Step by Step

A quick post today.

I know I've blathered on quite a bit about using PvP gear for PvE. I was digging around my blog andwasn't sure I actually had one single post that covered most of it. Mainly because I would learn/realize something, post about it, and then I would learn more and post more.

So, in an attempt to make things a bit more reader friendly, here is all I have to say about...

PvP Gear for Use in PvE

What items are possible "easy" upgrades? Well, there are PvP items for just about every slot you have, but some are better than others. Places to AVOID using PvP items would be:

- Replacing any Tier slot (head, shoulders, chest, legs, hands) Unless you have EVERY Tier item, and a PvP item would still be an upgrade. Most of these slots would be filled with "Furious" gear, which should be last on your PvP upgrade list (let alone your PvE list)

- Replacing any item that has a nearly equivalent ilvl. If you have a choice of a ilvl 264 PvP item, and an iLvl 251 PvE item, the PvE item will (most likely) be better for you. The only exception here would be if you (for example) had a hunter necklace that was an upgrade (maybe had Str, Hit ang Crit) but you are a Warrior, and a "DPS PvP" item might still be better.


All the PvP items you will want will be bought using honor. (unless you get a lucky drop in VoA) Don't just buy the cheapest one you can get. The cheapest ones (Relentless items) are also the "weakest". For not *that* much more honor, you will get a much better item.In order of likely "need" and/or value:

1) Back or Wrist or Neck - Depending on what you have currently equipped, one of these will likely be your first choice. They are all "Wrathful" which are ilvl 264, which means they are VERY good items. The one you chose, is the one that offers the best stats upgrades: ignore resilience, and armor in this evaluation (unless you are a tank)

2) Waist & feet - These are "Relentless" items with an ilvl of 245. Not great, but still far, far better than any pre-heroic item (and better than many heroic items as well)

3) (probably #1 for Pallies) This is for for Paladins only. (unless there is an equivalent item for other classes, which I'm not sure of. Maybe Elemental or Restoration Shammies?) You can buy the Deadly Gladiator's Libram of Fortitude from the Apprentice Arena/PvP goblin vendor in the sewers under Dalaran.


OK, so you can buy the stuff. What to do next? review your critical stats to make sure they are still where they need to be. These are things like:

- Hit
- Spell Hit
- Experise
- Defense
- etc (stuff that applies to your class & spec)

If using one of the PvP items lowers one or more of these, be prepared to re-gem and/or re-enchant an item (or two, or three...) to get it back to where it needs to be.

Which gems & Enchants to use? I'm glad you asked because this brings up the other item I wanted to mention

BANG & BLAME - NOW WITH PAGE 2!!!!

Yes, I've gone and sold out. My blog now has a page two, and therein I attempt to collate, organize and link any information that I deem useful, important and or worthy.

LINK

Obviously it will be a work in progress until I can get most/all of my useful stuff included. (how much of my stuff is useful is up for personal debate, but that's another story)

Enjoy.

DPS, Gear, and Metal by Numbers

I'm going to ramble here a bit about gear, both PvP, and PvE, and some pitfalls associated with them. I don't do any theorycrafting, but I do discuss some test dummy numbers and numerical stuff, so if you don't like that type of stuff, I guess I'll see you next post...

Wagons Ho!

The first upgrade to mention was my PvP belt; Relentless Gladiator's Girdle of Triumph. It's got some really nice stats, and, like every other PvP item I've picked up, it's a significant upgrade over my previous PvE item.

My PvP Gear summary If you look at each item, overall, they are an upgrade.

EXCEPT for hit. According to the sites I visit (wow-heroes among them) I 229 need points of hit, and I was at 223. So I gemmed my belt buckle with a +20 hit, and we're good to go. (if you look at the "summary page for my PvP gear, you will notice that I lose a fair bit of AGI, but that translates to about 1.5 Crit points (NOT %) so I am still at a net gain in Crit.

Now, even though they are clear benefits, there are a couple downsides:

1) As I noted with my waist, the PvP gear will have different stat allocation than PvP gear. So in my case, I replaced a waist that had moderate hit, with a waist that did not. GOTTA WATCH THAT!!

2) It is entirely possible that someone will inspect your gear and go "wtf up with your PvP gear?" Especially with me, where I have 4 pieces currently. All you can say is that the PvP gear you have is absolutely an upgrade over the item it replaced (it better be!)

3) PvP gear will give you a higher gearscore than you really "deserve", and your output (heals, DPS, whatever) may not meet expectations. With my 4 pieces of PvP gear, my gearscore is ~5,530, which looks nice. However, I would say I am only as effective (assume equal skill/class/spec player) as someone about 5,400. If you're reasonably skilled, it won't matter, but it is worth noting.

Moving On

So... I did a bit of raiding and a little acquisition this weekend. I was able to get the Blade-Scored Carapace from Saurfang 10 man. (One neat thing I learned is that mmo-champion's listing/links includes gems & enchants!) Since this would replace my T-9.5 chest, but NOT remove my 2 piece T-9 bonus, I was pretty jazzed.

I also had 95 frost emblems, which made me even more jazzed! Now, assuming I used the new chest piece, RAWR said the T-10 helm was the item to get. So, off to the vendor I go, and I get the new item.

A slight aside here.

I have noticed that since I replaced my old weapon; Orca-Hunter's Harpoon with Ramaladni's Blade of Culling, that I was not always proccing "Art of War" (AoW) which causes my next Exorcism (or Flash of Light) to be instant cast. If you look at the picture below, it should be kind of obvious why:

(Click on it for a larger, more legible version)

What it shows is that I lost 66 crit, and 112 Agility. I don't care if Agi is a Hunter stat or not, the Crit I got off that weapon was AWESOME. All together I lost about 69 crit points (~1.55%)

OUCH!

Now, if it were "just a stat" and had no real world benefit, I wouldn't care. BUT, as I have mentioned, I am actually losing out a bit on my DPS because AoW isn't proccing all the time. (usually at the beginning of a fight, but it occasionally happens mid-fight as well)

So, I did something NOT "called out" by Elitist Jerks, and I added a Crit gem to my new chest. The other 2 gems are standard Ret Pally: 2x +20 Str gems.

Back "On Topic"

So, with my gemmed and enchanted chest and helm, I headed over to a test dummy to see how the new 2 - piece T-10 set bonus (I now have Head & Shoulders lol) plus the new chest.

*sigh*

Not.
So.
Good.

My DPS with my old gear was about 4835 (+/- a bit) and I could bash away on the test dummy essentially non-stop as long as I popped Divine Plea (DP) occasionally.

My DPS with the new gear?

4835 (+/- a bit)

AND I ran OOM before DP came off cooldown!

AND I had even more troubles with AoW not proccing.

WTF?!?!?!?!?

*deep breath*

OK, what happened?

First off, I lost my T-9 2 piece set bonus (Your Righteous Vengeance talent now has a chance for its damage to be critical strikes)

So, I lost some critical strikes from my Righteous Vengeance. This lowered THAT damage, and also (probably) contributed to fewer crits overall, which then lead to AoW not always being up.

Um, overall, that isn't too good. It explains (possibly)a net "zero" for DPS gains.

What about the whole OOM thing? (OOM is "Out of Mana")

Let's see, losing the T-9 wouldn't have any effect. BUT, I GAINED the T-10 2 piece set bonus (Your melee attacks have a 40% chance to reset the cooldown on your Divine Storm ability)

Hmmm, this means that I will be casting Divine Storm a fair bit more. HIGH mana consumption, and only "so-so" single target.

Clearly, losing the T-9 set bonus and getting the T-10 bonus is Not worth it. (at least not on Bosses. I need to try it out for trash)

Moving On

So, what if I use the Helm, and store the chest, what sort of DPS will that get me?
4850 (+/-)

I'll be honest here and say that I have no effing clue why this didn't do better.
I expected this to really kick butt. No such luck.

And THEN

The last combination of gear is the old helm, with the new chest. Keep the T-9 bonus, lose the T-10 bonus, but gain a bit of crit & other "stuff". Given the results of the previous, I won't hold my breath. So?

4995 (+/-)

Again, I have ZERO clue why this combo is better than the other 2. Not by a squinch, but by a LOT. (well, at this point 150 DPS seems like a large amount)

But What Does It All Mean?

The only thing you can really say about the whole thing is that number crunching, widgets (like Rawr) and other bits can only help so much. Training dummies are much better, and "in raid" testing is even better yet. Perhaps the best theory crafters out there can avoid this, but I don't play that game.

Anyhow, just because an item has better stats, it doesn't mean it will be an actual upgrade. Item interaction plays a big role in overall gear performance. Sometimes you will need to hold on to that piece until such a time when it WILL make a difference (like holding on to my T-10 helm, so that when I get another 2 pieces of T-10, so I cen get the 4 pc bonus)

Other times things can be a real upgrade, but you need to be extra careful about stat itemization. Some of this might be "core"stats for your class (like hit, or other hard & soft caps) that are easy to catch and adjust, other times it will be more subtle (like my own crit issue) where it will require you being aware of how your toon plays, and realizing that all things aren't behaving quite right.

Actually, on this point, it may actually be worth going back to the Orca harpoon and seeing if all that crit would improve the DPS. Or, perhaps, some combination of the above would be good/better for trash.

Test Dummies for Dummies, perhaps?

Dunno.

Double Vision, Tunnel Vision

(photo by Jill Fehrenbacher, part of her "Tunnel Vision" series LINK )

Alas, this is my usual vista when I play WoW. I tend to get very focused (or zoned out, if you think about it) and I will often miss things. Part of it is the often mind numbing aspect of RetPal DPS (hounding the action bar to hit spells *just* as they come off CD) or trying to avoid the fire/slime/bad AND DPS, etc etc, and I just don't see what's going on

• Twice with one group in Forge of Souls I was last man standing, and didn't even realize it.


• Similar things at least once a week, that I just don't recall.


• "Stealing" ore from someone else because I didn't see them in a struggle, 5 feet away trying to mine, but getting nabbed by a mob.


• Etc etc etc

Now, As a "mindless DPS", you can usually get away with this, ESPECIALLY when you out gear whatever content you are doing. But if you get into anything challenging, either personally or as a group, it will cause problems.

A brief sojourn off the path (did I mention I distract easily as well?)

Last night for our frost run, we (Kattastrophe & I) went into Violet Hold. WOOHOO! Fast easy run!

Well, Until the first boss, yes: Xevozz.

Now, keep in mind: I am geared pretty well. About 5,400, with pretty good itemization, gems and enchants. Kattastrophe is 5,700 +, and is healing through Sindragosa in 10 man.

The tank is knowledgeable and does his job, but he's rather low geared (3,200 GS, or there abouts). A few times, I wasn't paying attention and yanked aggro off him, but with Katt's healing, it went well enough. There was a boomkin with us that was keeping pace with me in DPS as well, and a third DPS I am completely unaware of who/what they were.

Regardless, aside from the tank, and maybe an extra DPS, we outgeared the crap out of that place, and neither the boomie or myself really had much chance to get into our rotation before most mobs died.

Yeah, there were a couple mobs I'd have to scoop up that went away from the tank when they spawned, but other than that, easy peasy.

Until Xevozz. Did I mention him?

I've fought him once before. I think. (I have the VH achie, so I must have, but I have zero recollection of it)

So, we start the fight against Xev (he's the first boss we get) and it's going a little slow. Even with nearly 10k total DPS, he's barely dropping in health.

BOOM! - tank's dead

BOOM - I'm dead

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! everyone else is dead.

huh?

"Ah, according to wowwiki, the tank needs to kite the boss away from the orb things."

Try again.

A little bit better on DPS, then-

BOOM! - tank's dead

BOOM - I'm dead

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! everyone else is dead.

Now, this isn't just me getting too much damage and not paying attention. It's pretty darned near instant (faster than I could see the damage and try to click something - 29k health gone, in less than a second or two) This time the tank simply had trouble getting the Boss to follow him.

Last attempt, I put on my tank gear and Righteous Fury, and they have me try to kite him.

It worked better, even though I'm having to taunt every time my taunts come off CD. I die, but the rest ended up dropping him.

The best we could figure is that the tank was just so low geared that he had trouble maintaining enough threat to kite, especially with 2 strong DPS, PLUS I'm not sure at that low GS if the tank was def capped (regardless, Katt said he needed a LOT of healing - he was a squishy tank) so that he also had to fend off a CRAPTON of healer aggro as well.

Not a fault of the skills of the tank. He did quite well overall, and the rest of the heroic was uneventful, aside from everyone thanking everyone else for sticking it out (and a couple big shoutouts to Katt for some awesome heals)

Back on message (sort of)

So after our frost run, Katt wanted some help levelling her mage. For her, (at level 69 or so) the LFD queues have been >>20 minutes (if she even gets into one) so we decided to run through one of the Zangarmarsh instances. (Steamvault)

Overall, uneventful, but I hadn't noticed that the final boss could really hit hard on occasion. Well, I was just rolling, BOOM! I got killed. (He was less than 1%, so Katt's mage was able to finish him off)

Katt calls it a night, and one of our online buddies asks if I could give her a hand getting a little exp and rep with Honorhold. (She's on her lvl 74 Prot/Ret pally)

We go into ramps (reg) and I pretty much steamroll the place. The only downside is that she didn't get any rep. (she wants to buy epic flying, so rep discount would be nice)

So, she buys the key, and we decide to run it in Heroic. Now, I've tried to solo the place before in Heroic, and I *know* it's more than I can really handle solo. So, I ask her to DPS when she can, but heal as much as possible.

Overall it worked, but we BOTH suffered from not paying attention.

- Me, I wouldn't notice that she was taking damage (or had died) and I just kept on doing the 969, and tabbing between mobs.
- Her, she would focus on healing me, and not notice that she was OOM, or that she was really low on health, and would get popped.

Now, there was only one or two cases where I simply didn't have aggro and she got attacked. Those I should have taunted off, and she would have lived. The rest? Neither of us were sure, but probably a combo of a few things that led to her deaths (4 or 5 times I think)

- The instance is really near the limit for a tank of my skill and gear
- Neither of us are all that skilled at the class/role we were each doing. She's a good priest healer, and I'm a pretty good Ret Pal. I am less than skilled as a Protadin, and she's not all that familiar with RaidRet.
- Tunnel vision on both our parts

Now, the good thing, was that we both improved. I actually started to get the hang of keeping up 969, Sacred Shield (SS) and Divine Plea (DP) and keeping things moving, target switching and such. (the darkcasters in there are a major pain. The layout isn't great to LoS, and 3 or 4 together of them hit like a truck) She also got better (or learned about) using repentance and such.

The one thing I never thought to ask/mention/suggest was for one of us to Judge Wisdom, and the other to Judge Light. I use Wisdom as a habit. If I were to guess, I would think she did as well. Much pain might have been avoided if we had been careful.

Regardless, we cleared the place without a wipe, though fighting Vazruden and Nazan was a close thing.

Our combined single target DPS wasn't all that great (I'm a bit less than 2k in Prot spec, and she was well below 1k - remember, she was healing too), so that Nazan landed before we had killed Vaz. By this time, I was having mana issues (not sure why) and by the time my friend died (Nazan was at 33% or so) I was essentially OOM.

My health was REALLY low, mana was barely there, so it was a race to the death and I wasn't sure how it would end. I kept adncing and moving to avoid as much fire as I could, kept judging wisdom as it came off CD (or I had enough mana to even cast it) and casting Divine Storm to get a bit of health back (which sucked the mana well dry). Finally the scaly bugger dropped, and we relaxed.

While I'm still not back to my "A" game, the challenges of playing a VERY different spec and playstyle, as well as a fairly challenging environment (H Ramps was, for me at least) definitely sharpened me a bit.

I may even try tanking heroics in LFD now. (though I am still petrified about getting an instance I will get lost in, or one that has a tank/kiting/etc mechanic fight that I'm unaware of) ButI really need to stop running heroics as Ret: it's mind numbing, boring, and teaches me to not think or pay attention.

War Pig, or Battle Goat - More General PvP Gearing Thoughts

In general, there are 4 typesPvP gear, each with it's own level of investment to get:

• Heirloom PvP Gear, purchased with Stone Keeper Shards.


• Crafted PvP gear. This will generally be iLvl 187 or there abouts.


• Honor/Mark purchased PvP gear. This can be Potent! (especially the Wrathful stuff!)


• Arena PvP Gear. Purchased with Arena points with a minimum rank requirement (hard to get for a noobie)

Well, there's one other place to get PvP gear, though it may not be perfect:

Outdated Heroic/Tier/Epic gear! (you know, the T-9 stuff, your Heroic drops, and maybe even some T-10 stuff that got replaced by ToC and/or ICC gear)

Huh? NONE of that has any Resilience, the bread & butter of PvP!!!

True, but it will have AWESOME "normal" stats for whatever spec you play, AND, you will likely have 10-12 gem slots that can accept resilience gems. Either Mystic King's Amber (a JC cut) or Kharmaa's Grace, which you just buy with Stone keeper Shards. Both of which are +20 Resilience. That's 200-240 resilince right there!

(thanks to WoW gem-finder for the easy search & filter)


And then you can add:

• Arcanum of the XYZ - Add 20-25 resilience (depending on particular one, there
  are SEVERAL) to a head slot.


• Earthen Leg Armor - Add 40 resilience to
  legs


• Enchant Chest - Exceptional Resilience - Add 20 resilience to your
  chest


• Inscription of XYZ - (like the Arcanums, there are several) Add 15 resilience to your shoulders

(thanks to epicenchants for the easy to use search/filter)

That's another 90+ resilience there, for a bare minimum of 300 resilience. Not too shabby!

While this won't be a truly "Epic" (let alone Gladiator) set, it will still be epic in its own way, and will get you a "full set" of PvP gear for only the cost of a few gems & enchants. (just remember not to throw away all that old gear!)

Remember: reduce, reuse, recycle

:P

TO-MORROW! TO-MORROW!!

Well, it would have been tomorrow, if I had finished this post last night. In case you can't read that picture (I can't) it shows that I am currently Revered with the Kalu'ak, and am only 890 reputation points from being Exalted: 20,110 out of 21,000. I will get that with 2 quests this evening.

So I can get my fishing pole: Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole

Though I'm not entirely sure why I want it. Part of me would like to get the "Salty" title, but since I've never even been able to show up for a fishing derby, OR catch either Old Crafty or Old Ironjaw, that may just be a fit of fancy.

And, at roughly 7:30 pm server, my second Mysterious Egg should be hatching. My first one had a cobra hatchling, which is worth maybe 10 gold. (I already have one, so no value there)

BATTLE!!!!

One gripe many people seem to have on our server is that a LOT of people will ask "do we have WG?" or "when can we do VOA?"

The implication being that the folks asking are looking for a benefit (going to the WG vendors, or VOA loot) without even showing up to help fight for WG.

And that is a gripe I can get on board with. Don't whine about not getting VoA, if you aren't willing to help fight to get it. We are constantly outnumbered in WG, and very rarely win it anymore. (at least when I'm on)

A couple of asides.

As I have slowly been accumulating PvP gear, it is becoming apparent that my survivability is increasing, though it isn't consistent. Sometimes, I will go after one guy, get jumped by 2 more, and destroy all three.

Other times, I will go after one lone guy, and NOTHING works: none of my stuns have any effect, my bubble won't cast, and I die in a VERY lopsided 1v1 fight. Even if I blow my CDs and avoid being stunned too much, I do MAYBE 10-15% damage to them, and then I'm wiped. If it matters, I have ~27k health when PvP ready, ~500 resilience and 14k armor. My PvP Gear Score is about 5,560. (HERE'S a link to my current PvP gear progress)

I can understand that a well geared PvPer (like a full arena Wrathful set -ouch!) will be nearly immune to my crits, but none of my stuns rely on that: Hammer of Justice, Repent and Seal/Judge of Justice are all instant cast or effect on hit. (I PvP with Seal of Justice active - it procs a diminishing return stun 3 times) This is a total of 5 stuns I should be getting, and yet there are other players that are 100% immune to them.

WTF?

Overall, I would say the bane of my PvP experience lately are fucking bubble fucking priests. I don't fully understand how they work, but they are 100% immune to my attacks, and yet can still DESTROY me while immune. I'm not a fan of Locks or Rogues, but I'm learning to bubble, trink, cleanse, etc to counter them.

Just in case you think the Pally bubble is "ZOMG! OP!": our bubbles have severe limits:

1 - EITHER it's only a 50% damage reduction OR 100% reduction BUT *our* damage is cut by 50%
2 - only lasts 10 seconds
3 - is dispellable/breakable (Warriors, anyone?).
4 - has forbearance AND a 3 minute cooldown.

From what I can tell, NONE of the above are true for priests. I would welcome some insight into how to fight them, so comment away! (I believe they are "just" standard priest bubbles that absorb X amount of damage, but they are spammable and come off CD much faster than I can burn through them)

I'm not a fan of CC spam either. Seal of Justice has diminishing returns that does NOT reset. Unlike Fear. *cue dramatic sigh*

Now, on to some of the "fun" bits: wading through the enemy and just wiping the floor with them. This is where my asides FINALLY come full circle. Some of the "easy" kills are no doubt due to better gear, but I realized last night what the most likely cause is:

Multiple stacks of Tenacity. It's amazing what a little extra health, healing and damage dealing can do for a plate wearer. (though it does nothing against CC)

Hmmm....

Shiny Happy People - Or Not...

It has definitely been one of those weeks and weekends.

Last week (the Memorial Day holiday weekend, for those not stateside) a good friend of mine at work had a heart attack and died. He was only 46. Saturday was his funeral. That was a tough thing to see/attend, but I’m glad I went.

Nothing like a case of human mortality to give you pause and to make you think about where you are, and where you are going.

Even if you aren’t on any major path in your life, or if things aren’t going as you had hoped, just take a second to reflect, and to appreciate what you have. As my dad loves to say,

Any day I’m looking at the flowers from the top is another good day.

It’s not a mantra I live by (though I should), but it does give some perspective.

We will all miss you Jon.

To top it off, two more got laid off during the week.

*sigh*


In other less depressing news, things in WoW have been a mixed bag.


Iggy the Mentor

I have been making slow progress leveling Ignomeminy. I generally run one instance a day, and do some questing along side.

In recent days gallivanting around the Redridge Mountains, I have run across a couple human Pallies that are very new to the game. These folks (guys or gals, not sure) were not dumb, were not mooches and seemed genuinely interested in the game. BUT, they were very lacking in some very basic knowledge:

- There are websites that can help with WoW?
- Why bother using the auction house?
- What’s a dungeon finder?
- Agi helps me attack faster and stuff, right?
- I got tailoring because I heard you can make good money selling bags (a Paladin, remember?)

Some of the questions & comments may seem like they come from a complete doofus, but while /whisping them, it became VERY clear that they were not stupid or anything like it. It’s just that if there was no direct, in-game mechanic to teach them, they didn’t know much, or very little, about a given thing. “Learning by trial and error” is fine, for a couple small things, here & there. But trying to learn all about WoW that way is just not practical or realistic.

Between the two, I probably spent a good 2 hours wandering around, chatting, questing, teaching and stuff. (I even logged on to Balth to craft some gear for one of them)

But the whole thing highlights the single biggest failure that WoW/Blizzard has to deal with: an absolute, fundamental and unequivocal failure to educate the truly “new-to-the-game/genre” player.


Where to How?

Maybe this will change with Cataclysm, maybe not. How could things be changed to help?

- don’t rely on loading screen “hints”
- create entire optional quest lines for each topic. Make the “?” marks a different color (like they are for dailies).

Such as:
- pick 5 herbs, skin 5 animals, make 5 bolts of linen and mine 5 nodes of copper, and a couple “feaux” greens from an NPC or two, to be disenchanted, all “freebie” and done without learning an actual trade.

- part 2 would be taking them to various NPC crafters who explains what benefit each type of craft has to offer, in addition to the use of each relevant collection trade: some ore to a blacksmith, leather to a leatherworker, cloth to a tailor, herbs to an alchemist, strange dust to an enchanter, and copper to a jeweler. Maybe you get to keep them as your first greens?

- part 3 could be to sell a few items on the AH, and use the profits to buy something else on the AH.

And for completing the questline, you maybe get a class specific (or maybe trade specific) set of tools, gear or equipment. And a good bit of exp for each step.


WoW’s got Talent!

As for talents, well, I think several bloggers have pointed this one out, as well as a good partial solution: quit charging for spec changes. My thoughts would be as follows;

- again use a quest line that walks you through the very basics for each class (and a walkthrough/intro to each spec!)

- possibly give “cheat” abilities, and a test dummy, so that you could try out each basic talent function, with a full 10-20 talent points, that last as long as you are in the training room.

- re-spec for free until level 40, or maybe 60, and reduce the cost overall, at least until you hit max level.


Trinity –now in 3 flavors!

The basics of raiding in 4 simple quests. (or maybe 2 or 3, if you aren’t a hybrid) One quest introduces the whole concept, and the other quests would give you a ”boosted” ability to do a particular function (tank, DPS or heal), within an NPC group, and would teach (and test) you for each one

-1 NPCs get to escort YOU while THEY tank, DPS and heal. You just get to watch and see what the whole thing means. It can be run a couple times to see different tanks, healers and DPS classes. Ideally, each run would show a “near miss” by one of each type (lose threat, over aggro, and poor heal) to highlight the functions. Each one would only be 2-3 minutes and 1-3 encounters to keep it short and watchable.

-2 How to DPS and watch threat. IF you do too much DPS, the baddy pulls off the NPC tank and eats your face. If you stop soon enough, the NPC healer might be able to heal you and let the tank regain agro.

-3 How to tank. The NPC player-mobs can pull *some* aggro, so you have to work at it, but as long as you keep the bad guy beating on you, you “pass”.

-4 (or 3, if your class doesn’t have a tank spec) How to heal. The basics: keep the tank alive, help out keeping DPS alive, and don’t get so close to the baddies that you get healer aggro.

The Fourth Wall

While I'm sure you know that there is a mega-metric shit-TON of online information available about WoW online, not all the new players do. Even the most basic places like wowhead, wowwiki and thottbott are (for me at least) daily helpers in my meanderings. But clearly, a LOT of folks don't know they exist.

How could you approach this? Well, in-game, it would require that the game break "the fourth wall". That is, the game (or a movie, or a book) exists within 4 walls. Three walls internally, with a fourth wall separating us (the reader/player/viewer) from the action.

Breaking the fourth wall is when the actor, in-game-avatar, or whatever, talks directly to the reader/viewer. You know, when the actor looks directly at the camera and winks? Or when the comic book character explains just how silly the situation is to the reader? THAT is "breaking the fourth wall".

And, as far as I can tell, there's no reasonable way to pass on the needed information (about online resources) without blatantly breaking the 4th wall, (and very much breaking the immersion) Maybe THIS would be a good use for loading screens?

Then again, I don't think Blizzard much cares for the non-official info sites, even if they are the lifeblood of their game.

*shrug*


On the Road Again

Balth has now joined a guild. It’s a fairly social guild, though they do have groups running ICC in 10 and 25. I know very little about them, and have only done the weekly with them. We shall see.

He’s also been doing the oddball activity… he now can buy Oracle Mysterious eggs and is only 2 more days from being exalted with the Kalu’ak.

He’s also run through both Razorfens. While an easy task for him, it actually came in handy, since Iggy had the chance to run through Kraul the other day.

OH! He has now soloed “Threat from Above” a few times now. I ran it once, and BARELY survived, ran it the next day with 75% of my health, then died twice on the third day (not sure what happened, but it was ugly) and then finished it.

And he and Kattastrophe have run Zul’Gurub a couple times for the cat and raptor mounts. No luck as yet, but I’m slowly building rep with the Zandalar tribe :)

A couple more thoughts about guilds.

I actually had a Vent interview with another guild that was a bit more of a raiding guild, but I don’t think I’m a fit. Basically, it would be a moderately long wait before I *might* get a spot, and even then, they are taking the fairly hardcore approach that a given raider may be switched out for another raider, so that they can progress. (If a given fight favors a given class, and is not ideal for another class, they will get switched)

I would much rather play in a guild that lets me play as a regular team member, even if it slows down progression, and not simply be a guild component/tool, that gets taken out of the “tool box” and put back when a better tool is a better fit. (yes, I’m calling myself a tool :P )

Please note that this is simply my own preference, and not a reflection on the guild in question. The folks that interviewed me were quite nice, and VERY honest about the situation. Clearly, they have a goodly number of players raring to go and that want to play that way. I just don’t think it’s for me.


Kattastrophe has had her own progression and guild work. I think, over the course of the whole weekend, they put in 8-10 hours beating their head against the wall that is Sindragosa.
Kattastrophes Happen That’s just too much time in the Citadel for me.

Iggy Pops and Burns

So, um yeah. That's li'l Iggy. With a Beer mug in one hand, and a dagger in the other. Thanks to fishing, ganking and a niggling for a change of pace, he's now pushing level 25. It's interesting, and a COMPLETELY different style of playing.

And I desperately needed help figuring stuff out.

Thanks to some great guidance from Gnomeageddon as well as a nearly verbatim following of Euripides/Critical QQ step by step fire mage guide, I am slowly making headway.

Part of my reason for getting a bit "Mage-y" for this post is actually inspired by the mis-information post that Larisa did over at Gnomeageddon's site. It was a moderately tongue in cheek list of "real" mage attributes, and among them was agility. While the "Agi" itemization stat is NOT important, player agility most certainly is:

OK, admittedly at Patchwerk you can just stand on one spot and spam one or two
nuke buttons. But apart from him and a couple of other exceptions, you actually
need to be pretty movable as a Mage. Somehow you’re supposed to manage to move
out of crap on the ground or evil things coming for you through the air, and
STILL make your several seconds-long spells go off, resulting in pretty yellow
numbers on the screen. A good Mage can nuke on the move. If you’re slow like me,
there’s nothing else to do but to place yourself in front of the dummies in
IF,running back and forward, until nuking on the fly is a second nature to you.

Agility. It’s a must-have for your mage.

When it comes to soloing/questing, I cannot emphasize strongly enough, how important mobility is.

It's kind of odd, actually when I think about it. After all, on Balth, I have to run hither & yon to get into melee range. With Iggy though, it's the opposite: I run hither & yon to stay OUT of melee range. Even with mana shield, a mage is one squishy little target, so mobility (and planning!) are crucial.

Take for example, the Tharil'zun's Head quest. It's listed as a level 25 group quest. Tharil'zun himself is a level 24 elite, with 3 or 4 mobs around him.

Getting there is pretty straight forward;

- 1 target a mob with pyroblast at max range.
- 2 do an immediate followup fireball
- 3 throw a fireblast and (usually) kill the mob, even before he gets to you.
- 4 if he's still not dead (and is likely running in fear to the next group) nail him with Arcane missile (you don't need to turn to keep him in front, AM does it automatically.

If it's a caster, tap counterspell between 1 & 2.

Just repeat this step 6-8 times, and you are nearly there. There's one mob you may get that pulls a second (often a caster) This one is a *little* different:

- 1 target first mob with Pyro
- 2 sheep the second mob (I save casters for last, since they melee like little girls,I can stand toe- to toe with them)
- 3 wait until the 1st mob gets close then Frost Nova
- 4 run (or blink if you're bored) away to give you some room
- 5 (& 6 & 7) Fireball/fireblast/missile the mob to death
- 8 pyroblast the second mob and continue as normal.

The only thing I didn't mention is make sure you have you buffs and protections up (arcane intellect, frost armor, dampen magic and mana shield. For the above trash, it isn't really necessary, but it helps.

AAAnyhow...

So, all the trash, up to Tharil'zun's group is gone. The big problem now is that there is usually a "guard" mob, right at the entrance to his little area, and to get him in Line of Sight (LoS), you have to get REALLY close.

So sheep him, and run out to a good distance, and target him with pyroblast, then fireball and (sound familiar?)

Do the normal pyro attack & kill the second mob in the area, which will leave you with Tharil'zun and another mob right next to him. As mentioned earlier, Tharil is a 24 elite, so you need to be able to focus on him without interruption, so take out the guard first:

- 1 Pyro the mob/guard
- 2 sheep Tharil
- 3 kill the mob/guard (fireball, etc)
- 4 RUN LIKE HELL! (just run far enough that you get out of combat and Tharil goes back to his hole, all alone)

Now, re-buff, mana and heal up, and head back in.

- 1 Pyro
- 2 fireball with a fireblast follow (maybe, depends on distance)
- 3 FROST NOVA
- 4 run to distance and fireball. (possibly fireblast as well, if mana looks ok)
- 5 when he gets close, BLINK
- 6 he should be low now, and if you have the mana, just arcane missile him to death
- 7 if he's still got a good amount of health, run & dodge until Frost Nova comes off CD, and just burn him down.

Fireblast and arcane missile are spells I like A LOT, but they cost a ton of mana, and depending on how often Tharil manages to clobber you (and your mana shield) mana may be an issue, so be careful.

What I *hope* comes across is that during this fight, you need to be running, dodging and using all your mobility (and your mobility reduction on him) to stay alive.

It's not that hard and I never died trying it, but I did have to run to safety a couple times before I figured it out.