A Warlock's Wet Dream

Made on the WWI 2008 in Paris.

WWI 2008

It's over, i joined the queues to the various shows and events at the World Wide Invitational 2008 in Paris together with a bunch of guildies.
The things i've seen made me quite enthousiastic about Wow once again and i'm eager to start the levelrace to 80. Wowinsider and various other sites have covered alot already of what i've seen so i won't go into much detail, however i'd like to share some things i experienced and the innovations that i think are great myself.

Meeting up with Guildies
This must have been the highlight of the event for me, eventhough i felt a big grin on my face quite often while watching the various presentations and game details. Quite funny to see people you've spoken to for a couple of years but never seen in real life.
Some people totaly match the picture you have created in your mind while others manage to surprise you quite a bit, mostly in a positive way luckily.
The most surprising thing must be that you hang out together throughout the weekend with people you've never met before but it just seems right, just as if you are on a raid but without the dkp. (Goodybag still contained Epix btw)
I wonder how this has changed our ingame relation, i'm expecting you get even more of a friends feeling while talking to them from now on.
Just hope everyone enjoyed the meet up as much as i did.


Class Changes
Now this was pretty vague and quite a bit of this was already known. One of the few things i didn't know yet was that the Hunter pets would get their own talent tree. This way you can spec a pet as dps or a tank or for utility, which could make a tankpet alot better for solo'ing or perhaps even offtanking in a regular instance.
I tried the new Enhancement shaman talents on one of the WotLK PC's (toons were at 70 still sadly enough) and the Spirit Wolves looked like fun altho i'm wondering if they work as they are supposed to... like the Moonkins Treants you get a circle to spawn them somewhere around you but these didn't return to you and follow you when there is no mob or the mob is dead, they just stood there.
The rest of the Enhancement Shaman talents looked pretty promissing aswell.
A m8 of mine who was sitting next to me tried the lock's new talents and demonform was pretty cool, still looked like the Leo demon at that point.
The affliction top tier talent seemed usefull aswell (slowing and silencing a target while still being vulnurable by spells) while Destruction got a non resistable attack. (think it was fire based)


New Stuff
I didn't have enough time to play the Deathknight but my GF did and she was quite enthousiastic about it eventho she plans to stay on her current toon.
Most people seemed to have problem with it though as i saw alot dead Deathknights running about :P

Stuff i also liked was the new PvP zone.. while i normally hate PvP this actually looked like brilliant fun, an actuall siege which was truelly as Warcraft.
Even on unbalanced servers the controll of the keep can change as the faction that keeps losing gains more and more reinforcements, shifting the balance after each loss.

The new Tabard system is great aswell; if you are running around in Ramparts with a Cenarion Expedition tabard for example... you will get CE rep aswell! If you wear the HH one in Ramparts, you get a bonus on your current rep gain. Likely will only work for heroics tho.
This change is for WotLK ofcourse and tabards will be obtainable at Friendly/Honored.


Instances
They showed some instances and i really liked what they showed. Wowinsider already told a bit about the Occultus in which you can grab a drake, each with different skills (healing, tank, dps) and you can then assume a different role. These drakes can fly in the instance and you can do bosses in different orders this way.
The other instance was based on the Titans story, resulting in a huge instance with enormous mobs.. it reminded me a bit of Mordor, think the instance was called Ulduar or something. (me and my bad memory)


I'm hoping to show you some more stuff later on once i've checked all the pictures that i've made, just wish i had a better camera. Anyway, i truely felt the vibe and enthousiasm of the other people there and i enjoyed myself very much. I'm kind of hoping a next invitational will be near to my place again, perhaps at our neighbours in Germany? I can recommend anyone who can afford it to go attend, if only for the feeling of being normal for a change amongst all those fellow addicts.

Gone Fishing!

Gone fishing for info that is... i'm off to the World Wide Invitational 2008 in Paris this weekend!
I'm hoping to see loads of new stuff about the next expansion, pick up a scoop or 2 even, laugh off my head at people doing their silly dances in crazy costumes aswell as meet up with a number of guildies.
Certainly that last part is something i'm looking forward to, so weird talking to people for the last 2-3 year now and not ever seeing them in person. At least for a couple that's going to change.

Either way, time to get packing.

Saved by the bell?

Yesterday we were about to do a boss in Black Temple, the big bad last one actually: Illidan. The problem was we were one tank short.
So we stood around for an hour or so, trying to figure a way to make the fight possible.
The tank that was supposed to show didn't and ou roptions were limited.

After long debate the best option (of all bad options) seemed to be bringing my Alt tank in. Now some people didn't have a doubt it would be possible with my warrior while others felt an alt could never have the reaction a full-time tank would have, eventho others disagreed again and saying that it depended on the player. I agreed with both... i don't play my warrior that often anymore but i feel i'm pretty good at it.
My situation awareness is pretty good, my threatgeneration is pretty good and most of all: i'm no keyboard turner. Sure it might take me a minute or so to get fully back into it but Illidan seemed pretty doable either way. Now i was in a bad mood already and people not trusting me to do a good job made me question why i should bother at all... then again, i can't expect everyone to know what kind of player i am.

So i accepted the "job", didn't feel like playing the Hunter anyway and this was at least a nice challenge... probably more for my healers then me, but still.
With the best pre-T5 gear availble i aint thát bad geared, one of our tanks even tanked Archimonde in full T4 in the beginning and i consider my gear to be at least thát good. Still, Illidan becomes pretty nasty in the last phase. Guess my "ow-shit" buttons should be saved till that part and then pray the healers are on the spot aswell to keep up a poorer geared tank.
I read up on Bosskillers quickly and one of the other tanks gave me a couple of pointers and even a flask and other buffstuff.
I was ready for this... a bit scared but mostly happy to show that it's not all about gear to some of the disbelievers. ;-)
Buffs were completed, the ready check had started and we were about to go when i saw a text appear on the bottom left "TankX has come online."
Figures...

I gave up my spot ofcourse, makes no sense making a fight harder with an alt while there is a better geared main available.
A Hunter had to go at the same time so i had to come back on my Hunter eventho i'd rather just had called it a day, i didn't want to raid on my Hunter that day anyway and after almost being able to try out my tank again that feeling only had gained in strength.
Either way we managed to kill Illidan and the second Warglaive dropped, giving our Rogue a complete set... that at least made the wait worth it.

Jealousy can be Ugly

Last sathurday i decided to pug again for a change. I went on my lock and did "just" a normal instance. I ended up in a guild-party where i was the only one from a different guild. So far so good.

The tank and healer weren't there normal spec so that took some adjusting. There were quite a few body pulls where we got an extra pack of trash but they managed to laugh about it, mostly... more and more wipes happened but we made progress slowly and thats what mattered. The partyleader, a hunter, seemed to give the other guys quite some abuse but they seemed to manage to defend themselves. I actually thought they were just playing it aswell.

But just before the last boss (Kael'thas) the Hunter felt like stroking his own ego and spammed the damage meters with him being nr 1. Now meters aint always right but on my meters i was first so i linked that aswell. Obviously mine were wrong as you can imagen. ;)
I noticed one thing tho which i shared with them, on both his and mine meters i had done the same exact number of damage! I could only assume he hadn't reset his meters ad the start but he assured me did and got quite ticked of. One of his guildmates mocked him for getting beaten and cheating on the meters didn't do much good either.
He was determined to show me who was boss on the meters at the boss.

We did another pull on which i had to seduce and banish a target. Not much of a problem but the palatank pulled once again without warning, they were together on vent. Resulting in the seduce target getting to close and the tank hitting it all the time.
Apart from that another mob was loose and i started fearing it as it was on the healer.. resulting in me having to kepe eye on 3 mobs in a small coridor. Imo i didn't do half bad but we still wiped as it simply took too long as my dps was hardly worth mentionable at that pack.
The Hunter complimented me on how i handled the adds... but he was being sarcastic, i'd checked with him too be sure even. Aparently he blamed me for that wipe!
We had had loads of wipes and none because of me, i did the most damage or at least 2nd in case mine was wrong (which i doubt) and he started doing ugly at me now.
I asked him if he was getting nasty all of the sudden as he couldn't take being second on the meters unlike he thought himself, now that didn't go down good either. :) He called me a nub because he was PvP spec, not sure what his point was there too be honest, perhaps he was trying to save his face for being second.
Either way i didn't take him tossing shit in my direction, if his guildies are willing to take it it's their choice.

"We will see on the boss" he said and i told him "No we wont" and left the party.
One of the others whispered me why i left and i said because of the Hunter trying to be a dick and i didn't have the patience for that. He actually understood. ;)
I was in much doubt if i would just stick around and swallowed it just to get to the boss but i simply couldn't, i kind of hoped he didn't manage to clear the instance without me however sorry i would be for the other 3 who seemed nice.
Jealousy can be Ugly right?

New Shaman Skills in action

Ok, i'm going to step on the Wrath of the Lich King hype train... but only because i found this cool little clip showing new Shaman skills.
A couple of new ones are shown like Hex, Lava Burst, Feral Spirit and Thunder. Do note that Feral Spirit shows only one wolf which has probably something to do with scaling.
I'll hand you the new Shaman skills on a plate first:

• Hex - Transforms the enemy into a random critter, reducing the target's movement speed by 75%. While moving, the hexed target cannot attack or cast spells. Only one target can be hexed at a time. Only works on Humanoids and Beasts.
  
• Lava Burst - You hurl molten lava at the target, dealing 888 to 1132 Fire damage. If Flame Shock is on the target, Lava Burst will consume the Flame Shock, causing Lava Burst to critically hit.
  
• Earthliving Weapon - Imbue the Shaman's weapon with earthen life. Increases healing done by $51940$s2 and each heal has a 20% chance to proc Earthliving on the target, healing an additional 180 over 6 seconds. Lasts 30 minutes. (Scales with spellpower)
  
• Feral Spirit - Summons 2 Spirit Wolves under the command of the Shaman, lasting 30 sec.
  
• Weapon Specialization - "Axe - Increases the critical strike damage bonus by $s1%. Mace - Has a $s2% chance to increase your melee haste by 10% for 15 sec. Fist - Attacks from your fist weapons have a $s3% chance to reduce the armor of your target by 20% for 6 sec."
  
• Improved Shamanistic Rage - While under the effect of Shamanistic Rage, you have a 50/100% chance also cause you to be immune to all stun, snare and movement impairing effects.
  
• Spirit Link - You link the friendly target with two nearby targets, causing 50% of the damage taken to be distributed to the linked targets. After 2200 damage, the link will sever.
  
• Feral Spirit - Summons 2 spirit wolves under the command of the shaman, lasting 30 seconds.
  
• Thunder - You call down a bolt of lighting, energizing you and damaging nearby enemies within 10 yards. Restores 5% mana to you and deals 595 to 679 nature damage to all nearby enemies, knocking them back 200 yards.
  
• Static Shock - You have a 2/4/6% chance to hit your target with a Lightning Shield Orb charge when you do damage, and increases your spell damage by $s2% when you have Lightning Shield active. (Lower 2 ranks " and increases your the number of charges of your Lightning Shield by 1.")
  
• Tidal Wave - Increases the critical effect chance of your Lesser Healing Wave and Healing Wave spells by 1/2/3/4/5%, and your Healing Wave and Lesser Healing Wave spells gain an additional 5/10/15/20/25% of your bonus healing effects.
  
• Improved Earth Shield - Increases the amount of charges for your Earth Shield by 1/2, and increasing the healing done by your Earth Shield by 5/10%.
  
• Ancestral Awakening - When you critically heal with your Healing Wave or Lesser Healing Wave, you summon an Ancestral spirit to aid you, instantly healing the lowest health friendly target within 40 yards for 20% of the amount healed.
  
• Lava Flow - Increases the amount of spell damage gained while having Flametongue Weapon equipped by 5/10/15%, and increases the damage done by your Flame Shock and Lava Burst by 4/8/12%.
  
• Astral Shift - When you are critically hit twice in a row, you have a 33/66/100% chance to shift into the Astra Plane, causing you to be immune to all physical damage for 3 sec. This effect has a 30 second cooldown.
  
• Storm, Earth, and Fire - Your Frost Shock has a 5/10/15/20/25% chance to root the target in frozen ice for 2 sec., your Earth Shock's range is increased by 1/2/3/4/5 yards and the periodic damage done by your Flame Shock is increased by 20/40/60/80/100%.
  
  Note: 200 Yards is probably a typo.

Forced breaks

I was over on Wowinsider and i read this post about the noobish things people did when they just started playing the game.
The first thing that popped into my mind were some of my own beginner "mistakes" like rolling a druid and thinking i could only heal others and not myself. I could have avoided quite a few deaths if i had know earlier.
Either way this made me think of another silly misconception:

When you die you get a 6min resurrection timer... i was in the assumption if i would res within this time i would get durability loss. So when i died i ran back to my corpse and then went to get something to drink, visit the loo.. basicly i went to do some RL stuff. (didn't know otherwise till level 13-15)
I wasn't the only one who thought this btw, a friend i played with and often dragged his PC had the same idea.
Now when i look back it was quite silly of me but it did force me to step away from the computer for a bit and experience life around me, i'd be alot more relaxed after a playsession if i would take some more breaks in between.
Often i'm thirsty or crave for a sandwich but i don't want to get up as i'm busy doing something, something which can actually be taken a break off. (just one more mote...)

Forced breaks not be that bad.. the chinese seem to feel the same with their rules on online gaming. Apperantly gamers below 18 years only get to play 3 hours a day, after that the next two hours of play will only give them half the XP and beyond that none at all. Not entirely what i had in mind but i wouldn't mind a 15min break during a raid myself.
Either way it's been a while since i was 18 so it wouldn't help much anyway.

Star Trek: Guilds

After a raid this weekend i was up till 3h30 or something, chatting with one on my guildies on teamspeak. We talked about all sorts of stuff, mostly wow and guild related... mostly nonsence and nothing much important i suppose.
But then he told me something about an online Star Trek game being developed. It was canceled and picked up before and he didn't know much about it but he liked the idea of starting a recruit.. level it up and then man a Star ship with a guild and go boldly where no guild has gone before.

I was having my doubts how much fun it would be if i specced wrongly and got stuck in the belly of a ship doing my little task while the action took place on the bridge or on the planet. And then we started relating it to our own guild... our Raidleader has a habit to ask after a wipe "What happened Healers?", we'd imagen us all being in an escape pod after the warp core exploded and him going on the com and say "What happened Engineering?".
Or some torpedo hitting the port nacelle and shouting "Okay, just wipe".
And it would be pretty crappy to get the job of the red suit on board, you'd be corpse running constantly.
"FFS Mr. Sulu, i said warp 9, not 7! minus 50 DKP!", there are probably all sorts of other funny comparisons to imagen. :)

Honestly i don't think it would be the best MMORPG out there but then again they might surprise me. I just wonder how many Kirks would you see running about with slightly altered names (Kirc, Kirrk, Curk), it would be Legolas all over again.

Promotion!

A bit more then a week ago i joined a new guild on my Horde toon. I started out knowing no one and at times i got the feeling that most of the people mostly ignored me, probably not on purpose but it's just that high of a contrast compared to my Alliance guild i was in where i got greeted by several people in Guildchat as i logged on.
Not wierd ofcourse as i've been in that guild for over 3 years now and i'm know to add my part of the conversation, mostly in a twisted way.
Now i needed start all over with prooving people i'm a good player (or at least i try to be) and can actually be a fun guy to be arround with.

I'm undergeared compared to these guys but due to having a couple of people short i tagged allong to SSC, Mag and Gruul... and i did pretty fine i've been told. The trick is that i already know most tactics by heart from my Alliance toon... and that i always read up on my class and try to maximize their potential.
Sure i made my share of mistakes, i manage to get my imp killed alot after unshifting for buffs or dotted up a target they intended to sheep.. but i do learn. :)

Either way, seems it got noticed that i worked for it. I did manage to put out some nice dps on a couple of bosses who were more Afliction friendly and i tried not to share too much of the sick humor i'm known about in the other guild... and it seemed to help. :P
Any way.. i got this little mail in the post yesterday:



So as promised.. mentioned my Lock's guild on my blog :)
Reborn at Aszune-EU

For the Horde!

After a disappointment in my Warlocks previous guild i moved servers to a PVE one as i got sick of getting ganked while doing dailies and grinding and joined a promissing guild there. It's taking me some time to get adjusted and more so, they need to adjust to me aswell it seems.
However the locks do their best to make me feel welcome and is a nice place for a chat during raids.

Ah you noticed i used the word Raids there? Yep.. they do raid actually!
So far my raids with them include a full Karazhan run, a Gruul run, a Magtheridon run and SSC in which we killed Hydross and Lurker.
I'm really enjoying playing my lock and it's a whole new experience trying to squeeze the most out of my lock, which is actually a bit undergeared for anything but Karazhan and perhaps Gruul. I still don't do half bad though and depending on the fight/trash i'm able to end up pretty high.
On Hydross i managed to get 4th even, on Lurker my spec (affliction) managed to deliver quite a bit dps less sadly enough but then again.. it took me a while to find a good rythm. (didn't got hit by spouts btw, the advantage of knowing the fights already)
Their raids are mostly on nights where my main's guild doesn't raid so i don't need to choose between the two luckily, i can still attend the other raids eventhough i'm a bit tired of playing the Hunter at the moment (again).... the people in that raid make up for alot.

In the rest of my downtime i've started a new alt, a Druid. Now i actually have a druid stuck at level 63 which doesn't appeal to be being Moonkin at the moment.. i didn't have a druid on Horde side and not a tank(capable) class on that side either, which is the direction i'm thinking to go. My m8 has moved servers with me and started a Rogue alt so we can stealth together once i get to 20. The plan is to level up together so leveling might take a bit longer as matching agenda's might be hard, then again questing will actually go alot easier and we will make up for some of the time lost.
Up until now i'm happily surprised how much fun it is to play a low level druid once again, brings back memories.... think i'm getting sentimental? As it was the very first class i played in open beta.

I do wonder if i manage to get my lowbee Druid to 70 before the expansion anyway, seriously doubt it myself. Perhaps a good thing because god knows which toon i must pick to be my new main if i got just another 70! With three 70's on alliance side and one on horde it's likely i'm gonna feel like i did choose the wrong one anyway. But thats food for another topic. ;)

When not Wow'ing

Yeah it's a verb.. wowing, to wow, i wowed, etc. It's not yet like Smurfing but it's damn close at times.
But that's not todays subject, i actually wanted to tell you about what i do when i don't Wow.... don't worry, it might be geekish enough for your liking.
At the same time i might learn a thing or two if you decide to add to this conversation. ;)
So what do i do? I watch TV series.
Most of these series i watch with my GF who is raised with two big brothers so she actually is quite into Scifi and such, i guess that's why she likes Wow so much. Below is about the order i've been watching them, nothing to do with ranking.


Scrubs
A comedy about a section in a Hospital, mainly about Scrubs... new young doctors. The acting and the characters in this series are really great and they balance on the absurd at quite a few points, not restricted by the normal rules of what can happen in life.
Sarcasm and abuse all around, good fun.

Smallville
A series about Clark Kent in his younger years, better known as Superman but he hasn't have this identity yet. He's being confronted with more and more unusual powers and we get to watch how he uses these to help his friends in his hometown Smallvile which is highly effected by the very same "meteor" that brought Clark here. There is plenty of trouble, not just from his friend Lex Luthor which you will learn to love and hate.
Still need to finish this series actually, got stuck because i missed a few episodes and didn't want to continue yet.

Star Trek Enterprise
The latest (and last) series which takes place before the original series with Captain Kirk. Lots of things you will encounter in this show will explain what happens later or will make you smile with recognition. The lead actors are all very pleasant to watch and the characters they play all have their own little flaws which makes the show less static then the next generation. The first two seasons have mostly episodes with a closed ending but after that you will encounter more "to be continued". Also good to watch when you enjoy a Sci Fi series without all the Star Trek knowledge.

My Name is Earl
Earl has been a bad guy all his life, living of petty crime and making other people's life just a little bit worse by scamming or teasing them. He lives in a motelroom with his slightly retarted brother Randy. At the beginning of the series he wins the lottery but gets hit by a car straight away, awakening in a hospital and his check gone. He sees a show and finds out about Karma and he decides to make a list of all the bad things he did and is going to try to make up for it. Once he steps out of the hospital Karma rewards him and gives him the winning lotery ticket back.
Each episode Earl tries to make up for what he did, often pestered or helped by his trailertrash ex-wife Joy but always with his dumbassed brother by his side. One of the few shows which manage to make me laugh outloud, mostly due to Randy's dumb actions.

Battlestar Galactica
The Cylons from the 80's are back, in this new edition they destroy New Caprica and the entiry human race (whats left of it) makes a run for it, looking for the legendary planet called Earth. Cylons are not just robots anymore though, they can look like any other human and there are 12 models know which cause alot of intreging plots throughout the seasons. Add a few great actors to the mix, like the good/bad guy Balthar, and you got the best Sci Fi series i've seen the last 5-10 years.
This one my GF doesn't watch btw.

The 4400
Just yesterday i started watching this show and i'm just at the second episode so far. The story is yet unknown to me but it starts out with 4400 people appearing out of a ball of light from outerspace, people abducted throughout time and released back into society. The agency which needs to help and track these 4400 quickly find out that they aren't totaly unchanged, quite a few show strange behaviour like super reflexes, being able to foretell the future, healing on touch and more of such supernormal behaviour and powers. It is not a superhero show however, it's more like a X-files kind of show i suppose but less creepy sofar. Filming and acting are solid thus far and looks like a promising series.

Heroes
A series about regular people who find out they have special powers. This is probably the next series i'll be watching if i manage to see 4400 to the end.
Filming, acting and story was of high quality the first few episodes i saw thus far.
I can't tell you much more then this yet besides for the good things i heared about this show.

The next series
What am i to watch afterwards? I've had someone mention House which is about things which happen in a Hospital. Now i'm not into medical series much so i'm not sure if this is my thing, unless it's a comedy like scrubs i suppose.
The other series i've downloaded the first episode of is Painkiller Jane. This chick can't die and we follow her story as she is part of an organisation to hunt down people with special skills ironically.
The newest Dr.Who series might be an option aswell, the flashes i've seen looked good enough to enjoy. Just not sure the GF would appreciate it though.
I've heared/saw glimpses of more shows however... Prisonbreak, Lost, 24.. and now i've foundtv.com i've even encountered more possible.

Guess there is plenty to watch for me still, i'm in need of a bigger harddisk.. again! So any series i've forgot to mention here and are must-watch?
Tonight i'll be checking out tv.com into more detail on my second screen while playing Wow on the other, ready to fire up my download client to get me some new eyefood.

Skill not matching Gear

A person's skill not matching his gear is something that happens alot.. nowadays we got loads of welfare epics and people just playing cards in the AV caves can walk around in a full purple set. I'm always scared when ending up in a pug with someone with mostly pvp gear as it is nowhere a guarantee that this person can actually play his class and/or can be part of a team.
When someone in T5 gear is in your party you got quite a better chance with that but still in a big raid a couple of less performing people can easily hitch a ride.

But it can be the other way around aswell... you know those people who can play about any class? Whichever toon he touches, he/she is able to squeeze most out of it or at least more then most average people can. A person like this often has quite a few alts and is a welcome addiction to any party on whatever toon he has. We have couple of people like this in our guild and i like to think i'm one of those people aswell, or at least i try to be which is a good step in the right direction.
When those people just turned 70 and start running instances with friends/guildmates it's often that their skill doesn't match their gear in an opposite way as my earlier example. They know the tactics by heart, know what not just they but what other teammembers are supposed to do (as they likely seen the fight from at least one other point of view then their current) and are enthousiastic playing that toon aswell, something main's might even lack.
Their gear however might not be up to the challenge yet and might not contribute as much as they would like.

I brought my alt Warlock to SSC this week... i knew i was undergeared for sure but as they were lacking people i still offered my services as it was better as nothing. Now this guild i was with (my Warlocks new home if they decide to let her stay) had done Lurker and Hydross before but that night they were shorthanded, bringing not just me but other "freshmen" allong aswell.
While i executed the fight perfectly (in my pov) as i had done it quite a few times before on my Hunter, i felt was lacking. I tried to put out as many dps as i was possible, experimented with dotrotations, dotted multible targets and made sure i was flasked and oiled... but still my dps didn't get close to many of the others. Understandeable ofcourse as my gear is still lacking and i should actually be clearing Karazhan for upgrades.
I didn't get higher then 6th position on fights, often lower even and in the end we didn't manage to kill Lurker that night as too many people didn't pot up and knew the tactics.. leaving us shorthanded halfway during the fight because we lost too many people.
However it boosted my wish to get geared up even more so i can be more of an asset in raids then i currently am.

In this case i bare a load of information in my head with as result my Warlock could do any boss between Huntsman and Illidan. Skillwise i'm still learning but i've beaten full epic Warlocks on the meters more then once while still keeping eye on the fight and pitching in when things go wrong.
I'm lacking gear, not knowledge and perhaps even skill.
The weird thing is i even got an offer to join a raiding guild that does Black Temple and is at Illidan at the moment, purely because i know all the fights in there. The only problem was my gear so on short notice i wouldn't be much of a help so i told them that it wasn't a good idea because of that gear.

So i'm gonna run Heroics, attend to Karazhan raids, craft myself items, etc... to get my little lock in shape and actually contribute to my new guilds raids.
Let's see if i can get skill and gear on par.

Boosting your DPS for FREE!

Did i get your attention? Good.. now it's actually not a trick, it's the very truth.. and for just € 12,99 this truth can be yours to behold! Ah.. ow.. now if that's how you put it... i suppose i can let you in on my little secret for free for this once. It's not such a big secret afterall i suppose, well here comes.

The trick to get higher on those damagemeters is to get as much dps time as possible. Makes sense doesn't it? damage per second multiplied by time = damage. More time = more damage! It's like getting more caveties when eating more cookies.. or maybe not.
But there is only so much time between a mobs full health till his death, the idea is to use as much of this time as possible.

As soon as a target reached the tank, start bringing the pain... that is, as long as you don't overaggro ofcourse.
When the target is almost dead, start looking out for the next target, perhaps there is another tank already tanking a mob so you can grab that one. For ranged classes this is a bit easier ofcourse as you got a better view on the battlefield, even more so when there are more mobs around.
If not stick close to the tank so you can assist him straight away, perhaps an assist macro would help aswell.. just make sure not to break any crowd controll (sheep, trap, etc) early.
In case you are ranged dps you could go from one target to the next without interruption if the next target is tanked already, melee dps might require some running first.

Sounds simple huh? You would be surprised how much this could add in extra damage done! Use your dps time as effective as possible. Ofcourse when you stay on the ball like this you will need to keep using the correct spells/skills aswell... if you just keep autoshotting it won't matter much anyway.
I must confess i often only try to maximise my dps on bosses, i don't care much that i'm a bit lower on the meters on trash myself. However when we tried using a Main Assist awhile ago and i got the dubious honor to be that MA, i noticed again just what effect it had on your dps output when being able to just keep dps'ing without little to none interruption... i was Old Skool at the very top of the meters again where i normally hang around 4-5th place on trash with a big gap between the top 3 and the rest. Now i was the one that had a gap behind me, i didn't had any other gear and the same people were around as usual.

There are ofcourse other ways to boost your dps for free, using the correct spell/shot rotation for example. If you are a Warlock and you dot up a trashmob and it dies before your longest running dots are even halfway, was it really worth it? Couldn't you better had use some other skill in that same time? Or started dotting up the 2nd target that is being tanked? And does every trashmob need Scorpid Sting to reduce the mobs chance to hit the tank? Does it really hit that hard? That's again time waisted for a shot.
Get to know your class, know what the best order of attacks is and which you might aswell forget at certain times. Talk to classmates or read up (at elitist jerks for example).
Now if i only was planning to follow my own advice.

The Hidden Stat: Luck

You must know someone like this: someone who has seemingly all the luck in the world. You run a party to an instance and then something drops which could be sold on the Auction House for quite a bit of gold, so you all roll and thát person wins the roll... again... just like when something dropped last run. And when that Righteous Orb will drop later on you know damn well just who is going to win that roll, that guy/gal again. Rollhax? You wish, it's simply the Lord of the Dice having a little favourite.

My girlfriend is one of these people. When something drops 8 out of 10 times she will win it, she even admits that it's not normal.
Yesterday she entered the Outlands on her level 57 toon to pick some herbs and she had just picked two herbs when i came to take a look what she was doing (as i was watching BSG season 4, best series ever!) and when picking the 3rd herb she jokingly tells me that she wanted a Fel Lotus this time... you know what happened next right?

Now i can't complain much either i suppose, before the expansion i had looted and sold 4 epics. The first one at level 55 on my first character when i was playing solo in the Plaguelands and all of the sudden a Glowing Brightwood Staff dropped in my bag while Shift-looting. Now this was when the majority hadn't even reached 60 yet and this must have been one of the first GBS's that ever dropped... within 5mins after linking it in Guildchat i got spammed to hell with offers, not just by people from the guild.
This resulted in me having an Epic mount as one of the first people on the server.
A few more epics dropped for me after i was 60, about 7 at least but i managed to only win one while in a party.. the other 3 i looted solo. One of those 7 was when my GF was along and ofcourse she won that one.
Either way i never had to grind for money, i could simply buy everything i needed altho i did grind mats if an alt wanted something crafted.

Since i entered the Outlands my luck has changed however, i can't remember many great drops besides a cheap blue now and then. I've been introduced with grinding to be able to raid which i didn't take much joy in.
So perhaps luck is a hidden stat afterall and leveling to 70 resulted in me requiring more luckrating to compensate which resulted in my Luck Crit percentage dropping.

Raids have to deal with the Luck factor aswell, what drops is based on numerous factors even including the exact time a raid is formed. There are alot of fables that it matters who is the Raidleader or who is the Masterlooter and stuff like that but you might aswell throw a pinch of salt over your shoulder as it is all superstition in my opinion. One of the raidguilds has had 5 Warglaive's drop already (MH/OH) and two rogue's are blinging their set of legendaries in Shattrah already while another guild who has been killing Illidan for ages is still waiting for their second. Did the first guild find the secret how to make Luck crit while in a raid somehow?

In the end i guess there are three kind of players; those with alot of luck, those with none at all and then those who do okay.
I'm guessing the required grinding is devided in three catagories aswell for these three kinds, wish i was back in the first one again.

Goldspammers have feelings too

Due to the need the kill some time at work i spended some time viewing funny and shocking Wow chat screenshots on Wowbash until i came across this one:

This made me think of an article i read a while ago, someone actually got to see where a goldfarmer worked and how his life was and this screeny made me remember it. Now i hate goldsellers.. it's the reason i got hacked in the first place, so seeing them spam their advertisements pisses me off. Not just because of the message itsself but because of the spam itsself aswell, i get pretty good at ignoring the general message but it pushes possible usefull info out of my screen.
The most annyoing thing is when they whisper you. For a while i used to whisper a goldseller something nasty, often just a simple GFY as it seemed it was often done while in the middle of a bossfight... as if they know. Nowadays i don't even bother with that, perhaps i am more relaxed myself but it's more that i don't expect a reaction anyway.
Ever noticed that level 1 toon in IF/Orgi standing always standing at the EXACT same spot? I didn't realise until i saw two of them spamming the same message and standing exactly on top of each other. Without a doubt they use a botprogram to spawn level 1 toons which get run to their final destination and then spam their gold selling ads for a while.

The above chat however showed that not all spammers are simply bots. By what the poster said the goldseller, lets call him Woo Ping for now, is seemingly hurt. And who wouldn't get a blow when everytime you do your job, as that is what it is for them, you get hatefull messages back in response.
I felt sorry all again for them all of the sudden. The guys we see grinding and spamming are just doing their jobs, not one i agree with but too be honest.. people like Woo don't have many alternatives.
In a way Woo is simply a slave, if he doesn't make his quota for the week he loses his job which will make sure he will not get anything to eat and neither will his 3 point 2 children or his wife. Perhaps he doesn't get beaten, perhaps he does.. but his life makes sure he got nowhere to go and has no other option then doing what his boss is telling him. A boss sitting behind a desk while in the next cramped, dark room is filled with computers and people trying to stay mental while sitting behind screens endlessly for days and days... doing what we most hate: grinding. Killing the same mob over and over and over and over again, at the end of the day trying to sell what he has gathered just so he can show his boss at the end of the shift he has made his quota and is worth to come back the next day.
Most of them luckily don't talk a word English or any other Western language but the rare one who does understands most of the insults aswell, make his live a little bit more hell then it already is.

I won't ever buy gold for sure, but i'll try to refrain myself from being rude to them from now on. In the end they are just people forced to do something we see as "bad", but they might not even be aware of our point of view on that. Either way they wouldn't be able to walk away from it like we can.

Becomming a Guild hopper

Like i've probably mentioned here before, i'm a pretty faithfull guy guildwise. On my main i've just been in two different guilds and both for a loooong time.
My alts however often turn out differently... at first i go around unguilded, enjoying the peace and quiet for a change.. but after a while i start missing something aswell as getting annoyed with random guildinvites. Besides that getting some good people for low level instances is a pain aswell.
So i start experimenting.

If there isn't someone spamming about their great tabard and guildbank in the starterzone, i try General Chat myself and see who wants me. Often i get a whisper back straight away and join that guild, those random inviting me without me asking for a spot first will get declined anyway.
The time i stay is highly dependend on the guild, think 4 days might be the record tho..
Sometimes you enter such a guild and you know straight away that this was a bad idea, at other times there are some fun people but they aren't online that much leaving you behind with the reading impaired or emo kids crying for boosts to instance X.
Soon you wonder if there isn't anything better so you thank everyone for the great time you've had together (insert dose of sarcasm here) but that the roads have to part here looking forward to greater adventures. Most of the time you get no response anyway.

After that it's waiting till the next guild comes around, i often pick one up after running an instance and getting an invite to join afterwards. These are often the guilds i manage to stick with slightly longer. Either way often there is still something that's missing (or something there is simply too much of) and i find myself gquiting once again and bringing yet another alt into my Main's guild. Home sweet home so to say.

My Horde Warlock doesn't have such a homebase (yet?) however. So yesterday she took the plunge and left the guild which was made by two friends but who were simply rarely online. Without any problem she was invited into a guild who was supposed to have cleared Karazhan.
Now i want to give them a fair chance but i wasn't really impressed with most of my guildmembers sofar, it reminded me alot of my first guild which had quite a lot of junior members... not a bad thing necessarily but there should be a healthy dose on adultness available aswell. Perhaps i caugth them at a bad time or maybe i'm just getting old but i had a hard time to relate.
I'm not giving up yet though, sofar this guild has more members then any guild i've ever been in with my Lock and there must be people in there who i have more in common with, perhaps my love of running instances. Worst case scenario i'm leaving them in a week or so and then i will see where i end up, i might just become a Guild hopper for awhile till my Horde home comes around.
Just hope i haven't ruined my good name by then by looking like a unfaithfull guy or worse, wearing a guild's name with a bad reputation for a while.

Living two lives

I'm torn between two factions.. at one side i'm a nice Nightelf Hunter happily raiding Black Temple and such on which i call my main. On the other hand i'm an evil looking Bloodelf who hates nothing as much as NE Hunter, probably an old grudge left over from Stranglethorn Vale.
Both feel that the most fun ingame is comparing their skill with others and trying to overcoming obstacles and encounters in dungeons, eventho my Belf is on a pvp server.. pvp is not her thing. Perhaps she's the one horde who doesn't enjoy ganking lowbies and sees pvp battles (winning or losing) as a mere waste of time but in an unpleasant way, even if she gets a handfull of honor for it.. exchangeable for some purple colored pixels at the local Wallmart.

My Belf is jealous, yeah she is. But she is an evil Warlock so she is allowed to have negative feelings okay? She longs for a guild which accepts her for who she is, a fun and somewhat skilled lock but with not enough time to run 3-4 raids a week as her alterego needs to do that already. A guild in which she can come along on some raids to low level content (Kara, Gruul, Mag... that sort of stuff) on days their the NE Hunter isn't in control of the strings.
A guild that has enough members to find some people for an occassional run, Heroics even.. don't mind if it are not the best players because i get those in pugs aswell but at least i don't stand arround in Shattrah looking pretty (which goes with little effort ofc) and waiting for one that doesn't require a T6 lock.

Perhaps she should kill the NE in his sleep someday as she knows that if he would be out of the picture and all focus would be on her, she could likely convince a raidguild to get her in so she could catch up and then do TK and SSC. That is, if not the other NE would step up ofcourse as there is also a NE Prot Warrior sharing a bunk with the Hunter... in friends type of way ofcourse, not in a pegging way at all. Seriously!

The Belf Lock is in a small guild with an handfull of friends.. most of which aint been online for weeks and one just a few times a week. She finds herself joining a Kara pug once a week, often with bad results and only getting her saved to it and then handing over the steering till the next reset.
So she had an idea to at least maximise her time, find herself a new guild!
Now that is aswell the tricky part.. she can't commit to a guild as the hunter does to his guild, so she needs to find a more flexible guild. Choices are quite limited, the good guilds aren't very likely to take in a half-epic lock with little time on her hands. You can imagen she is willing to make some sacrifices at this point and try whatever is coming her way, even if that means "abbandoning" her friends.
The one good thing the NE Hunter did was share his knowledge of instances all the way up to Illidan, perhaps that will give her some leverage when joining those less progressed guilds.. having someone allong who knows most of the tricks can be quite valuable, just hope they will agree.

Today she will wear her prettiest dress, make sure her demon is washed and nice smelling for a change, all the shards in her bag contain the prettiest souls and write that apply.
Keep your fingers crossed for her, if this works out i'm sure we soon will have a book full of thrilling new adventures.

That Epic Hunter

We've had a couple of new members lately coming from other guilds, since we are part of the top raidguilds on our server (8th of over 70, 6th when just looking at Alliance) we get more and more applies streaming in. Not just for openings but just random applies aswell.
As now and then a member quits the game or decides to go a more casual way we do need to recruit fresh raiders so now and then a new soul enters guildchat. Which made me think of saying goodbye.

I'm a pretty faithfull guy, think my girlfriend appreciates as well but i was actually refering to my guild. However i wasn't always in my current guild, the guild before this one was the one i joined in the open beta and i sticked with them for the next year and a half.
In that time i made it from regular noob to appreciated member to Raidleader to Councillor but there was simply too much to do as an officer which really killed my fun in the game. I feel i've gone great lengths to help my guildies as much as i could but i just had to step away from it all to not drive myself mental at a certain point. As i knew i would still get involved if i simply stepped down to being a regular member i decided to quit the guild.
I did have a place to go tho as i had build up some connections with other players in a different guild... when the majority of that guild split of to build their own Utopia (actually the name of the new guild) i decided to join this friendly bunch and try to find back the fun in Wow.
Raidwise they were on par so i didn't need to skip any content.
Anyway quiting my first guild quite pained me.. i even stayed around a week after announcing my leave to wrap up things and lead some more raids till everything was carried over to a couple of fresh officers. Most weren't happy with me leaving and a couple even held a grudge to me for that.
For a long time i tried to keep in touch with the members in this guild but after a while just too much had changed and nowadays it's just not the guild i helped build anymore, not worse tho... just different and filled with loads of people i simply do not know, most of the people i leveled with have joined other guilds, quit the game, rerolled horde or left the server.

The guild Utopía i joined was reformed when TBC arrived to set things straight so we would be ready to become more raidorientated, the new name became Elysium which i am still a part of. Throughout the last two years we even recruited a bunch of people from different guilds who where original in my first guild and with who i leveled up or raided Molten Core with for the first year, mostly old officers like me now i think of it.

One of the first runs i did with my new guild was Zul'Gurub and while i was in one party, a friend who came along to the new guild was in an other. There was a Hunter in his party who asked the others in his party "Who is this Epic Hunter?" refering to me as my gear was pretty good at that time.. not much people had full Giantstalker and the Rhok (apart from the 2 top raidguilds who were enjoying themselves in BWL) so i guess i made an impression. Still makes me smile.

I'm still glad up untill this day that i made the hard choice to say goodbye and became part of this fine guild, change can be good.
Just make sure you have a good place to go before splitting on your old guild and try to leave in good order, you never know when you might want to go back ;)

Back!

After a week of sun in Tunesia i expected to be able to blog a bit but i've been quite busy getting the garden in shape aswell, apart from a healthy dose of Wow ofcourse.
Today i'm back at work so expect my blogging to be back in it's original state, hope i didn't disappoint too many of my readers. ;)

What happened in Azeroth the last two weeks for me? My guild managed to down Illidan, the final big badass in the Outlands and i was lucky enough to be a part of it. Too be honest i didn't expect i would be part of a group seeing this content when i first set foot on Outland's soil but we've come a looong way.
On our way up we managed to surpass quite a few other guilds with more end-game raidexperience... about all the bosses we killed was done without a single member ever doing the fight before. I can tell you i'm quite proud of this group, (about) all excellent players which are also good fun to be around with.

In my horde life i've managed to achieve a bit aswell. My little lock has had some adventures in Karazhan ánd Gruul's Liar... the last Kara run i did i was even first on the meters while my gear wasn't nearly as purple as the others. I also did a few heroics but it's still quite hard getting a pug together, even a crappy one.
Gearwise it's starting to look like something aswell. I managed to get my Shadoweave set together finally (bitch was getting Tailoring at 375), buy myself a nice offhand from Heroic Badges, get bracers from the Huntsman and a Neck from Kara trash. This brings the total of epics to 6 which aint half bad for a toon which nows little to none people and is not in a guild able to run instances or do raids.
My need for cash aint quite high on this toon so without a need to grind or do quests there is little to do on this toon however, which results in waiting in Shatt for hours till i finally get a pug together to some instance... makes me wish i created this lock on my own server and on Alliance side so it could benefit from my connections.

I promise better blogging later this week and less "dear diary" ;)

AFK :)

Finally,... it's time for a break! I'm off to a sunny country the next 8 days and after that i will have some time at home to get the Garden in shape, more like reallife grinding come to think of it.

So no blogging the next 8 days and likely things are going to be a bit slow the week after that, just so you know. I know, i know.. it will be hard but try to be strong. It's not you, it's me.. honest!

Cya in a week or so. ;)