Just wanted to give a quick update about my gold making: It tanked. I ended up with the same amount of gold i started with earlier this week. Sales sucked. Some gems got sold, but not nearly enough. Actually i wasnt on long enough to monitor my sales even. I went out often. But when i was on, i barely had time to actually play. I was prospecting, cutting gems, making rings/pendants/spikes, disenchanting those rings/pendants/spikes. got a few herbs down and got a few xmutes done. I need a break. i still have 250 more ores sitting in my in-box waiting to be prospected. maybe then i'll have just a few more demonseyes, inferno rubies and ember topazes to cut and sell.
but for now, i've cut all of my ember topazes, demonseyes and just about out of inferno rubies. still. sales have waned just a bit. actually the number of sales are still steady. but the prices have dropped over the past couple of weeks. sales that did drop in numbers are the shadowspirit diamond sales. i have maybe 8 cuts and most of them did not sell.
so overall, this week has seen almost no change in gold, but i do have a ton of ore waiting to be prospected. that will happen after i recover from the saronite shuffle.... er... i mean elementium shuffle? yea, that's it!
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
200 x 200
200. That's about how many shadowspirit diamonds i have in my inventory.
200. That's how much i can sell the cut ones for, on average. (ranging from 100g to 350g)
40,000. That's 200 x 200. Thats how much im short of my goal for Cata.
Currently, im sitting at about 160k gold with less than a week to go before the month is over. usually, i can probably get about 20k gold in a week. but not lately. it looks like things have been slowing down quite a bit. i am hoping that the weekend will bring the bored, the lonely and the less frugal out to play. being that, in the US, it's memorial day weekend, i may have a spike in sales. time to DE all the alicite pendants and jasper rings and sell the mats! Although i know 200 people will not want all my 200 shadowspirit diamonds, i do know that there will be a good number of people wanting to buy gems for their upgrades this weekend. i may have to collect my mailbag june 1st or 2nd to see the final result. hopefully, i would have met my mark of 200k gold by then. if not, there's always next week.
Besides the shadowspirit diamonds, i have quite a few dream emeralds and amberjewels in stock. i am very short on all the other gems (maybe except ocean sapphires) and it is slowly biting into my potential profit. so what's a man to do? be adventurous and herb. my druid has been flying around deepholm for heartblossoms lately, to transmute with carnellians to make inferno rubies. i'll be sending her to twilight highlands and then to hyjal in order to collect mats to make demonseyes and ember topazes. Hopefully, that will help break the 200k mark. but time is limited and the day is slow creeping upon me. it's best to hurry.
in other news: inscription is slow, leatherworking is slow, blacksmithing is slow and even farming is slow.
regarding alts: i have alliances now. they suck but are slowly leveling up. it appears there is a larger number of new players on alliance side. perhaps it is where first timers join up as. eventually, they will switch over to horde (or not) and that makes leveling hordeside a little smoother. im not saying we dont have our short bus crew too--we do! but i am saying i see less of it hordeside than alliance side.
case in point, my warrior, now mid level 30s, is in a guild of about 300 people. the mesage of the day says something similar to this: "Welcome to! Every please buy pvp gear or you wont survive in heroics!"
The exact quote must be screenshotted. I will follow up with that soon.
200. That's how much i can sell the cut ones for, on average. (ranging from 100g to 350g)
40,000. That's 200 x 200. Thats how much im short of my goal for Cata.
Currently, im sitting at about 160k gold with less than a week to go before the month is over. usually, i can probably get about 20k gold in a week. but not lately. it looks like things have been slowing down quite a bit. i am hoping that the weekend will bring the bored, the lonely and the less frugal out to play. being that, in the US, it's memorial day weekend, i may have a spike in sales. time to DE all the alicite pendants and jasper rings and sell the mats! Although i know 200 people will not want all my 200 shadowspirit diamonds, i do know that there will be a good number of people wanting to buy gems for their upgrades this weekend. i may have to collect my mailbag june 1st or 2nd to see the final result. hopefully, i would have met my mark of 200k gold by then. if not, there's always next week.
Besides the shadowspirit diamonds, i have quite a few dream emeralds and amberjewels in stock. i am very short on all the other gems (maybe except ocean sapphires) and it is slowly biting into my potential profit. so what's a man to do? be adventurous and herb. my druid has been flying around deepholm for heartblossoms lately, to transmute with carnellians to make inferno rubies. i'll be sending her to twilight highlands and then to hyjal in order to collect mats to make demonseyes and ember topazes. Hopefully, that will help break the 200k mark. but time is limited and the day is slow creeping upon me. it's best to hurry.
in other news: inscription is slow, leatherworking is slow, blacksmithing is slow and even farming is slow.
regarding alts: i have alliances now. they suck but are slowly leveling up. it appears there is a larger number of new players on alliance side. perhaps it is where first timers join up as. eventually, they will switch over to horde (or not) and that makes leveling hordeside a little smoother. im not saying we dont have our short bus crew too--we do! but i am saying i see less of it hordeside than alliance side.
case in point, my warrior, now mid level 30s, is in a guild of about 300 people. the mesage of the day says something similar to this: "Welcome to
The exact quote must be screenshotted. I will follow up with that soon.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Goal of 200k Gold for Cata
One of the blogs that i follow is a general gold making blog called Caffeine, Smokes and Auction House Fess, who has just announced his plans for what he will be doing after he hits his single character gold cap of 999,999, has got me thinking as to what i would do if i were to hit my milestone of a lowly 200,000.
Now i dont have big dreams in wow like getting vial of the sands on all my toons. heck, only one toon has super fast 310% flying, and thats my miner (with crusader aura!). and most of them do not have big fancy items. only one toon has a mechano-hog. i am somewhat of a very frugal person in this game. i dont spend too much gold and what i do have, i save up. the only times i actually spend a lot of gold is when i am buying ore to prospect, or herbs to mill, or frozen orbs to make who knows what. ;)
But i do find myself getting closer to my goals. if i keep up what im currently doing, i will have 200k gold by the end of the month. now i do only play the AH when nothing else interest me. lately, heroics are a blah, raiding is nil, farming is even blah-er. i barely want to log on and when i do, its really just to play with my girlfriend and play the AH. i dont even do professions anymore. I still have to level up my leatherworking, my enchanting and my tailoring. I have alchemy maxed, inscription almost maxed, bs maxed and jc maxed. i really do not need to try to make gold from LW/Tailoring enchants or from enchanting itself (the dust/essences sell well already). getting closer to my goals will mean one of two things: i will do something else or i will continue to make gold on the AH.
now there are more paths to take when i do move on, like how many "something else" can i list and do? or if i continue making gold, will it still be as a JC? or will i try to dive into other markets? if i dont care too much about returns, should i even bother with going into a "lucrative" market?
If i were to move on to other markets but still play within the AH, i would have to be OK with collecting less gold each day. this is fine with me, so long as i make sales. i think the only thing that bothers me more than not finding crafting mats in the AH when i need it, is to find expired auctions in my mailbox. i love the feeling of having a sale, whether it be for 5g or 50g. now 50g is better, but 5g isnt too bad at all. at least i removed a useless item from my inventory... that's my thinking anyway. I can go into enchanting, but i'll still have to rely on my jewelcrafter to supply a lot of my mats. My leatherworker can make leg enchants but it does look like the mats cost just as much as the final product. there's a lot of competition out there and perhaps finding the right market to list items in can be a game in and of itself. currently, my tailor is making bags because spellthread doesnt make positive gold. my leatherworker is on hold because there's no positive gold potential there either. my scribe is pulling in about 200g a day on glyphs (yes, sadly) but does slowly sell infernal inks.
Overall, it looks like there isnt much to work with besides gems. but gems can be fickle and many people have tried to enter into this market. its a market with a lot of potential and a lot of competition. My mantra is usually, if i put up 5k gold in sale items, im sure to get about 2k gold in sales. what doesnt sell can be relisted. that's easy for a market with a lot of turnover. but in a market where things are relatively stale (compared to gems), like leg enchants. but if pants are replaced as often as belts (belt buckles) and headpieces (meta gems), then why not. why not offer up some decent leg enchants and make a couple hundred gold a day? i dont know. it would greatly simplify my life and lower the time i need to spend at the AH.
Finally, i am slowly getting to the 200k mark. my plans to reach it by month-end is steady unless i end up taking a few days break. even if i dont reach that goal, i figured it's a whole lot better than not trying at all.
Now i dont have big dreams in wow like getting vial of the sands on all my toons. heck, only one toon has super fast 310% flying, and thats my miner (with crusader aura!). and most of them do not have big fancy items. only one toon has a mechano-hog. i am somewhat of a very frugal person in this game. i dont spend too much gold and what i do have, i save up. the only times i actually spend a lot of gold is when i am buying ore to prospect, or herbs to mill, or frozen orbs to make who knows what. ;)
But i do find myself getting closer to my goals. if i keep up what im currently doing, i will have 200k gold by the end of the month. now i do only play the AH when nothing else interest me. lately, heroics are a blah, raiding is nil, farming is even blah-er. i barely want to log on and when i do, its really just to play with my girlfriend and play the AH. i dont even do professions anymore. I still have to level up my leatherworking, my enchanting and my tailoring. I have alchemy maxed, inscription almost maxed, bs maxed and jc maxed. i really do not need to try to make gold from LW/Tailoring enchants or from enchanting itself (the dust/essences sell well already). getting closer to my goals will mean one of two things: i will do something else or i will continue to make gold on the AH.
now there are more paths to take when i do move on, like how many "something else" can i list and do? or if i continue making gold, will it still be as a JC? or will i try to dive into other markets? if i dont care too much about returns, should i even bother with going into a "lucrative" market?
If i were to move on to other markets but still play within the AH, i would have to be OK with collecting less gold each day. this is fine with me, so long as i make sales. i think the only thing that bothers me more than not finding crafting mats in the AH when i need it, is to find expired auctions in my mailbox. i love the feeling of having a sale, whether it be for 5g or 50g. now 50g is better, but 5g isnt too bad at all. at least i removed a useless item from my inventory... that's my thinking anyway. I can go into enchanting, but i'll still have to rely on my jewelcrafter to supply a lot of my mats. My leatherworker can make leg enchants but it does look like the mats cost just as much as the final product. there's a lot of competition out there and perhaps finding the right market to list items in can be a game in and of itself. currently, my tailor is making bags because spellthread doesnt make positive gold. my leatherworker is on hold because there's no positive gold potential there either. my scribe is pulling in about 200g a day on glyphs (yes, sadly) but does slowly sell infernal inks.
Overall, it looks like there isnt much to work with besides gems. but gems can be fickle and many people have tried to enter into this market. its a market with a lot of potential and a lot of competition. My mantra is usually, if i put up 5k gold in sale items, im sure to get about 2k gold in sales. what doesnt sell can be relisted. that's easy for a market with a lot of turnover. but in a market where things are relatively stale (compared to gems), like leg enchants. but if pants are replaced as often as belts (belt buckles) and headpieces (meta gems), then why not. why not offer up some decent leg enchants and make a couple hundred gold a day? i dont know. it would greatly simplify my life and lower the time i need to spend at the AH.
Finally, i am slowly getting to the 200k mark. my plans to reach it by month-end is steady unless i end up taking a few days break. even if i dont reach that goal, i figured it's a whole lot better than not trying at all.
Monday, May 9, 2011
My Frost DK for Cata
I know this is a little late in coming and many sites have their own frost dk advice already, but i felt that maybe someone can find my information useful should they stumble upon this blog.
As many of you know, i prefer melee dps when i dps. back when i first started playing wow, i thought i'd be a good mage. but as time wore on and i learned how to use my strafe buttons more (really, my n52 controller makes it a breeze) i began to love melee dps. this began the obsession with my feral druid and later moved on to my DK, paladin, warrior, rogue and, finally, my mage. =D I'll explain more about my mage later.
But of all the dps characters i played, i loved the wotlk paladin and dk the most. now that they've changed the whole design of playing a paladin, i feel like a very gimped rogue. Although the holy power system is not reliant on the mob you're facing, but rather, its energy built and sustained with you no matter how many times you switch mobs (and surely, a rogue should be able to put multiple stacks of combo points on multiple mobs at the same time). inquisition feels like savage roar or slice and dice. and procs (or lack thereof) only add to the incredible inconsistancy of every fight. i dont like it one bit. now i do like procs. but for the paladin, i dont see it working well with our holy power system. now in comes the dk. it hasnt changed much throughout the years. each deathknight spec used to have its own flavor of tanking and dps. now we have one dedicated tanking tree and two dps trees. the whole dual weild vs. 2hander debate continues (although 2handers have had the edge for ages) til this day and the whole class has gotten its share of loltards.
PvE Frost DK Basic Talent Tree
I've chosen dual wield since i like the idea of walking around with two one-handers. this is the only reason why i've gone dual wield vs. a single 2hander. i dont think it matters much in the end (apart from stat priorities), so pick whichever your heart desires. some will argue that a single 2hander will do more damage. that's great if you care that you're doing 15,684 dps vs 15,612 dps. overall, it doesnt matter. and those numbers were taken directly out of my ass, so take it for what its worth. what matters more is that you, me, and everyone else enjoy the game play while doing their best. some folks like to enjoy the game without doing jack, at the expense of others carrying them. that's not what im talking about. at least, if you choose to be in a sub-optimal spec (ie. sub rogues) at least play it to your best ability. thats all i ask.
There are three talents in which you will have to decide upon based on your choice of weapon:
1. Nerves of Cold Steel for dual wielding.
2. Threat of Thassarian for dual-wielding.
3. Might of the Frozen Wastes for single, 2-handers.
These talents arent mutually exclusive, but picking all (3 points each) will waste 3 to 6 talent points no matter how you look at it, since, if you're using a 2-hander, you get no benefit from Nerves or Threat and if you're dual-wielding, you'll get no benefit from Might. Do not pick them all simply because you want the ease of switching between dual-weild or 2handers without respec or switching talent specs. This is suboptimal and will rob you of precious extra damage you can be doing, or wasted on utility talents you can place elsewhere.
Overall, the talents are cut and dry with some variations on the subspec options.
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jZMI0bfuRzf
What i've left out of this spec is the last two talents necessary to reach howling blast. What you'll need to decide, for yourself, is whether you prefer Endless Winter, On a Pale Horse, Merciless Combat, or Runic Power Mastery. There's a total of four points in which you can choose to use in any of these talents. The only one with direct dps increase would be Merciless Combat. Some people prefer the utility of having free mind freezes whenever they're necessary or added speed increase to their movement or more runic power so they do not lose runic power from being "capped". Once you decide which talents you prefer, finish the tree with Howling Blast. Now you're set to move to the blood or unholy trees.
Some pointers regarding Merciless Combat: you'll get more mileage out of this talent if you raid more. Seeing that most raid bosses spend a lot of time under 35% makes this talent worth while. however, you can also argue that even for trash mobs, they will have a point in time where they will be below 35% health too. my argument to this is that you can only dps so many at once, and if you're lucky, you might get two Obliterates in before the mob you're targeting dies. If things line up perfectly, this will be a great talent for trash. but more often than not, i find mobs under 35% dont live long enough for me to take advantage of this talent. again, mileage may vary.
From the above talent tree i ended up taking Runic power mastery because i find myself capped at 100% often, and an extra strike will have wasted my runic power buildup. it isnt necessary to do this if you're good at weaving in frost strikes between your normal strikes, but its tough to get it down right all the time, especially when there's interupting, running out of bad, activating cooldowns, etc to deal with. i find the extra 20 (or 30) runic power to my power bar becomes a godsend at times.
Here is what the distribution looks like now:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jZrI0bfuRzfz
As far as subtrees and dps goes, putting 3 points in bladed armor in the blood tree is the first step there. In the unholy tree, you'll want Epidemic to extend the life of your diseases since this talent will save you precious dps time reapplying diseases. Honestly, i'd pick Obliterate over having to Icy Touch+Plague Strike, Or Howling Blast+Plague Strike a second or time in a fight when i dont have to with Epidemic. Also, do not forget Virulence, as it increases disease damage by a lot. After auto-attack, Obliterate and Frost Strike, your diseases should be fourth in damage done.
Now, with my options to pick Endless Winter and Runic Power Master as my optional talents, i end up with this: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#j0hZrI0bfuRzfzMh
Now, there's two more talent points to be used. And really, there isnt very many choices left. If you find yourself in 5-man dungeons often, you might want to go for Morbidity in the Unholy tree. This will give you more damage to your Death and Decay. I often pull this spell out once in a while when i find that i have an extra unholy rune to use. Death and Decay is not my primary aoe spell as frost since i already have howling blast (when glyphed, will add Frost Fever, so double the awesome!). Honestly, you'll barely miss the aoe damage that DnD does when you're busy doing HB to everything in sight. It will only become an afterthought once you try to figure out what to do with the extra unholy runes you have (PS, FeS or DnD).
Besides Morbidity, you can also choose Butchery in the Blood tree. This will give you extra runic power (however small that might be) but it might be a dealbreaker when you're stuck at 30 RP and wished you had 32 RP for that last frost strike. Yes, it does make a little difference, but no, it also doesnt make that much of a difference. And giving you 10 RP when you kill a mob probably means that you have to do the killing blow. This might be great for solo play but the odds of you actually landing the killing blow on a mob is about 25%. more or less depending on group composition.
Finally, you can use the last two talent points in the frost tree. yes, you can do that. there's nothing against that. As for me, if i wanted to, i can put the remaining points into Merciless Combat, since my build didnt have that. Or, on a pale horse offers some utility.
Another toss up, if you want some utility, would be Desecration in the Unholy tree vs. Chillblains in the Frost tree. both will cause a slowing effect, but with 20 second Desecration, they will be slowed when in a circle area whereas with Chillblains, the mobs will be slowed for 10 seconds so long as they've been hit with Frost Fever. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. And if you end up thinking Runic power mastery is for the less alert, and who needs On a Pale Horse when you have speed enchants on your boots, then go for Chillblains or Desecration.... or both or Endless Winter, or Morbidity if you really like DnD. Keep in mind, the slowing effects wont stack. If you run with an unholy dk, chances are they already have Desecration ;)
So with that, i leave you with a talent tree with options. Some options are better than other options based on how you play, what you prefer, and what enchants and/or glyphs you might have.
As many of you know, i prefer melee dps when i dps. back when i first started playing wow, i thought i'd be a good mage. but as time wore on and i learned how to use my strafe buttons more (really, my n52 controller makes it a breeze) i began to love melee dps. this began the obsession with my feral druid and later moved on to my DK, paladin, warrior, rogue and, finally, my mage. =D I'll explain more about my mage later.
But of all the dps characters i played, i loved the wotlk paladin and dk the most. now that they've changed the whole design of playing a paladin, i feel like a very gimped rogue. Although the holy power system is not reliant on the mob you're facing, but rather, its energy built and sustained with you no matter how many times you switch mobs (and surely, a rogue should be able to put multiple stacks of combo points on multiple mobs at the same time). inquisition feels like savage roar or slice and dice. and procs (or lack thereof) only add to the incredible inconsistancy of every fight. i dont like it one bit. now i do like procs. but for the paladin, i dont see it working well with our holy power system. now in comes the dk. it hasnt changed much throughout the years. each deathknight spec used to have its own flavor of tanking and dps. now we have one dedicated tanking tree and two dps trees. the whole dual weild vs. 2hander debate continues (although 2handers have had the edge for ages) til this day and the whole class has gotten its share of loltards.
PvE Frost DK Basic Talent Tree
I've chosen dual wield since i like the idea of walking around with two one-handers. this is the only reason why i've gone dual wield vs. a single 2hander. i dont think it matters much in the end (apart from stat priorities), so pick whichever your heart desires. some will argue that a single 2hander will do more damage. that's great if you care that you're doing 15,684 dps vs 15,612 dps. overall, it doesnt matter. and those numbers were taken directly out of my ass, so take it for what its worth. what matters more is that you, me, and everyone else enjoy the game play while doing their best. some folks like to enjoy the game without doing jack, at the expense of others carrying them. that's not what im talking about. at least, if you choose to be in a sub-optimal spec (ie. sub rogues) at least play it to your best ability. thats all i ask.
There are three talents in which you will have to decide upon based on your choice of weapon:
1. Nerves of Cold Steel for dual wielding.
2. Threat of Thassarian for dual-wielding.
3. Might of the Frozen Wastes for single, 2-handers.
These talents arent mutually exclusive, but picking all (3 points each) will waste 3 to 6 talent points no matter how you look at it, since, if you're using a 2-hander, you get no benefit from Nerves or Threat and if you're dual-wielding, you'll get no benefit from Might. Do not pick them all simply because you want the ease of switching between dual-weild or 2handers without respec or switching talent specs. This is suboptimal and will rob you of precious extra damage you can be doing, or wasted on utility talents you can place elsewhere.
Overall, the talents are cut and dry with some variations on the subspec options.
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jZMI0bfuRzf
What i've left out of this spec is the last two talents necessary to reach howling blast. What you'll need to decide, for yourself, is whether you prefer Endless Winter, On a Pale Horse, Merciless Combat, or Runic Power Mastery. There's a total of four points in which you can choose to use in any of these talents. The only one with direct dps increase would be Merciless Combat. Some people prefer the utility of having free mind freezes whenever they're necessary or added speed increase to their movement or more runic power so they do not lose runic power from being "capped". Once you decide which talents you prefer, finish the tree with Howling Blast. Now you're set to move to the blood or unholy trees.
Some pointers regarding Merciless Combat: you'll get more mileage out of this talent if you raid more. Seeing that most raid bosses spend a lot of time under 35% makes this talent worth while. however, you can also argue that even for trash mobs, they will have a point in time where they will be below 35% health too. my argument to this is that you can only dps so many at once, and if you're lucky, you might get two Obliterates in before the mob you're targeting dies. If things line up perfectly, this will be a great talent for trash. but more often than not, i find mobs under 35% dont live long enough for me to take advantage of this talent. again, mileage may vary.
From the above talent tree i ended up taking Runic power mastery because i find myself capped at 100% often, and an extra strike will have wasted my runic power buildup. it isnt necessary to do this if you're good at weaving in frost strikes between your normal strikes, but its tough to get it down right all the time, especially when there's interupting, running out of bad, activating cooldowns, etc to deal with. i find the extra 20 (or 30) runic power to my power bar becomes a godsend at times.
Here is what the distribution looks like now:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#jZrI0bfuRzfz
As far as subtrees and dps goes, putting 3 points in bladed armor in the blood tree is the first step there. In the unholy tree, you'll want Epidemic to extend the life of your diseases since this talent will save you precious dps time reapplying diseases. Honestly, i'd pick Obliterate over having to Icy Touch+Plague Strike, Or Howling Blast+Plague Strike a second or time in a fight when i dont have to with Epidemic. Also, do not forget Virulence, as it increases disease damage by a lot. After auto-attack, Obliterate and Frost Strike, your diseases should be fourth in damage done.
Now, with my options to pick Endless Winter and Runic Power Master as my optional talents, i end up with this: http://www.wowhead.com/talent#j0hZrI0bfuRzfzMh
Now, there's two more talent points to be used. And really, there isnt very many choices left. If you find yourself in 5-man dungeons often, you might want to go for Morbidity in the Unholy tree. This will give you more damage to your Death and Decay. I often pull this spell out once in a while when i find that i have an extra unholy rune to use. Death and Decay is not my primary aoe spell as frost since i already have howling blast (when glyphed, will add Frost Fever, so double the awesome!). Honestly, you'll barely miss the aoe damage that DnD does when you're busy doing HB to everything in sight. It will only become an afterthought once you try to figure out what to do with the extra unholy runes you have (PS, FeS or DnD).
Besides Morbidity, you can also choose Butchery in the Blood tree. This will give you extra runic power (however small that might be) but it might be a dealbreaker when you're stuck at 30 RP and wished you had 32 RP for that last frost strike. Yes, it does make a little difference, but no, it also doesnt make that much of a difference. And giving you 10 RP when you kill a mob probably means that you have to do the killing blow. This might be great for solo play but the odds of you actually landing the killing blow on a mob is about 25%. more or less depending on group composition.
Finally, you can use the last two talent points in the frost tree. yes, you can do that. there's nothing against that. As for me, if i wanted to, i can put the remaining points into Merciless Combat, since my build didnt have that. Or, on a pale horse offers some utility.
Another toss up, if you want some utility, would be Desecration in the Unholy tree vs. Chillblains in the Frost tree. both will cause a slowing effect, but with 20 second Desecration, they will be slowed when in a circle area whereas with Chillblains, the mobs will be slowed for 10 seconds so long as they've been hit with Frost Fever. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. And if you end up thinking Runic power mastery is for the less alert, and who needs On a Pale Horse when you have speed enchants on your boots, then go for Chillblains or Desecration.... or both or Endless Winter, or Morbidity if you really like DnD. Keep in mind, the slowing effects wont stack. If you run with an unholy dk, chances are they already have Desecration ;)
So with that, i leave you with a talent tree with options. Some options are better than other options based on how you play, what you prefer, and what enchants and/or glyphs you might have.
As seen above, I have two points left in which to spend anywhere (again, with the optional points in Runic Power Mastery and Endless Winter, which can also go anywhere). It is up to you, the player, to determine where these talents go. Please dont put all your talents into the frost tree, as these will not be as useful in DPS as some of the talents in the Unholy or Blood Trees. Once you're able to add points to the other trees, i would suggest adding points to Epidemic. It will lessen the amount of times you refresh your diseases on boss fights and will almost eliminate refreshing your diseases on dungeons mobs (boss or trash) in TBC and Wrath dungeons.
I wanted to highlight the talent points you'll definitely need in the picture above, but MS Paint isnt giving me the options i need. If you read through the blog post and click on the links, you'll be able to see which talents are "needed" and which are filler. Sorry, i cant make a TL:DR picture for the masses. =[
Also note two talent points in the middle: Hungering Cold and Pillar of Frost.
Before 4.0 we had this cooldown called Unbreakable Armor, which increased our strength for a while. This is basically what Pillar of Frost is. Take it. Use it often!
As for Hungering Cold, this seems more like a pvp ability to me, and rightly so, as it freezes enemies in place. But dont forget that even if the spell is primarily aimed at PvPers, it still has it's PvE uses. Ignoring the high cost of the spell (and dont glyph it unless you'll pvp), it can be useful in certain situations. learn to use it since you will already have it, as it's necessary to take in order to get Howling Blast anyway. But think about all the little spots in dungeons and raids that you can use this ability, especially if you dont have a mage and for a split second, thought to yourself, "A frost nova would be great right about now." It will be worth while.
In the future, i'd like to continue this pseudo guide with a post on stats, gemming, enchanting and reforging with a post on how to actually play the DK (you know, when you actually have to dance and press buttons). But for now, the talent points will hopefully help a lot of people out there.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Rich is Relative
Last night a "flipper" put up about 200 stacks of Elementium ore for about 37-40g each. my auctionator said there was that many, actually, 194, or something close to that, so i bought them all. If they were all 40g each, i'd be using up 8k gold. the seller thanked me in a whisper and asked if i was going to use it all or flip it. i told him i was going to use it all. he said i just made him a very rich guy. you see, he was a flipper. he watches the AH and looks for deals on whatever it is he wants to flip, then sells them at a later date for more. What i can see from historic prices pre-patch 4.1, is that prices on ores dropped to maybe 35g. so he made about 5g on each stack from me, or about 1,000 gold. minus the 5% AH cut, and he made off with about 950 gold.
i thought for a second and wondered. very rich to him can either mean the net earnings of 950g, or the total revenues of about 7500-8000 gold. for me, i didnt drop below 100k gold throughout the whole buying frenzy (and you know i just hit 100k gold a few days prior). So maybe i did make him really rich. but to me it is an investment in the future. i can turn that 8k gold around and probably end up making over 30k with it. netting me about 20k+ in gold. the only reason i am able to do this is because i have two other characters. one is an alchemist who will gladly make shadowspirit diamonds. the other is an enchanter who will gladly make dust/essences out of some of the alicite pendants i make. to make it even better, she also enchants scrolls and leaves them in the AH (you know, the enchants that people dont make 20 of to level through). my 100k+ gold was made by several people. it wasnt completely my JCer. i have a scribe who funded herself through the entire inscription process (buy mats, make glyphs, sell glyphs, use profits to buy more mats). i make belt buckles, leg armor enchants, glyphs, rare enchants and gems. these are the primary sources of gold for me. but the bulk of the gold comes from JC and the mundane daily activity of relisting expired auctions and crafting more gems to replace the ones that sell. Eventually i will reach 200k. that's my goal for cata. =P and hopefully then, i'll be able to say that im a rich man. again, rich is relative. for me, im still pretty much broke as i see the 100k sitting in my bag as "investment funds". they're there so i can use to make more gold. that is all. anyway, happy tuesday! see you all later!
i thought for a second and wondered. very rich to him can either mean the net earnings of 950g, or the total revenues of about 7500-8000 gold. for me, i didnt drop below 100k gold throughout the whole buying frenzy (and you know i just hit 100k gold a few days prior). So maybe i did make him really rich. but to me it is an investment in the future. i can turn that 8k gold around and probably end up making over 30k with it. netting me about 20k+ in gold. the only reason i am able to do this is because i have two other characters. one is an alchemist who will gladly make shadowspirit diamonds. the other is an enchanter who will gladly make dust/essences out of some of the alicite pendants i make. to make it even better, she also enchants scrolls and leaves them in the AH (you know, the enchants that people dont make 20 of to level through). my 100k+ gold was made by several people. it wasnt completely my JCer. i have a scribe who funded herself through the entire inscription process (buy mats, make glyphs, sell glyphs, use profits to buy more mats). i make belt buckles, leg armor enchants, glyphs, rare enchants and gems. these are the primary sources of gold for me. but the bulk of the gold comes from JC and the mundane daily activity of relisting expired auctions and crafting more gems to replace the ones that sell. Eventually i will reach 200k. that's my goal for cata. =P and hopefully then, i'll be able to say that im a rich man. again, rich is relative. for me, im still pretty much broke as i see the 100k sitting in my bag as "investment funds". they're there so i can use to make more gold. that is all. anyway, happy tuesday! see you all later!
Monday, May 2, 2011
Tanks and Their Need of DPS Gear
You guys stress me to no end. no really, you do. please learn to outfit yourself with tanking gear.
Last night, me and my girlfriend ran a few level 85 dungeons to try to reach 85 by the end of the night. I am 20% away from dinging while she dinged during the dungeon.
We added a friend who jumped from her home server to play with us. She was happy to be playing with friends, at least, and we did several dungeons together. on the last dungeon we did before we went out to dinner, we got Grim Batol and got a tank from the same realm. he was 85, trying to gear up i guess, and didnt know the instance.
First off, the instances are dumb easy now. they were hard six months ago. it was fun. it was interesting. and it was frustrating all in one. it made the game good. now its almost a snorefest. and on top of that, we had drakes that killed more than half of our trash packs for us anyway. so it was triple easy even for level 84's doing level 85 dungeons. and we get this tank, from our own realm no less, with almost all dps gear and a +int cloak. at least he was spec'd blood to help with some of the mitigation.
how did he do in the instance? he did fine. he did fine only because he was being healed by my gf. she's working on her holy paladin healadining toon and was healing him non stop. but otherwise, he was horribad. granted, he did say he was new, so i ended up narrating half of the instance for him, boss fights and then some trash packs. also, i had to remind him that we needed CC in certain trash packs. he would then wait for me to give to go ahead if no cc were needed. honestly, having cc makes everything easier. i dont know why tanks like to grab entire groups and spend just as much time on all the mobs. our dps will remain relatively the same whether we down a group all at once or a couple at a time. the only real difference is, would you rather wait for the CC to land, or would you rather wait for the healer to drink after the fight? normally, waiting for the hunter to set his trap takes much less time than waiting for the healer to drink because she spent all her mana healing stupid pulls.
and so we got to the first boss where EVERYONE and their dogs knew to leave the malignant trog alone so he can be cc'd. nope. didnt happen. i tried terribly to pull him out but he stuck. so my dps was halved for the fight, but we did get through it. Second boss comes almost right after the first, with a few trash to pull. it didnt go smoothly at all. I had to tell him that the big guys are usually the decoys and the ones you need to focus on are really the small caster mobs. i then began explaining the second boss fight, throngus, or something, and he pulls right after i said something like, if he picks mace, kite. i had to yell KITE several times when he did pick his mace. fortunately, this was a normal instance, my gf is an awesome healer, and the tank was at least in the right spec. we one-shotted the boss.
from then on, CC was common unless i stated that cc wasnt necesasry. we got through the trash and then on to the dragon fight. every flame called that was placed on me was kited (just one, lol). the rest, well they all kinda blew up. the one that went to the tank blew up. it was damage, but it wasnt anything we couldnt heal through. still, bad play is bad play. amazingly, when my gf said she was out of mana, the dragon dropped the boss and fled. we cleaned him up with one more flame guy to take care of. of course, the flame guy picked the tank. we ended up beating that boss without trouble and went on to the last boss.
the last boss was fun. i put a mark on me to show everyone where the center of the storm will be. lo and behold, the tank missed it twice. the only time he was in it was when it spawned right on top of him. shadow gale sucks ass on normal, so my gf healed through it. the adds were easily killed. nothing was out of the ordinary except for shadowgale and we downed the boss with no problems. then a ring dropped. a dps ring. my dps paladin friend rolled need. she was the only dps who needed that ring. there was a rogue, but he was looking for agi, im sure. and then the tank rolled on the ring and won. now i had to yell at him. and i did. my gf added her input since she's been there and have been ninja'd by many tanks in the past for her dps upgrades. and so for a couple of minutes we tried talking this guy into giving the damn ring to the dps who actually needed it. and how it would just annoy other healers if he did use dps gear to tank. he didnt see it that way but said that an upgrade is an upgrade and then left.
well that didnt turn out too well, but maybe he did forget one thing that night. we were in the same realm. so once i got out and back into org, i did a trade announcement to "warn" others not to play with him. in my own fashion, i added his guild. Y player of X guild is a ninja, please avoid playing with him, thanks. a few replies in chat were basically affirming that X guild isnt pleasant to play with, etc.
I'd figure that will be left at that. at least a couple of people from our realm will know that Y player doesnt have great character and should be avoided. but to my surprise, i had two people whisper me, co-guildleaders, i assume. who said that this behavior will not be tolerated and that they will talk to him when he logs back on. i mentioned the person who did lose the roll was on our realm too, and they talked to her as well. overall, it was nice to know that guilds do care, at least guild leaders, do care about their own guild's reputation within the realm. through all of this, i hope that the tank will learn a few things. grim batol is easy. but heroics are a pain, especially with dps gear. ninja-ing gear that doesnt help you one bit only makes you a bad player. you might have all the skill in the world, but when rolling on clearly off-spec items make sure no one else actually really needs it.
character>gear.
skill>gear.
lots of things are > gear.
gear is just a means to an end. but it doesnt make you play better. nor does it make you a better person than the next guy. and dps gear surely doesnt help you tank. now thinking about it, one of the bosses did drop a caster cape. the tank did mention that it was better than his cape. i wonder if he secretly wanted to need on that too. who knows.
one last thing regarding the new tank. i wanted to put him on ignore to avoid playing with him again. but then i also wanted to chat with him in the future if he did change his ways. i'd rather see someone change for the better than never play with him again. maybe one day he'll be an great tank. but until then, who knows.
One last last thing. i also think it would be an improvement to the rolling system if we can roll for offspec gear. it does assume that people know what their offspec is, and that blizz would somehow link certain gears to offspec. although this might be reasonable, there can be other builds/specs/combinations that might be necessary for certain things. i dont know what, but there might be.
much like how i dont mind casters, say, shamans rolling on cloth gear if no one needs, i dont mind tanks rolling for offspec gear if no one needs. key words: IF NO ONE NEEDS.
So rolling priority will be like so: Main spec need > Main Spec type need > Offspec Need > Greed. where type is the type of material of the item (cloth, leather, mail, plate). of course, if the drop is a ring or a necklace or a mace, etc, the type will not come into play. and if you totally cant wear it, say a dagger and you're on a paladin, then you get the Greed option only.
or maybe that's too complicated. who knows. but i still like blizz' way now. it leaves the interaction, the decisions, and how we impact society and this mmo up to us, the players.
Last night, me and my girlfriend ran a few level 85 dungeons to try to reach 85 by the end of the night. I am 20% away from dinging while she dinged during the dungeon.
We added a friend who jumped from her home server to play with us. She was happy to be playing with friends, at least, and we did several dungeons together. on the last dungeon we did before we went out to dinner, we got Grim Batol and got a tank from the same realm. he was 85, trying to gear up i guess, and didnt know the instance.
First off, the instances are dumb easy now. they were hard six months ago. it was fun. it was interesting. and it was frustrating all in one. it made the game good. now its almost a snorefest. and on top of that, we had drakes that killed more than half of our trash packs for us anyway. so it was triple easy even for level 84's doing level 85 dungeons. and we get this tank, from our own realm no less, with almost all dps gear and a +int cloak. at least he was spec'd blood to help with some of the mitigation.
how did he do in the instance? he did fine. he did fine only because he was being healed by my gf. she's working on her holy paladin healadining toon and was healing him non stop. but otherwise, he was horribad. granted, he did say he was new, so i ended up narrating half of the instance for him, boss fights and then some trash packs. also, i had to remind him that we needed CC in certain trash packs. he would then wait for me to give to go ahead if no cc were needed. honestly, having cc makes everything easier. i dont know why tanks like to grab entire groups and spend just as much time on all the mobs. our dps will remain relatively the same whether we down a group all at once or a couple at a time. the only real difference is, would you rather wait for the CC to land, or would you rather wait for the healer to drink after the fight? normally, waiting for the hunter to set his trap takes much less time than waiting for the healer to drink because she spent all her mana healing stupid pulls.
and so we got to the first boss where EVERYONE and their dogs knew to leave the malignant trog alone so he can be cc'd. nope. didnt happen. i tried terribly to pull him out but he stuck. so my dps was halved for the fight, but we did get through it. Second boss comes almost right after the first, with a few trash to pull. it didnt go smoothly at all. I had to tell him that the big guys are usually the decoys and the ones you need to focus on are really the small caster mobs. i then began explaining the second boss fight, throngus, or something, and he pulls right after i said something like, if he picks mace, kite. i had to yell KITE several times when he did pick his mace. fortunately, this was a normal instance, my gf is an awesome healer, and the tank was at least in the right spec. we one-shotted the boss.
from then on, CC was common unless i stated that cc wasnt necesasry. we got through the trash and then on to the dragon fight. every flame called that was placed on me was kited (just one, lol). the rest, well they all kinda blew up. the one that went to the tank blew up. it was damage, but it wasnt anything we couldnt heal through. still, bad play is bad play. amazingly, when my gf said she was out of mana, the dragon dropped the boss and fled. we cleaned him up with one more flame guy to take care of. of course, the flame guy picked the tank. we ended up beating that boss without trouble and went on to the last boss.
the last boss was fun. i put a mark on me to show everyone where the center of the storm will be. lo and behold, the tank missed it twice. the only time he was in it was when it spawned right on top of him. shadow gale sucks ass on normal, so my gf healed through it. the adds were easily killed. nothing was out of the ordinary except for shadowgale and we downed the boss with no problems. then a ring dropped. a dps ring. my dps paladin friend rolled need. she was the only dps who needed that ring. there was a rogue, but he was looking for agi, im sure. and then the tank rolled on the ring and won. now i had to yell at him. and i did. my gf added her input since she's been there and have been ninja'd by many tanks in the past for her dps upgrades. and so for a couple of minutes we tried talking this guy into giving the damn ring to the dps who actually needed it. and how it would just annoy other healers if he did use dps gear to tank. he didnt see it that way but said that an upgrade is an upgrade and then left.
well that didnt turn out too well, but maybe he did forget one thing that night. we were in the same realm. so once i got out and back into org, i did a trade announcement to "warn" others not to play with him. in my own fashion, i added his guild. Y player of X guild is a ninja, please avoid playing with him, thanks. a few replies in chat were basically affirming that X guild isnt pleasant to play with, etc.
I'd figure that will be left at that. at least a couple of people from our realm will know that Y player doesnt have great character and should be avoided. but to my surprise, i had two people whisper me, co-guildleaders, i assume. who said that this behavior will not be tolerated and that they will talk to him when he logs back on. i mentioned the person who did lose the roll was on our realm too, and they talked to her as well. overall, it was nice to know that guilds do care, at least guild leaders, do care about their own guild's reputation within the realm. through all of this, i hope that the tank will learn a few things. grim batol is easy. but heroics are a pain, especially with dps gear. ninja-ing gear that doesnt help you one bit only makes you a bad player. you might have all the skill in the world, but when rolling on clearly off-spec items make sure no one else actually really needs it.
character>gear.
skill>gear.
lots of things are > gear.
gear is just a means to an end. but it doesnt make you play better. nor does it make you a better person than the next guy. and dps gear surely doesnt help you tank. now thinking about it, one of the bosses did drop a caster cape. the tank did mention that it was better than his cape. i wonder if he secretly wanted to need on that too. who knows.
one last thing regarding the new tank. i wanted to put him on ignore to avoid playing with him again. but then i also wanted to chat with him in the future if he did change his ways. i'd rather see someone change for the better than never play with him again. maybe one day he'll be an great tank. but until then, who knows.
One last last thing. i also think it would be an improvement to the rolling system if we can roll for offspec gear. it does assume that people know what their offspec is, and that blizz would somehow link certain gears to offspec. although this might be reasonable, there can be other builds/specs/combinations that might be necessary for certain things. i dont know what, but there might be.
much like how i dont mind casters, say, shamans rolling on cloth gear if no one needs, i dont mind tanks rolling for offspec gear if no one needs. key words: IF NO ONE NEEDS.
So rolling priority will be like so: Main spec need > Main Spec type need > Offspec Need > Greed. where type is the type of material of the item (cloth, leather, mail, plate). of course, if the drop is a ring or a necklace or a mace, etc, the type will not come into play. and if you totally cant wear it, say a dagger and you're on a paladin, then you get the Greed option only.
or maybe that's too complicated. who knows. but i still like blizz' way now. it leaves the interaction, the decisions, and how we impact society and this mmo up to us, the players.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Hit my WotLK gold goal today!
totally lame that i hit this mark months after cata came out. 100k gold. but i wasnt focused. i just played until it got bored. then played another char or minigame within wow until i got bored of that. maybe im not cut out to be an AH guru. maybe just a user. gem sales are better since patch. =]
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