From DKs to Zones, with Nostalgia

I finished the starting questchain on my second DK yesterday, at around 1am (my first DK got transfered to Gun'Drak (US) during the Massive Queues Of Doom phase, and is now busy hitting target dummies - of the 200 gold she was transfered with, she has 3 gold left, the rest was spent on respecs).

So after I'd witnessed the magical cleansing of the Ashbringer and wondered some more about what exactly is buried under Light's Hope Chapel, I was ready to head out into the wide world of damnation.

And so I decided to level Herbalism and Inscription. I know a lot of DKs can't be bothered leveling professions up before proceeding along the road to 80, but Inscription has intrigued me, I love having professions and it's more efficient gathering herbs while leveling through Outlands and Northrend, than doing it after reaching 80.

So far I've spent about 6 hours just messing around and getting Herbalism to 205, so I can fully understand why there's so many profession-less Death Knights wandering around. And while I'd much rather be melting (well bashing-in) face in HFP, I've noticed one thing: I absolutely love being in the old zones with something to do.

Essentially it boils down to one of my fondest WoW memories ever: me playing a Troll Hunter, questing in the Barrens with my faithful Boar, at around 3am after all the other trolls have gone home (and taken Chuck Norris with them). Ah that haunting music of The Barrens, bringing solace to the empty void of my soul. In all seriousness, there is an amazing sense of peace and contentment while quietly slaughtering wildlife in a sleep-deprived state across the rugged and desolate-but-beautiful landscape. Ah good times.

The same nostalgic recollections of tranquility and quiet purpose (DIE BRISTLEBACK! DIE!) followed me through Stonetalon Mountains (my hunter was the only character to level here) and would also have come in Thousand Needles, except that I chose to go to Arathi Highlands instead to pick more flowers.

I'm not sure why I love some zones more than other, in particular the vast expanses almost completely populated by beasts, I guess it's the inner hunter (would be interesting to see what others have to say about this).

On that vein, my top-5 personal favourite zones in WoW (based entirely just on how much I like them):

5: Netherstorm
4: Thousand Needles
3: Winterspring
2: Nagrand
1: The Barrens

That's right, it's all Vanilla or BC. While the Northrend zones look stunning (too stunning for my computer to handle), I still prefer the older ones. One honourary mention must be made: Hellfire Peninsula, for being graphically stunning (especially that sky), and making it really f*cking obvious that we ain't in Kansas no more (double negative, I know).

Anyway, that was the sort of soppy, maudlin', meaningless post I have a tendency to write when I don't get enough sleep and have had a hard day, hope you enjoyed it :P.

[Which Pet?] Part 1: Which Pet does the most DPS?

Welcome to Which Pet? a series of undetermined length and quality, released at sporadic intervals, concerning the Hunter pets of patch 3.x.

---

Which pet does the most dps? I wasn't sure so I compared a few different pets and their dps output. Here's some results and notes about my method.
Being too lazy to actually get stuff to 70 (I actually leveled a Boar from 48 to 70 in 2.3, almost exclusively in Nagrand, which took aaaaaages), I tamed a bunch of 65 pets and let them loose on a level 60 training dummy. So these numbers aren't representative of anything you should expect, but are solely to compare different pet families.
My current spec is 51/10/0.
Each pet was completely unbuffed (no Hunter's Mark even) except for the 25% Happiness bonus, and was allowed to hit the dummy for a few minutes (long enough to get over 50k damage).
Each pet used only it's focus dump, plus it's special skill (prioritising the special), and in the case of Cunning pets, Wolverine Bite (although I don't think the dummies dodged much). So none of the specials like Rabid etc were used.
The Cunning pets were spec'd thus: link.
The Ferocity pets were spec'd thus: link.
The Tenacity pets were spec'd thus: link (admittedly less than ideal).

Results (rounded to 2 s.f.):
Cunning:
Silithid (X) (65): 270 (62.5% melee, 27.5% FD, 10% Venom Web Spray DoT)
Dragonhawk (65): 290 (66% melee, 22% FD, 8% Fire Breath DoT, 5% Fire Breath DoT)

Ferocity:
Core Hound (X) (66): 300 (70% melee, 21% FD, 9% Lava Breath)
Devilsaur (X) (65): 350 (70% melee, 22% FD, 8% Monstrous Bite)
Wasp (65): 300 (70% melee, 17% FD, 10% Sting)
Cat (65): 320 (67% melee, 20% FD, 7% Rake DoT, 6% Rake) - NB with Longevity, the DoT gets overwritten with 2 seconds left, reducing DPF (damage per focus)
Beathooven in Catform (70): 750 (35% Melee, 25% Mangle, 23% Rip DoT, 14% Rake DoT) - NB: This pet cannot currently be tamed, presumably NWAI (not working as intended). Besides 750 dps on a level 60 target is quite pathetic, since I can probably do twice that as a Moonkin (but Moonkin aren't beasts).

Tenacity:
Gorilla (69): 340 (58% melee, 25% Thunderstomp, 12% FD) - NB: Thunderstomp was only used on one target

So what pet does the best DPS?
The clear winner is the Devilsaur, the 9% increase from Monstrous Bite is just nuts.
Of note is the fact that the Wasp's Sting has an armour debuff component, which will increase hunter dps by quite a bit as well.
The Gorilla's Thunderstomp will quickly become top of the table with 1 extra target, and will go insane with 5-6. Also Gorillas are a lot more awesome than some shrunken anachronism from a giant outdoor Science Fair experiment.
For those that aren't 51+/x/x who want a high-dps pet, Cats will probably be the best choice, and are the most popular pet in the game.
Other pets can be tested if requested, and may synergise better with the Hunter. These are just the five I had on me, plus a couple running around Eversong Woods (testing done in Silvermoon City).

NB: this was a pretty unscientific test, and the results should be considered as a relative comparison only.

So Big (it doesn't fit on the screen)! (It shrunk loooads when tamed :( )

[Pics] 7000 words on Druids

Lately I've been posting a lot on Hunters. And, let's face it, post-3.0.2 they're even more awesome than they were before. But let's also face the fact that Druids are really really cool. Especially Tauren druids (cows turning into bears/cats/different cats/storm crows/anthropomorphic rotten broccoli/inflatable giant chickens - what isn't there to love? Except the fact that Tauren druids in cat forms won't close their damn mouths).

Actually this is just an excuse for showing some stuff from my Screenshots folder and pretending people are interested in it. At the time of posting I should be busy attempting to waffle my way through my Medsci 314 (Immunology) exam, for the second time, and probably failing miserably.

Shows how bad Hunters are in arena: they lose to off-spec bears.

Does it get anymore Druidy than this? 4 70 druid helping a 64 through normal Slave Pens. Bullishnek, Ariia and Beathooven are all resto, Meellow respec'd Balance (from resto) just for the sake of this run, Ankka is Feral. At one point everyone but Ankka and myself DC'd. While not a challenge, certainly a lot of fun.

3 inc LM... wtf are you guys doing?
My 2v2 arena partner and I relaxing, for the horde.

Sin'dorei Druid, courtesy of the Dimensional Ripper. Shifting into Moonkin alters what you appear as when you have the 'Transporter Malfunction' debuff, but shifting into anything else removes the debuff entirely. Generally the Tauren armour skins mess up the appearance (e.g. as a female Orc the goggles replace the eyes).

Dwarven Druid: how silly.

Experience to level 70: 2.

Posting e-peen BG score-charts stopped being cool ages ago. But this is a pic from close to 6 months ago, and shows probably the highest dps I've seen in a 40-minute BG. At the time Nutrage was a T6 geared Boomkin, who went around 2-shotting everything.

Shenanigans in Shadow Labs

Shadow Labyrinth is an interesting instance. I've run it more than any other instance in WoW.

My first 70 was my hunter, Darksentinel, and he'd heard tales of a mythical weapon of great power dropping from a behemoth who resided deep in the Shadow Labyrinth. The creature Murmur was defeated multiple times, but apparently favours only casters with the gear it leaves for its vanquishers. Eventually my hunter decided that this supposed Sonic Spear was merely a tale from the taverns of the Lower City, and (with a reasonably modicum of effort) upgraded his Sha'tari Longsword of the Bandit (from memory 28 Agi, 43 Stam, 56 AP) to a weapon most mighty and fabulous: the Vengeful Gladiator's Waraxe. Yet even after this, the Shadow Labyrinth continued to entice the hunter. A Blood-Elven priestess, Arianwyn, sought to become exalted with the elements of Shattrath's Lower City, and he aided her in vanquishing the various orcish minions in the First Room, and, his desire not completely doused by the mighty axe in his hand, he continued to search, in vain, for the legendary Spear.


Following in the footsteps of this hunter, the druid Beathooven chased his own dream in Shadow Labyrinth. Being of a healing and restorative inclination, this young Tauren had heard that one of the most powerful Idols in all of the shattered realms of Outland was in the hands of a demon near the entrance of the Labyrinth: the famed Idol of the Emerald Queen. Much like his troll friend, Beathooven found that despite multiple victories against his demonic adversary he remained with an empty Idol slot - although he did end up with various Hallowed Raiments (and rejoiced in his ability to cast his non-existent Binding Heal with a 30% increased resistance to interruption), and even the Sonic Spear found its way into his hand (his hunter friend was mildly amused).

After numerous attempts (including healing a pick up group while being rather Feral) he even convinced his arena partner, the Warlock Stupidcow, to help him, and with a lot of effort the two managed to defeat all opposition up to and including Ambassador Hellmaw. While once again no Idol dropped, much fun was had.

Close to despair, Beathooven teamed up with several friends and using the most sacred techniques of Right-Click-Player-Portrait-and-Choose-Dungeon-Difficulty, ventured into a heroic version of the same Shadow Labyrinth that had defied him all this time. Although altogether more difficult than its non-heroic equivalent, his powerful allies from the Quantum Butterflies made short work of all the foes in this new Labyrinth and Beathooven was richly rewarded with the Idol of the Emerald Queen - if he'd known that was all it took, he'd have attempted heroism much earlier.

Although seemingly finished with Shadow Labyrinth, Darksentinel returned. After the powers-that-be decreed the presence of 3.0.2, the troll noted that his pets appeared much more powerful than earlier, and wished to test this out. And where better than the instance that had defied his early days at maximum level? With his friends Gurney (the huntery version of Stupicow), and the young, not-quite-70, enhancement shaman Mok at his side, he took his faithful companion LoveMe (once an innocent boar in Durotar) to once again challenge the might of the labyrinth and it's denizens. Despite later learning that LoveMe appeared addicted to the use of Cower, strategical trapping and misdirection, plus the occasional heal from the shaman, the trio downed the much-abused Hellmaw once again. Although afterwards they decided that the next room was not best suited to the abilities of a piggy (possibly ok for a gorilla), and called it a night.

These are my adventures in SLabs.

Shadow Labyrinth: TIME FOR FUN!

Random coincidences

A long time ago when Ephylia (my paladin) was 37 or so, she went to Razorfen Downs with a group and Amnennar the Coldbringer dropped a plate helm which both she and the warrior rolled Need on. And so did the Enhancement shaman. And yes, the shaman won, and yes, I was slightly pissed off, and apparently the shaman thought it was mail. One of those "I hate pugs" stories.

Anyway, once 3.0.2 hit a few weeks ago, Ephylia, now 42, came out of cryogenic sleep and turned to the Ret side. And after having a lot of fun aoe grinding stuff in Dustwallow Marsh, I decided to see if I could solo RFD. Funnily enough a guildmate of mine, the enhancement shaman Mok, was doing RFD (probably for the achievement) and after I solod the first few pulls he offered to run me through. While I could solo the first few groups, the caster heavy ones were tricky so I welcomed the offer (although it turns out that the new, improved Consecration kills groups faster than a 68 enhancement shaman). And anyway, Amnennar dropped the Icemetal Barbute which Ephylia has been wearing ever since.

So, the enhancement shaman giveth, and the enhancement shaman taketh away. And the guildie cleans up the pugs mess (I'm pretty sure it wasn't Mok who needed plate all those months ago, but I was also sure that EDTA removes confluent cells from the bottom of a petri dish - turns out trypsin dettaches the cells and EDTA prevents them sticking to each other).

I'm still hesitant about trusting pugs though. Once bitten, twice shy.

Damn but I hate clichés, using them is like taking candy from a baby (noisy and rather embarrassing when the mother turns up to see what all the fuss is about).

So long, no thanks for all the puns

Well.
I've decided to take a break from WoW, on the grounds of temporary sanity. My final exams are about a week from now, and since I've so far failed 3 out of the 4 stage 3 bio papers I've done (it's ostentatiously one of my majors), I think it's time I got my a-into-g and did something other than level my paladin and attempt to get the stupid squashling. So the next 2.5 weeks are going to be dedicated very heavily to studying for my exams, and therefore I've decided that a blanket ban on playing World of Warcraft is in order (I'll still read stuff and try to keep moderately up to date with what's happening, e.g. the zombie plague, and hope BRK still does a podcast this week).

Final thoughts on 3.0.2:
The patch is nuts, almost every class and spec feels pretty OP. The last couple of days have seen: me 2-manning the headless horseman, a ret tank do 1.4k dps and still be easy to heal, Selin Fireheart's room cleared in a single pull, Vexallus being 4-manned with a ferocity pet tanking, and also a wipe-less pug'd clear of Kara in a few hours (with quite a few people not having done it before; somehow the hunter managed to not move during Flame Wreath on Shade). And none of these are particularly noteworthy achievements.

The real changes are things like the absolute insanity that is a retribution paladin in both pvp and pve, and the crazy aoe goodness of prot warriors, balance (and resto) druids and hunters of all persuasions. Last week saw Quantum Butterflies clear, for the first time, ZA and also do Kara in 3 hours, while Kryptik (a guild a number of ex-Butterflies defected to for 25-man... whatever it is that 25 men do when they get together for 4 hours at night) downed Lady Vashj, and Ajantis, the premier raiding guild on Aman'Thul, finally downed Kil'Jaeden.

Ultimately 3.0.2 changed a lot of things (no ****), and has totally altered the status quo, balance of power, etc. I approve of a lot of the changes (although what's with Steady Shot not scaling with haste?) and it has definitely made the last two weeks a joy to play, and heralds well for what Wrath will bring.

On that note, a few things I'm looking forward to in Wrath of the Lich King:
- craftable PvP gear (yesplz, make money from leatherworking, kkthx)
- Rhino pets
- what looks to be really nice level of interaction with the overall plot (that Undercity questline looks totally jawesome) - I've always been a bit of a lore-junkie, and, damnit, I should've raided more
- Warcraft 3 Human mission 7: The Culling, aka Stratholme in the Caverns of Time
- 10 man raids all the way up to Icecrown Glacier
- being able to do arena pretty much from the start (as opposed to starting halfway through season 3 on one character, and early in season 4 on the other)
- death knight questlines

Anyway, my last exam is on the 12th of November, giving me all of a day before Wrath hits stores here (I'm hoping my computer can actually run it).

Regrets now that I've finished playing TBC:
- not actually downing a 25-man boss (closest I got was a wipe on Gruul at 1%)
- not trying to kill a Fel Reaver since the patch
- not making it to a 1600 rating in any arena team
- not getting The Hallowed title (Darksentinel has the helm, but not the squashling and Beathooven has neither)
- not getting my paladin to 70 before Judgements of the Wise is nerfed to 15% of base mana (from 33%)
- not getting a Netherdrake
- not replacing Darksentinel's Cloak and Rings (who wants to wear blues going into Northrend)
- not ever entering Mount Hyjal
- knowing that my last activity was logging in this morning to collect a Flimsy Male Gnome [Mask] and Penny Pouch
- various other things that will come to me as I'm trying to remember the factors that lead to variation in antibody recognition sites

So yeah, from now on out I'm going to study and find out what it's like to get 8 hours of sleep a night (as opposed to last night, where I went to sleep around 2 and got woken up just after 6am by my friends' kids). Wish me luck in Project Study (I really don't want to do a 5th year of u-grad) and I'll see you all when Wrath is nigh (although I have some scheduled posts that will appear over the next two weeks).

STOP UDDER MADNESS OUT STOP

/wowquit

/bye

PS: bets are up for how long it will be before I'll start wishing I was playing WoW. My personal bet is on about 8 o'clock tomorrow morning

PPS: I kind of didn't mention anything to my guild so now I'm awol. Oh well, they can check their feeds, and if they don't read this then that's their own fault, right? Anyway, half of them (you) have exams of your own to study for, so stop reading this (to the other half: either get back to work, or find a job).

[Guide] Getting Your White Core Hound

White Core Hound? Want it? YES YOU DO!

BigRedKitty calls it the "Puppy Dog of Doom". I call it the only Core Hound that actually looks like a beast (the others look like some sort of demon, and we're definitely not warlocks).

Ok, so a couple of questions have been asked as to how you get it. So here's a guide.

Briefing:
Your target: The Kurken, a level 12 Core Hound on Azuremyst Isle. Wowhead. Petopia. NOTE: It's an EXOTIC pet, so you'll need the 51 pt BM talent (Beast Mastery)to tame it.
Here's a map:

Azuremyst Isle: Now Even More Exotic!

Details: the target lives in a cave (Stillpine Hold) with some deranged Owlkin. It's the object of a quest, so be nice to any level 10-12 draenei running around.Now if you're Alliance, that's all you need to know. Go get it, or go find a real challenge.

If you're Horde things get a bit more tricky.
Firstly, Azuremyst Isle is hostile territory. And there's no direct transport.

On the plus side, you need to be at least 60 to tame the thing in the first place, so at least you won't have a hard time getting there, it will just take a while.

Before you go: STABLE YOUR CURRENT PET, or prepare to abandon it.

How to get there (Horde):
The route is Ashenvale -> Darkshore -> Azuremyst Isle.
More specifically, you need to get to Darkshore, and then head to the Auberdine Docks (it's an Alliance town, and not a problem for a 60+).

Darkshore: Alliance territory

The best way to get to Darkshore is to fly to Zoram'Gar in Ashenvale (from Orgrimar), head a bit east to the road and take it north (the road on the western side of Ashenvale, not the one to Felwood), Splintertree Post also works.

Ashenvale, Horde Flight Paths shown with a *

If you don't have the Zoram'Gar FP or Splintertree Post, head north from the Barrens through the Mor'Shan Rampart and into Ashenvale. And pick up the FP while you're at it. If you don't know where the Barrens are, look up Chuck Norris, or go roll Alliance (although if you don't know where the Barrens are, you won't get the Chuck Norris reference either).

For the Horde: Showing Route from Orgrimar

Ok, you've made it to Auberdine. You're at the docks (which can be found if you ride through the inn). You can't read the signpost that points to Azuremyst Isle (because Orcs can't read), so let's make sure you get on the right boat: the left pier goes to Stormwind, which is some Alliance village or something; the right one goes to Teldrassil, some other Alliance hovel; the middle one goes to Azuremyst Isle, which is still infested with Alliance, but also has one of the coolest pets in the game on it.

Directions: The Blue Thingie is You, the Black Cross is the Docks. Paint Rocks.

Take the boat. Wait for it to cross the water. Get off the boat. Check out that Wowhead map linked above. You're at the docks south of the Exodar. Head north along the road (western side of the isle), but go around the Exodar (hint: the guards are now level 75, I found this out the hard way when I thought I could take a shortcut through).
Keep an eye out for a bunch of hills on your right, if you've reached the bridge to Bloodmyst Isle, it's a bridge too far. Stillpine Hold shouldn't be too hard to find if you keep an eye on your map. The cave entrance is from the south.
Don't kill any Draenei if you're on a PVP server, let them grow into worthy foes. Feel free to kill any gnomes you see.
Enter the cave (Stillpine Hold). Your target is at the back of the cave, by a lake. As you go in, there's a little path on the left that dips down and takes you straight there, but if you miss it you'll get there eventually. Tame it. Hearth out and stomp around Shattrath, or go raid the Exodar.

Now if you want to be manly (or womanly) and you need a MC one, check out It's Gotta Be Orange! on BRK.net. It's an excellent guide.

Personally I really like my white Core Hound. It looks awesome.

Now /shoo and get taming!

EDIT: now with pictures for the illiterate.

Soooo 3.0.2 - initial thoughts

Well, we finally got in.
And now the whole Bloodlust battlegroup is down for 2 hours for "emergency maintenance".
My thoughts so far? A bit chaotic, but overall awesome.

First of all, I respeced Darksentinel to 51/10/0 Beast Mastery. Then I went to go get me a white Core Hound (got to give my thanks here to Mania's update of petopia, I kinda forgot). On the way I managed to find one of those cool Ghost Sabers in Darkshore (wasn't going to keep her though):And then it was on to Azuremyst Isle. Where I got killed by the guards, because I didn't realise that they're all 75, so I tried to ride straight past the Exodar. While I was doing, that orc hunter I know was flying to Un'goro (people, if you want a Devilsaur and you're Revered or higher with Keepers of Time, take the portal to the Caverns of Time, it's slightly faster than flying from TB or Org, or however else Alliance gets there). Anyway, I found the Kurken, and I now have a white Core Hound:
A brief trip to Warsong Gulch yielded 3 achievements (including Saves the Day), plus a daily I forgot I had. I also found out that ret pallies are pretty nasty at 70.

After this it was time to respec Beathooven to balance and test out the new spell power-based damage on all my healing gear. And yes, it's really nice having 800+ spell power. Although a couple of duels later I decided it really was much more fun kiting people with Core Hounds.

So it was back to Durotar on the avenging Beast Master, really putting Beast Mastery with Bestial Wrath's 1.4 minute cooldown through it's paces. It's awesome. Out of around 20 duels I lost 2, 1 to a well-geared rogue (Dismantle is nuts) and one to a warlock who kited me around the giant rib cage sticking out of the ground by the entrance to Orgrimar. Core hound really messes up Elemental Shamans with Lava Breath. Given the number of ret paladins performing way above their gear level (and never running low on mana), I decided it was time to try another pet: the chimaera. And after a trip to Winterspring (on the way I grabbed an Owl, but then released it again) I ended up with a 2-headed drake with Froststorm Breath. Now the damage on Froststorm Breath is only a few hundred, but the debuff is insane. Combined with Wing Clip, Frost Trap, and Concussive Shot I kited around T5/T6/S3 rogues/feral druids/warriors/enhancement shamans and ret paladins as much as I wanted, especially combined with trinket+Bestial Wrath. In duels at least (not arena), Beast Mastery hunters are extremely hard to beat.

After eating a couple of mages and enjoying a server restart, I decided to try the ret paladin for myself. My ret paladin is level 41, and for the first 10 minutes I tried to get my head around the new system of Hands, Seals and Judgements. And after that things went a bit nuts (once I'd gone back to Org to train a few things that had been changed). I experimented in Dustwallow Marsh, with mobs ranging from 37-39, so there wasn't a lot of challenge 1v1. But after rounding up 6 of the Theramore Deserters, killing them extremely quickly with Consecrate and ending up with both 90% health and mana, I realised that even while levelling, retribution is pretty OP. At one point I went afk for 5 minutes and came back to find I'd been attacked, and there was a corpse next to me waiting to be looted O.o. I was going to test AOE grinding on the murlocs, but decided there was something else I needed to do first.

My rogue alt had a massive supply of herbs to sell, and by this time Kingsblood was selling for 40g/stack. Long story short, within an hour I had amassed 280 gold and cleared some bag space. Also, auctions that have sold but not yet been paid for are now listed on the auction house interface. The point here being, if you have herbs, sell them, if you want to level inscription and don't have a supply, be prepared to fork out quite a bit of gold or go hunting yourself.

And by the time I'd tested both Fire and Frost specs on my mage, it was time for the servers to come down again. Both these specs seem a bit better than before, and some of my +[school]-only damage items have been changed to raw spellpower, making it easy to switch between specs.

Short form summary:
- chaos
- some stuff hard to find, including marks of honour
- achievement system has some really cool stuff, but not enough retroactive achievements
- ret paladins are nuts (especially compared to before)
- BM hunters are nuts (although they were pretty sweet before)
- rogues are nuts (and always were)
- basically everything is nuts, except holy paladins and fury warriors (lol, Titan's Gimp)
- lots of nice changes, but will take a while to get used to
- addons sort of work (not completely) and are showing a lot of error messages, but I'm too lazy to update them
- servers are still down

And here's a picture of Stormwind Harbour, taken on the Proudmoore server while Aman'Thul was down:

And We're In.... Sort of

Hi.
Me again.
Inside your RSS reader, clogging it up.

And yes, new patch downloaded, and installed.
New login screen (win, /tickle [target=frostwyrm]).
New music (hey it's really cool, a lot better than the BC theme, possibly even better than Legends from WOW classic).

And... Aman'Thul not up. Only Oceanic realm up is Frostmourne.
US realms coming up one at a time though.

So I'm just sitting here listening to the music.

*twiddles thumbs*

Anyway, hopefully next time I'll have some sort of content-based post for y'all.


EDIT: 9:50 am (NZDT) and Stonemaul is up (level 7 rogue) and Nagrand (level 9 shaman), but I don't think the patch affects them much.
In the meantime: new hairstyles!
And about 6 realms just went down again, gutting to those who made it through.

EDIT: 10:17 am, Aman'Thul and The Forgotten Coast are still down. Completed my first achievement ever (Darksentinel @ Nagrand is now a level 10 shaman /moo).

Out Of Space*

So apprently the patch requires 6.5GB of space to install (I had 4.7 free). What it's doing with that space, I have no clue (6.5GB is a lot, it's more than half what WoW takes up at the moment).
So it was goodbye to the Diablo 2 (1.88GB) and Starcraft (1.2GB) directories.

No idea what I'll be deleting for WOTLK, Windows maybe.


*This post is dedicated to Out Of Mana.

What can we expect tomorrow?

So servers have gone down tonight, presumably so that 3.0.2 can come out.
Earlier I had the following conversation with Toresh of Hunt This (edited slightly for relevance):

(02:24:03 PM) Toresh: i know what will be happening tomoorw though. in trade"where did my mounts go. and /w me "where u get that pet from"
(02:25:04 PM) darksentinel: lolk
(02:25:22 PM) darksentinel: and also "where's skill [x], it disappeared from my bar"
(02:25:40 PM) darksentinel: "/r your talents got reset"
(02:26:10 PM) Toresh: not going to be a good day at all :D
(02:27:21 PM) darksentinel: bah
(02:27:24 PM) darksentinel: /leave trade
(02:27:28 PM) darksentinel: /leave general
(02:27:31 PM) Toresh: good plan
(02:27:32 PM) darksentinel: /gquit :P
(02:27:38 PM) Toresh: lol

Some things we might expect post-3.0.2:
Chaos.
People asking where their mounts went (hint: spellbook tabs).
People asking where talented spells went (hint: assign talent points).
People leveling inscription like mad (hint: sell herbs).
People running around with devilsaurs, corehounds and all things awesome (hint: get your own BM hunter).
Hunters running around taming everything. Un'goro will be full, and MC will see more activity than it has for ages.
Hunters trying to solo stuff, 'cos you know, they're kinda broken in pve post-patch.
Hunters.
Hunter pets with no talents.
Players with no talents.
QQing.
Me bitching about not getting an arena title.
Really busy trade channels.
Broken add-ons.


What might we not see:
Holy paladins.
Survival hunters.
People who left WoW for Warhammer Online (not really relevant to the patch, but something I talked about today).
Marshal Windsor in Stormwind City.
Various other things we'll suddenly miss.
The alts of all the people playing hunters.


Anyway, good night for now, will post something tomorrow (don't expect much, I'll be too busy playing my hunter and ret paladin).

[Arena]: A Lesson in Humility

Patch 3.0.2 comes out tomorrow, no surprise.
And arena Season 4 ends at the same time (before the patch turns everything on it's head).

We figured 1600 rating would cut it for a Challenger title, based on Arena Junkies' arena title calculator. Going into this week, our 2v2 was at 1543, and our 3v3 at 1503, so we should've had a decent chance. The key word being should.

We ended up getting facerolled by teams on much lower rating.
We fought a lot of people with S4 gear, especially helms (which require 1700 rating).

Stupidcow and I ended on 1472, after a lot of very hard matches against teams a lot better geared.

Damah, Stupidcow and I ended on 1398 after an hour of pain and suffering. We got to 1546 after a few easy games then plummeted insanely quickly, losing 17-19 points a match. We played almost every pvp-viable class and spec tonight, at a variety of ratings and still got owned (no warriors or boomkin, oddly enough). These were seriously good teams, with extremely well-coordinated cc and very good gear.

Stupid reroll teams getting friends titles.

Highlights of Season 4:
- 2v2 with Damah (elemental shaman) on my resto druid, teams would run around looking for the rogue (can't they see thorns and MotW?)
- any arena with Damah, people seem to assume he's resto
- actually killing things as a Beast Mastery hunter
- after a day of losing to teams in half S4, fighting an Arms warrior wielding Terrok's Quill
- reaching 1560 rating (max peak of our 2v2) while wearing more blues than PvP items
- kiting hunters and frost mages around pillars as a resto druid
- fighting prot paladins ("dude, he just threw his shield at me") and warriors with shields (fought a long game once, where I was hit by my own Entangling Roots three times, gogo Spell Reflection)

Lowlights of Season 4:
- fighting all the rerolled teams messing with our 1500-ish bracket (seriously, S4 helms, wtf?)
- ret paladins with windfury totem
- watching your elemental shaman 2v2 partner run out of mana - you can keep them alive for ages, but you can't kill anything
- rogues
- being kited while playing a hunter
- having pet killed by enhancement shamans
- playing a hunter in general
- watching your warlock partner trying to kill a scorpid so you can drink
- playing warlock/druid against resto shamans and anything else - they have so much mana regen
- binding Abolish Poison to the F4 button


GG and bring on Season 5!

What will I be doing once 3.0.2 hits?

Around 2 days to go until the servers go down in preparation for 3.0.2 (assuming things happen as normal).

Here's what I'll probably be trying on Wednesday and over the subsequent week or so (until my exams come up) - not necessarily stuff you should do, but you could consider some things:

• hunter:
  
• buy 2 stable slots run around and tame everything in sight. Including, but not limited to:
• gorilla
• Winterspring chimaera
• core hound (probably get the SMV version, and then try for MC skin if it proves worthwhile)
• devilsaur
• one of those cats from Darkshore
• a new owl (I kinda miss Orly)
  
  
• try to solo some stuff:
• Fel reaver
• Gutripper (gave me problems at 67)
• target dummy
• slave pens
• first room of shadow labyrinth
  
  
• mess around in PvP with Aimed Shot and Readiness
  
  

• paladin:
• spec ret and have fun
  
  
• druid:
• see what moonkin is like with our healing googles and healing mace
• bitterly regret not getting the Challenger title
  
  
• sell herbs to people leveling Inscription (yay, profit)
  
  
• QQ about:
• lifebloom
• holy paladins
• people in S4 helms (requiring 1700 rating) playing in teams at 1500
  

EDIT: tried to fix the formating, but it hates me.

One Bored Tauren Druid, One Willing Blood Elven Priestess, and Four Servings of Noggenfogger Elixir

My laptop is back (new mainboard), so now I can profusely spout meaningless statements all over the interwebs.

I like the odd session of RP on our non-RP PvE server. So the other day, after several hours of moderate success in defending the Alterac Mountains from Stormpike incursions (no dwarves shall pillage the treasures of the Frostwolf lands while my leaves remain capable of photosynthesis and restoration), I let myself be ...distracted... by a rather delightful Blood Elven Priestess in the city of Shattrath. Owing to a slight difference in physique (it would appear that the noble Tauren race are rather larger than the delicate, exquisite and refined Sin'Dorei), I imbibed multiple doses of Noggenfogger Elixir (the first three had... undesirable results).
Hence there ensued a plethora of shapeshifting, /emoting, /dancing and other good-natured family-friendly fun, lasting around 10 minutes (by which time the magical juice wore off). No pictures though. /moo.

What did you expect?

And for the record, I'm thinking of this spec for 80 druid PvP. Pewpew. Battle chicken. With the spell power changes it should allow reasonable heals, decent dps and the awesome cc potential that make druids so awesome in BC.

Udder-Madness on arena

If you haven't read WoW Insider's take on PvP (now and in Wrath), go do it now (thanks Toresh for the link, I don't have the time anymore to keep up with all the WoW Insider stuff).
While you're at it, take a look at what Kalgan writes about Blizzard's philosophy of PvP (also linked to from the WoW Insider article).

So I thought I’d write my own thoughts on PvP the way it is at the moment, and the changes Wrath will make to the arena setting.

First, those changes the way I understand them:
-There will be a set of PvP blues that will be obtainable through crafting.
-There will be a set of Arena epics (requiring no rating) that will be obtainable for arena points: the Savage gear (I suppose similar to Season 3 gear available in Season 4, barring Shoulders and Weapons)
-There will be a full set of gear that requires rating from between 1665 and 1850 rating (I think): Hateful gear
-There will be honor-obtainable gear for Bracers, Belt and Boots, Necklace and Rings, set a bit higher than the craftable blues
-There will be a plague of locusts o’er the land (brought by those silly Death Kniggets)

Secondly I want to state where I’m coming from. My hunter (Darksentinel) started arena maybe around 10 weeks in to Season 3, with a resto druid partner (Meellow) and both of us in mostly non-heroic instance blues, needless to say we got steamrolled. But we had a lot of fun, and after dipping as low as 1280 we climbed back up to the mid-1300s and I earned my Waraxe []. We’d pretty much found our niche, hanging with a bunch of other misfits like us (and the occasional Season 3 geared team that really sucked), but not near the bottom. During this period we also started Drunken Hobbits, a 3v3 team with Stupidcow, Damah and Arkanon (3 other guildies with PvP inclinations), but didn’t play regularly due to timetable issues.
Season 4 came out and we upgraded our gear to the reputation blues (so sad), and then hung around just under the 1400 mark. Now Darksentinel is in a mix of Season 1 – Season 3 gear (probably S2 on average) and we’re somewhere between 1400 and 1450.
Towards the end of Season 3 I started levelling my Druid (Beathooven) more seriously, with the aim of seeing how broken restoration actually is at 70 (quite broken, actually), and I hit 70 in the first week of September (well into Season 4). That same week I started Multiboxing, a 2v2 team with Damah (elemental shaman), to start earning points. A few weeks later, Stupidcow (SL/SL Warlock) joined Multiboxing and we’re currently pushing for a title (any title) that we can bear into Northrend with pride – hopefully we’ll make 1600, although for the last 2 weeks we’ve been pretty stable just over 1500. But just having broken the 1500 mark felt like an awesome achievement, since most of the teams had far more experience and significantly better gear (for reference, my druid currently has: Engineering epic goggles, Scryer SSO necklace, S2 shoulders, reputation chestpiece, Karazhan cloth bracers, S2 Mace, questing blue offhand, S3 gloves, S4 belt, reputation legs, Heavy Clefthoof Boots, S2 ring, blue quest ring, PvP blue trinket, Goblin Rocket Launcher – i.e. really crap gear), and I’m kind of being carried by Stupidcow (who is one of the best gamers I’ve had the honour of knowing).

Thirdly: a lot of work seems to be based on balancing PvP against PvE. I’d hesitate to say it can’t be done, but Blizzard keeps trying, and players keep QQing about their perceived discrepancies. While the arguments range both ways from “good PvE gear just involves joining an experienced raid group and taking stuff no one wants” to “damn PvP welfare epics”. My druid has been in both situations: a week after turning 70, I healed a part of lower Kara and Maiden dropped her mace, which should have been a significant upgrade over anything else I would normally have had at that point, except I already had the S2 mace.

The actual point I want to make here is rather simple: I want to gauge myself against other players within the system that Blizzard has set up. I like working hard to earn rewards (which I haven’t yet, and probably won’t), and the rating requirements mean that I have something to strive to. I like the challenge, the intense competition and the satisfaction of slowly increasing my rating through playing well. I find that the gear takes slightly too long to earn (15300 honor takes me about 10 hours to farm all up through AV, more if it requires marks from a battleground Horde don’t win very often (e.g. AB, which often takes 20-30 minutes for a single mark).

Some of my other views on Kalgan's post: the craftable gear idea is awesome. Easily obtainable Savage gear is also nice. And I don’t have a problem with the way Hateful gear is obtained: I like arena. A few people complain that Blizzard are pushing arena too hard, and that they feel forced to do arena in order to get the good gear. This may be the case, but personally, I don’t like raiding and if I so much as want to experience the end-game content in MH, BT and SWP (and being a deep fan of WoW lore I kinda do want to) I first have to spend a lot of time in T4 and T5 instances, working with a guild and forcing my cramped timetable to fit their raiding schedule – it’s the price you have to pay, at least if you want to, you can experience arena at any time.

WOTLK Arena:
So, what class will I play in Season 5 arena? Not sure. Here follow my personal opinions on the different options:
Death Knights: unknown how strong they will be, but definitely an option. Since I haven’t played beta or PTR I don’t really understand their relative power and mechanics enough to comment, but I suspect they’ll be good, if somewhat overplayed.
Druids: given the Lifebloom nerf (and other efficiency decreases), restoration won’t be the powerhouse it was in TBC, even with armoured Treeform, but will still be an incredibly versatile healer with a lot of cc potential. Feral I’ve never been entirely comfortable with from a PvP viewpoint (not enough cc, no drain, not enough burst). Balance is a viable option, but will need to see how it works out, since gear can be a bit finicky.
Hunters: although Wrath has given hunters an almost-ridiculous amount of love, I’m not sure whether I’ll try to push arena seriously with Darksentinel (even though I consider them to be the best drain class with a scorpid pet, especially with new instant cast Aimed Shot). There are 2 main reasons for this: hunters are still incredibly weak at melee range (Disengage notwithstanding) and Crippling Poison+Shadowstep/Hamstring+Intercept combined with my New Zealand lag make some classes a nightmare to play against, and additionally hunters are really easy to LoS. And while I think I play a decent druid, I don’t play a hunter nearly as well as I could.
Mages: I’m not really a fan of mages in arena, although that’s probably because as a resto druid with a warlock partner they don’t offer a lot of challenge (shift out of Shatter combo, LoS+heal and wait for DoTs to finish the job), and don’t really see the appeal. Although, given the decreased mana costs in Wrath they may become more attractive.
Paladins: Stupidcow and I are seriously considering Retribution paladins. They seem to have massive burst, decent survivability and efficiency. We may even run Ret/Ret. From what I’ve heard though, Holy paladins need some serious work before they become viable for anything at all.
Priests: not sure. Discipline/Holy will probably still be nuts, and hopefully Shadow will be both more mana efficient and have more burst.
Rogues: ah the infamous OP class. Seems like they’re even more OP. I might decide to roll a rogue, but doesn’t really seem to suit my playstyle.
Shamans: I love Shamans, all 3 specs. And while resto and elemental may seem more suited to 5s, they should be pretty viable for smaller brackets too, especially with the buffs Enhancement is getting in the patch.
Warlocks: I’ve always found warlocks scary in PvP (at least since hitting 70, before then my BM hunter would eat them with gusto), although more so as a non-BM hunter than as a resto druid, and I suspect that Demonology-heavy locks will be quite nuts in Wrath even if I haven’t heard the verdict on Demonform.
Warriors: yawn. They may be good, but they don’t appeal to me. They’re just too boring in the way they play.

Anyway, I has assignments to do, and rating points to earn. There’ll probably be more PvP commentary from me next week.

EDIT: hopefully fixed some formatting issues.

Gnothing Butt Madness

EDIT: complete and utter fail on my part.
A recent post on Out of Mana:

I am NOT Mania! I don't even know who Mania is. A maniac, maybe. Mania, definitely not.

A link back to me revealed that the blogger of Udder Madness thought the most recent Gnaked Gnome Race was hosted by BRK and Mania. BIGFROWNIEFACE.

Yep. Complete and udder phail. Zis vut happen when no sleep enuf, aye.

Today was BRK and MEGAN's Gnaked Gnome Race (foshizzle), on Drenden, US.
I took part, missed the tram from IF to SWC and then died about 8 times in STV, twice in Westfall and once in Darkshore. Eventually I made it to Orgrimar.
I took my camera.


Having a penchant for dancing on banks as a naked gnome, I had to try.
This tauren druid tried to play too, but was a bit rough.


So I had to dance by myself. :( (look at that hair!)


Until this hand of A'dal came along and joined the party!


And a bunch of us made it to Thrall.

Anyway, lots of fun. I advocate an Udder Madness version of this. Cows raiding Ironforge (via the zeppelin to Grom'gol or Undercity.

OMG We Did It!

One small step for my personal PvP experience, nothing at all of interest to the WoW world (except for the people we beat).
That's right. 1500 rating achieved.



It took some work. What's crazy is, this is on my druid.
At the time we achieved this my druid was really abyssmally geared. 1250 heals, 260 resilience and about 8.5k health (wearing 2 PvP epics, and 4 PvP blues).

Thanks Damah and Stupidcow for taking it this far, let's try to hit 2200! (yeah right).

[Insert clever title here]

If I take a look at the blogs I follow (half a dozen or so), it pretty quickly becomes obvious that in terms of most-recently-updated there is one conspicuously at the bottom of the list. Mine. /facepalm. That being said it's been an eventful week for me:

1) My laptop (one of those cute white Asus Eee things) has died. Something about memory errors and not being able to save stuff or access external data storage (so no backing up files). Fail. This means I’ve lost access to a bunch of stuff (like the internet from any point in the house), and also links to stuff I’ve recently viewed, and a couple of drafts of (let's be honest) drafts of articles.

2) I procrastinated on a 3000 word essay on Euclid's Elements of Geometry. I thought it was due on Thursday, in reality it was due on Monday. I got an extension to Thursday (/win). Today is Thursday and I still haven't finished it... errr, started it (/golfclap).

3) I borrowed 2,200 gold from the guild bank and got myself Epic flying. And it's pretty damn epic, being able to cross any Outlands zone in 2 minutes. My reasoning for borrowing the gold, rather than earning it first: if I borrow the gold I have motive to pay it back, whereas if I save up the gold I'll keep thinking "meh, expansion soon, can't be bothered farming gold if I can't fly in Northrend anyway and the price might come down", and also doing the Outlands dailies is much faster when you can fly... faster. Also if I die today (e.g. suicide/homocide because of unfinished essays) I will have FLOWN (really, flown, that 60% stuff doesn't cut it). And now I can earn gold from the Swift Flight Form questline, to pay the guild back.

4) I spent $100 (NZ) on a pair of headphones. This was a big deal since previously I tended to spend about $10-$15 on headphones, barring my computer headset ($45). Will spending that much more make the 3.5mm headphone jack last longer (or rather, the bit of cable directly above the jack, which always seems to get damaged over time)? Probably not. Does anyone really care about my buying headphones? Probably not. But the Sennheiser PX100s fit very nicely into a case that the cable wraps around - meaning it doesn't magically get tangled in storage in a way that makes quantum-entanglement look like crochet - and THIS IS A GOOD THING (although I don't really get the analogy... quantum entanglement, crochet, wtf am I thinking?).

5) My credit card seems a bit messed up. After buying a bunch of things and making a large payment onto it all within the last week, my account shows zero activity since the 8th of September, which worries me slightly.

6) My Hunter got the S3 Chestpiece, which put him at 11k health until I came to my sense and swapped in some blue DPS rings. In terms of set gear he has 3x S2, 1x S4 and 1x S3. And a bunch of other S1-S3 gear in most of the remaining slots. Which isn't a big deal to most arena players, but it means I'm generally one of the best geared in BGs and is quite satisfying. And now I get to try to obtain all of that again on the druid, in the space of about 2 weeks (or whenever the content patch comes out and messes with the status quo).

7) I suffered through 2v2 again. By 'suffered' I mean that we played 10 games, going 4-1 for the first 5 and reaching a record rating of ... 1465 (/golfclap2) and then went 1-4 for the second lot of 5 (seemingly having jumped a bracket), so gained a total of about 3 rating points (/facepalm2). It appears that my druid (who has the grand sum of 7k hp, buffed, 8k if I swap in some tanking gear) and his Elemental Shaman partner are actually doing better than the significantly better-geared and much more viable hunter/druid combo. And while I play a mean drain game, we lose to enhancement shamans, a lot, like 80% of the time (on the plus side we win around 75%+ of our drain matchups, people in this bracket haven't heard of Scorpid Poison or Star's Tears). One memorable match we played Hunter/Druid (and by that I mean we played against it). My pet was killed twice, while the opposing Raptor remained untouched, but we still won - something about me resurrecting my pet twice, and managing to drink half a mana bar.

8) With the knowledge that Honour (yes, this is how you spell it, no matter what Blogger, Blizzard or anyone else thinks, 'honor' is for the uneducated :P), Marks and Arena Points will be wiped in the expansion, I cashed in all my marks on the druid and got the Guardians Kodohide Belt at about 2:30am this morning (yay for 4.5 hours sleep), which was a minor upgrade over my level 65 int/spirit/healing green. Now I just need to replace the level 66 green boots (I was using Heavy Clefthoof Boots socketed for 8 Resil, 12 Stam from my tanking set, but they've mysteriously disappeared from my inventory, and they're not in my bank either).

9) I think the current Brewfest is pretty cool. I have downed Coren Direbrew 18 times, with 7 Direbrew Hops, 5 Coins, 4 Stam trinkets, and 2 AP trinkets. And my Hunter has the Remote (slightly faster than flying to Kargath and riding to Blackrock Mountain and then winding our way to BRD... ever so slightly). These trinkets are stupidly easy to get (barring the really weird droprates) considering how good they are, and eventually everyone will end up with a full set long before they have their festive mount. Given the other stuff I have to do (farming honor, and gold) I'm not going to be participating in any of the other Brewfest stuff, especially since I spent way too much time on it last year (and got my faux-engineering goggles, I mean, how could I not? They're hunter loot, right?).

10) Hunters in Wrath are going to be awesome. Hunter pets in Wrath are going to be awesome. I've said this before? Well, repeating it doesn't make it any less true ^_^.
BRK has shown that a Gorilla is an awesome AOE tank with Thunderstomp, if you haven’t seen his latest movie, check it out here. Note that the cooldown on Volley has been removed, AND that you can use Autoshot while channelling it (…wow…, and also wtf?). Combined with Explosive Trap this should allow Hunters to push out some mean AOE DPS, and with a Gorilla all you need is a healer (or a nice T5 set bonus). Awesome, or awesome? I haven’t yet decided.
Given the Guard Dog talents, you no longer need to find your Gorilla Fungus to eat, and apparently they can now also eat bread (possibly even Manna Biscuits, but I’m not sure on that). And whereas before, you had to go out and tame a new pet to learn higher ranks of pet skills, they now learn them automatically.
Given the very high damage that Thunderstomp deals at the moment, I expect a nerf to be forthcoming, but it should still be the best AOE tanking skill. The other good AOE tanking pets are the Bear with Swipe and the Crocolisk with Bad Attitude (which has been changed to have quite a long cooldown). All of these should be able to hold threat through Mend Pet aggro, and probably any other incoming heals – at least at melee range.
And although you’d be missing out on Blood of the Rhino and Spirit Bond plus the various other BM-based pet improvements, you can get any of these pets as Marksman or Survival (Explosive Shot, anyone?). But how do these compare to the Exotic Tenacity pets, which should, strictly speaking, be better than their non-exotic equivalents (otherwise Beast Mastery becomes a 51 point vanity talent)? And the reality is that neither the Rhino nor the Worm are particularly dominating in terms of AOE threat (and if they don’t do AOE threat, then heals will draw aggro on any additional mobs, not fun when soloing and definitely not fun in a party where you pet is tanking). Stampede does some AOE threat (through damage), but not a lot and it has a very long cooldown (for the purposes of tanking) – although it’s still a cool talent in PvP, I can’t wait to use it in Alterac Valley on the Stormpike Bridge, or in Iceblood Tower *evil grin*. Acid Spit is probably the highest threat single-target pet skill there is, but unless you macro it to hit adds (and the cooldown is a bit long to rely on it) it won’t hold threat through heals. I really think that the Exotic tenacity pets should not be outclassed in their main roles (i.e. tanks) by apes from the southern jungles of the Old World. Someone please mention this to the devs.
Overall, however, pet (and Hunter) changes in Wrath of the Lich King are nuts (oh right, repeating myself again). Expect people to QQ when we solo every 2 man quest Northrend has to throw at us (and possibly a lot of the 3 mans as well, and some of the easier bosses in Kara). We might even be able to take on Hogger in Nightmare difficulty (although chances are that a Lightning Enchanted Multishot Hogger will blow up Gorillas pretty fast). On that note, what happened to Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2?

11) This one goes up to 11. And it's almost 11 now and this as-yet unwritten essay is due at 5. /Facepalm.


PS: I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information or links on this page, so if anything is wrong, please let me know.

Warning: Contents May Occur

Ok, so it's been a few days since I last made a post. And even longer since I made something actually worthy of the title of content. So prepare for quite a random sprouting of stuff. And quite a bit of it.
Why the delay? The usual suspects of an essay, and a test, and some arena to do. And generally having to sort out my future, my education, finding possible solutions to various problems (oil alternatives, fresh water alternatives, and the epic fail that is NZ politics at the moment).

Prepare for a reasonably long post. It was originally so big (well, cluttered), I've added a table of contents. Normally each issue would have a separate post, but I don't want the blog to become cluttered simply because I have a couple of hours I can dedicate to writing, and quite a bit to cover. But, knowing the importance of organising stuff nicely, I've added in sections and subsections.

Also, rather than my own takes on stuff, I'll post quite a few links to other peoples' posts.

Table of Contents:
Section 1: Wrath Stuff

Subsection 1.1: Latest Update (8962) - mostly links
1.1.1: Druid updates
1.1.2: Crafting

Subsection 1.2: Other Stuff
1.2.1: Hunter Pets
1.2.2: Personal Plans in Wrath

Section 2: Not-Wrath Stuff
2.1: Review of the PvP Bible (aka: What Not To Buy)
2.2: Should I finish 'Gearing a Druid Tank'
2.3: My Addons
2.4: Other

Section 1: Wrath Stuff

Subsection 1.1: Latest Update (8962)
So, the newest patch (8962) hit the Beta realms yesterday (or maybe the day before :S), and naturally there are a few changes, many of which I won't discuss, mostly because there's going to be a new patch soon anyway (I hope) and lots of people are bound to have discussed the changes relevant to their class.

1.1.1: Druid updates
Since for me the important question at the moment is what is life going to be like for my druid, I will summarise what I read: bears got buffed, moonkin got rearranged, and trees got nerfed. Oversimplification, but for me this was the essence. Phaelia, in her straightforward manner, did a very useful analysis that can be found over at Resto4Life and she also provides further links for the non-resto changes. The bear changes are quite good, in my opinion, and will probably see me tanking, rather than healing (unless I really like tanking as a Death Knigget, apart from making silly Monty Python references, I don't know what else I'd do with a DK... bite peoples' legs off?) and Runycat takes a good look at them (with innuendo) at Unbearably HoT.

On the note of druids never going oom... my 2v2 (druid/hunter) fought warlock/druid last night. The druid was PvE geared and spec'd, by the time my druid was oom and had used Innervate, the other one was at about 6k/9k mana, despite a masked Viper Sting. Then he ran off, in Treeform, to try to Cyclone my partner and oops... lock died (about the only time I've had an advantage in Ruins of Lose), then it took me another minute to kill the druid, since he'd regen 220 mana a tick, and I had no mana myself (had to save up mana for Aimed Shot+Silencing Shot+burst). Apparently gear != skill, who would've thought?

1.1.2: Crafting
Some more details on WotLK crafting have emerged. Horns at Locksucks did a nice summary a few days ago, and MMO Champion has the details on the 8962 changes. My Hunter, who will likely be my main in Wrath, is currently a leatherworker, and the idea of a LW-only wrist-enhancement, although pretty strong, paled in comparison to the profits that other crafters could make (I didn't sell nearly as many Armorkits in BC as I'd have hoped, mostly made them with a lot of my mats for guildies), but more BoEs seem nice. Hopefully we get some snazzy BoP stuff too, because I wasn't all that impressed by the Ebon Netherscale gear, although the Breastplate was good.

Subsection 1.2: Other Stuff
Couple of other points I want to mention, not directly related to 8962.

1.2.1: Hunter Pets
If you haven't heard/seen/been told yet, hunter pets are the bees' knees in Wrath (foshizzle?). They are sheer awesome. Proof? BRK solos a Fel Reaver (remember those massive screen shakers that would ambush you in HFP?And 3 shot fresh 70s?) and shows off two other pets in this movie.

I spent some time yesterday browsing the Petopia list of Pet Skills in WotLK, with an eye on possible PvP pets once the pre-Wrath patch hits. While the Core Hound's Lava Breath looks awesome, especially against Paladins and Shamans, the Chimaera's Froststorm Breath is also pretty impressive - with the right talent it should have a cooldown of 7 seconds, and slows by 50% for 5 seconds, which sounds pretty nice, especially if it stacks with Concussive Shot. I very much look forward to using my favourite spec in Arena, Marksman just doesn't do it for me.

1.2.2: Personal Plans in Wrath
So, what am I going to do in Wrath of the Lich King? Well once it comes out I might just level my 42 Paladin to escape the crowding in Northrend and Eastern Plaguelands. Well, maybe. I'm really looking forward to levelling my Hunter as BM (ty 4 da love, Blizz) and getting an earlier start in arena (started 3/4 of the way through Season 3 in BC). My Druid will also be levelled at some point, and will probably end up being a Bear, because at the moment Resto isn't too appealing to me (BC Resto really spoiled me, especially for PvP), and I suppose a Death Knigget is compulsory, especially since I am a big fan of WoW lore (if I wasn't a Hordie, I'd totally play a female gnome DK with pink pigtails, 4lols).

Actually, there's a good chance I'll just take Darksentinel through the Old World, taming everything in sight.

Section 2: Not-Wrath Stuff
Stuff not directly related to the upcoming expansion, and therefore not as interesting...

2.1: Review of the PvP Bible
I bought a guide the other night, the PvP Bible. The site is impressive, the promises were extravagant, the price (I thought) fairly reasonable at $37US (moan, crappy NZ dollar, moan) and I thought it'd give us a nice chance to see 1600 and get that S4 chestpiece (feel free to laugh, or /golfclap). I paid, downloaded it, read it (skimming sections), thought about it, and became slightly pissed off.

The guide is an impressive 237 pages in the form of a 20MB pdf. Over 130 pages (i.e. more than half) are about duels, and to me dueling is a fun pastime to be undertaken outside Orgrimmar or in Gadgetzan. Among its more stellar points are a 4/41/16 Hunter build touted as "the best talent build" (note that the 4 BM points are in Improved Aspect of the Hawk) and the comment that "Warlocks have a tough time against Mages". Now, I don't play a Mage, I don't play a Warlock, but from those people I know who do play them the general sentiment I hear is "the only way a mage will beat a warlock is if the Warlock is AFK, has no pet and has res sickness, and even then you might want a rogue to help". Again, I might be wrong, but I dug up this old WoWInsider post (god, that thing is lols) and it roughly confirms my view.
Now I know the disclaimer on the site states: "The website disclaims any responsibility for the accuracy of the content of this website. Visitors assume the all risk of viewing, reading, using, or relying upon this information. Unless you have otherwise formed an express contract to the contrary with the website, you have no right to rely on any information contained herein as accurate. The website makes no such warranty." (i.e. I'm a sucker for buying it), but I'll briefly list here the things that occured to me just while I was reading it, and only in relation to Hunters in 2v2 and 3v3, and just basic points:
- vs. a Warrior or other melee it is imperative that you keep Wing Clip on them at all times
- a Viper Sting macro (and liberal use thereof) is compulsory for draining
- Frost Trap is vital to aid a partner to kite melee.
- a Scorpid pet is necessary to mask Viper Sting from dispel effects using Scorpid Poison
- a Hunter should use Aspect of the Viper against Healer/DPS, and have two weapons with +30 int enchants macro'd for regen phases
- when Rogues Vanish, be ready to Flare them out.
- using your trinket on Cheap Shot is generally a bad idea, because it will always be followed by Kidney Shot
And this was only some of the really obvious stuff I thought should've been in there. A lot of other errors abounded, such explaining how to tank the Marshals in Vann's/Drek's room in AV, without stressing the importance of despawning them by capping towers (and getting 63 bonus honor). There is one focus macro, but no explanation on how to actually use focus. I could go on, for quite a long time, in fact.
i actually emailed the author of the PvP Bible with a lot of these points and got the following response "Thanks for the feedback. It’s much appreciated. I’m looking to continuously update the guide so you can expect all these points noted." Hmmm...

In other words, for me the PvP Bible was not a lot of help. In fact after reading it, I did arena and lost some rating (although don't blame the PvP Bible for that), and I really feel it doesn't deliver on what it's marketed as (yes, I did read the disclaimer, but I have yet to find the "3 hours of tutorials", although I am notoriously bad at finding things even after I trip over them, like a stepladder at work the other day...).
On the POSITIVE side, I think the guide could be quite good (if a bit overwhelming) to someone new to PvP and arena, who doesn't know their class and really is interested in the correct spell rotation required for a Warlock to beat a Rogue. But between WoWWiki and ArenaJunkies, you can get most of that (and more, and more reliably) for free and you don't even need to brave the WoW Forums.
I'm fully tempted to write my own quick guide to Hunters in Arena. And despite me having around 900 less rating than what the author of the PvP Bible claims he has, I will say that I'm confident that in terms of Huntering my guide will be better than what I downloaded. I'll even email him a copy.
Conclusion: from what I've seen, for anyone with some arena and PvP experience, the PvP Bible is not worth the cost of the bandwidth used to download it, and for everyone else it's not worth the cost of purchasing it and then taking the time to read and learn it.

2.2: Should I Finish 'Gearing a Druid Tank'
Self explanatory, really. This refers to part one of my guide, "New Druid on the Block: Gearing a Bear Tank". Part two, which is in the process of being written, is actually about the items that an adolescent feral tank should consider when beginning tanking.
But. Wrath of the Lich King is what, 8 weeks away? Is anyone intending on hitting 70 as a Druid during this time who wants to tank and won't be dragged through Kara and Heroics to get gear? If there is, let me know, especially if you think continuation of the guide might help you (or them). Otherwise there's a good chance that I'll work more on feeding other teams in BG9 my arena rating, and the guide will go to the same place that New Years' Resolutions go. Yes, my sense of timing is sh*t.

2.3: My Addons
Now, my system resources are limited to whatever Dell sold me in 2003. They're so bad that I ended up buying both an AGP and a PCI-E graphics card before realising that my mobo had, in fact, slots for neither (I do have 3 PCI slots, which don't match the 4 slots cut into the case).
In short, this means that if I run X-PERL unit frames in EOTS, I get about 2 fps. So I can't use a lot of addons. What I do use has been carefully selected:
- Omen. The must-have Threat Meter. To anyone who wants to know if they're winning on threat, this is for you.
- Recount. A nicely detailed dps meter that has around 2^16 other functions (margin of error, 2^17).
- Lootlink. Less commonly used, but I really like this addon. It keeps track of items you've seen and allows you customised searching while in-game. Almost as good as an in-game WoWHead for items. Sort of. As long as it doesn't reset.
- Outfitter. My favourite Addon, helps me keep track of the 5 sets my Druid uses (cat dps, tanking, moonkin, PvE Heal, PvP Resto). And an interesting method of encountering my personal vocabulary of obscenities when it resets.
- Cartographer. Useful for viewing Instance Maps, coords, keeping track of key points and a few other things.
- Cosmos UI. A collection of addons, but currently I only use the 'clock' addon, which shows a big clock (surprise) with tooltip information so I can see how much I've procrastinated/how much sleep I've missed.
- Grid. A recent addition, following the debacle of me trying to use the default UI to heal Kara and BGs. This thing is pretty lightweight (compared to say, the Perl derivatives), very nice and customisable, and Phaelia provides a great tutorial that is pretty much a must-see for any Druid who wants to use Grid to heal.

2.4: Other
Thanks for bearing with me so far. In conclusion, Draenei are awesome (they have the best questline EVER, you learn a new language, get transformed into a beautiful, fast, invisible cat and free some baby Furbolg who are locked in cages - I found this out when Aman'Thul went for it's two-hour maintenance on Tuesday, although three hours later it still wasn't up so I went to bed) and I hate Ruins of Lordaeron (we went something like 15-11 yesterday in 2v2, and we won about 3 of the 12 matches that took place in the Ruins). For now, I'm going to sleep, and I'll reread this post tomorrow, correct all the stupid erorrs that crept in and probably delete large chunks.

If you have any questions, requests, comments, arguments, flames, feel free to comment (a reasonably level of maturity is encouraged) on this post, or send an email to (maturity optional):