Hi guys! I just wanted to update everyone on what's going on in my WoW life and such.
Gold and AH
As many of you may know, i've been trying to hit 200,000 gold last month. it didnt happen. actually i was short about 33k gold (hitting about 167k before dropping off a little due to restocking, etc). yesterday i dropped about 15k gold since my gf decided to level an alliance toon and wanted to afford everything. So off i went to send her 15k gold in booty bay. after AH fees, she received 12,800 gold. That's a huge fee for transfering that much gold over. but in any case, that's the cost of having an escrow company between factions. yes, you can also sell high ticket items for cheap across factions and hope those sell within the faction you want, but having the item for cheap means there's a risk someone is also standing there at the AH and ready to snipe the would-be transferer. It happend to my gf just yesterday as she tried to sell of boots. my advice: do it with two people. do it during offtimes. do it once transaction at a time, just in case. if you lose one item, at least you have the rest for another time. you dont wanna lose your shirt all at once.
in any case, lesson learned; pay the escrow fee.
In this case, i had her pick up 15 moth eggs and sell it in the AH for my horde char to buy. i picked up 15 eggs and paid 1k gold each. totals 15k transfered. 2.2k went straight to auction house fees.
in any case, that's enough for flying, epic flying and epic-er flying. maybe even azeroth flying. who knows.
Characters
In terms of character progression, i've taken my DK on Ravenholdt through some ZA/ZG dungeons and got pants, shoulders, helmet and a sword. Trying to get the matching sword sometime this week. there is a ring that i should be getting from there as well. This will probably be all that i need from these dungeons. i am slowly, but surely, reaching 20k dps. on various boss fights i am doing about 15k-18k. this includes target switching and running out for charges, fires and other game mechanics. at the target dummy, without the LFD buff and the other party buffs, i am doing about 11-12k dps.
My DK on Ravenholdt also went to a raid with the guild (when we're able to muster up enough people for one) and destroyed omnotron and magmaw. those who raid often must think im nuts for even mentioning this. but considering that i dont raid all too often, this is quite a feat! so far, i've defeated halfus, omnotron and magmaw. so far i received zero drops but i had a lot of fun learning these fights. I've also figured out when to use my key cooldowns (both dps and defensive) and where i should be standing at certain times in certain fights. although omnotron still confuses me, i do run away from shields.
My Prot paladin on Ravenholdt is gearing up nicely. a little over the 346 ilevel minimum and is barely able to tank a ZA heroic. in all actuality, it looks as though she's very squishy. i dont know how, but i've just about reached 85% avoid+block and i still get clobbered. of course, this is not wrath of the litch king, but i still feel that i am quite squishy.
My rogue is on hold for now, as i dont have much time to really gear up another dps for fun. he's already in 346+ ilevel gear so he's always ready to do stuff with guildies, if needs be. but i dont plan on using him much unless to goof around.
My Druid really needs help. i dont like moonkin dps. i dont like healing as much as before. i dont even like farming herbs anymore. it's completely dull now. and it's not that i dont heal because i dont like it anymore. i just dont heal because i dont want to deal with the crap that hapeens in random pugs. im a pugger. i do like healing. but not the random folks to pull without cc. it makes the healer's job that much more difficult, especially when they cant seem to faceroll content.
Now i have three characters which needs a little more mention. they are not on my home server, but are on my "vacation" server. my little home server away from home.... server. or something. I have several characters in Ysondre. it's a low to medium pop server, with a slow economy and rampant adverts to buy gold. the alliance side is even worse. it appears that the lower a population is, the more gold sellers thrive.
I have a DK that is blood tanking it from 80-85. So far, he's reached 84 and is still quite a ways away from hitting 85. He only did the starting quests from Mt. Hyjal and, since getting enough equipment to tank, has stopped questing almost entirely (besides JC dailies). My second paladin is slowly leveling up as well. he's currently level 82 and still randomly getting throne of the tides and black rock caverns when he queues up. no such like getting stonecore i guess. in any case, he's slowly leveling up as well, getting about 10% of an experience bar each dungeon.
Possible new guild
My last character of mention is a goblin shaman i just made. he will be used to start a new guild in which i hope to make a social/leveling guild. zero drama and all "for fun". it will be a guild where people hold hands and help each other out by patting each other on the back, even if they're fail. push-button leveling is the name of the game here, and anyone who can spam one attack while leveling is welcome to join. of course, this may be a problem in the future when the guild actually wants to progress through something. but for now. it will be a place to network, make friends, do trivial things that dont matteer in the long run, and teach people how to play with more than the couple of buttons they cant seem to stop using. standing in fire is another thing as well. The guild will be called Brazen. hopefully, it sums up the type of people i want in the guild. stubbornly defiant people who cant be assed to optimize. but instead, would rather have a good time. since, after all, most of the population of wow play this game to enjoy it. playing it badly... well that's another story for another time. In any case, i'll have to keep you updated on this, since i really havent been blogging much do to lack of anything and everything to write about. Anyway, we need guilds like these to just be in and relax. no pressure. no problems. and this will probably be the guild i will hang out in when i am not chilling over in Ravenholdt.
in any case, thats all the updates i have so far. i hope everyone had a great week and is ready to return to the weekend for some good fun. short weeks are awesome!
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Update on gold
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!
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!
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. =]
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Zul-G
Last night was pretty amazing when it comes to tolerance levels. You see i died maybe 10 times in ZulG and we only faced two bosses.
But before we talk about the stupid deaths in ZulG, i just wanted to mention about my horrendous experience doing the chain quest leading up to it. Sure, most of you probably had no issues going through the whole thing, but i wanted to bang my head on the table a few times. first off, who was it? Mwumba wanted to escort me in spirit to STV. sure, i pick up her quest and then proceeded to the ferry terminal. erm... zepplin terminal. Things were fine and dandy as i arrived. there was the spirit of the troll chick standing next to me, a little over my left shoulder and in full size! well i was a little glad she was transparent. but hey, if her spirit was with me, why couldnt she be a little smaller? or even just have the top portion of body showing? that would be nice. i mount up and began to fly when the zep landed. turns out, she disappeared quickly after that. i flew all the way to the camp where i was supposed to go, the one right outside ZulG's entrance. I killed a bunch of serpents but could not, for the life of me, figure out how to re-summon the spirit troll chick. sucks. after many attemps and "inspecting" poisoned bodies with no effect, i began to wonder maybe i am missing something here. i dropped the quest and tried again. again i failed. again, a reset and it still didnt work. i then proceeded to hearth, then flew back to the original quest giver (hoping that maybe i can get some answers from the real person and not her spirit) but she would not mention the quest at all. grrrrr. So i flew back to STV and she returned! omg nice!
Then i walked off the boat onto the landing tower and she disappeared again. wtf? okay after walking down the stairs, she returned somehow. okay? blizz, this is stupid. then she goes on and says the same two comments/questions over and over and over again. somehow i wish i had not come back. but there she was, asking the same questions. in any case, i was not taking any chances so i walked the whole way across the way, killing a few serpents and some crocs along the way. after that, it was pretty smooth sailing as somehow, the spirit was able to fly with me when i mount up. yay!
until. i got. to the. quest with nessingwary. i went off to look for the panther and lo and behond, it found us! took my npc dwarf (honestly, a dwarf? why am i helping him?) and ran away. i proceeded to fly after it and figured out quite easily to follow the trail of smoke. sure enough we found the panther sleeping, of all things. aparently this is the second part of the bugged questchain because, instead of turning in the quest to pick up the next one, i killed the panther and started the RP. so far so good, or so i thought. then, i talked to the spirit chick and she told me to kill the panther. wtf? i just did. alas, i sat there and waited. and waited. and waited some more. finally, she respawned and i tried killing her again. didnt work. still no completion. after the fifth respawn and various tries at redoing the quest, a guildie said to relog. so i did, and it worked!
So i spent about an hour doing this chain quest that should have taken no more than 20 minutes. maybe 15. at least after that, i was able to complete the rest of the quests (saving the zombies, finding vol'jin) and pick up a couple for the ZulG instance. oh and i was able to queue for that instance as well! wait time for that dungeon was halved. ZulG dungeon experience to come shortly...
But before we talk about the stupid deaths in ZulG, i just wanted to mention about my horrendous experience doing the chain quest leading up to it. Sure, most of you probably had no issues going through the whole thing, but i wanted to bang my head on the table a few times. first off, who was it? Mwumba wanted to escort me in spirit to STV. sure, i pick up her quest and then proceeded to the ferry terminal. erm... zepplin terminal. Things were fine and dandy as i arrived. there was the spirit of the troll chick standing next to me, a little over my left shoulder and in full size! well i was a little glad she was transparent. but hey, if her spirit was with me, why couldnt she be a little smaller? or even just have the top portion of body showing? that would be nice. i mount up and began to fly when the zep landed. turns out, she disappeared quickly after that. i flew all the way to the camp where i was supposed to go, the one right outside ZulG's entrance. I killed a bunch of serpents but could not, for the life of me, figure out how to re-summon the spirit troll chick. sucks. after many attemps and "inspecting" poisoned bodies with no effect, i began to wonder maybe i am missing something here. i dropped the quest and tried again. again i failed. again, a reset and it still didnt work. i then proceeded to hearth, then flew back to the original quest giver (hoping that maybe i can get some answers from the real person and not her spirit) but she would not mention the quest at all. grrrrr. So i flew back to STV and she returned! omg nice!
Then i walked off the boat onto the landing tower and she disappeared again. wtf? okay after walking down the stairs, she returned somehow. okay? blizz, this is stupid. then she goes on and says the same two comments/questions over and over and over again. somehow i wish i had not come back. but there she was, asking the same questions. in any case, i was not taking any chances so i walked the whole way across the way, killing a few serpents and some crocs along the way. after that, it was pretty smooth sailing as somehow, the spirit was able to fly with me when i mount up. yay!
until. i got. to the. quest with nessingwary. i went off to look for the panther and lo and behond, it found us! took my npc dwarf (honestly, a dwarf? why am i helping him?) and ran away. i proceeded to fly after it and figured out quite easily to follow the trail of smoke. sure enough we found the panther sleeping, of all things. aparently this is the second part of the bugged questchain because, instead of turning in the quest to pick up the next one, i killed the panther and started the RP. so far so good, or so i thought. then, i talked to the spirit chick and she told me to kill the panther. wtf? i just did. alas, i sat there and waited. and waited. and waited some more. finally, she respawned and i tried killing her again. didnt work. still no completion. after the fifth respawn and various tries at redoing the quest, a guildie said to relog. so i did, and it worked!
So i spent about an hour doing this chain quest that should have taken no more than 20 minutes. maybe 15. at least after that, i was able to complete the rest of the quests (saving the zombies, finding vol'jin) and pick up a couple for the ZulG instance. oh and i was able to queue for that instance as well! wait time for that dungeon was halved. ZulG dungeon experience to come shortly...
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
353s and so forth
I thought for a little about the new gear dropping from Zul G and Zul A. They're pretty much raid quality loot, at least from my standpoint. Anything better than 346 is raid level. Anything AT 346 is raid-ready. do we all agree? great. But why the epic gear already? in 5-man heroics? why not give us another raid? back in Wrath, we got Naxx first, then Ulduar, then ToC and that was when we got the instance that gave us purples in normal and heroics.
Aparently something is different this time around. In cata, we didnt get one raid with four wings. Instead we got three raids totaling the size of Naxx, or something like that. it may seem like a lot, but doing all three of the current raids is not much different than doing all four wings of Naxx, then Saph+KT. Clever of Blizz. I always figured Naxx could have been four or five different necropolises. That would have kept raids short (and now its even shorter that you can skip straight to Sapphiron and KT without going through any of the wings). In any case, it wasnt until we get ToC that normal heroics dropped level 219 epics. Yes, they were all purple. It was sort of an unreal experience going through it to gear up. Actually, people would run the normal version of the instance just farming for gear so that they can join raids in Ulduar or ToC (most people skipped Naxx at that point).
Maybe it is the fact that there are three, albiet short, raids already out. (just think, ulduar split into three or four sections, icecrown split into four, ToC with three different versions and in each version three different bosses, stuff like that). We now have a 5-man that will drop almost-raid loot. this is wonderful for two types of people. one, it is great for the raider who has been farming for a certain item to complete his 359 sets. One item that may have been missing could be a wand, or a trinket. The time commitment to this instance would be more since the individual will have to return to this dungeon, in heroic, daily to see if his item will drop. Although the instance may take about half the time as a raid might, he will be running it several times throughout the week to get his item. more time played, i say, and a win for blizzard ultimately.
Second, the new instances appeal to those who are bad. yes, it's the ones who are reliant on gear to boost their play, instead of relying on sound tactics, paying attention, understanding your class strengths vs. a certain encounter, etc. (aka. Skill). As i believe, having 346 in every slot makes a player more than able to participate in a raid. Having 359s will allow the player to more easily participate in a raid. Bosses will die faster, mana will be a little more plentiful, tanks will mitigate just a wee more and healers will be taxed less. That's the idea. But i do believe that there are those in the population who will irrationally say to themselves that they do not have "enough" gear to participate in raids although they are decked out in 346s.
The process of gearing and progression is simple. Go into a raid with your 346s, kill several bosses and equip the loot that will enchance your performance. after several weeks of this + valor points, you'll (collectively) be ready to take on the final boss of the encounter with zero guarantee of success, but at least you'll have a shot. But most of these people stand in bad or in front of the boss, dont know where to run during certain events in the fight, they are inefficient with mana, they dont use their cooldowns, trinkets or even some obscure abilitiy in their arsenal like an interrupt. in short, they play badly. in order to counter this bad play, they believe that they need better gear, when, in fact, they need to learn to play.
So for the two groups of people looking at these instance i am hoping there is a third group. the one that doesnt have all the time to raid (and i have very little excuse any more now that the raids are almost the size of normal dungeons. heck, think of HoO. you can call it a raid, tune it for 10/25 man and no one will know the difference), but would like to keep playing for some kind of progression can go to these two dungeons and somewhat progress. the drops will not be as juicy as the raid drops, but you can see clearly that the drops are far superior to the blues they're currently wearing, gemmed and enchanted.
With that, this double-edge sword just dropped yesterday (for the competent raider as well as the bafoon who blames everything on gear) in the form of Patch 4.1, more specifically Zul A and Zul G 5-mans. These encounters will be fun, challenging and rewarding. Let's not worry too much about the gear farming for these two instances, as i am sure i'll probably be running these instances over and over again on my alts just to get them geared up (as their gear is much more preferred over regular or heroic gear from the original cata dungeons). Lets worry more about enjoying this game and taking up the challenge as it should be. lets not forget that difficult content should be just that, difficult, and that there's no excuse to suck if you only have heroic-esque gear. heck, i only have heroic gear on my dk, with two 359 rep pieces, but i do plan on kicking butt in each of the two new instances. for me, as the guy who sees these two new instances as new do-able content (ie. not a raid) and a chance to improve on some pieces of gear, i'll enjoy maybe a month of this before i start to wonder what firelands (and its new questing zone) will be like.
Aparently something is different this time around. In cata, we didnt get one raid with four wings. Instead we got three raids totaling the size of Naxx, or something like that. it may seem like a lot, but doing all three of the current raids is not much different than doing all four wings of Naxx, then Saph+KT. Clever of Blizz. I always figured Naxx could have been four or five different necropolises. That would have kept raids short (and now its even shorter that you can skip straight to Sapphiron and KT without going through any of the wings). In any case, it wasnt until we get ToC that normal heroics dropped level 219 epics. Yes, they were all purple. It was sort of an unreal experience going through it to gear up. Actually, people would run the normal version of the instance just farming for gear so that they can join raids in Ulduar or ToC (most people skipped Naxx at that point).
Maybe it is the fact that there are three, albiet short, raids already out. (just think, ulduar split into three or four sections, icecrown split into four, ToC with three different versions and in each version three different bosses, stuff like that). We now have a 5-man that will drop almost-raid loot. this is wonderful for two types of people. one, it is great for the raider who has been farming for a certain item to complete his 359 sets. One item that may have been missing could be a wand, or a trinket. The time commitment to this instance would be more since the individual will have to return to this dungeon, in heroic, daily to see if his item will drop. Although the instance may take about half the time as a raid might, he will be running it several times throughout the week to get his item. more time played, i say, and a win for blizzard ultimately.
Second, the new instances appeal to those who are bad. yes, it's the ones who are reliant on gear to boost their play, instead of relying on sound tactics, paying attention, understanding your class strengths vs. a certain encounter, etc. (aka. Skill). As i believe, having 346 in every slot makes a player more than able to participate in a raid. Having 359s will allow the player to more easily participate in a raid. Bosses will die faster, mana will be a little more plentiful, tanks will mitigate just a wee more and healers will be taxed less. That's the idea. But i do believe that there are those in the population who will irrationally say to themselves that they do not have "enough" gear to participate in raids although they are decked out in 346s.
The process of gearing and progression is simple. Go into a raid with your 346s, kill several bosses and equip the loot that will enchance your performance. after several weeks of this + valor points, you'll (collectively) be ready to take on the final boss of the encounter with zero guarantee of success, but at least you'll have a shot. But most of these people stand in bad or in front of the boss, dont know where to run during certain events in the fight, they are inefficient with mana, they dont use their cooldowns, trinkets or even some obscure abilitiy in their arsenal like an interrupt. in short, they play badly. in order to counter this bad play, they believe that they need better gear, when, in fact, they need to learn to play.
So for the two groups of people looking at these instance i am hoping there is a third group. the one that doesnt have all the time to raid (and i have very little excuse any more now that the raids are almost the size of normal dungeons. heck, think of HoO. you can call it a raid, tune it for 10/25 man and no one will know the difference), but would like to keep playing for some kind of progression can go to these two dungeons and somewhat progress. the drops will not be as juicy as the raid drops, but you can see clearly that the drops are far superior to the blues they're currently wearing, gemmed and enchanted.
With that, this double-edge sword just dropped yesterday (for the competent raider as well as the bafoon who blames everything on gear) in the form of Patch 4.1, more specifically Zul A and Zul G 5-mans. These encounters will be fun, challenging and rewarding. Let's not worry too much about the gear farming for these two instances, as i am sure i'll probably be running these instances over and over again on my alts just to get them geared up (as their gear is much more preferred over regular or heroic gear from the original cata dungeons). Lets worry more about enjoying this game and taking up the challenge as it should be. lets not forget that difficult content should be just that, difficult, and that there's no excuse to suck if you only have heroic-esque gear. heck, i only have heroic gear on my dk, with two 359 rep pieces, but i do plan on kicking butt in each of the two new instances. for me, as the guy who sees these two new instances as new do-able content (ie. not a raid) and a chance to improve on some pieces of gear, i'll enjoy maybe a month of this before i start to wonder what firelands (and its new questing zone) will be like.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)