10/18/2010
Just wanted to share this. A very enterprising person posted this in the Bug Report Blizzard forums. Link
Deyneth made up scripts for 2 macros, the first of which you'd use whenever there might be a possibility of freezing the game. I'd recommend turning off the tooltips whenever going into a random dungeon, like when zoning into the Oculus, your mouse naturally lands right on the entrance portal, causing the freeze-up. Also, definitely do it when going for the Headless Horseman. The first script will still allow you to interact with objects, it just won't pop up a tool tip description when you hover over them.
And, when the danger has passed, like after you've killed the HH, use the second to turn tooltips back on.
I've taken the liberty of posting the scripts here as well. Copy & paste into macros for your toons, and you shouldn't have any problems. /cheers for Deyneth!
Turn Off Tooltips
/script GameTooltip.Temphide = function() GameTooltip:Hide() end; GameTooltip:SetScript("OnShow", GameTooltip.Temphide);
Turn On Tooltips
/script GameTooltip:SetScript("OnShow", GameTooltip.Show);
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Gold making with Hallow's End
10/18/2010
Oh yeah, I had forgotten about this. The wands you need for the Hallow's End Achievement The Masquerade are not limited duration. I had saved mine from last year, so immediately when the event started this year I was able to post "Selling wand charges for the Masquerade, X,X,X,X for 20g each."
I probably have about 5-10 wands on most of my 30 toons, and I've probably sold about 400 gold worth of charges so far, just in the course of continent hopping thru Dalaran while doing Hallow's End quests.
I'm not gold hungry, otherwise I could just stay in Dalaran and constantly spam trade with it. If you wanted to do so, the first few days would be your best market, as the demand will definitely wane.
Oh yeah, I had forgotten about this. The wands you need for the Hallow's End Achievement The Masquerade are not limited duration. I had saved mine from last year, so immediately when the event started this year I was able to post "Selling wand charges for the Masquerade, X,X,X,X for 20g each."
I probably have about 5-10 wands on most of my 30 toons, and I've probably sold about 400 gold worth of charges so far, just in the course of continent hopping thru Dalaran while doing Hallow's End quests.
I'm not gold hungry, otherwise I could just stay in Dalaran and constantly spam trade with it. If you wanted to do so, the first few days would be your best market, as the demand will definitely wane.
The Cog of Doom!!!!!! ...... Or, how a mouse-over throws a wrench in the works
10/18/2010
Hallow's End is upon us, and I was looking forward to getting my Loot on with the Headless Horseman, especially since I only managed to do the event once with Bloodshrike last year.
Instead, I've only managed to become like Ichabod Crane, dumped unceremoniously from the instance when I zone in. When you get in the graveyard, directly in front of you is a pumpkin, which you almost are invariably already mousing over. Unfortunately......there seems to be a bug in the 4.01 patch, which will frequently cause WoW to freeze up when mousing over or clicking on almost anything that shows a cog. Mage tables, flags, anything of that sort can cause problems.
I had thought that some of my addons were causing the problem, as I noticed Deadly Boss Mods message load, then WoW immediately froze up. But after poking around the forums, it looks like it's on Blizz to fix it.
Hallow's End is upon us, and I was looking forward to getting my Loot on with the Headless Horseman, especially since I only managed to do the event once with Bloodshrike last year.
Instead, I've only managed to become like Ichabod Crane, dumped unceremoniously from the instance when I zone in. When you get in the graveyard, directly in front of you is a pumpkin, which you almost are invariably already mousing over. Unfortunately......there seems to be a bug in the 4.01 patch, which will frequently cause WoW to freeze up when mousing over or clicking on almost anything that shows a cog. Mage tables, flags, anything of that sort can cause problems.
I had thought that some of my addons were causing the problem, as I noticed Deadly Boss Mods message load, then WoW immediately froze up. But after poking around the forums, it looks like it's on Blizz to fix it.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Lolcat nation
see more Lolcats and funny pictures
10/12/2010
Every generation strives to differentiate itself from the preceding, be it with dress, hairstyles, mannerisms, cuisine, or slang. The last one often causes the most problems, as you can look at someone and think they have a weird haircut, or dress funny, but as long as they use proper grammar in talking to you, you can still understand them.
Slang is the point where communication breaks down. It's almost reminiscent of cryptography, where 2 or more people have devised a system of substitution in messages, only comprehensible to another person possessing the means to turn the information back from code to intelligible words.
With slang on WoW, it seems to be split mainly along acronyms "LFM 4 VOA 25" and lolcat, which is basically a transposition cypher. It may look like the person can't spell to save his life, but there's a method to their madness. It's a mixture of baby-talk and deliberate misspelling of words, that, while annoying, still can convey a message.
However, the root word of lolcat is "lol", which I do have a problem with. When I was about 14, my family had a boarder. While she was a very nice lady, she had the nervous habit of laughing constantly while carrying on a conversation, even when it was a serious or boring subject. "So I went to the store (haha), and bought a bottle of water, and brought it to class with me (hahaha)."
LOL means "laughing out loud", and is used to show that the writer is talking about something funny, or literally laughing while writing the words. Unfortunately, it now seems to be overly used, much like our lady renter used to do. "Can I haz 2 gold pz lol" is not a funny message, nor is "we just raped allies in WG lol." It also seems that "lol" has replaced the period, as you will see it artificially tacked on to the ends of sentences, without any punctuation following it.
I'm nowhere near as introverted as Gevlon seems to be, with his list of rules for "The Pug." I congratulate someone who dings a new level during a dungeon run, as I am always happy when one of my toons gets to a new level, where they can equip new weapons and armor, and learn new skills. I also end every dungeon by saying "Good tanking and heals, thanks!" because after having played three tank classes (DK, warrior, paladin), I understand how hard tanking can be, especially when running with dps who overgear you by 1-2000 Gearscore, and have no concept of throttling their dps to allow you to maintain threat. I believe that a few well-deserved words can boost a persons spirit, and make the grinding of running dungeons a bit more enjoyable. My pally tank Clockwrknyt ran Shattered Halls at 68, and while the level 70 dps came and went, the healer stayed with me, congratulated me at the end, and said that they would really like to run Utgarde with me next.
I guess I'm just venting here because of boredom, while waiting for maintenance to end, so I can log in and check all the shiny new things we're getting with the patch.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Just Leave
10/5/2010
Yes, Utgarde Pinnacle is not a hard heroic. But when you get that amount of rampant disrespect and ass-hattery, it's better to cut your loss, and just get out of there. I was just caught unaware by the sheer selfishness and laziness of that priest, so much that I wanted to get out of it asap. As a tank, you have to develop a thick skin, since you'll get blamed for a lot of things that aren't your fault.
DPS died because they pulled an extra pack of mobs to make the run go faster? Your fault. Everyone wipes because they don't know the fight? Your fault.
You don't have to put up with it though. There was a priest and druid in the group, and I was expecting Prayer of Fortitude or even individual buffs of the Fortitude and Mark of the Wild, if they were too lazy to pick up the ingredient to do a raid cast. Goodness knows, it's hard to click a button to buff people individually.
What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been
10/5/2010
Well, right around this time last year I was starting to get into the holiday achievements. After the fun of the Fire Festival, with 2 easy dailies that all my toons could do, I started doing the Brewfest dailies. Those are the actual opposite of fun, when doing them with a lot of alts. If you click on the brewfest label for this post, you can see how much time and effort I put into them last year.
This year? Meh. Gwyddion on Daggerspine racked up 200 tokens, and got the Brew of the Month membership. I didn't bother going to 350 tokens, because she already had the Disturbing the Peace achievement from last year. I had gotten to 350 tokens, got the clothes, gotten drunk, and was racing the clock back to Ironforge to turn the clothes in and get the membership. Unfortunately, she didn't make it.
But..........I was able to pick up a little something extra for my main Bloodshrike. I wasn't comfortable trying to get into the PUG groups to kill Coren last year, but with the LFD tool this year, it's supremely easy to kill him daily. That completed my last requirement for this achievement, and got me my 90th mount, the 310% speed Violet Proto-Drake.
I also was able to get Brewmaster for Pallormortis, Bullkathos, and my soon to be 80's Banesidhe and Thrillkiller.
Doing the dailies netted me 5 tankards, a teleporter for Bullkathos and Bloodshrike, a dagger for Bull/Thrill/Blood/Pallor, a Kodo for Bull, and a Ram for Bull/Pallor....and Pallor again.
No luck for Bloodshrike. Random number generator iz random....
So on Demon Soul and Daggerspine, ALL toons now have either the Brewmaster title, or need to be high enough level to use the food/drink and kill Coren, and they'll have the title then. On Darrowmere, I'm just gonna wait until they're close enough to 78 to be able to kill Coren and get the one-time 40 token quest, then go from there. There's only 7 toons that I would have to do that with, so I'm happy to put it off.
Here's hoping I'll have better luck at Hallow's End.
Well, right around this time last year I was starting to get into the holiday achievements. After the fun of the Fire Festival, with 2 easy dailies that all my toons could do, I started doing the Brewfest dailies. Those are the actual opposite of fun, when doing them with a lot of alts. If you click on the brewfest label for this post, you can see how much time and effort I put into them last year.
This year? Meh. Gwyddion on Daggerspine racked up 200 tokens, and got the Brew of the Month membership. I didn't bother going to 350 tokens, because she already had the Disturbing the Peace achievement from last year. I had gotten to 350 tokens, got the clothes, gotten drunk, and was racing the clock back to Ironforge to turn the clothes in and get the membership. Unfortunately, she didn't make it.
But..........I was able to pick up a little something extra for my main Bloodshrike. I wasn't comfortable trying to get into the PUG groups to kill Coren last year, but with the LFD tool this year, it's supremely easy to kill him daily. That completed my last requirement for this achievement, and got me my 90th mount, the 310% speed Violet Proto-Drake.
I also was able to get Brewmaster for Pallormortis, Bullkathos, and my soon to be 80's Banesidhe and Thrillkiller.
Doing the dailies netted me 5 tankards, a teleporter for Bullkathos and Bloodshrike, a dagger for Bull/Thrill/Blood/Pallor, a Kodo for Bull, and a Ram for Bull/Pallor....and Pallor again.
No luck for Bloodshrike. Random number generator iz random....
So on Demon Soul and Daggerspine, ALL toons now have either the Brewmaster title, or need to be high enough level to use the food/drink and kill Coren, and they'll have the title then. On Darrowmere, I'm just gonna wait until they're close enough to 78 to be able to kill Coren and get the one-time 40 token quest, then go from there. There's only 7 toons that I would have to do that with, so I'm happy to put it off.
Here's hoping I'll have better luck at Hallow's End.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
My love affair with Engineering - Part 4
9/24/2010
Level 65-80 (376-450 engineering)
Bombs - Saronite Bombs, 'nuff said. You could use explosive rabbits, but you need to have the EMP device on your belt to set them off. Portable Nuke for Goblin engineers, but you'll want to use a shield spell/item with it to offset the damage. It does have the highest bomb damage in the game, though.
Goggles - You will want to make the Mechanized Snow Goggles at 65, which will automatically make the armor type you can wear (Cloth,leather,mail,plate). Enchant them with the 45 stamina Mind Control enchant, and replace them at 72 with your class type epic goggles, which are ilvl 200. These will last you until 80, and even will be useful until you've gotten all your other armor up to the 226-232 level.
Flying Mount - At level 70, you can build your own epic flying mount, but you have to go back to Shadowmoon Valley to learn the recipe.
Trinkets - Noise Machine and Sonic Booster can be very useful for a level 65 tank, as well as any other class. I've been playing around with having my paladin use 1 of each while going thru BC dungeons, and they seem to work out well. I'm not sure if I'd want to use the Noise Machine on a Warrior Tank, since it might interfere with rage generation. There's the Gnomish Lightning Generator trinket, and if you make 2, the crit will stack, but you can't activate them individually. Also, I've found that if you only equip 1, and have the other in your bank/bags, you can't fire the equipped one with a macro. Either make only 1, or never use them seperately.
BTW, Gnomes can equip any of the 3 trinkets at level 50, since they have a +15 racial engineering bonus, they can get up to 390 engineering.
Have a level 420+ engineer make 2 Noise Machines for your level 50 mage, equip your Xtreme Lite boots with Greater Fortitude, your belt, and your goggles of choice, and you'd have at least 173 spellpower and a buttload of stamina and other bonuses.
Self Portal - Wormhole Generator: Northrend is awesome. Not only is using the flight taxi expensive in Northrend, it takes forever to get from Dalaran to Borean Tundra to do the fishing daily there. Not with this, you drop from the sky right into the lake, and are easily able to complete the quest within minutes of accepting it.
Cloak Enchants - Melee and caster varieties, you probably won't even think of getting another enchant for your cloaks.
Glove enchants - Haste, armor, or long range attack to finish off a fleeing foe, your pick.
Do-it-yourself Rocket Boots - Nitro Boosts 24 critical strike rating and blazing speed, hell yes!
Mailbox on demand - MOLL-E If you ever think of going for the Insane in the Membrane achievement, you would kick yourself for not having engineering to be able to turn in multiple librams to the Shen'dralar. Also useful for mailing off stuff to an auction house alt when your bags get too full while farming.
Robot Butler - Jeeves is really nice while in a dungeon to sell your trash too on your 20th run thru Stratholme for the Baron's mount. Or, your tank threw a drama fit and left during a heroic? Pull out your tanking equipment from the bank, and show the rest of the PUG what you can do.
Resurrection - And so much more! The Army Knife is everything you need for your tradeskills, plus you can rez your healer if you survived a wipe.
Land Mount - It's a motorcycle, and it always makes you feel like you're going fast, especially when it shifts into second. C'mon!
I'm not going to discuss ammo, scopes, or ranged weapons, since they don't have very much of a profit margin now, and ammo will be going away with Cataclysm.
I hope that some will be inspired to look more closely at engineering, and not just at the few enchants, port, butler, mailbox, and mounts that are useful at level 80.
Level 65-80 (376-450 engineering)
Bombs - Saronite Bombs, 'nuff said. You could use explosive rabbits, but you need to have the EMP device on your belt to set them off. Portable Nuke for Goblin engineers, but you'll want to use a shield spell/item with it to offset the damage. It does have the highest bomb damage in the game, though.
Goggles - You will want to make the Mechanized Snow Goggles at 65, which will automatically make the armor type you can wear (Cloth,leather,mail,plate). Enchant them with the 45 stamina Mind Control enchant, and replace them at 72 with your class type epic goggles, which are ilvl 200. These will last you until 80, and even will be useful until you've gotten all your other armor up to the 226-232 level.
Flying Mount - At level 70, you can build your own epic flying mount, but you have to go back to Shadowmoon Valley to learn the recipe.
Trinkets - Noise Machine and Sonic Booster can be very useful for a level 65 tank, as well as any other class. I've been playing around with having my paladin use 1 of each while going thru BC dungeons, and they seem to work out well. I'm not sure if I'd want to use the Noise Machine on a Warrior Tank, since it might interfere with rage generation. There's the Gnomish Lightning Generator trinket, and if you make 2, the crit will stack, but you can't activate them individually. Also, I've found that if you only equip 1, and have the other in your bank/bags, you can't fire the equipped one with a macro. Either make only 1, or never use them seperately.
BTW, Gnomes can equip any of the 3 trinkets at level 50, since they have a +15 racial engineering bonus, they can get up to 390 engineering.
Have a level 420+ engineer make 2 Noise Machines for your level 50 mage, equip your Xtreme Lite boots with Greater Fortitude, your belt, and your goggles of choice, and you'd have at least 173 spellpower and a buttload of stamina and other bonuses.
Self Portal - Wormhole Generator: Northrend is awesome. Not only is using the flight taxi expensive in Northrend, it takes forever to get from Dalaran to Borean Tundra to do the fishing daily there. Not with this, you drop from the sky right into the lake, and are easily able to complete the quest within minutes of accepting it.
Cloak Enchants - Melee and caster varieties, you probably won't even think of getting another enchant for your cloaks.
Glove enchants - Haste, armor, or long range attack to finish off a fleeing foe, your pick.
Do-it-yourself Rocket Boots - Nitro Boosts 24 critical strike rating and blazing speed, hell yes!
Mailbox on demand - MOLL-E If you ever think of going for the Insane in the Membrane achievement, you would kick yourself for not having engineering to be able to turn in multiple librams to the Shen'dralar. Also useful for mailing off stuff to an auction house alt when your bags get too full while farming.
Robot Butler - Jeeves is really nice while in a dungeon to sell your trash too on your 20th run thru Stratholme for the Baron's mount. Or, your tank threw a drama fit and left during a heroic? Pull out your tanking equipment from the bank, and show the rest of the PUG what you can do.
Resurrection - And so much more! The Army Knife is everything you need for your tradeskills, plus you can rez your healer if you survived a wipe.
Land Mount - It's a motorcycle, and it always makes you feel like you're going fast, especially when it shifts into second. C'mon!
I'm not going to discuss ammo, scopes, or ranged weapons, since they don't have very much of a profit margin now, and ammo will be going away with Cataclysm.
I hope that some will be inspired to look more closely at engineering, and not just at the few enchants, port, butler, mailbox, and mounts that are useful at level 80.
My love affair with Engineering - Part 3
9/22/2010
Level 50-64 items of note. (level 300-375 engineering)
Bombs such as Fel Iron Bomb, Adamantite Grenade, and Cobalt Frag Bomb (which is made at 350 engineering, and already is a WOTLK recipe) will be made while leveling up, but once you've burned through those, and are heading into Outlands, you'll want Saronite Bombs. The Box of Bombs recipe is learned at 405 engineering, but you only need 350 engineering to use them! Look for them in the AH, and buy them when they're a good price, or pay a max level engineer to make some for you.
Goggles are also back in fashion. Now, you could go with Cogspinner Goggles, and hope you get some good stats on the helm. Or you could go for Power Amplification Goggles, which are decent for casters, with no hoping and praying needed. You could wait for level 62 to make and use your class specific helm, but you'll probably be replacing that at level 65 with your cloth/leather/mail/plate version of the Snow Goggles, which usually have pretty nice stats on their random enchants. It's pretty much of a waste of Khorium Bars to make the BC class goggles now, so I don't recommend it. What I DO recommend is the Ultra-Spectropic Detection Goggles, which, while cloth, have a mix of stats that will appeal to any class. Either do the Libram of Constitution quest for more health, or have a level 60 add a Heavy Knothide Armor Kit to your BOE goggles before you equip them. Hint, go for the heavy knothide!! The 10 stamina will multiply with Blessing of Kings, but 100 health won't.
Goblin Engineers will want at least 1 Rocket Launcher, 2 if they're tanks.
Gnomish Engineers would want the Poultryizer, 2 if they're tanks.
Self Portals - Area 52 Ripper for Goblins, Toshley's Teleporter for Gnomish.
Paladin/Warrior Tanks - When you step in Outland dungeons, a Force Reactive Disk on your arm can help you make sure that you stay on top of the threat list, even despite those newly minted DK's doing their best to wipe the run.
Mount - At level 60, you can learn and make your Flying Machine, one of the few profession created flying mounts.
Money Maker - Are you tired of constantly dumping gold into the engineering profession, with nothing to show for it other than being overpowered at your level? The Mote Extractor will start filling your pockets with gold once you hit Zangarmarsh and go thru the quest to learn it. Especially useful in Nagrand for the Windy Clouds, which drop Motes of Air, since Primal Air is usually the most expensive Primal. It continues being useful in Northrend too, with plenty of clouds in Sholozar, Wintergrasp, and other areas to give you free Crystallized elements.
Bubble Belt - Finally, an upgrade for your Gnomish Harm Prevention Belt. The Nigh Invulnerabilty Belt can be equipped at level 50, yet its ilevel is high enough that you could socket it with a belt buckle at level 70.
Xtremely Overpowered Boots - The Xtreme boots for melee toons, and the Xtreme Lite boots for casters. These are yet another engineering item that can accept enchants of a higher level, which would be WOTLK enchants like Icewalker and Greater Fortitude. I know for a fact that they'll take those 2, and they'll probably take Tuskarr's and Greater Assault.
Level 50-64 items of note. (level 300-375 engineering)
Bombs such as Fel Iron Bomb, Adamantite Grenade, and Cobalt Frag Bomb (which is made at 350 engineering, and already is a WOTLK recipe) will be made while leveling up, but once you've burned through those, and are heading into Outlands, you'll want Saronite Bombs. The Box of Bombs recipe is learned at 405 engineering, but you only need 350 engineering to use them! Look for them in the AH, and buy them when they're a good price, or pay a max level engineer to make some for you.
Goggles are also back in fashion. Now, you could go with Cogspinner Goggles, and hope you get some good stats on the helm. Or you could go for Power Amplification Goggles, which are decent for casters, with no hoping and praying needed. You could wait for level 62 to make and use your class specific helm, but you'll probably be replacing that at level 65 with your cloth/leather/mail/plate version of the Snow Goggles, which usually have pretty nice stats on their random enchants. It's pretty much of a waste of Khorium Bars to make the BC class goggles now, so I don't recommend it. What I DO recommend is the Ultra-Spectropic Detection Goggles, which, while cloth, have a mix of stats that will appeal to any class. Either do the Libram of Constitution quest for more health, or have a level 60 add a Heavy Knothide Armor Kit to your BOE goggles before you equip them. Hint, go for the heavy knothide!! The 10 stamina will multiply with Blessing of Kings, but 100 health won't.
Goblin Engineers will want at least 1 Rocket Launcher, 2 if they're tanks.
Gnomish Engineers would want the Poultryizer, 2 if they're tanks.
Self Portals - Area 52 Ripper for Goblins, Toshley's Teleporter for Gnomish.
Paladin/Warrior Tanks - When you step in Outland dungeons, a Force Reactive Disk on your arm can help you make sure that you stay on top of the threat list, even despite those newly minted DK's doing their best to wipe the run.
Mount - At level 60, you can learn and make your Flying Machine, one of the few profession created flying mounts.
Money Maker - Are you tired of constantly dumping gold into the engineering profession, with nothing to show for it other than being overpowered at your level? The Mote Extractor will start filling your pockets with gold once you hit Zangarmarsh and go thru the quest to learn it. Especially useful in Nagrand for the Windy Clouds, which drop Motes of Air, since Primal Air is usually the most expensive Primal. It continues being useful in Northrend too, with plenty of clouds in Sholozar, Wintergrasp, and other areas to give you free Crystallized elements.
Bubble Belt - Finally, an upgrade for your Gnomish Harm Prevention Belt. The Nigh Invulnerabilty Belt can be equipped at level 50, yet its ilevel is high enough that you could socket it with a belt buckle at level 70.
Xtremely Overpowered Boots - The Xtreme boots for melee toons, and the Xtreme Lite boots for casters. These are yet another engineering item that can accept enchants of a higher level, which would be WOTLK enchants like Icewalker and Greater Fortitude. I know for a fact that they'll take those 2, and they'll probably take Tuskarr's and Greater Assault.
My love affair with Engineering - Part 2
9/21/2010
On to the level 35-49 range! (level 225-300 engineering)
Even more powerful bombs are available, though I only list the ones I usually use, since the others are to costly for my tastes. Dense Dynamite at level 250, and Fel Iron Bomb at 300. I never actually make Fel Iron bombs at this level though, since I hate not getting skill points. I usually just shuffle them from my level 50+ toons, since they make them to advance their engineering at that level.
Not much in the goggle department in this range, since you'll have started to get stats on your helm drops by now.
More class borrowing though.
Resurrection - Goblin Jumper Cables XL have a much higher chance of working. /yell "Live, dammit!" when you're gonna shock someone.
Underwater Breathing - Don't have a shaman/warlock with you? Don't feel like stocking breathing potions from an alchemist? Just pop on your Deepdive Helmet when you're running low on air, then switch back.
More Attack Pets - The chicken, walking bomb, and two dragonlings become available in this range, though you'll have to be level 40 and 50 for the dragonlings, goblin engineer for the bomb, and a gnomish engineer for the chicken. Also, unlike before, they've been severely nerfed. They used to scale in level with your engineering level, meaning that you could have a guardian pet that was a lot higher in level then you were. Plus, if you are a dedicated engineer, at level 50 you'll be crafting Burning Crusade trinkets, making the Arcanite Dragonling unnecessary.
Mind Control - Mind Control, not just for priests! Tricky to use though, the one time I tried it I couldn't get out of combat, and kept getting swarmed by mobs.
Death Ray - The signature attack of the new Cataclysm hero class, the Combat Engineer! Seriously though, if you use this during the 35-49 range, it will help a lot. You really need to couple it with the bubble belt/paladin bubble/Mana shield/Void Walker Sacrifice/Power Word: Shield to get the most use out of it though, since it will hurt you severely while charging otherwise. This is one of the reasons that all of my engineers go Gnomish except paladins, and even they go gnomish first to get this and the chicken, then go Goblin after. And this was when you had to drop engineering to switch specializations too. And go uphill to school, in the snow, both ways......
Self Portals - Before the portal in Dalaran was available to drop you in front of the Caverns of Time, you had a long flight from TB or Org to get to Tanaris, and an even longer one from Darnassus. The Gnomish Gadgetzan teleporter and the Goblin Everlook Ripper give level 260 engineers a time saving device that they can use every 4 hours. Just remember, keep fire extinguishers and healing spells handy when going to Winterspring, and keep your parachute on when going to Tanaris. Accidents can and will happen. Also, be prepared to /yell "You no take candle!!!" when tranformed into a kobold in the teleport chamber.
Other fun gadgets - High Powered Flashlight, Goblin Rocket Helmet, and the Gnomish World Enlarger.
On to the level 35-49 range! (level 225-300 engineering)
Even more powerful bombs are available, though I only list the ones I usually use, since the others are to costly for my tastes. Dense Dynamite at level 250, and Fel Iron Bomb at 300. I never actually make Fel Iron bombs at this level though, since I hate not getting skill points. I usually just shuffle them from my level 50+ toons, since they make them to advance their engineering at that level.
Not much in the goggle department in this range, since you'll have started to get stats on your helm drops by now.
More class borrowing though.
Resurrection - Goblin Jumper Cables XL have a much higher chance of working. /yell "Live, dammit!" when you're gonna shock someone.
Underwater Breathing - Don't have a shaman/warlock with you? Don't feel like stocking breathing potions from an alchemist? Just pop on your Deepdive Helmet when you're running low on air, then switch back.
More Attack Pets - The chicken, walking bomb, and two dragonlings become available in this range, though you'll have to be level 40 and 50 for the dragonlings, goblin engineer for the bomb, and a gnomish engineer for the chicken. Also, unlike before, they've been severely nerfed. They used to scale in level with your engineering level, meaning that you could have a guardian pet that was a lot higher in level then you were. Plus, if you are a dedicated engineer, at level 50 you'll be crafting Burning Crusade trinkets, making the Arcanite Dragonling unnecessary.
Mind Control - Mind Control, not just for priests! Tricky to use though, the one time I tried it I couldn't get out of combat, and kept getting swarmed by mobs.
Death Ray - The signature attack of the new Cataclysm hero class, the Combat Engineer! Seriously though, if you use this during the 35-49 range, it will help a lot. You really need to couple it with the bubble belt/paladin bubble/Mana shield/Void Walker Sacrifice/Power Word: Shield to get the most use out of it though, since it will hurt you severely while charging otherwise. This is one of the reasons that all of my engineers go Gnomish except paladins, and even they go gnomish first to get this and the chicken, then go Goblin after. And this was when you had to drop engineering to switch specializations too. And go uphill to school, in the snow, both ways......
Self Portals - Before the portal in Dalaran was available to drop you in front of the Caverns of Time, you had a long flight from TB or Org to get to Tanaris, and an even longer one from Darnassus. The Gnomish Gadgetzan teleporter and the Goblin Everlook Ripper give level 260 engineers a time saving device that they can use every 4 hours. Just remember, keep fire extinguishers and healing spells handy when going to Winterspring, and keep your parachute on when going to Tanaris. Accidents can and will happen. Also, be prepared to /yell "You no take candle!!!" when tranformed into a kobold in the teleport chamber.
Other fun gadgets - High Powered Flashlight, Goblin Rocket Helmet, and the Gnomish World Enlarger.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
My love affair with Engineering - Part 1
9/11/2010
Ever since my warlock Bonescourge on Demon Soul picked up engineering, I have been in love with that profession. Why, do you ask?
The sheer versatility it grants you, of course! Let's face it, the other professions have a rising curve of items that you can use, so it's better to leave off leveling them until you are at the level of the items that you can equip.
In contrast, there's actually a decline on how useful engineering can be to a toon, which starts at each level cap that you can advance the profession. Level 5,10,20,35,50,65.....at each of these levels, you want to max out the profession in order to make the most use of the items you can get.
I'm not going to discuss the level 5-10 gap, since you probably wouldn't even visit a capitol city yet. However, at level 10, you can powerlevel engineering up to 150 which gives you access to three different goggles, the stats of which would normally not be gotten until the late 20's. You also have a limited time portable tank in the target dummy, which does what a tank is supposed to do, by attracting monsters and allowing you to dps without the mobs beating on you. You also have some AOE bombs, which probably do a lot more damage then you would be able to crank out at that level.
Moving on to level 20-34 (level 150-225 engineering). A few more goggles become available at this cap, though I've never made the Craftman's Monocle. Melee toons go with the Bright-Eye Goggles, casters go with Spellpower.
More AOE bombs, with Solid Dynamite and Goblin Land Mine being the top contenders.
And now, we start really getting into borrowing from other classes spells, with major cooldowns.
Resurrection - Goblin Jumper Cables
Combat pets (like hunter and warlock pets) - Reaper and Dragonling. Unfortunately, the Reaper does kinda suck, but every little bit of damage helps, and you can get most of the mats back when he self-destructs.
Vanish - Gnomish Cloaking Device. I've used this on my level 20 paladin to get past the elites in Winterspring Gorge, to get to the demon vendor who sells gromsblood and felcloth.
Paladin Bubble - If you've gotten a toon to level 30 and picked Gnomish Engineering, you could make the bubble belt for any class that can at least wear leather. Going up against an elite or doing some PvP? Extend your life by popping this when you get low on health.
Druid Root - Gnomish Net-o-Matic Projector could be useful by rooting 1 elite in place while you beat on the other one. Again, have a Gnomish Engineer make it for you.
Dash/Sprint - 2 boots, the Gnomish and Goblin Rocket Boots. I highly advise using the Gnomish ones, since the Goblin ones can explode permanently.
Perception (human racial talent) - Keep getting ganked by an annoying rogue or druid? Catseye Goggles will boost your ability to see stealthed toons, cutting their advantage decisively. The only problem is the lack of stats on the goggles, meaning that you'll be killed at least once before you think to put them on.
Slow Fall/Levitate - Parachute Cloak is a must for any non mage/priest engineer. Since it's ilvl 45, it will accept the +12 agility to cloak enchant, unlike any other cloak under level 35. With 20 agility on my cloak, I usually end up keeping this equipped until level 65, when you can max out engineering to 450, and get the tinkering parachute enchant. For casters, you can just put +50 armor on it, and that's fine too.
This is the first item that is able to take higher level enchants, but it's certainly not the last.
Ever since my warlock Bonescourge on Demon Soul picked up engineering, I have been in love with that profession. Why, do you ask?
The sheer versatility it grants you, of course! Let's face it, the other professions have a rising curve of items that you can use, so it's better to leave off leveling them until you are at the level of the items that you can equip.
In contrast, there's actually a decline on how useful engineering can be to a toon, which starts at each level cap that you can advance the profession. Level 5,10,20,35,50,65.....at each of these levels, you want to max out the profession in order to make the most use of the items you can get.
I'm not going to discuss the level 5-10 gap, since you probably wouldn't even visit a capitol city yet. However, at level 10, you can powerlevel engineering up to 150 which gives you access to three different goggles, the stats of which would normally not be gotten until the late 20's. You also have a limited time portable tank in the target dummy, which does what a tank is supposed to do, by attracting monsters and allowing you to dps without the mobs beating on you. You also have some AOE bombs, which probably do a lot more damage then you would be able to crank out at that level.
Moving on to level 20-34 (level 150-225 engineering). A few more goggles become available at this cap, though I've never made the Craftman's Monocle. Melee toons go with the Bright-Eye Goggles, casters go with Spellpower.
More AOE bombs, with Solid Dynamite and Goblin Land Mine being the top contenders.
And now, we start really getting into borrowing from other classes spells, with major cooldowns.
Resurrection - Goblin Jumper Cables
Combat pets (like hunter and warlock pets) - Reaper and Dragonling. Unfortunately, the Reaper does kinda suck, but every little bit of damage helps, and you can get most of the mats back when he self-destructs.
Vanish - Gnomish Cloaking Device. I've used this on my level 20 paladin to get past the elites in Winterspring Gorge, to get to the demon vendor who sells gromsblood and felcloth.
Paladin Bubble - If you've gotten a toon to level 30 and picked Gnomish Engineering, you could make the bubble belt for any class that can at least wear leather. Going up against an elite or doing some PvP? Extend your life by popping this when you get low on health.
Druid Root - Gnomish Net-o-Matic Projector could be useful by rooting 1 elite in place while you beat on the other one. Again, have a Gnomish Engineer make it for you.
Dash/Sprint - 2 boots, the Gnomish and Goblin Rocket Boots. I highly advise using the Gnomish ones, since the Goblin ones can explode permanently.
Perception (human racial talent) - Keep getting ganked by an annoying rogue or druid? Catseye Goggles will boost your ability to see stealthed toons, cutting their advantage decisively. The only problem is the lack of stats on the goggles, meaning that you'll be killed at least once before you think to put them on.
Slow Fall/Levitate - Parachute Cloak is a must for any non mage/priest engineer. Since it's ilvl 45, it will accept the +12 agility to cloak enchant, unlike any other cloak under level 35. With 20 agility on my cloak, I usually end up keeping this equipped until level 65, when you can max out engineering to 450, and get the tinkering parachute enchant. For casters, you can just put +50 armor on it, and that's fine too.
This is the first item that is able to take higher level enchants, but it's certainly not the last.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
The most useful pet in the game
8/25/2010
Hey, only one month since my last post!
I've actually been mulling over a few topics, but one of them leapt to the front of my brain tonight.
The most useful pet you can get is.......a Death Knight of the opposite faction!
If you're stuck trying to get reputation from rarely visited areas like Hellfire Peninsula (Thrallmar/Honor Hold rep) or Nagrand (Mag'har or Kurenai rep), they can really help you out. Now, I realize that you can just grind rep by killing ogres, but if you want Halaa Battle Tokens, you're usually outta luck. And why would you want those Battle Tokens? The two Talbuks that you can buy, of course! If you're going for the Mountain o' Mounts achievement, every little bit helps. I'm currently at 89/100, and getting those plus the 8 Talbuks from exalted with the Mag'har would definitely come in handy. So, do the daily PvP quest in Nagrand, and after 17 days, you'd have 8500 rep extra, plus 170 tokens.
Here's the catch, though. You gotta be around the same level as the DK. They have to be at least green to you, so they give you honor for kills. No honor, no tokens. So, the only way I'd be able to get those mounts for my main Bloodshrike would be to get my friend to level up his DK to whatever level gets him to be green to an 80. I'm not sure that's gonna happen anytime soon.....
If you've blown past Outlands, you really have to kiss those mounts goodbye, because it's gonna be extremely hard to find a level 80 cruising around Nagrand, that's also landed around the outskirts of Halaa, and the chance of you killing them 170 times is slim to none.
You could still kill your pet DK to get the daily quest done, for an easy 500 rep with the Mag'har, but you won't get the tokens unless they're green to you.
In contrast, Thrallmar rep can still be earned fairly easily playing solo, in 2 ways. One, with the daily pvp quest. Two, you can solo Shattered Halls at 80 for the rep needed to level from honored to exalted, since rep from Ramparts and Blood Furnace stops at 5999/6000 Honored, and you can't earn any more from mobs until level 68, and have access to Shattered Halls. But guess what, at level 68 you can go to Northrend, and so nobody runs those dungeons anymore.
Here's where the rules get fuzzy. Any level player can kill a player of the opposing faction when in the three stadiums, and still recieve a Mark. Turn those marks in 5 at a time, and get a rep boost buff. Now, if you manage to get a rep run with other players, or do it solo, you're getting more reputation per mob than normal.
Getting those marks is also pretty sweet for a toon that just hit Outlands, too. My paladin Clockwrknyt was able to get her first Libram and a sweet trinket that should help her with tanking. Mana AND life back, without having to use judgements or seals!
She earned the marks with a combination of the daily PvP quest, which gives you 3 tokens, and also laying the smack down on my pet DK, one kill at a time.
The reason that this came to mind was because of an encounter I had while doing the daily pvp quest for the tokens and rep. My pet DK was standing outside one of the stadiums, waiting for Bloodshrike to fly over, whereupon he would go inside, tip the balance to neutral, and let Bloodshrike recapture it. A level 80 Blood Elf DK swoops down, and slaughters him. I whispered to him to please leave him alone, as I was using him to do the daily. Not only did he try to camp the DK's corpse, he also squatted on the stadium, pushing the balance all the way over to max Horde side. He also pretended to speak french when I asked him to stop it.
When I armoried him, I just had to laugh. Apparently, he liked the starting Relic and trinket so much, he kept using them. He also seems to be unsure of whether to PvP, tank, or DPS, based on his gear and gemming. I truly understand the term "faceroller" after dealing with this illustrious gentleman.
Hey, only one month since my last post!
I've actually been mulling over a few topics, but one of them leapt to the front of my brain tonight.
The most useful pet you can get is.......a Death Knight of the opposite faction!
If you're stuck trying to get reputation from rarely visited areas like Hellfire Peninsula (Thrallmar/Honor Hold rep) or Nagrand (Mag'har or Kurenai rep), they can really help you out. Now, I realize that you can just grind rep by killing ogres, but if you want Halaa Battle Tokens, you're usually outta luck. And why would you want those Battle Tokens? The two Talbuks that you can buy, of course! If you're going for the Mountain o' Mounts achievement, every little bit helps. I'm currently at 89/100, and getting those plus the 8 Talbuks from exalted with the Mag'har would definitely come in handy. So, do the daily PvP quest in Nagrand, and after 17 days, you'd have 8500 rep extra, plus 170 tokens.
Here's the catch, though. You gotta be around the same level as the DK. They have to be at least green to you, so they give you honor for kills. No honor, no tokens. So, the only way I'd be able to get those mounts for my main Bloodshrike would be to get my friend to level up his DK to whatever level gets him to be green to an 80. I'm not sure that's gonna happen anytime soon.....
If you've blown past Outlands, you really have to kiss those mounts goodbye, because it's gonna be extremely hard to find a level 80 cruising around Nagrand, that's also landed around the outskirts of Halaa, and the chance of you killing them 170 times is slim to none.
You could still kill your pet DK to get the daily quest done, for an easy 500 rep with the Mag'har, but you won't get the tokens unless they're green to you.
In contrast, Thrallmar rep can still be earned fairly easily playing solo, in 2 ways. One, with the daily pvp quest. Two, you can solo Shattered Halls at 80 for the rep needed to level from honored to exalted, since rep from Ramparts and Blood Furnace stops at 5999/6000 Honored, and you can't earn any more from mobs until level 68, and have access to Shattered Halls. But guess what, at level 68 you can go to Northrend, and so nobody runs those dungeons anymore.
Here's where the rules get fuzzy. Any level player can kill a player of the opposing faction when in the three stadiums, and still recieve a Mark. Turn those marks in 5 at a time, and get a rep boost buff. Now, if you manage to get a rep run with other players, or do it solo, you're getting more reputation per mob than normal.
Getting those marks is also pretty sweet for a toon that just hit Outlands, too. My paladin Clockwrknyt was able to get her first Libram and a sweet trinket that should help her with tanking. Mana AND life back, without having to use judgements or seals!
She earned the marks with a combination of the daily PvP quest, which gives you 3 tokens, and also laying the smack down on my pet DK, one kill at a time.
The reason that this came to mind was because of an encounter I had while doing the daily pvp quest for the tokens and rep. My pet DK was standing outside one of the stadiums, waiting for Bloodshrike to fly over, whereupon he would go inside, tip the balance to neutral, and let Bloodshrike recapture it. A level 80 Blood Elf DK swoops down, and slaughters him. I whispered to him to please leave him alone, as I was using him to do the daily. Not only did he try to camp the DK's corpse, he also squatted on the stadium, pushing the balance all the way over to max Horde side. He also pretended to speak french when I asked him to stop it.
When I armoried him, I just had to laugh. Apparently, he liked the starting Relic and trinket so much, he kept using them. He also seems to be unsure of whether to PvP, tank, or DPS, based on his gear and gemming. I truly understand the term "faceroller" after dealing with this illustrious gentleman.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
2 months since my last post
7/20/2010
....and I don't know why. I just really would rather play the game then talk about it, I guess. But, WoW is down for maintenance, and extended maintenance on Demon Soul, where all my mains are, for the entire day, so now's a good time.
I didn't post anything about the Midsummer Fire festival, kinda because I was bummed I didn't get the Frigid Frostling, even though I ran it every day of the festival.
Here's a quick recap of my toons leveling during the Festival. Keep in mind that most of the leveling was just off the 2 dailies, the Torch Tossing and Catching. Those reward basically the max xp of a quest at that toons level, which is generally enough for at least a bubble's worth on your xp bar. Only the toons that were around level 70 did the Ice Lord lieutenant killing, since it was easy to take a portal from Dalaran to Thunder Bluff, do the dailies and get the Striking Back quest, take the portal there to Blasted Lands, go thru the Dark Portal, kill the Glacial Templar, then hearth back to Dalaran.
6/21 Start of Midsummer Fire Festival.
Demon Soul
Bloodshrike - 80
Bullkathos - 73
Thrillkiller - 68
Bonescourge - 53
Banesidhe - 72 (and dinged 73 that day)
Kukoshakaku - 51
Clockwrknyt - 58
Burizadokyanon - 41
Morticide - 34
Pallormortis - 80
Daggerspine
Clockwrkmage - 60
Preyonyou - 37
Tsuris - 52
Aosdanasaoi - 50
Hangfire - 42
Panzergishi - 49
Kishigishi - 49 (got 50 off dailies)
Ryoushigishi - 52
Gwiddonyn - 46
Doomslinger - 38 (dinged 39 on dailies)
Darrowmere
Bloodshrike - 49
Clockwrkmage - 31
Psilentkill - 36 (dinged 37)
Didactylos - 27
Gavelofpain - 29
Wartraveler - 28
Misericorde - 30
Ghostflame - 25
Gimmershred - 29
Annihilus - 26
6/22 - (Darrowmere) Clockwrkmage->32, Gavelofpain->30, Misericorde->31
6/23 - (Daggerspine) Gwiddonyn->47
6/24 - (Demon Soul) Clockwrknyt->59
(Daggerspine) Preyonyou->38, Hangfire->43, Gwiddonyn->48
(Darrowmere) Wartraveler->29, Gimmershred->30
6/25 - (Demon Soul) Bonescourge->54, Morticide->35
6/26 - (Demon Soul) Thrillkiller->69
(Daggerspine) Tsuris->53, Kishigishi->51
(Darrowmere) Didactylos->28
6/27 - (Demon Soul) Kukoshakaku->52
(Daggerspine) Aosdanasaoi->51
6/28 - (Demon Soul) Thrillkiller->70, Burizadokyanon->43
(Daggerspine) Panzergishi->50
(Darrowmere) Ghostflame->26
6/29 - Nobody dinged
6/30 - (Daggerspine) Gwiddonyn->49, Doomslinger->40
(Darrowmere) Bloodshrike->50
7/1 - (Daggerspine) Ryoushigishi->53
(Darrowmere) Clockwrkmage->33, Psilentkill->38, Gavelofpain->31
7/2 - (Demon Soul) Morticide->36
(Daggerspine) Preyonyou->39
(Darrowmere) Bloodshrike->51, Misericorde->32
7/3 (Demon Soul) Bullkathos->75, Bonescourge->55, Clockwrknyt->60, Burizadokyan->44, Morticide->37-38-39 (yeah, he put out a lot of torches that day)
(Daggerspine) Clockwrkmage->62
7/4 (Demon Soul) Clockwrknyt->61
So, most of my toons got at least 1-2 levels during these 2 weeks of leveling, with the star being Morticide, bouncing up 5 levels. I could have done more if I had everyone do the torches in each zone, but that takes about 4-5 hours each, with all the flying and traveling you have to do. Since this was added to my daily regimen of Bloodshrike and Pallormortis' Frost Badge dungeons and Argent Tournament dailies, plus Bloodshrike/Pallor/Bane/Thrill/Bull doing the Dalaran Fishing and Cooking dailies.....I'm happy with what I did. The Midsummer Fire Festival is definitely my favorite holiday for leveling.
....and I don't know why. I just really would rather play the game then talk about it, I guess. But, WoW is down for maintenance, and extended maintenance on Demon Soul, where all my mains are, for the entire day, so now's a good time.
I didn't post anything about the Midsummer Fire festival, kinda because I was bummed I didn't get the Frigid Frostling, even though I ran it every day of the festival.
Here's a quick recap of my toons leveling during the Festival. Keep in mind that most of the leveling was just off the 2 dailies, the Torch Tossing and Catching. Those reward basically the max xp of a quest at that toons level, which is generally enough for at least a bubble's worth on your xp bar. Only the toons that were around level 70 did the Ice Lord lieutenant killing, since it was easy to take a portal from Dalaran to Thunder Bluff, do the dailies and get the Striking Back quest, take the portal there to Blasted Lands, go thru the Dark Portal, kill the Glacial Templar, then hearth back to Dalaran.
6/21 Start of Midsummer Fire Festival.
Demon Soul
Bloodshrike - 80
Bullkathos - 73
Thrillkiller - 68
Bonescourge - 53
Banesidhe - 72 (and dinged 73 that day)
Kukoshakaku - 51
Clockwrknyt - 58
Burizadokyanon - 41
Morticide - 34
Pallormortis - 80
Daggerspine
Clockwrkmage - 60
Preyonyou - 37
Tsuris - 52
Aosdanasaoi - 50
Hangfire - 42
Panzergishi - 49
Kishigishi - 49 (got 50 off dailies)
Ryoushigishi - 52
Gwiddonyn - 46
Doomslinger - 38 (dinged 39 on dailies)
Darrowmere
Bloodshrike - 49
Clockwrkmage - 31
Psilentkill - 36 (dinged 37)
Didactylos - 27
Gavelofpain - 29
Wartraveler - 28
Misericorde - 30
Ghostflame - 25
Gimmershred - 29
Annihilus - 26
6/22 - (Darrowmere) Clockwrkmage->32, Gavelofpain->30, Misericorde->31
6/23 - (Daggerspine) Gwiddonyn->47
6/24 - (Demon Soul) Clockwrknyt->59
(Daggerspine) Preyonyou->38, Hangfire->43, Gwiddonyn->48
(Darrowmere) Wartraveler->29, Gimmershred->30
6/25 - (Demon Soul) Bonescourge->54, Morticide->35
6/26 - (Demon Soul) Thrillkiller->69
(Daggerspine) Tsuris->53, Kishigishi->51
(Darrowmere) Didactylos->28
6/27 - (Demon Soul) Kukoshakaku->52
(Daggerspine) Aosdanasaoi->51
6/28 - (Demon Soul) Thrillkiller->70, Burizadokyanon->43
(Daggerspine) Panzergishi->50
(Darrowmere) Ghostflame->26
6/29 - Nobody dinged
6/30 - (Daggerspine) Gwiddonyn->49, Doomslinger->40
(Darrowmere) Bloodshrike->50
7/1 - (Daggerspine) Ryoushigishi->53
(Darrowmere) Clockwrkmage->33, Psilentkill->38, Gavelofpain->31
7/2 - (Demon Soul) Morticide->36
(Daggerspine) Preyonyou->39
(Darrowmere) Bloodshrike->51, Misericorde->32
7/3 (Demon Soul) Bullkathos->75, Bonescourge->55, Clockwrknyt->60, Burizadokyan->44, Morticide->37-38-39 (yeah, he put out a lot of torches that day
(Daggerspine) Clockwrkmage->62
7/4 (Demon Soul) Clockwrknyt->61
So, most of my toons got at least 1-2 levels during these 2 weeks of leveling, with the star being Morticide, bouncing up 5 levels. I could have done more if I had everyone do the torches in each zone, but that takes about 4-5 hours each, with all the flying and traveling you have to do. Since this was added to my daily regimen of Bloodshrike and Pallormortis' Frost Badge dungeons and Argent Tournament dailies, plus Bloodshrike/Pallor/Bane/Thrill/Bull doing the Dalaran Fishing and Cooking dailies.....I'm happy with what I did. The Midsummer Fire Festival is definitely my favorite holiday for leveling.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
ur doeing it rong, lol!
5/22/2010
Urrgghh....just seeing that on the screen makes you cringe, doesn't it? That means that someone is about to drop a pearl of wisdom on you, swiftly summarizing your playstyle as bad, because it's not done according to what they're used to.
I just finished doing heroic TOC for the 54th time, just gathering my daily 3 Champion Seals for the last mount I need from the Argent Tournament. The first tank dropped out after the first wipe, we kicked the healer after the second wipe since he wasn't really doing a great job of healing, and after the 3rd wipe and subsequent victory over Lady Paletress, the new tank commented that the dps was terrible. Then, he started blaming me! He said, "Oh, Beastmaster. You should go Survival, you'd do 4k dps easily. And your weapons are wrong too, even Marrowstrike (which had just dropped) would be better."
I currently have Blood Weeper and Nighttime equipped, with 65 AP on both of them. Here's my armory link.
But, excuse me? I was tops dps of the group! My pet gorilla was doing about the same dps as the rogue. Just because I had 5k GS, that means that I should carry the whole group? It seems that PUG's tend to rely on the fact that people with higher equipment are still forced to run heroics to get emblems or seals, so they feel comfortable showing up in sub-par gear, confident that they'll still get carried thru the instance.
As Beastmaster, with my pets damage added to mine (Diznizzia is my pet), I was doing about 3300 dps. Plus, I was using Misdirect as much as possible so that the tank could do their job without worrying about someone like me pulling aggro. The rogue was at 3300 GS, the DK was probably 4400. And yet I'm supposed to "know my roll?"
I might change my second spec from Marksman (since I've never used it) to Survival, but that's just because I want to try it out. I brought sufficient firepower to the instance to justify my being in it. The others should do the same.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
In Soviet Russia, mounts pay you!
5/18/2010
Yakov Smirnoff
Unlike most rep grind mounts, the Argent Tournament Champion Seal mounts pay for themselves, many times over. I'm currently at about 81 mounts (I think), on my way to the 100 mount achievement, and only have the troll 100 seal mount left.
Let's look at what getting ALL the mounts entails.
Each capitol city faction quartermaster offers 2 mounts, one for 100 seals, the other for 5 seals and 500g. All of them (Horde and Alliance) also sell the Argent Hippogryph flying mount for 150 seals.
11 mounts for 2500 gold, 675 seals
Sunreaver or Silver Covenant - 1 land mount 100 seals, 1 flying mount 150 seals.
2 mounts for 250 seals.
Argent Quartermaster Dame Evniki Kapsalis sells the Argent Warhorse for 100 seals to any class, and the Argent Charger to paladins.
1 mount for 100 seals (100 seals more for a paladin)
Grand total: 2500 gold, 14 mounts (for most classes), and 675 + 250 + 100 = 1025 seals required.
Add the teleport Tabard, and if your toon isn't an engineer, you might want the mailbox/vendor/bank option that the Pony Bridle offers, for an extra 150 seals.
Tabard and bridle = 200 seals.
I've already bought the tabard, and since I already have Jeeves, I'm very doubtful I'll go for the bridle, even though it does give you an achievement. Why not? Urggghhh, I am very, very, verrrrry tired of doing those AT dailies. Yes, it's a nice amount of gold, but it's a time-sucker, when I want to be working on other toons.
Let's break down how long it takes to earn 1025 seals, using only the dailies, once you're exalted with Argent Tournament.
3 seals + 3x(13.23 gold)= 39.69 gold from Sunreavers or Silver Covenant tent NPC's.
7 seals from the Argent Tournament tent. 6 quests, but 7 seals since TFA gives 2 seals. These quests also reward 6x(13.23)= 78.78 gold + 40 gold from the grab bag = 118.78 gold, plus the chance of extra Champion seals dropping occasionally from the bag.
So, 9 Daily quests, 118.78 gold, 10 seals per day. Let's also toss in the Heroic Trial of the Champion for an extra 3 seals, bringing us up to about 13 seals per day, give or take. I usually specifically do heroic TOC first, while doing quests, then do my random for Frost badges after that. Sometimes, you get TOC as the random, so you could have 16 seals that day.
1025/13 = 79 days. Well, really, 1075/13= 83 days, since you're definitely going to want to get the tabard to minimize travel time to the tournament grounds as much as possible. This is assuming you do all the dailies plus TOC every day, 7 days a week. Assuming you do this, 83 days times 118.78 = 9,858.74 gold. That's a profit of almost 7,400 gold, even after you pay for the 500 gold mounts.
So if you ever see a level 80 whining about gold, tell them to go buy all the Argent Tournament mounts. They won't have to worry about gold for a long time after that.
Yakov Smirnoff
Unlike most rep grind mounts, the Argent Tournament Champion Seal mounts pay for themselves, many times over. I'm currently at about 81 mounts (I think), on my way to the 100 mount achievement, and only have the troll 100 seal mount left.
Let's look at what getting ALL the mounts entails.
Each capitol city faction quartermaster offers 2 mounts, one for 100 seals, the other for 5 seals and 500g. All of them (Horde and Alliance) also sell the Argent Hippogryph flying mount for 150 seals.
11 mounts for 2500 gold, 675 seals
Sunreaver or Silver Covenant - 1 land mount 100 seals, 1 flying mount 150 seals.
2 mounts for 250 seals.
Argent Quartermaster Dame Evniki Kapsalis sells the Argent Warhorse for 100 seals to any class, and the Argent Charger to paladins.
1 mount for 100 seals (100 seals more for a paladin)
Grand total: 2500 gold, 14 mounts (for most classes), and 675 + 250 + 100 = 1025 seals required.
Add the teleport Tabard, and if your toon isn't an engineer, you might want the mailbox/vendor/bank option that the Pony Bridle offers, for an extra 150 seals.
Tabard and bridle = 200 seals.
I've already bought the tabard, and since I already have Jeeves, I'm very doubtful I'll go for the bridle, even though it does give you an achievement. Why not? Urggghhh, I am very, very, verrrrry tired of doing those AT dailies. Yes, it's a nice amount of gold, but it's a time-sucker, when I want to be working on other toons.
Let's break down how long it takes to earn 1025 seals, using only the dailies, once you're exalted with Argent Tournament.
3 seals + 3x(13.23 gold)= 39.69 gold from Sunreavers or Silver Covenant tent NPC's.
7 seals from the Argent Tournament tent. 6 quests, but 7 seals since TFA gives 2 seals. These quests also reward 6x(13.23)= 78.78 gold + 40 gold from the grab bag = 118.78 gold, plus the chance of extra Champion seals dropping occasionally from the bag.
So, 9 Daily quests, 118.78 gold, 10 seals per day. Let's also toss in the Heroic Trial of the Champion for an extra 3 seals, bringing us up to about 13 seals per day, give or take. I usually specifically do heroic TOC first, while doing quests, then do my random for Frost badges after that. Sometimes, you get TOC as the random, so you could have 16 seals that day.
1025/13 = 79 days. Well, really, 1075/13= 83 days, since you're definitely going to want to get the tabard to minimize travel time to the tournament grounds as much as possible. This is assuming you do all the dailies plus TOC every day, 7 days a week. Assuming you do this, 83 days times 118.78 = 9,858.74 gold. That's a profit of almost 7,400 gold, even after you pay for the 500 gold mounts.
So if you ever see a level 80 whining about gold, tell them to go buy all the Argent Tournament mounts. They won't have to worry about gold for a long time after that.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Children's Week
5/4/2010
Another meta achievement, with some more pets available. No daily quests that come from the holiday itself, so no easy XP for my multitude of alts.
However, Bloodshrike, Bullkathos, Thrillkiller, Banesidhe, and Pallormortis on Demon Soul are able to do the Shattrath Orphan questline, with Pallor able to do the Dalaran as well (perhaps Banesidhe too, if I level soon enough). Since Bloodshrike already did the Dalaran questline when he got to 70, no luck with picking up the Oracle orphan, unless Blizz fixes the code to allow it. Oooh...I just remembered that Clockwrkmage on Daggerspine is my first Alliance to hit 60, so she can do the Shattrath quests too!
You know what the kicker is? The only thing that could keep me from getting the title on 5 of my alts this year is food. Yup, while you only need to be level 68 to queue for Utgarde, you need to be level 75 to eat some of the foods listed in Bad Example. You don't even need to be that high to accomplish the dreaded School of Hard Knocks, since Eye of the Storm is available at level 61.
Edit: Utgarde Pinnacle is actually accessed starting at level 78, so Bloodshrike will be the only toon I really need to stress about this year.
Another meta achievement, with some more pets available. No daily quests that come from the holiday itself, so no easy XP for my multitude of alts.
However, Bloodshrike, Bullkathos, Thrillkiller, Banesidhe, and Pallormortis on Demon Soul are able to do the Shattrath Orphan questline, with Pallor able to do the Dalaran as well (perhaps Banesidhe too, if I level soon enough). Since Bloodshrike already did the Dalaran questline when he got to 70, no luck with picking up the Oracle orphan, unless Blizz fixes the code to allow it. Oooh...I just remembered that Clockwrkmage on Daggerspine is my first Alliance to hit 60, so she can do the Shattrath quests too!
You know what the kicker is? The only thing that could keep me from getting the title on 5 of my alts this year is food. Yup, while you only need to be level 68 to queue for Utgarde, you need to be level 75 to eat some of the foods listed in Bad Example. You don't even need to be that high to accomplish the dreaded School of Hard Knocks, since Eye of the Storm is available at level 61.
Edit: Utgarde Pinnacle is actually accessed starting at level 78, so Bloodshrike will be the only toon I really need to stress about this year.
The Most Valuable Item in the Game
4/29/2010
What is the most desirable mat for recipes in the game now? Primordial Saronite? Abyss Crystals? Titansteel Bars? Frozen Orbs? Not likely. Prices for high level mats are falling fast, with Primordial Saronite, once up to 1.8k gold each, now down to about 800 gold on the servers I play on.
And, exactly how much profit margin can you make with high level recipes? My enchanter Banesidhe can barely get work, even after dropping my crafting price from 30 to 20 to 15 gold for any of the Wrath enchants (of course I don’t have Blade Ward or Blood Draining, since he’s only level 69). Even when I enchant scrolls with those recipes, I find that the Auction House already has Berserker/Massacre/Super Stats in there already, at….and get this…..less than mat cost. So, enchanters get mats together, pay for or make their own Armor/Weapon Vellum III’s, then put them in the AH at less of a cost than the mats would sell for. Ludicrous!
What is it about the fact that it’s a game that prevents people from considering making a decent profit? I always measure things against how much gold my level 80 Bloodshrike can make doing the Argent Tournament Dailies, which is 13g 23 silver per, plus 4 of the quests have the option to make an additional 10 gold and a chance at another Champion Seal. When someone wants me to craft something for them, and they want to party up and then spend time gathering the mats, and 5 minutes later are ready for me to start crafting, then I get a 5-10 gold tip…..It’s not worth it to me.
My Blacksmith Bullkathos had someone whisper him to come to Orgrimmar to make a Razorplate chestpiece for them. I said sure, but I wanted to discuss the crafting fee first. This guy, just because he had mats, thought that that entitled him to have me make it for him free. I’ve bought all the Ulduar and TOC recipes that I have off the AH, and I’d like to make a profit on them.
I’ve probably used this analogy before, but I think it’s a good one. When people get accustomed to you crafting for free or for tips, that’s like them showing up at a carpenter’s house with bunch of lumber, and asking the carpenter to build you a house. When the carpenter is done, he maybe gets a $20 tip. Having mats means nothing! You can have all the mats in the world, but unless someone on your server has the recipe you want, you aren’t getting the item you need.
Getting the recipes, which for the most valuable ones means going out and either grinding specific mobs or building up reputation with a faction, that’s what makes you stand out among the crowd of other crafters who “LFW [Profession] Your mats free, tips appreciated.” I refuse to lower my standards on pricing. I spent hella gold/time either searching for bargains on the Quest items tab in the Auction House, or by doing dailies or killing monsters to gain rep with factions for the recipes that I possess. And for someone to compare that to a Max level enchanter who doesn’t have any other recipes than what the trainer taught him, and want to tip me the same? Hell no.
/end rant
So, getting to the original point of the post. Large Brilliant Shards are the most valuable items in the game to me right now, offering 500-5000% return on the cost of buying them from the AH. They have a multitude of uses in enchants, for heirloom items as well as enchants for equipment slots that don’t have heirloom pieces. Crusader, 15 Agility to 1hand, 25 Agility to 2h, Spellpower, Healing Power, and various other enchants to gloves and chest pieces.
So stock up, enchant scrolls, use the Auction House, and save yourself the grief of dealing with customers!
What is the most desirable mat for recipes in the game now? Primordial Saronite? Abyss Crystals? Titansteel Bars? Frozen Orbs? Not likely. Prices for high level mats are falling fast, with Primordial Saronite, once up to 1.8k gold each, now down to about 800 gold on the servers I play on.
And, exactly how much profit margin can you make with high level recipes? My enchanter Banesidhe can barely get work, even after dropping my crafting price from 30 to 20 to 15 gold for any of the Wrath enchants (of course I don’t have Blade Ward or Blood Draining, since he’s only level 69). Even when I enchant scrolls with those recipes, I find that the Auction House already has Berserker/Massacre/Super Stats in there already, at….and get this…..less than mat cost. So, enchanters get mats together, pay for or make their own Armor/Weapon Vellum III’s, then put them in the AH at less of a cost than the mats would sell for. Ludicrous!
What is it about the fact that it’s a game that prevents people from considering making a decent profit? I always measure things against how much gold my level 80 Bloodshrike can make doing the Argent Tournament Dailies, which is 13g 23 silver per, plus 4 of the quests have the option to make an additional 10 gold and a chance at another Champion Seal. When someone wants me to craft something for them, and they want to party up and then spend time gathering the mats, and 5 minutes later are ready for me to start crafting, then I get a 5-10 gold tip…..It’s not worth it to me.
My Blacksmith Bullkathos had someone whisper him to come to Orgrimmar to make a Razorplate chestpiece for them. I said sure, but I wanted to discuss the crafting fee first. This guy, just because he had mats, thought that that entitled him to have me make it for him free. I’ve bought all the Ulduar and TOC recipes that I have off the AH, and I’d like to make a profit on them.
I’ve probably used this analogy before, but I think it’s a good one. When people get accustomed to you crafting for free or for tips, that’s like them showing up at a carpenter’s house with bunch of lumber, and asking the carpenter to build you a house. When the carpenter is done, he maybe gets a $20 tip. Having mats means nothing! You can have all the mats in the world, but unless someone on your server has the recipe you want, you aren’t getting the item you need.
Getting the recipes, which for the most valuable ones means going out and either grinding specific mobs or building up reputation with a faction, that’s what makes you stand out among the crowd of other crafters who “LFW [Profession] Your mats free, tips appreciated.” I refuse to lower my standards on pricing. I spent hella gold/time either searching for bargains on the Quest items tab in the Auction House, or by doing dailies or killing monsters to gain rep with factions for the recipes that I possess. And for someone to compare that to a Max level enchanter who doesn’t have any other recipes than what the trainer taught him, and want to tip me the same? Hell no.
/end rant
So, getting to the original point of the post. Large Brilliant Shards are the most valuable items in the game to me right now, offering 500-5000% return on the cost of buying them from the AH. They have a multitude of uses in enchants, for heirloom items as well as enchants for equipment slots that don’t have heirloom pieces. Crusader, 15 Agility to 1hand, 25 Agility to 2h, Spellpower, Healing Power, and various other enchants to gloves and chest pieces.
So stock up, enchant scrolls, use the Auction House, and save yourself the grief of dealing with customers!
Monday, April 12, 2010
.........and that ain't bad!
27 out of 30.
Yup, 27 out of my 30 toons either got, or are able to get the Noble title this year.
I can't camp eggs on my servers. Even on sunday, when it started, there wasn't much of a turnout for the holiday on Daggerspine. Demon Soul and Daggerspine are PvP servers, and while Darrowmere is now a PvE realm, it just recently switched from PvP, so there still isn't a big population.
So, when I'm getting eggs, I have no choice to but to hunt them down individually. I'm sure glad I move with the mouse, because if I was WASD moving, there's no chance I would have gotten as many eggs as I did. Tons of them are hidden in pots that you have to tilt the camera over your shoulder to see, or placed under a wagon, behind a wheel, with a noblegarden rabbit hiding in front of it going "bok bok bok" (just kidding about the last part).
For the most part, I was able to get all the items needed to complete the achievements as drops, with a few exceptions.
Hangfire and Doomslinger on Daggerspine had to buy both the rabbit and flowers, as they didn't drop while I was getting the 100 eggs that I needed to eat. 300 more eggs needed total. I'm sure there were others who needed to buy the flowers or the robe, but hey, what's 50 more eggs?
On Daggerspine (my Ally server) everyone except Ryoushigishi got the title already, and Ryo just needs to finish up Shake your Bunny-Maker and the Badlands part of Desert Rose, and he's got it.
Demon Soul has 7 Nobles, with Kukoshakaku, Clockworknyt, and Morticide needing the Badlands rose to be planted.
Darrowmere has Bloodshrike (number 2) who already got the title, and then all the other level 20-30's who still haven't gotten the Badlands flight point, as well as need to finish up the bunny-maker achievement. Here's where my 3 failures reside as well. Gavelofpain, my shaman, who had completed the Bunny-maker achievement LAST year, but I ran out of time this year to finish up getting eggs to eat, and didn't get the Spring Robes to drop, so that would have probably been another 50 eggs to collect. Misericorde and Ghostflame....I just couldn't stomach the time and concentration needed to get the eggs for them.
Not to mention, as low levels, none of my toons didn't have the Tanaris or Un'Goro flightpoints, and couldn't survive in those zones safely. My method of getting it? Take the portal from Dalaran to the Caverns of Time, mount up and ruuuun to Tanaris for the flight point, drop a flower, run north to 1k needles for the next flower drop, come back to Tanaris, and head west, dodging all those ??? skull monsters determined to take a chomp out of my toons. Once I reached the rim of Un'Goro crater, my obsession with engineering let me use my Parachute Cloaks to jump from the cliff to a safe point partway down the wall, then jump from there to a plateau on the east side of the mountains. Run down to the valley, grab any Thorium veins if they're miners (at level 20, you can still have up to 300 mining if you powerlevel by smelting ore), and hug the mountains going north, then west to Marshal's Refuge.
Here's where I deviated from the normal method. For low level alts, after you grab the Refuge flightpoint, run down, then keep heading west until you get to the path up to Sithilus. Go get the flight point there, drop your flower, then come back to Un'Goro. After running through the level 50+ monsters to get to the Golakka Hot Springs, you're going to want to hearth out of there when you're done. Get transformed into a bunny, lay an egg, hearth to Dalaran, take a portal to Thunder Bluff or Darnassus, and fly over to Desolace for the last flower drop needed on Kalimdor. Now I just need to get.....oh, 6 toons to run from the Arathi Highlands flightpoint thru Wetlands, up to Loch Modan, and into Badlands. Sounds fun, right?
Yup, 27 out of my 30 toons either got, or are able to get the Noble title this year.
I can't camp eggs on my servers. Even on sunday, when it started, there wasn't much of a turnout for the holiday on Daggerspine. Demon Soul and Daggerspine are PvP servers, and while Darrowmere is now a PvE realm, it just recently switched from PvP, so there still isn't a big population.
So, when I'm getting eggs, I have no choice to but to hunt them down individually. I'm sure glad I move with the mouse, because if I was WASD moving, there's no chance I would have gotten as many eggs as I did. Tons of them are hidden in pots that you have to tilt the camera over your shoulder to see, or placed under a wagon, behind a wheel, with a noblegarden rabbit hiding in front of it going "bok bok bok" (just kidding about the last part).
For the most part, I was able to get all the items needed to complete the achievements as drops, with a few exceptions.
Hangfire and Doomslinger on Daggerspine had to buy both the rabbit and flowers, as they didn't drop while I was getting the 100 eggs that I needed to eat. 300 more eggs needed total. I'm sure there were others who needed to buy the flowers or the robe, but hey, what's 50 more eggs?
On Daggerspine (my Ally server) everyone except Ryoushigishi got the title already, and Ryo just needs to finish up Shake your Bunny-Maker and the Badlands part of Desert Rose, and he's got it.
Demon Soul has 7 Nobles, with Kukoshakaku, Clockworknyt, and Morticide needing the Badlands rose to be planted.
Darrowmere has Bloodshrike (number 2) who already got the title, and then all the other level 20-30's who still haven't gotten the Badlands flight point, as well as need to finish up the bunny-maker achievement. Here's where my 3 failures reside as well. Gavelofpain, my shaman, who had completed the Bunny-maker achievement LAST year, but I ran out of time this year to finish up getting eggs to eat, and didn't get the Spring Robes to drop, so that would have probably been another 50 eggs to collect. Misericorde and Ghostflame....I just couldn't stomach the time and concentration needed to get the eggs for them.
Not to mention, as low levels, none of my toons didn't have the Tanaris or Un'Goro flightpoints, and couldn't survive in those zones safely. My method of getting it? Take the portal from Dalaran to the Caverns of Time, mount up and ruuuun to Tanaris for the flight point, drop a flower, run north to 1k needles for the next flower drop, come back to Tanaris, and head west, dodging all those ??? skull monsters determined to take a chomp out of my toons. Once I reached the rim of Un'Goro crater, my obsession with engineering let me use my Parachute Cloaks to jump from the cliff to a safe point partway down the wall, then jump from there to a plateau on the east side of the mountains. Run down to the valley, grab any Thorium veins if they're miners (at level 20, you can still have up to 300 mining if you powerlevel by smelting ore), and hug the mountains going north, then west to Marshal's Refuge.
Here's where I deviated from the normal method. For low level alts, after you grab the Refuge flightpoint, run down, then keep heading west until you get to the path up to Sithilus. Go get the flight point there, drop your flower, then come back to Un'Goro. After running through the level 50+ monsters to get to the Golakka Hot Springs, you're going to want to hearth out of there when you're done. Get transformed into a bunny, lay an egg, hearth to Dalaran, take a portal to Thunder Bluff or Darnassus, and fly over to Desolace for the last flower drop needed on Kalimdor. Now I just need to get.....oh, 6 toons to run from the Arathi Highlands flightpoint thru Wetlands, up to Loch Modan, and into Badlands. Sounds fun, right?
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
"I do not eat green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-am."
I would not, could not, in a box.
I could not, would not, with a fox.
I will not eat them with a mouse.
I will not eat them in a house.
I will not eat them here or there.
I will not eat them anywhere.
I do not eat green eggs and ham.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
I don't like eggs anymore............
It's hard to be an altoholic sometimes. The Noblegarden meta is upon us, and as an altoholic, I feel compelled to try to complete it with all my toons, especially since it's one that doesn't require you to go into Northrend dungeons, and it will be the first title that they can achieve. Theoretically, you could get this done at like level 1, not counting the XP you'd get for discovering areas.
You'd need at least 105 eggs collected (100 to eat, 5 to buy an egg for Noble Garden) , assuming you got the
Spring Rabbit, Spring Robes, and Blossoming Branch as drops. You can buy the pieces for the Blushing Bride off the AH, so don't worry about them.
WoW.com already has a write-up for normal folks that are concerned with only getting the title for their mains, but I thought I'd add a few ideas for the people who want it for more than a few alts.
1. Collect 100+ Eggs. You're going to need to eat 100 of these for the Chocoholic achievement, and if you're not lucky enough to have the Spring Rabbit drop while you're collecting them, you'll need to buy the rabbit for an ADDITIONAL 100 eggs. Oh yeah, if you're a mage, you'll need 100 MORE eggs for the Rabbit Morph book. My strategy has been to collect about 100 eggs, then start eating everything over that. If I haven't gotten the rabbit to drop by the time I get the 100 eggs eaten, then I just hand in my overstock 100 eggs for the rabbit, and never, EVER pick up an egg again if I can help it.
2. Get your Spring Rabbit ASAP. People will be doing the Spring Fling achievement only in the first few days of the week, and after that, it'll be a lot more difficult to get it done, especially if you need it for 10 alts in each town. I'll probably end up paying someone to come out to each town to romance my rabbit for a few of my alts.
3. Get Hard Boiled done quickly as well. Hopefully you can just ask people in the zone to help you get it done, since they'd be coming to do the same thing. However, after the first day, it's hard to find people doing it. If need be, just get all your alts but your highest to the Hot Springs, and have that one back in the capitol city spam trade chat for someone to come out with enough Blossoming Branches to be able to transform all your alts. I figure 5 gold for each one, times 9 or 10, should be a decent reward for someone's time.
4. Desert Rose is actually not something you have to worry about. It doesn't need to be done during the meta week, you can get it done anytime during the year. Banesidhe, my original mage, actually got this done the day before Noblegarden started.
5. Another achievement that can be accomplished during the year is Shake Your Bunny-Maker. Bloodshrike on Darrowmere was actually my first toon to ever get the title, and she got it on (I'll have to check the date when wow is done with maintenance). No time limit on this, probably because Blizz realized that some of the races are rarely represented on some servers.
I'm going to need at least 2100 eggs this year, to get this done for all my toons. Why not 3150? Well, I was dedicated enough last year to get the Spring Rabbits for all my toons on Darrowmere, before just giving up on the achievement. It might be a bit less than that, since I haven't checked what toons have the rabbit on Demon Soul, but none of my toons on Daggerspine have the rabbit, since I really didn't like the way any of the Alliance towns placed the eggs.
I've got the title already for Clockwrkmage and Tsuris on Daggerspine on Sunday, Bloodshrike on Darrowmere already had it, and I think I'm pretty close on most of Demon Soul. Wish me luck!
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
LFG Steamvault at level 80
3/10/2010
While perusing the list of blogs I read, I came across Mania's tweet about wishing there was LFD available for running lower level dungeons at 80, i.e. ZG. Seriously, why not? It's hard enough to drum together a group using the trade channel, and you already could group for these dungeons when you were a lower level, why not at a higher level?
I'm still grimly pursuing my Loremaster achievement, with only 20-30 quests left on both Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms. I've gotten most of the quest achievements in Outlands, and gotten Sholozar Basin, Icecrown, and Storm Peaks completed in Northrend.
I'll finish up with Borean Tundra, Dragonblight, Grizzly Hills, Howling Fjord, and Zul'drak after I've gotten Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms Loremaster finished.
Most of the quest achievements in Outlands, I said. However, Bloodshrike probably did 3 or 4 of the quests in Hellfire Peninsula before moving on to Zangarmarsh, because I stumbled on this little tidbit of info. Thrallmar - "If you do the bulk of the Thrallmar quests instead of quickly moving on to the next zone, you might expect to reach Honored after 1 or 2 levels of play. However, once you reach Honored, you hit an earnings barrier that you can only remove when you are level 68 and can start re-earning points in the Shattered Halls dungeon.....One option is to grind reputation via Ramparts and Blood Furnace runs to 5999/6000 before doing any Thrallmar quests outside the instances, as those continue to yield reputation up to Exalted."
At that point, I seriously never thought I'd see the inside of a dungeon unless I was soloing it. So, I just ignored the quests, and took myself to Zangarmarsh. Now, being the achievement hound that I've turned out to be, I wanna get exalted with Thrallmar. I'd also like to not have to solo those dungeons ad nauseum to do so. I just ran Hellfire Ramparts for the hell of it with my Ally mage Clockwrkmage, and had a blast with the group, Blizzarding everything in sight. Granted, at level 80 it wouldn't be difficult, it's just going to be boring, and even running it with a group of 60's would speed things up.
I'm not sure why the capability to join any dungeon isn't available. Apart from the possibility of Stockades being farmed by Horde for the easy availability of wool cloth, I don't think someone is going to constantly run Wailing Caverns for the greens that drop.
Also, going back to the title of the post, I'd like to go for the Guardian of Cenarius title, but again, I missed the boat on that one. While it's simplicity itself to turn in Twilight Texts until you ding exalted with Cenarion Circle, it's a bit harder with Cenarion Expedition.
I do have to say I like how Blizzard has refined dungeons and zones in Northrend. Dungeons are shorter, zones don't have a lot of quests that force you to go to a different zone, come back, go to a 3rd zone, come back, and finally the quest chain is completed. Everything is more linear. When you're on your first toon, you don't mind doing all these far-flung quests, as everything is new and exciting. On your 10th toon, you look at the quest, you evaluate on whether Blizzard actually provided enough mobs to complete it on the first pass, or whether the quest item has a ridiculously low drop rate, and then you might decide to not pick it up at all.
While I do want all my toons to be at least exalted with the home cities, I'm passing up a lot of quests nowadays, just because I don't want to do them. Like in Harold & Kumar go to White Castle, I've gone too far.
Kumar: I forgot my cell phone.
Harold: You wanna run back and get it?
[both turn and look at their front door 20 feet from them]
Kumar: No, we've gone too far.
While perusing the list of blogs I read, I came across Mania's tweet about wishing there was LFD available for running lower level dungeons at 80, i.e. ZG. Seriously, why not? It's hard enough to drum together a group using the trade channel, and you already could group for these dungeons when you were a lower level, why not at a higher level?
I'm still grimly pursuing my Loremaster achievement, with only 20-30 quests left on both Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms. I've gotten most of the quest achievements in Outlands, and gotten Sholozar Basin, Icecrown, and Storm Peaks completed in Northrend.
I'll finish up with Borean Tundra, Dragonblight, Grizzly Hills, Howling Fjord, and Zul'drak after I've gotten Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms Loremaster finished.
Most of the quest achievements in Outlands, I said. However, Bloodshrike probably did 3 or 4 of the quests in Hellfire Peninsula before moving on to Zangarmarsh, because I stumbled on this little tidbit of info. Thrallmar - "If you do the bulk of the Thrallmar quests instead of quickly moving on to the next zone, you might expect to reach Honored after 1 or 2 levels of play. However, once you reach Honored, you hit an earnings barrier that you can only remove when you are level 68 and can start re-earning points in the Shattered Halls dungeon.....One option is to grind reputation via Ramparts and Blood Furnace runs to 5999/6000 before doing any Thrallmar quests outside the instances, as those continue to yield reputation up to Exalted."
At that point, I seriously never thought I'd see the inside of a dungeon unless I was soloing it. So, I just ignored the quests, and took myself to Zangarmarsh. Now, being the achievement hound that I've turned out to be, I wanna get exalted with Thrallmar. I'd also like to not have to solo those dungeons ad nauseum to do so. I just ran Hellfire Ramparts for the hell of it with my Ally mage Clockwrkmage, and had a blast with the group, Blizzarding everything in sight. Granted, at level 80 it wouldn't be difficult, it's just going to be boring, and even running it with a group of 60's would speed things up.
I'm not sure why the capability to join any dungeon isn't available. Apart from the possibility of Stockades being farmed by Horde for the easy availability of wool cloth, I don't think someone is going to constantly run Wailing Caverns for the greens that drop.
Also, going back to the title of the post, I'd like to go for the Guardian of Cenarius title, but again, I missed the boat on that one. While it's simplicity itself to turn in Twilight Texts until you ding exalted with Cenarion Circle, it's a bit harder with Cenarion Expedition.
I do have to say I like how Blizzard has refined dungeons and zones in Northrend. Dungeons are shorter, zones don't have a lot of quests that force you to go to a different zone, come back, go to a 3rd zone, come back, and finally the quest chain is completed. Everything is more linear. When you're on your first toon, you don't mind doing all these far-flung quests, as everything is new and exciting. On your 10th toon, you look at the quest, you evaluate on whether Blizzard actually provided enough mobs to complete it on the first pass, or whether the quest item has a ridiculously low drop rate, and then you might decide to not pick it up at all.
While I do want all my toons to be at least exalted with the home cities, I'm passing up a lot of quests nowadays, just because I don't want to do them. Like in Harold & Kumar go to White Castle, I've gone too far.
Kumar: I forgot my cell phone.
Harold: You wanna run back and get it?
[both turn and look at their front door 20 feet from them]
Kumar: No, we've gone too far.
Friday, March 5, 2010
I AM the fail Tank
2/5/10
I'm finally getting around to having my Tauren Warrior Bullkathos get the Elders in Kalimdor, since it'll save me time next year when I'll be 80, and able to get all the achievements done. I might be able to do it all this year, but I think some of the Elders are in Heroics, and Bull is only 71 right now.
I dual-specced to Prot a while back, and while I organized my action bars for Battle/Defensive/Fury to be almost the same as when I'm Arms specced, I didn't actually....play like that. Bad tank, no biscuit!
Since I solo most of the time, I go with the higher DPS of Arms. However, flying around to get the Elders gets really boring after a bit, and since I've gotten more used to the LFD tool, I saw that Bull could get Emblems of Triumph, just like his big brother Bloodshrike!
I selected tanking, hit the "Find me a group!" button, and I swear, about 2 seconds passed since the time I clicked it to when I got the message that my dungeon was ready. Instant queue times indeed.....
I get into Nexus, switch to Protection, switch to Defensive stance, and realize that my Charge macro that I copied from a blog a long time ago, would be totally wrong for this. Shoot, I should have copied it before I erased it from my macros, but basically it would take you from any stance into Battle Stance, hit Bloodrage and Fury, and charge the monster, ending in a Hamstring. If you tapped it twice, it would switch you to Fury stance.
So, after LoS pulling, and throwing knives at monsters to get them to look at me, I came up with the simple macro I had used in the beginning of my warrior's adventures.
/cast Bloodrage
/cast Berzerker rage
/cast Charge
So you're already getting some rage while charging the monster, and will continue to do so while getting hit, and hitting them back.
After about 2 minutes of very slow going, I revealed that this was my first tanking experience. After about 10 minutes in, I said they could boot me if they wanted, no harm no foul.
Nope, they were all very friendly and helpful, encouraging me to use Thunderclap and Taunt (I remembered Mocking Blow on my own) more, and since I actually communicated and thanked them for their help, nobody insulted me or dropped out. We wiped on the first boss (Telestra), got the second(Anomalus) and 3rd boss (Ormorok) down with no problems, and I was getting into a more of a groove with my aggro and rotation.
We then wiped on Keristraza 2 times, and I died on the 3rd try, with the other guys stepping up and taking her down the last 20k health.
I have a lot more respect for tanks now. I never disrespect them anyway, and I'm always careful to start my dps after they start building aggro, with Misdirect going up as soon as I can. However, the sheer amount of things you have to concentrate on while tanking is kinda stressful.
I think Bull needs to level as Prot for a bit, until I can get my skills built into muscle memory, like it is for Arms spec.
I'm finally getting around to having my Tauren Warrior Bullkathos get the Elders in Kalimdor, since it'll save me time next year when I'll be 80, and able to get all the achievements done. I might be able to do it all this year, but I think some of the Elders are in Heroics, and Bull is only 71 right now.
I dual-specced to Prot a while back, and while I organized my action bars for Battle/Defensive/Fury to be almost the same as when I'm Arms specced, I didn't actually....play like that. Bad tank, no biscuit!
Since I solo most of the time, I go with the higher DPS of Arms. However, flying around to get the Elders gets really boring after a bit, and since I've gotten more used to the LFD tool, I saw that Bull could get Emblems of Triumph, just like his big brother Bloodshrike!
I selected tanking, hit the "Find me a group!" button, and I swear, about 2 seconds passed since the time I clicked it to when I got the message that my dungeon was ready. Instant queue times indeed.....
I get into Nexus, switch to Protection, switch to Defensive stance, and realize that my Charge macro that I copied from a blog a long time ago, would be totally wrong for this. Shoot, I should have copied it before I erased it from my macros, but basically it would take you from any stance into Battle Stance, hit Bloodrage and Fury, and charge the monster, ending in a Hamstring. If you tapped it twice, it would switch you to Fury stance.
So, after LoS pulling, and throwing knives at monsters to get them to look at me, I came up with the simple macro I had used in the beginning of my warrior's adventures.
/cast Bloodrage
/cast Berzerker rage
/cast Charge
So you're already getting some rage while charging the monster, and will continue to do so while getting hit, and hitting them back.
After about 2 minutes of very slow going, I revealed that this was my first tanking experience. After about 10 minutes in, I said they could boot me if they wanted, no harm no foul.
Nope, they were all very friendly and helpful, encouraging me to use Thunderclap and Taunt (I remembered Mocking Blow on my own) more, and since I actually communicated and thanked them for their help, nobody insulted me or dropped out. We wiped on the first boss (Telestra), got the second(Anomalus) and 3rd boss (Ormorok) down with no problems, and I was getting into a more of a groove with my aggro and rotation.
We then wiped on Keristraza 2 times, and I died on the 3rd try, with the other guys stepping up and taking her down the last 20k health.
I have a lot more respect for tanks now. I never disrespect them anyway, and I'm always careful to start my dps after they start building aggro, with Misdirect going up as soon as I can. However, the sheer amount of things you have to concentrate on while tanking is kinda stressful.
I think Bull needs to level as Prot for a bit, until I can get my skills built into muscle memory, like it is for Arms spec.
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