0 to 85, personally, I like to take advantage of every +XP bonus available. The one bonus that Blizzard has had since early on is "Rested Bonus". Implemented as a means to limit game play, it also adds as a wonderfully nice +% XP gain for every honorable, monster killed. Running chained dungeons is a quick way to burn through your rested bonus gained over a single night. Let that one night stack to a long weekend or even a full week, and you could have a full level worth of Rested bonus to burn through.

Wrong Kind of Crowd
PUGs are inevitable in this game. Leveling up a toon via the LFG tool, you can easily hit the same group of people night after night. That may or may not be a good thing. Take a few days off and that group of people will level on passed you. Leaving you with a completely new group of players to complain about. That DK tank who doesn't seem to be able to hold aggro? Gone! The hunter who seemed to 'fall asleep' at the entrance portal after clicking 'accept' into the dungeon. Gone!

Bad Options Don't Make Good Job Security

I work in the computer industry. Been doing this job, in one form or another, going on 15 years. One thing I've learned is you never want to be the only person in the office who knows how to do something. If you leave on vacation, and they don't know how to get your job done, they'll either never do your job or they'll call you on vacation and tell you to do it while you're out ("Make sure you bring your cell.."). Definitely no growth from this type of security.

This goes for raiding. If a raid group feels that they don't have anyone else to fill your shoes, they'll just sideline and never progress; other guildies who are willing, may never get asked to participate. The guild will never progress, and many players may eventually quit, looking for more reliable raiding options. Don't make yourself too secure, be flexible and make sure your guild knows. You could even suggest a substitute DPS while on vacation?

Putting Your 'Family' First

As a dad of 2, I know that my wife and kids must come first. Their time off from school is short, and we must take these moments, enjoy them. The game will still be here when you return. I've been playing this game since my son was born (5 years now). He's gone from a 1 month premie to kindergartener in that time. All along, I've been actively playing my ''casual" style. If I were to close my eyes just a second, he'd grow up much too fast. All your guildies, if they are also parents, should understand, otherwise, they too are going to burn out.

You Deserve it.
Overall, take time off. Don't feel obligated to pick a vacation spot just because it has a good Internet connection. Don't succumb to your raid leaders request to purchase more RAM for your laptop, just so you can run your raiding addons. Don't turn down that invite to hang out with your family during the fireworks display, simply because it overlaps the guilds hundredth attempt on that X of Y raid boss.

IT: WoW = Disneyland

2011-06-30T06:41:00.000-07:00

Being a California native and dad of 2 small kids, I have made numerous trips to the Magic Kingdom. Mickey is good friends with this orc and his kin. As an adult, one of the most intriguing aspects of Disneyland is mystic and freshness of everything. I can't help but marvel at the perfect flower beds, the clean park grounds and newness of everything. The time, I played the Human starting area, I thought darn aren't flower beds neat and grounds tidy.

Dungeon = Ride. Finish one ride, er, heroic dungeon, simply re-queue. Like on Splash Mountain, Brer Fox and Brer Bear will be right there again with Brer Rabbit captured (in honey) again, waiting for you to save him.

Disneyland @ Christmas

Holidays are never forgotten. Long is Disney's, and Blizzard's tradition of celebrating the holidays. Ok, this is a bit of a stretch, but I wanted to include it, especially since we're just ending a long series of in-game holidays.

Interesting Cinematics - Now, I don't mean just the entertaining thing you see when you click on the fountain (you know where Snow White sings), but just the flow of things. I absolutely think of the Pirates of Caribbean each and every time I ride the dragon to down to the bottom of the Caverns of Time; the boat stuck in the wall, the ramshackle farm house and even the little 'stages' for each dungeon all add to the feeling.

Oh, sorry, gotta go. Got to light a basic campfire, there are s'mores to cook. Back to the adventure at hand.

Happy Vacationing everyone!

PSA: 4.2 Preparations...

2011-06-27T06:18:00.000-07:00

The 4.2 patch is going to drop. MMO-Champion estimates this coming Tuesday (6/28). Sounds good, as it will give most people the long (US) holiday weekend to explore the Firelands new content and get them prepared for the new raid content.

Reminder on Currency Conversion:
With this new raiding tier, comes the standard currency conversion. At least, unlike Wrath, Blizzard isn't going to create a new currency, per se. They are simply going to devalue your current valor points, so that they are equivalent to Justice points. I'd like to suggest you spend some points this today and get yourself under 4000 combined total. I am a little torn about what to buy.

What you could buy now for valor points, will be purchasable in 4.2 for Justice points. So no effective price difference between today and next week. If you have enough, buy a valor item now.
If you have an abundance of Justice Points, then buy a BOA item and send it to that alt you've neglected. The BOA gear isn't going to change price and they're not adding (i don't think) anything new.
Don't buy Justice Point items that have identical Valor point items.

The alternative is that you get some gold for being over the 4000 justice point limit.

Reminder on pre-patch clean-up:

Patches can hit like a Mack truck. Show up on Tuesday and run amok of everything, then drive off, and leave you to cleanup. With this incoming load of patch, I suggest there are two things you pay attention to.

Empty your in-game mailbox; don't forget the alts. I've had once where Blizzard lost all my mail and had to wait 3 days for it to be restored. When it came back the messages required 2 clicks to open, then another to grab the item. That was a lot of clicks on my bank alt's mailbox.
Update your addons. With a major content patch like this, Blizz is likely to tweak the user interface. This means that you will likely have issues the next time you logon. Hopefully your addons are supported by people playing on the PTR, so day 1, you should have functionality. Just make sure you update them.

Will it hurt if you do nothing? Probably not. You might find you have some extra gold in your bags, a few more clicks to empty your bags and your client might not load correctly the first time, but nothing permanent. Is it avoidable, or at least able to be mitigated now? Definitely. Prepare ahead and do a little summer cleaning.

Questing? Who Needs Questing?

2011-06-24T05:39:00.000-07:00

Just before midnight on June 19th, Eride reached level 80. It wasn't that momentous. We had just killed the second to last boss of Oculus and loot was being distributed. I almost completely missed grabbing a screenshot when it happened. Happily, I was able to switch to healer (green) dragon rather easily after a test wipe. Spam #1 on boss, then it's a warlock style health funnel (#3) on the party.

At 80:

BOA gear didn't appear to grant extra XP; when turning in a quest. I flipped between a level 80 green chest and the boa chest and saw the same 7500 xp for a hyjal quest.
BOA gear has an estimated iLevel of 187.
By replacing my wrath BOA gear, with cata greens, I was able to get to up to an ilevel of 216. I spent approximately 150g at the AH and bought 4 or 5 ilevel 265+ gear.
Questing in Hyjal, is, well, boring. At least compared to dungeon running. (IMHO). I completed 16 quests into the area, picked up a nice 275 green quest reward staff, then looked for something else.
Dungeons have lost their locate me, before you play me requirement. At i226 gear score, I was able to queue up for BRM and TOT.
So far, mana hasn't been an issue. I can only remember one DK tank who I couldn't manage to keep alive and it wasn't because of OOM issues. He would take damage in 40% hits, but this same tank also had patience issues. He started a boss fight in ToT before all the DPS was even back from the graveyard. b'bye, vote-kick!
Gear sites like Wow-heroes.com and askmrRobot.com are now (starting to be) relevant; providing gear options.
During the last 2 dungeons, Throne and Blackrock, dropped a trinket for her. This means that she's replaced all pre-cataclysm BOA gear. This brought her gear score up to i277.
Leveling isn't THAT much slower with only 1 BOA piece (cloak) and perks available with a level 16 guild. After the 16 quests, I ran 1 heroic wrath (70 justice points) and 2 normal cata dungeons (140 justice points) and dinged 81.
At 81, 2 more of the Cataclysm dungeons opened up to me.

So, will I be questing my way to rep with Hyjal? Oh, probably not. I think my best option will be continuing to running dungeons, then start questing in Deepholm. That way I can get the nifty shoulder enchants. (hyjal's are BOA, so I can mail them from Elk).

I'VE BEEN HACKED!

2011-06-21T06:03:00.000-07:00

At least when I logged Sunday night I was absolutely positive that I had. See, upon logging into Warcraft, I was not prompted for my authenticator pin. I was sure that a hacker had my password and removed my authenticator from my account! To make matters worse, it was taking dreadfully long to get into my account last night, as Warcraft actually failed to load correctly.

I immediately went over to us.battle.net and found that my authenticator worked there. Hmm. OK, not removed. Come to find out, that Blizzard did this on purpose. They had implemented a new policy that states if you consistently access your account from the same location, they won't prompt for your authenticator, regularly.

Why didn't I get an Authenticator prompt this time?
The Authenticator system will now intelligently track your login locations, and if you are logging in consistently from the same location, you may not be asked for an authenticator code. This change was made to make the authenticator process less intrusive when we are sure the person logging in to your account is you.

I like this idea, but hate the implementation. Blizzard has multiple means of communication with us end-users, and they could have used any of them to warn us of this major security policy change. I'd love to have seen on the realm page where I type in my password info, "We've changed the way we process authenticators, go to the Battle.Net Authenticator FAQ for more information."

The Good, Bad and Ugly.
How is Blizzard tracking my location? We will probably never know the full details of this, but Blizzard has straight said they were monitoring our account information. I believe it was soon after the mandatory roll over to the battle.net account requirement, that it appeared. I am guessing it is more complex that simply my IP address. Blizzard knows that:

IP addresses can change regularly. All of users on dial-up DSL can guarantee a new IP each time they start the computer. This would imply that each time I reboot, I'll be asked to type in my PIN. What's the point then?
A computer can be spoofed, sort of. You can spoof my PC name, by creating a virtual copy of my machine with my network card info (mac, IP) , but you can't spoof everything. Could Blizzard be doing a 'reverse lookup' of my IP address? Oh sure, why not. This is a spam-prevention technique. Take the IP address you are reporting, see if it is coming from a domain that owns it.

Here's how I see it working, "The last 500 times, Elk accessed WoW, it was from 123.456.789.010. That IP address belongs to AT&T DSL in NorCal. Today he's coming in from 123.456.789.010, but it's tracing back to an enterprise connection provided by Cox communications, from a Las Vegas hotel. Get his authenticator PIN."

or else... (random stern look pic)

Blizzard, you can do better. Not everyone reads your forums, blog or other news outlets, but we all log into the game. Use the game to communicate to us, when you make changes to the way we access this game. This Warlock did not appreciate worrying about my security when there was no serious concern.

Sincerely,

Elkagorasa

IT: Breaking the rulez...

2011-06-20T06:26:00.000-07:00

I just finished listening to a fun little audio ~~book~~ drama. The story which, isn't safe for the mini-van, has a strong female character, a good dose of humor and is wonderfully put together with numerous voice actors. At the end of the book, the main character states that (I shall garble it up...), if don't break the rules, those who make the rules are in control, so break the rules and be yourself.

This got me thinking... <scroll idle thoughts logo>.. (pressing a little harder on accelerator ).. I like to think of myself as an individual. I play a warlock, the loner class of WoW. What are a few rules that we can break?

Spend talent points on things seldom used by a build. I play a destro lock, with points into the Jinx talent (9/1/31). Why? Cuz, I want my CoE to spread around. Mana conservation on this highly mana intensive build. Of course, when I play Destro, I am usually lower on the DPS/Damage counters than when I play demo. ?? Maybe that's a bad rule to break.
Wear PVP gear while raiding. PVP gear is often easier to acquire, especially if you're into running a single BG a night. Queue times are much shorter and there's no penalty if you need to drop mid-fight. Try dropping in the middle of a dungeon run and you'll get /ignore on a lot of people's lists. If I'm looking for a new i370+ item, I'm going to be checking the Honor point vendor just as much as I am checking with the valor point vendor. It's got Resilience, so live with it!!
Strike up a conversation in PUG chat. Probably the most taboo of all the rules listed out, but I like to at least throw a "hey all" out there when we start a dungeon. Then if I don't know a fight, maybe say something like "what's this guy do?".

I know, I know, some dangerous rule breaking going on. I gotta watch out, Blizzard could catch on, and like nerf my class. What sort of rules are you breaking? Or would you want to break, but need the peer pressure??

HealerTwink $

2011-06-17T06:48:00.000-07:00

My Disc Priest has reached the time in her career where she's just about out grown her BOA gear. Last night, she reached level 78. In every other expansion, the last two expansions (58, 68), she seamlessly jumped into the next expansion dungeons. Cataclysm changed that and she'll be stuck leveling the final two in the Wrath dungeons.

Up until last night, I had been trying to figure out what she was going to wear upon hitting 80. I was even thinking that I should invest in the Priest tier-10 gear available in Dalaran. See 5 of my pieces of gear have stuck around since level 15 and I haven't really thought about what to wear.

Chest
Shoulders (quit wearing those about 2 levels ago)
Main hand
Trinket 1
Trinket 2

Now, last night, I did a search and amidst the Wrath BOE (ilevel 160 - 180) gear, I spotted a ilevel 300 item that I could use. Yes! Cataclysm gear that my level 78 Disc could use. (Can I start go to Hyjal??) Run over to Orgrimmar, wander around the cata quest givers. Nothing. Checking forums, you need to be level 80 to start questing in Hyjal or Vashjir. :-|

Ok, how about this. Take Elk, out to Vashjir and start killing things. Grab every BOE piece of cloth gear and forward it to my priest. Should be really easy. Nice demo warlock AOE and everyone would be 4-7 levels lower than him. Unfortunately, after a quick peek at Wowhead it appears that my list of available upgrades is (really) short. There is the only the Mismantle series, which looks to contain one of everything, but the average drop rate, looks to be less than 1%.

So? Buy the best deals off the AH, but leave the actual gear acquisition until 80 when I can start, erk, questing with her. I guess that is a good thing, because she needs the rep. Looking back at her Wrath rep score card:

it is pretty dismal. The only group that really LOVES her is the goblins and that's because she championed them in the last few dungeons. Goblin Trike in PVP FTW! (Orgrimmar now, she wants the vendor discounts.) No BOA shoulders, means I can enchant them. So, I am really going to need to get the Therazane rep to get the Cata shoulder enchants. Guild doesn't want a healer that didn't enchant those shoulders.

At approximately 3 hours or 3 dungeons a level, she is quickly approaching the level 80 threshold. Bank alt to possible raid healer. Whew! It's been quite a bit of change for this once despised toon. IMHO, the BOA gear was an excellent investment and this toon's savior. Sure there are a lot of dungeon drops that I could have grabbed along the way, but the advantage of not having to (or being able to) enchant the gear has saved me tons of gold. I've still had to deal with all the non-boa items (head, neck, pants, trinkets) and that alone has cost me plenty.

(Ran a long dungeon chain before this post dropped. Went from high 78 to high level 79.)

end of dungeon chain

turn 2 quests from ZF, then explore zone

Got 82% of 79 completed in 74 minutes.

65 levels with no world questing, grinding or worrying about flight points. Just me and 4 other people running dungeons randomly, but not heroically. (It's the healer queue, so it makes up for dealing with PUGS.) It's been a blast and a great class learning experience. Personally, I think this is the BEST way to level a healer; i.e. healing in a group situations. If all goes well this weekend, she'll be leveling in Hyjal by next week.

The 4.2 Currency Conversion, BOO!

2011-06-15T09:48:00.000-07:00

I just realized the full impact of the upcoming 4.2 currency conversion. See, I have been saving my valor points in order to purchase that 700 valor point wand, immediately when 4.2 drops. Unfortunately, it appears Blizzard is not going to let that happen.

With the release of patch 4.2 all Valor Points will be converted down to Justice Points up to the 4000 point cap, with any points over the cap being converted to gold at a rate of 47 silver per point. In addition, all previous Tier 11 Valor items will now be purchasable with Justice from the Justice Point vendors, and new Tier 12 Valor items will be available from the Valor vendors. (source)

So, if your valor + justice points equal more than 4000, SPEND SPEND SPEND. Buy an heirloom piece, buy a bag of goodies. Personally, the 47 silver for each point over 4000, isn't going to be worth it. At least, I'll get my 2 more tier items (legs and hands) immediately.

Final note: The last PTR download was under 5mb. Besides some last minute tweaks, I'd highly anticipate 4.2 on June 21st. First day of Fire Festival + Rage of Firelands.. See a theme??

SSOTD: Stained Class series

2011-06-13T10:17:00.000-07:00

Over at Disciplinary Action, they've gone through all of the various classes and displayed their best characteristics as a stained glass window. (Edit) Nicely done, so that half the windows are alliance and half are Horde. The warlock, is Goblin.. :) (Guess I needed to look closer at each one).

(Also a great resource if your alt is a disc priest.)

Shared Topic: Dying

2011-06-10T06:41:00.000-07:00

Sharden asked

How do you think dying in an MMO should affect the characters? In WoW we have a relatively insignificant repair cost from durability for a PVE death and no consequence for dying to another player. Do you think this is enough, too much, or needing improvement?

1UP

I had thought a bit about dying in our MMO. As a fairly avid video game player since the 90's, I've had my fair share of virtual deaths. In many of those games, dying meant returning to a save-point; be it one manually triggered when I thought I was doing good, or the milestone-type rebirth you get in a Wii game, dying seldom meant an actual death. Usually the death was fairly painless. Sure, you may have to replay a portion of content over again, or lose one of those precious "lives" you have gathered in the game, but you went on.

In Warcraft, the world does not stop; the game does not go back in time upon your death. Despite all my best efforts, The World of Warcraft does not revolve around me. You die and now you need to resurrect yourself. Easy. It costs a little gold and you may find yourself in the same fatal situation as before and end up dying again, rather quickly. What are some of the alternatives?

ain't easy being green?

Real-Life: You die, your dead. No resurrection allowed unless, well of course, depending on the religion you follow. Imagining an MMO were you'd build a new character each time you die. The game would be shallow. Maybe only a few levels to go through. Leveling would likely only be done via non-violent means. There would be absolutely no PVP functionality. Maybe they'd call it "The SIMS Online"? (which does have a dying method, but 'natural' causes. The penalty being ~2 hrs until you can res.) When you die, maybe if you did enough good deeds in the game, you could transform your toon from one being to another. (I wanna be a frog and swim all day).

EverQuest: (Based on a conversation with a co-worker, this is how I understand the process.) The resurrection process in EQ is a bit more like WoW raiding. If you die while playing the game, you cannot simply run back to your body in ghost form and click the "accept resurrect" button. You could either run naked from your 'camp'-point (not a graveyard) to your body and then pickup your gear. OR you could have one of their healing classes summon your corpse to you, but only a select classes could do this. You would take gear damage and you would also lose a bit of your XP. Imagine during progression raiding, with numerous wipes, you could possibly drop a level.

Now, consider the WoW death penalty again. You die. You run as an untouchable ghost from a local graveyard (now much closer in Cataclysm). You click the resurrect button and you've only take a 10% durability hit. A few gold out of pocket and you're back to normal. If you find your corpse is un-retrievable, you hit the 'return to graveyard' button, chat with the spirit healer and take the 25% durability hit. Done.

In vanilla EverQuest the death penalty was severe. Players would lean forward in their seats, one-hundred percent focused on the game during combat. [...] In WoW, with its less severe death penalties, players often multi-task during routine game play; such as watching TV or surfing the web. ~Dan @ Massive Thoughts

As Dan eludes to, the death penalty imposed on a player helps increase the intensity and the involvement of the player. High death penalty and they will be doing everything possible to avoid dying, even if it means running out of a zone with a chain of mobs chasing you. Lower the death penalty and they will be less involved in the game; caring less if they die.

Speaking of... hmm..This reminds me of the "__ made it to max level in 4 days played" articles (back when getting to max level meant an easy 2 weeks played). See at low-levels before you have a mount, running is the slowest piece of the game. These players would purposely die when they finished their last quest, res at the spirit healer, res-sick, but be within a few hundred yards of the repair and quest turn in location. This would not be possible in EQ.

Is the death penalty in WoW OK? Based on Blizzards philosophy of opening the game for all players, a minimal death penalty is ideal. Clients are punished for dying, but usually not more than some time lost and a bit of gold (which is usually repaid by the end of the next quest). Making it more painful, IMHO, would limit participation. Blizzard encourages PVP, which typically includes numerous deaths, by making it 0 cost to participate (including the healing, mana and minion replacement). In many ways, this is what keeps WoW alive. Players have a harder time getting bored with the game, because they can take risks and not get painfully punished. PUG Heroics? Sure! PUG a raid? Why not! Work on that Childern's Week PVP Achievement? Heck ya'!

The Start of the Summer Slump

2011-06-08T06:38:00.000-07:00

Last night's raid failed. We simply didn't have enough people to get the party off the ground. Sure, it was our healer's RL birthday, so he and his wife (2nd healer) didn't log on. Unfortunately, the ~~crowd~~ 3 people that did logon weren't motivated to do anything else. No raid? Guild chat is filled with a round of g'night! all. Sadly, no one wanted to run a single heroic.. :(

I blame the pug. Nobody loves 'em. Everyone hates that he rubs his hiney on the carpet, has smelly, kibble breath, and constantly yelps. As I mentioned earlier, even the bag of goodies for the Dungeon Call to Arms, doesn't appear to be encouraging those necessary players to 'do one for the team'.

Really, why? Most people who are seriously raiding multiple times a night have all the gear they could want. They are either sporting an average ilevel of 359 gear (or heroically higher), or are very close to max'd out on tier gear. No need to suffer the pug's smelly breath, if all you want is to improve your gear. Raiding, or really, heroic raiding is the only thing that will suffice.

So, here begins the summer slump. Attendance is impacted by RL vacationing. (trip to beach <> WoW) Kids are up later and more outside activities consume the standard raid time. If 4.2 doesn't drop relatively soon and bring new raid content, attendance of the regularly scheduled raids (not just my casual group) is going to start suffering.

Good vibrations coming from the PTR. Last night when I checked the last update to the PTR, I downloaded a total of 40mb. Considering the game is 25gb, 40mb is like a single grain of rice, in a steaming, hot bowl of teriyaki chicken..That is a good sign that it should drop rather soon. (guess I shouldn't blog before eating).

"Ask a Dev (#10): DPS Edition" is open for questions...

2011-06-06T17:33:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen it, take a look over a the DPS edition of Ask a Dev. Here are questions that are coming up on the forums. If you have questions, that you would like the Blizzard devs to answer, now is the time to submit. Here's the warlock related items, in no apparent order ('cept how I found them).

2 questions about new skin for our pets. Really?? (#8 and #47)
Thoughts about Warlock dots? (#101)
"only one warlock PVP build?" (#10 & #77) How about an entire PVP tree (Rift anyone?)?
single target dps for demo locks?(#24 & #71)
complex warlock rotation at low levels for minimal dps gain (as compared to dps gains at higher levels). (#35)
using felhunter as a demo lock? ( #47)
soulburn revamp? Only 2, maybe 3 good uses. Any chances to add new functionality? (I like soulburn + soul stone for instant battle-rez!?) (#39 & 71)
Revamp of warlock talent trees, demo = buffbot, destro straddled with ISF (#118)
Soul swap explained.. (#82)
Possible role change (healing, tank) for dps-only classes? "buff for these dps only classes" (#83 & #97) Hybrid tax (#41)
Chance to reduce the RNG factor of some DPS classes? (#90)
Linking dps with other classes. Warrior refreshes warlock dots? Mage and hunter both multi-shot, why not proc each other's spells? (#69)
Ranged = good pve, bad PVP; melee = good pvp, bad pve. Any changes? (#49)
So few caster +hit items, that we have to 'sell our soul' to get hit capped! (#60)

PTR Wall of Text

2011-06-01T05:43:00.000-07:00

I logged onto the PTR tonight (5/31 - 6/1) and decided to take things for a spin. Since "a picture is worth a thousand words", here's my wall of text:


A i378 Wand for 700 valor. Good bye Corla's Baton. (yes there is also a healer wand)

Update: As Xayide pointed out in the comments, they just introduced a Crystalized Firestone Quartermaster in Firelands. There's more info on this on the Wowhead blog, but by downing a Firelands boss (minimum gear iLevel 355 requirement) you can pickup a firestone and exchange the stone with your item to get the i392 item.

New i378 Valor point bracers. (Healer and DPS)

New Tier Gear is the same price as existing valor gear.

Old Tier Gear is priced equivalently, just in JP.

Last, a new animation for Soul Harvest!
No longer look like a shadow priest.

I don't remember a portal in Hyjal back to Orgrimmar??

Finally, I ended the night, by starting the epic quest chain to rescue Thrall. I got about 10 quests into it, then was DC'd from the server. If you read "The Shattering", consider this part 2 of Thrall's (aka Go'el) story. He comes to finish up the healing of Hyjal, only to be kidnapped and you need to save him. This chain would be best served with a crew. There will be a lot of competition for kills (kill 20 of these elementals, blah). On the PTR, I was competing with Horde and Alliance characters. They respawned really quickly and had 0 aggro (green) until attacked. This may change in final production, but it was nice due to the respawn rate and they hit like a truck.

Elk, Elk?, Aggra and Thrall head out for a meeting.

Yeah, No.

2011-05-31T12:45:00.000-07:00

No flaming, flying lion for this warlock. Cool, but at $25?! I already bit that bullet with the sparkle pony and won't do it again. If I am to purchase another mount from Blizzard, it will be the $30 (recruit a friend) two-person rocket.

BTW Blizzard, where's my flying warlock mount?

Friday Check-in

2011-05-27T16:31:00.000-07:00

I hadn't posted in awhile, mostly because I didn't have 'sufficient' content for a stand alone post. So, I thought today, I'd take a few minutes and post a few tidbits.

Random Dungeon Drop-off
I know soon after 4.1 dropped, the dungeons were once again friendly. I could queue up for a random heroic and typically land one in under 10 minutes. This was a vast improvement over the typical 30 minutes that I was getting pre-4.1 dungeons. Now about a month after release, it seems the queue times are creeping up again. Yes, I am typically trying for the double-bonus valor troll dungeons.

Is it because all the tanks have everything they want from the new bag of goodies? or people just not want to suffer the content in a pug?

Gear Upgrades
Over the last 2 weeks, OOT has managed to reliably take down Halfus. The last 2 raid days, we've even been able to also take down Magmaw. This has meant a few (one) upgrade for me. That 346 offhand, that I mentioned last time has been replaced with the Halfus drop, Book of Binding Will. This was a nice upgrade for the JP off-hand I had been running. (The wrists evaded me again this week, "/roll = Elk: 5"). From that, I started taking a closer look at Mr Robot for my next gear upgrade option. As I run both a Destro and Demo build, and Mr Robot suggests different items for each build. Checking the Destro build, I noticed that:

If I finished the 'Optimized' stats would gain me...

The Stump of Time from the TB quartermaster, rated higher than the Valor Point Soul Casket. I am ATM, about 16k rep from exalted with Hellscream's Reach (or about 8 days doing all the dailies). Much cheaper, in the long run, than the on-use Soul Casket.
The Tier 11 Shadowflame chest was rated as a +2000 point upgrade. This was my defining moment, to plop down my 2200 valor, pickup the chest piece and then gem and enchant it.
Taking Mr. Robot to heart, I ran through and reforged and (tried to) re-gem all my gear to match their optimized set. This has me now at 0.2% below hit (or 16.8%) because I cheeped out. I will revisit it again next weekend, when my AH sales come in again.

Patch 4.2 Coming soon!
I am excited that 4.2 should be dropping rather soon. Not for Firelands. OOT is still working on 3:13 of the bosses. What it does mean is that those guild members who have higher-level toons in other guilds, won't be saved to these 13, and can fill in on those tougher bosses. For me it means:

With 4.2, we're getting new raid content.

Old raid content will be nerfed to make it more accessible.

With new raid content comes along with another tier of gear.

Old tier gear goes on sale for the lower currency.

In addition, Wowhead just mentioned that they'll be bringing a bunch of new achievements. Including new pets for the 100, 125 and 150(a sparkle DRAGON!?) pet levels.

New gear from 2 new factions to get exalted with. Including the Avengers of Hyjal:

Rippling Flame Cloak. A i378 cloak that you only need friendly rep to pickup.
Embereye Belt (Honored)
Rune of Zeth (trinket at Revered)
Infernal Signet of the Avengers (ring @Exalted)

By doing dailies and then spending Mark of the World Tree:

I looks like the PTR may be updated with new content and I'll see if I can check out the vendors. I'll let you know.

What to Wear??

2011-05-17T06:04:00.000-07:00

I am torn. I don't know what to wear! Here I am, on the cusp of the big raid tonight, with money in my pocket and no idea what to spend it on. What do I really want to pickup??

According to Battle.net, I have an average iLevel of 354. This equates to:

Eight i359 items (raiding and exalted honor) - neck, chest, back, legs, feet, waist, hands and alchemy trinket.
Four i353 items from the new Troll dungeons - head, shoulders, main hand weapon and ring 1.
Five i346 items from justice points and heroic Cata dungeons - wrists, off-hand, ranged, trinket 2, and ring 2.

Looking at what Jamus'Vaz has for sale, he's got a lot of nice shiny items. (I think he really needs a rack that he pulls items from, when he sells you).

Tier chest, legs and hands. I have i359 alternatives of all three of these. (Note: Hands and legs drop in Baradin Hold)
Feet, back, rings and trinkets. I have the Uldum exalted feet and the valor back, but the rings and trinkets would be 'upgrades'.

According to Mr. Robot, my upgrades go like this (excluding BOE world drops, archaeology and random):

Head = +9 to tier piece
Chest +66 upgrade to tier piece
Wrists = ZA drop, or Halfus
Legs = +15 to tier
Ring 2 = +11 to Band of Secret Names
Trinket 1 = +42 to Soul Casket, or +121 for exalted Hellscreams
Trinket 2 = +130 to Soul Casket

I am torn between the trinket and the chest piece. Replacing my Witching Hourglass, will lose me 285 Int, in return for 321 mastery, but I gain a massive, on-use spell power bonus. At least, I believe I can reforge that mastery into +hit and maybe gain back some haste from other reforges. Where as, replacing my chest with the tier chest will lose 241 mastery and add 198 haste, plus some gem flipping. Swapping the yellow for the red gem slot, would likely mean that I could get the socket bonus.

Spiderman of Azeroth?

One consolation? Tier 12, will bring about closeout prices on the Tier 11 gear. SALE SALE SALE! The rumor is Tier 11 will be bought with Justice points and Tier 12 will simply fill in to the Valor slots. This means that I shouldn't have to live with a 1 piece set bonus for that long.

Update: 4.2 ~~posted to the PTR, so I'll confirm it tonight..~~. has been downloaded, but none of the test realms are up.

BH resets today. Think I'll wait until we raid on Wednesday to decide.

Blogger burped

2011-05-13T13:25:00.000-07:00

This is an odd Friday the 13th. Living up to the gremlin laced superstitions associated with this date, blogger has lost content. Any post after the evening of the 12th has been lost, but any comments have been lost, not that I lost a bunch.. Just, if you did comment, I didn't censor it.. Jason whacked it.

I am loving the new ZA!

2011-05-12T06:04:00.000-07:00

No longer that silly hat,
but now a dog cone.

I am really loving the heroic Zul'Aman dungeon. Last night, I pugged the dungeon again, making it my third time into the dungeon since 4.1 dropped last week. I still have yet to complete the save the sacrifice's quest, but I picked up a couple nice new upgrades.

Last night's run had to been the most aggressive run. It contained 3 members of the same guild, plus a pugged healer and myself. We completed the entire dungeon in under an hour. I found it odd that I hardly ever ran out of mana, must of been some mad replenishment going on. I only life tapped out of habit before harvesting souls.

The last two successful runs, took the following route. This route has a bit of a parkour feel. We hopped over walls, we jumped over broken stairs, even crossed the water, all to avoid trash fights. Having a DK in the group, really helps. The first time I ran it, we did boss 2 & 3, ported out of the dungeon, back in and did 1, then across the water by the entrance to 4,5,6.

With the changes to 4.1 where team composition is to avoid gear overlap (i.e typically dk or warrior tank, pally or druid healer, warrior and hunter or rogue for dps), I've been able to pickup a few nice upgrades and never felt I had to compete. To date, I have won (and equipped)
Collar of Bones
Jan'alai's Spaulders
Shimmerclaw Band
Voodoo Hexblade

and the 24 slot bag, quest reward. These items pushed my iLevel up 2 points from 351 to 353. I'd still love to pickup the wrists; from one of the to-be sacrificed prisoner's own belongs (boss 2). The Armani War bear mount would be awesome, but I doubt I'll ever see it ('cuz I got worst mount drop luck). Finally, the novelty of the voodoo mask trinket, might be fun in random situations, say raid trash.

To date, I still haven't seen an entire run of Zul'Gurub. Every party into that dungeon has been a fail, after fail. Take that back, I came into a pug on the last, last boss. My party made it easy. I just stood out of the fire (or is it in the green dome of goodness), and killed demons, making sure my dots stayed on the boss, while the rest of the group did the rest. Here's to hoping for a run coming soon...

You may want to check out WowHead's Patch 4.1 gear breakdown. It has a breakdown and basic comparison of the options that were currently available and what came in 4.1.

The End is Nigh!!

2011-05-10T05:14:00.000-07:00

I just found out. It has been fun, but I have been informed that my time is short. I have maybe one more, before it all ends. Unfortunately, I am not sure I even care...

See, Blizzard, just informed me that my subscription is set to expire with the next edition of the magazine. Each volume of the magazine comes in a nice, 'table-top' quality magazine. The stories range from insider information (Meet the Devs articles were my favorites), upcoming gear and zone changes information, and fluff pieces (blizzcon costumes, craft ideas, etc.).

With Volume 3, that I got last month, they had a few interesting articles. Did you know that they are bringing out a new expansion? It's called "Cataclysm"! They even spent a good portion on the lore of each of the new races. (in case you don't know, they're the worgen and goblin, woohoo) In addition, there were a few strategy guides for the 4.0.3 dungeons, reposted articles off their own "official' forums and then a good portion on Blizzcon. Really! This is the OFFICIAL magazine!

Could I suggest the magazine? Sure, the first 30 pages of the magazine is always an interview with a various team at Blizzard. Something that you don't get to see without going to So. Cal and chatting with them at Blizzcon. Unfortunately, the last 2 issues of the magazine that I received, that's about all I read. The rest, well, was stuff I saw via other means, and without the $10/issue cover price.

Will I renew? Probably not.

Do You Vuhdo Too, Warlock?

2011-05-05T16:15:00.000-07:00

As a disc priest, I love the addon Vuhdo. Combine the ctrl, alt and shift keys with my 5 button mouse and I can cast virtually all the primary healing spells I'd ever need. I can automate trinket usage, and casting buff spells (i.e. power infusion) in line with everything else, or call on macros that would combine the functionality of different items automatically. In addition, Vuhdo has buff minding and simple casting options (click buff and it applies it), plus auto-cast of some spells (i.e. click on dead toon to rez) or middle-click to debuff magic. After my interview with TNB, where Fimlys mentioned he uses this instead of the standard, Blizzard party/raid window, I got to thinking about how I could use this healing tool more effectively as a warlock.

Some ideas.

Buff: Dark Intent - Out of the box, Vuhdu tracks self-buffs (Fel Armor, Soul Link, and Dark Intent, etc.). I can click on the self-buffs and it immediately casts them on myself. Last night in the raid, it targeted the person I had selected and then the allowed me to simply re-cast the buff through out the night without thinking. Most excellent after a wipe.
Soulstone battle rez - Peeking at the "smart-cast" UI, there is an option for a battle-rez, but it states that it's "druids only". If this is 'fixed' in an upcoming patch, great, but how about I use soulstone on alt-click targets, sorta like a heal, right? Wonder if they'll have a soulburn+soulstone combination added? I could group the items as a macro?? I haven't gotten this working yet. Multiple-clicking on dead people only targeted them multiple times.
Singe Magic - Running Destruction, my best friend is the imp. The imp has an ability to dispel a harmful magic debuff from a client. I use it personally to remove the "Static Cling" spell off myself in Vortex Penn. While playing a healer, all the dispel options are shift+click. How about shift-click to do have my imp fry them?
Target of target -Previously, I'd set my focus to my tank, then I could simply click on my tank, and assist with his target. Unfortunately, with the higher CC requirements in Cata, my focus is already used by my fear/banish macros. On the Vuhdo party interface, I can see who is targeting who. By expanding this 'hostile' field wider, I can see the mob's name and a larger health field. Now, I can simply hop to the add, burn it down then jump back to boss (aka tank's target).

I am sure there are other options. It does have basic hostile spell options, but they aren't that well defined. I am also a bit of a button-masher and not a clicker. I'd like to be able to apply BoHavoc on a target and not click off my current target, I think that should be easy to figure out. I need to run a few battlegrounds and fine-tune the interface more.

I'll post my updates that I find. Do you use Vuhdo for classes other than healing? I am curious to find out what you do.

Voluntary Demon Change

2011-05-04T06:16:00.000-07:00

Last night while running through the Drag in Orgrimmar, I stumbled upon the Demon Trainer, Kurgul. I hadn't visited this guy in a few patches and thought I'd check out what he's up to. Come to find out (since the 4.0.3 patch) that he allows you now to unbind your current demon and summon a new one. Unhappy with Thooshak's performance in the PVP arena and those constant threats about "if you summon me again, be warned", I thought I'd let him go. YOU"RE FIRED!

50g in paperwork later, I now have a new Felguard. Oddly this guy looks like the identical twin to the last. No female form, no coloration difference. Only thing I see changed, is now his unpronounceable name. I think I'll simply call him Izzy.

I haz Petting Zoo

2011-05-03T06:03:00.000-07:00

With the start of Children's week, comes the start of a series of Take your Orphan to work quests. Those quests that have you drag an orphan around to 5 different points of interest, usually on highly different parts of the map. Happily, with the completion of each quest chain, you are able to pickup a new pet for each one (now even Dalaran). Blizzard has also blessed us with 2 new pets (Scooter and Legs) for the Orgrimmar and Shatrath versions.

With these last three pets (Scooter, Egbert for the achievement, and Wolvar pup), it pushed Elk to the 100 pet limit. Here's some screenies of these last 5 pets. Note, the wolvar pup comes in your mail after you finish the quests. Not picked up when you turn in the last quest.

Winterspring Cub

Panther

Scooter

Egbert

Curious Wolvar Pup

A quick note about doing these Children's week quests. Set your Hearth to Shattrath and/or Dalaran when you start. This should save quite a bit of flying around to get you back to the turn in. I did for for the Shatt quests, but not the Dalaran. This meant flying through Wintergrasp twice in order to get to/from Scholarze Basin. Guild perk for 15 minute hearth, it would was reset by the time I finished the first 3 quests of the chain. With the portal's in these two cities back to Orgrimmar, it was a simple trip back to my new/old home. (& don't forget to re-home it when you're done!).

For pet 101 a pet for a worthy cause.

Flipping the Winterspring Cub

2011-05-02T06:27:00.000-07:00

I was reading on sites like Cold's Gold, about a new companion pet introduced in patch 4.1. This site is for sale from a vendor in Everlook for 50g. So, I sent my death knight alt (yeah got one of those too) since he has the flight paths everywhere and hasn't left Orgrimmar since talking to Thrall. With his 120g, I picked up 2 of these wonderful cats.

Shipped one off to both Elk and my Disc priest, Eride. Checking AH, she posted hers for a measly Buyout price of 94g. It sold for the BID price of 75g. Nothing like the 400-7000g that people were bragging about.

Ah well, maybe make tips ~~selling~~ transporting them for guildies.

Dropping the Big Four Dot One

2011-04-26T07:13:00.000-07:00

I attempted to logon this morning and found that 4.1 has dropped. Here's something to look forward to tonight upon getting the kids in bed.

Addon Review: TradeSkillMaster

2011-04-26T06:38:00.000-07:00

Always looking for something to make the process of growing gold easier, I have downloaded and started playing with TradeSkillMaster (TSM). This addon looks to be a mix of various other tools that I already use.

Auctioneer/Auctionator - scans the Auction House, gathers current prices of items available. Plus, post auctions to the auction house with competitive prices and undercutting values.
Postal - automate the scrapping and sending of mail to/from crafter/bank toons.
Lil' Sparkys Workshop - Provides me with a list of craftable items, with the cost to make, and current AH sale price (aka Profit!).

Being a combination of these various tools, has some advantages and some disadvantages. Advantage-wise, things work nicely together. Stuff you queue up for one bank toon, should present as a shopping list on another and then be mailed back when it's purchased for that toon (for example, bank toon purchases Alchemy materials for my main toon/alchemist using this tool, those mats will then be auto-shipped off to that toon).

Disadvantage being this tool is complex and requires a bit of tweaking. It is the 'beta' version, so that may change. I spent about an hour last night going through my two main crafting toons starting the setup of the tool and the items I wanted to build. No, I didn't read the manual. I will need to. Peeking at Zoxy's write-up, I see I didn't even start in the right direction. I'll probably work on this over the weekend.

Based on my initial review of the tool, I can be making 100g on a wrath gem, and approximately 8-10g on a few (low-level) enchants. I started picking up the materials last night, using the shopping interface against the auction house, and got summoned for my random dungeon.

Weekly Update - The Phoenix Schools

2011-04-25T05:54:00.000-07:00

(based off RL letter from my kid's daycare.)

Dear Parent,

Week of the Young Child is just around the corner, ~~April 11-15th~~ May1st-7th. This is a special week where our school celebrates the families, children and teachers. The schedule is as follows:

We still have Sleepy available.

Be a Bad Example for your kids at our All You Can Eat Candy and Sweets breakfast.

Show your mad fighting skills, by killing a Dwarf Mage in front of your child. (Iron Dwarf not included)

Adopt a new pet. Choices are limited.

Kill an old boss. Take his loots.

Teach your young-one the value of doing a few chores.

Music for the Infants, Toddler and Twos is as follows:

Infants/Toddlers - Wednesday

Murlocs and Panderans - Tuesday

Have a Great Week,

If you have any questions, please feel free to call me or email me.

Thanks,

The Phoenix Schools
Director

Manliest Gown

2011-04-21T06:25:00.000-07:00

Saw this dress linked to on Poneria's site and thought it might look nice on my BE Female Disc Priest. Pulling up the site, I had to laugh at the combination of ads with the dress.

It's not for women.

Now peek at this gown, if you dare, it equipped on a male toon. (Cuz all warlocks wear robes, a gown isn't that far a stretch.) Bikini on top, anyone?