Messy Christmas

And a hohoho-full new year.
I don't much care for the holiday myself, but it's as good an excuse as any to add some red on the white. (See bottom of this post)

No post last week, and not a very big one today either.
But still, a post.

It's cold outside, and what snow we had here is mostly melting again. Gray slush. Nasty stuff that seems to get everywhere.


Linkage

Also, come and Play BvS. Why? Because it's silly, anime based, easy, hard, and just plain awesome. Not to mention addictive, constantly growing and expanding, and sheesh man why are you still reading this? Go click the link already and try it out.

My Player Ranking is currently: #167. And slowly climbing :)


The messy video

Trailer of Santa's Slay. (Was on TV a few days ago)
He's my new hero! :P



Part 1 - 8 are on youtube as well if you're interested.

3.3 LFM, maybe?

So, you're undoubtedly aware 3.3 is live on the servers. Out of all the changes and updates, the "Dungeon Finder" is definitely one of blizzard's better ideas. The old LFG system was poor, as it limited itself to just your own server. The new Dungeon Finder encompasses your entire battle group. Just click what role you wish to perform, select the dungeons you're interested in and wait for the group to auto-form itself. Your alts will never have trouble finding a group again! You can do a /random/ heroic once a day for two Emblems of frost (Basically the replacement for the previous dailies). Or choose the specific instance to queue for. Random is really recommended, unless you're trying to gear up your alt in the new IC-5 instances. Which, is what I did for most of my weekend :P Tried running ToC, Pit and Hall of Reflection in the hopes of getting ANY kind of two hander to replace this with... ... yeah, I know. Most groups were fine, a (cough) skilled player can still keep up fairly well with the damage, and none really bothered to complain about it. Well, almost none. Sometime this afternoon as soon as I entered the instance the group was all like: "omg a noob", "too low dps plz leave", "go away noob". Like, seriously. By this time most of the gear I was wearing was epic at least, only the trinkets and weapon were in serious need of replacement still. It took some shouting and "encouragement" to get them started (and the fact that they couldn't vote kick me for another 10 minutes). But, eventually they settled down and we got to clearing the Pit of Saron. It soon became apparent that the player (me) that they were yelling and shouting at earlier, was actually pretty experienced, and doing more DPS than both their shaman and deathknight who were pretty much fully epiced out. Upon closer inspection, the shaman was using pretty much the same "type" of gear as myself, and the deathknight hadn't even bothered to put placeholder gems into his gear, let alone enchant it. So much for their big mouths... We cleared the Pit of Saron, and went along into the Hall of Reflection, killed the first boss "somehow" and wiped on trash before the second one because the healer decided it was a good idea to stand in plain view of the undead spawning in the room. Long story short, I left them to their stupidity and bailed. Heros Several more runs and rolling too low on 4-5 different two handed weapons later I got into yet another Pit of Saron group. (There's a nice two hander that could drop from the first boss there, can't blame a guy for trying right?) Almost immediately after we enter the instance the tank leaves. We hadn't even pulled anything yet! So we signed up the group we had so far into the LFG again and waited, and waited, and waited, and got tired of waiting. The shaman of the group suggested we go ahead and clear trash while waiting for a tank. Guess who got to be substitute tank? Exactly. Me. Turns out he was either a very good healer, or my gear wasn't as bad as I thought it was (probably the prior). But we cleared the right hand trash pretty effortlessly. The mage pulled aggro a few times, but he survived, somehow. "Just" as we reached the first boss a druid suddenly joined the team. Salvation! We buffed up, killed the boss and.... Finally got the Garfrost's Two Ton Hammer! Two handed Mace skill 1-400. FFS... Basically I was still stuck with the Arcanite reaper for the rest of the run. Less than a minute after the boss was dead and looted, *poof* druid gone again. So, we signed up into the LFG again hoping for a tank to join. Fat chance. I pull out my wizard's had and magic wand... No wait, that's from something else. I mean, the "plate gear" with defensive stats on it. I can't really call it much else, as it wasn't enchanted or anything at the time. We cleared the little trash to the next boss and decided to try something different. Indeed, me tanking, with dps spec, and mostly dps gear. And Ick went down smooth as a buttered eel. We were half surprised, and yet elated. But, we got our adrenalin up and running and wanted MORE! Would we be able to get away the rest of the instance like this? One unlucky pull and a wipe later, (damn those flame casters) we tried again. There were a few close calls where I was at ~500 health left, but we cleared all the trash up to the cave, stormed the cave itself and reached the final boss without any further issues. About 6-7 auto declined tanks who couldn't be bothered with joining an instance where 1-2 bosses were already dead - later, a Death knight suddenly joined the group! We were just about to pull the boss, but figured it couldn't hurt to do it with five players as we were "supposed" to. The "tank" informed us he hadn't maxed his weapon skill yet, so we should watch our threat. (/facepalm) But we still managed to take down the boss without anyone dying. And the Skeleton Lord's Cranium dropped. I was a happy pally :P One that had to go level his own weapon skill, but still. Gold farmers, still at it? I don't know what to say really, it's sick, disturbing, rather sad, and at the same time I can't fathom this being even remotely profitable. Goldfarmers, a whole bloody fucking train of em. Do a quick "/who Azshara" and 99% chance you'll see there's a whole bunch of hunters there, around level 60. Horde, Alliance, whatever. WHY!?!? I just reported a bunch of them, and they're not really getting removed at any acceptable speed either. I killed some dragons, and they seem pretty intelligent for bots, but still very obviously, blatantly following a set path killing the dragons and skinning them. I really don't see why they still bother with that.

Slacking some, or not?

Patch 3.3 sooooooooon! Maybe even this tuesday/wednesday (USA/EU) Or so some would have us believe. Other than that there's not a real huge lot to report this week (omg lame etc). Either way, don't forget to get your patch downloaded through a mirror a.s.a.p! Also see: * 3.3 change list. * Frozen Halls (5 man) info. * Icecrown Citadel (10/25 man) info. * Ashen Verdict (new faction) info. * Shadowmourne is coming as well. A shame rogues can't use two handers ;) Also In the Cataclysm, Barrens chat will never be the same again. (And good riddance at that) Have a laugh at halolz. Primarily Team Fortress 2 / Smash bros, and some related video game jokes. Still, all good fun. And, while I can't bloody stand most of the songs of the "Beetles", this parody is sorta ok:

Pity some fools

Mr.Z be telling you, there are some who do not believe in the legendary Night Elf Mohawks. I pity the fools. You can go pity them fools as well. According to WowHead you can find the Night Elf Mohawks at several locations around the world. Find them near you. They should make an achievement out of this. Beats having everyone out hunting rogues damnit... Oh, and for pony!, that's a pretty useful item actually. It's a silly achievement, but the result is as above. Your squire gets a mount, "and" gains the ability to provide you with a mailbox / bank box / vendor every four hours. It's a lot like Jeeves and Moll-E combined into one item. (And with a longer cooldown) Total cost is 150x Champion's seal, a bit pricey, but worth it. (A lot like the upcoming goblin minion-racial thing) Mr.Z has also been out hunting for a baby phoenix this weekend. With success! Achievement Unlocked It's all about meta gaming. But, seriously, why on earth would anyone do this? Sick freak that he is, over 10.000 Achievement points. Some Taiwanese who has probably never in his wow career seen the daylight. 10850 Points. Go beat that, I dare you. Here's me with my puny 7600. Or, 7610 actually, after wtfkilling that lonely priest in the field of strife. No idea how she actually managed to get on a mount during combat, but whatever. Tier 10 + patch 3.3 In case you're wondering when the next major content patch will arrive, well, ETA is about one month. Perhaps three weeks, perhaps four. MMOC already has a bunch of pictures up of the new Tier-10 artwork. You may want to check out if you hadn't already. And Finally MMOC has a few interesting videos and screenshots of the upcoming Cataclysm expansion. Sadly both the worgen and goblin females remain elusive for now. But you can get a nice impression of the new character selection screen at least. As well as the worgen and goblin starting zones. Some are rather blurry, though certainly interesting.

It's hunting season.

Rogue hunting season sadly... As if we weren't already getting targetted enough with other events. I be da regular target dis week mon! Pilgrim's Bounty So, basically everyone will be aiming to get this event done with as fast as possible this week. Most of them can be done on the first day. And you'll have to complete turkey lurkey on the second day. This week's event offers you five daily quests, each which can give you one piece of clothing or a turkey shooter. I'd recommend getting a hat + robe and three shooters the first day, then five shooters the next day. * She Says Potato * We're Out of Cranberry Chutney Again? * Easy As Pie * Can't Get Enough Turkey * Don't Forget The Stuffing! So, to make your life easier, here's a list of all the ingredients you should buy to be get the quests done without any surprises: Daily total ingredients for the daily quests: * Cranberries * 20 * Honey * 100 * Pumpkin * 20 * Herbs * 60 * Potatoes * 20 * Simple Flour * 20 * Mild Spices * 20 * Turkey * 20 Extra ingredients for the other quests (once only): * Cranberries * 5 * Honey * 25 * Pumpkin * 5 * Herbs * 15 * Potatoes * 5 * Simple Flour * 5 * Mild Spices * 5 * Turkey * 5 Not so easy Cooking is easy. And the recipes above will get you from 1 - 300 without too much effort and only a good load of coppers. The sharing achievement and food fight won't give you much of a headache either. Turkey time is soloable if you're level 80 as well. If not, it shouldn't be too hard to find one or two friends to sort that one out. The Turkinator however. Oh My Gawsh! It seems almost mandatory for Blizzard to add at least one absolute pain in the ass achievement every time. If people QQ enough it'll probably be nerfed later. But DAMN this one is seriously going to give a lot of people a severe headache and case of high blood pressure. to complete it, you have to kill not 10, not 20, not 30,, but 40 turkeys within a time of 30 seconds of each other. That means "at most" about 19 minutes, sure, but more likely you're looking at having to do that within 5-10 minutes. In an over crowded zone, during rush hour, along with dozens of other players, while there's a very very limited number of turkeys spawning. In Tirisfal and Goldshire. The maps will be updated on WowHead soon enough, and they do spawn all over the zone, but even so. 40 ?! That's crazy talk. It only takes one other player to kill that one you're after and you'll fail it guaranteed. Your best shot is doing this "very" early in the morning or "very" late at night. It's certainly doable, but I highly recommend you bring along a hunter friend with Beast Tracking. Or even cook yourself some Tracker Snacks. Also, use this macro, it'll help you a LOT as it'll target the turkey closest to you and automatically put you in attack mode: /cleartarget /tar wild turkey /startattack External Link You can view MMOC for a guide with videos as well.

Screenshot day!

As said last week, I'm getting a few chars up to cooking speed. All four of them are now at 385. Had plenty (and then some) meat still in the bank. Only had to fish a stack or few of Whitescales to get to the 300 mark. Bloody things weren't being sold on the AH, so... A couple more pictures today, had a look through my screenshot folder, which is always good fun. I asked a few weeks ago where a certain screen was taken, well here's proof of that location. And he's totally got his cookie don't worry. Also, I ran into a minor issue when cleaning up some quests in EPL (was there for fish), and eventually got poked by a GM to post it on the official forums. He totally gave a cookie! - Insert something here about a GM role playing rant - Later on, we were doing Trial of the Grand Crusader (25-ToC) and wiping on anub like most people are. When suddenly, after a wipe I ran into this disturbing sight: Yeah, it's the naked players in a raid bug. Quite odd.. Never seen it before, but heard others having it plenty of times. Someone should make a wow comic of that sometime... Let me know if someone does. As a closing sight, a tip. Do not, under any circumstances, distract your healers while they're healing.

Cook me this

Two more weeks until pilgrim's bounty starts. Are you prepared yet? And, in the theme of all good things, be sure to get this one for the fun of it. For myself (and oh hey, there's a list of all alts n such) I started working on getting all those alts up to par for cooking. In my case, that means I'm currently working on the lower three to get on par with the fourth, and then to get all four of those up to 385. In short, I need lots and lots of meat and fish! * level Name cur Max Needs * 80: Zurgat 450 450 x * 80: Belzur 385 450 Great feasts * 70: Elrath 385 450 Great feasts * 70: Targash 385 450 Great feasts * 70: Neruhe 385 450 Great feasts * 71: Arthul 285 300 raw whitescale salmon / darkclaw lobster / large raw mightfish * 80: Tikasar 125 225 raw sagefish * 72: Geshrat 114 150 boar ribs / crawler meat / raw sagefish * 20: Nefaria 130 225 boar ribs / crawler meat / raw sagefish Guess I'll be leveling my fishing skill, or looking for cheap stacks of fish on the AH. Though cooking skill has at least some use, I've only raised fishing on one character. Blizzard really should add "something" to that profession to make it worth raising imo. It was worth a try Random "where did you get that mount" whisper #236 After a while it gets old, really. Actually, it got old after the first 3-4, but after a dozen and some you start making up stuff on where to get it. Some fall for it, some don't. Today, I figured I'd try out the ole engineering. * [19:31:53][W From] [Himagain]: were did you found your mount? * [19:32:08][W To] [Himagain]: [Practice Lock] * [19:32:18][W To] [Himagain]: wanna buy some? * [19:32:19][W From] [Himagain]: cool * [19:32:31][W From] [80:Himagain]: there in you found your mount? * [19:32:37][W To] [80:Himagain]: Yep, totally. * [19:32:40][W To] [80:Himagain]: Get em all the time really. * [19:32:46][W From] [80:Himagain]: owmuch? * [19:33:02][W To] [80:Himagain]: 10g per box? * [19:33:06][W From] [80:Himagain]: no Also Interesting You might like this Elona Shooter. At first glance it's "yet another" one of those side shooter, defend the whatever last stand till your mouse breaks games. But, this one's got a bit more depth than the usual muck among those. Just, give it a try I guess. If you don't like it, too bad :P I've spent a good few hours on getting a bunch of those trophies so far. Don't bother trying to get ragnarock until you've reached level 50 or whatever, and at the least have a chalice ready. Oh, and aim for the head. Gives bonus damage. Poll end The previous question: Are you sick of badges yet? * Yes.. ugh.. - 29 (63%) * No, gimme more! - 17 (36%) Closed up, and opening a new question: * Did you check out the Icecrown Citadel Spoilers yet? And Finally In three days we should get the onyxia whelpling in the mail for the WoW 5th anniversary. It's also the last day you can log in normally, after that you'll need to merge with your battle.net account to be able to play WoW.

Halloween no more

And Halloween is over. Hope you got your achievements by now. Glad I did mine last year ugh. All but one that is. Though I suspect I'm not alone in that. It's just ten points anyhow, and not needed for the meta achievement. See MMOC for a bit more details. It's really a small "event" if you can call it that. Speaking of ten points, this sunday and monday you can get Dead Man's Party. It's quick, dead easy (haha couldn't resist that pun...) and there's a vendor that sells you an extra Cooking recipe. Personally I'm on 164/169, and in no more than two weeks time there's the Pilgrim's feast event starting that should allow everyone to get another five. * Cranberry Chutney * Candied Sweet Potatoe * Pumpkin Pie * Slow-Roasted Turkey * Spice Bread Stuffing If you're only a few recipes away from Chef de Cuisine, those few might get you there. (Also, you get a cookie if you can guess where that screenshot was taken) Remember the Sunwell? Sheesh what's up with the silly puns today? The sunwell, I'm sure some of you readers have been there during the time that it was actually "hard" still, and not just a place to go to pick up an achievement. Back in that time it was rather controversial as it had a unique buff added by blizzard. Namely Sunwell Radiance, yeah that's a nasty buff. And, all bosses in there had it. Actually, not just bosses but every single mob in that damn instance had it. Blizzard's excuse at the time was something like "we've given you too much evasion, so this allows us to make bosses hit less hard". Something along those lines anyway. But it sort of made druids - who's main defence was dodge, rather redundant. Other tanks could drop dodge and start stacking parry and block, but druids, well, couldn't. Lots of unhappy players, but most still managed and got a good way into the instance before WotLK suddenly made the instance redundant. That's the way of endgame instances sadly. Blizzard makes them useless before you've really had a chance to do them proper. TAQ and Naxx back in Pre-TBC had the same issue. Anyway, I digress. The point being, that exact same damn buff is going to be active in Icecrown Citadel(aka ICC). Of course It'll be named differently, but it's the exact same buff. -20% dodge on all players, and mobs get an extra +5% chance to hit you. Basically it's like this. Players have gotten too much evasion, so instead of making bosses hit 2x as hard and potentially one or two shot any tank, they're killing your dodge so that bosses can hit you more often. This means they don't need to buff the boss' damage output too much, and they don't need to nerf our gear or evasion ratings either. (Like they've done to rogue agility etc) The reason to that was this - rogue tanks! One must miss those days *sniff* It'll remain to be seen whether this makes druids cry again. Patch 3.3, I don't know about you, but it's looking rather interesting so far. Hopefully we'll get a chance to complete it this time, yet, Cataclysm is getting closer, and THAT is also looking rather good. Oh the dilemma...

Cheap news

Winter time! Clocks in Europe are moved one whole hour backward. Ugh, going to be hard to get some sleep adjustment then. So, recently there was this "Twitter thing" where the Blues answered some stuff most of us already knew for people who didn't know yet. It's twitter seriously. Most of them are half brain dead talking about poo. Either way, I spent most of my day farming ToC 5 man normal, and trolling newgrounds so there's not "that" much interesting to post this weekend. Cataclysm Q: Will Path of the Titans be as time consuming as obtaining Sons of Hodir reputation? A: Sons of Hodir was easy, we're thinking more along the lines of Argent Dawn rep actually. JK! As a matter of fact, we don't want the paths of the titans to feel grindy at all so we're trying to make sure that each step along the way feels more like a great quest, or a key achievement (like killing all the bosses in a new raid zone). So, it should be more oriented around accomplishing something that feels important rather than grinding. Q: What’s Deathwing’s current relationship with the Old Gods? A: In facebook terms, I'd list it as "It's Complicated". "Single" or "Married" are probably too extreme in this case. Q: Will there be Wintergrasp-like capturable zones in Cataclysm? A: Yes, there is an island off the coast of the Eastern Kingdoms named Tol Barad. Players will fight for control of the island and its famous prison. However, while the battle for Tol Barad is not in progress, players will find that it will remind them much more of the Isle of Quel'Danas, in that it'll be a major daily quest hub with quite a bit of random world pvp (presumably). Q: Thousand Needles is getting a big change in levels; how has the Cataclysm affected it? A: As a result of the Cataclysm, Thousand Needles has been completely flooded with water! Q: With Cataclysm revisiting the old world, any plan to make the old reputations worthwhile again? A: With each expansion, we introduce new reputations with new rewards. Sometimes we introduce reputations that are obviously related, such as Argent Dawn/Argent Crusade and Cenarion Circle/Cenarion Expedition. We don’t update the rewards for existing reps, as we don’t want to put new characters at such a significant disadvantage. Q: With the removal of defense in Cataclysm, will plate gear still have avoidance stats or will tanks and dps be sharing? A: Tanking gear will still have avoidance stats, they just won't have the defense stat anymore. So to answer your question, tanking and dps gear will not be the same. Q: Any plans of doing anything with Grim Batol in the Wetlands? A: Yes, we currently plan for Grim Batol to be one of the raid zones in Cataclysm. =] Q: What are the plans for the current Goblin-run towns after Cataclysm is out? A: Most Goblin-run towns will continue to operate as normal. In general, the existing Goblin cartels tend to be self-serving, and therefore aren't taking sides. Patch 3.3 Q: There's plenty of great endgame content, what about some new early/mid content to keep new players entertained? A: We actually have some small changes to the early game going live in 3.3.0 to help eliminate some new player confusion. This is not content specific, it is more focused around easing the new player pain. Q: Will leveling from 80-85 be like leveling from 70-80? A: It's too early to say. We base our leveling more around how much quest content we have and how good the reward pacing feels. If we have as many quests as we did from 70-80 and if it feels like your character is getting a reasonable amount of new stuff for the time invested, then it could end up being similar. Q: Will players be able to do 'old world' quests after Cataclysm is released? A: Only "old world" quests that we don't change. However, once the Cataclysm happens, it happens for everyone and there's no going back. Q: How will you handle beginning characters and higher level friends after Cataclysm? WIll they be out of phase? Players will not be out of phase. The Cataclysm changes the world for everyone. Q: Are Worgen going to have mounts? A: Both Worgen and Goblins will have new, racial specific mounts. Q: Will there be events where ally + horde players have to work together to kill a boss? A: Generally speaking we don't do this because we prefer that the horde and alliance feel like enemies rather than a big happy family working together to defeat a common foe. If anything, we want tension between the sides to rise. Q: Will Hyjal be made for exploration in Cataclysm? A: Yes. Raids & Dungeons Q: Love the steps taken to making high-end content accessible to casual players. How committed are you to continuing this? A: This is something we talk about on a regular basis. There isn’t a line in the sand we have made, it’s much more on a per piece of content basis. We do like the way the regular modes are shaping up to be more casual friendly, while the hardmodes are a way to reward very hardcore play. Q: Ulduar had one kind of hard mode(triggered).. ToC had another (ToC vs TOGC).. Ony has none. What will ICC have?" A: ICC's hard modes will be triggered, but via in-game UI (much like how you toggle between normal and heroic modes today) rather than triggered by game mechanics (like not killing the three drakes before you attack Sartharion). Q: For Cross-realm LFG if the group is composed by members of other realms do they have to go on foot or will they be teleported? A: The current plan is for players using the LFG system to be automatically teleported into the instance, similar to how battleground queuing works today. This is active on the PTR now, and we plan to host a community event around this feature soon! Q: Any chance to have LFG menu to show classes you're looking for I.E just showing all tanks or healers currently qued in LFG. A: The plan right now is to allow players to register for roles they are capable of filling, then have the queue system make the best decision possible for the player. This is to give all classes an equal chance at participation. We also have plans to diversify the class makeup in a future PTR update. Q: With T10, are we going to see tokens like in Ulduar? or like CC? CC style had every class and spec rolling on same thing. A: With t10 we're going to see a hybrid. The tier 10 items (the ones with item levels you'd find in the 10-player raid) will be purchased with Emblems of Frost. The tier 10.5 items (the ones with item levels you'd find in the 25-player raid) will be obtained by getting a token (one that is specific to 3 or 4 classes, much like the ulduar tokens) and using it to upgrade the tier 10 item that was purchased with emblems of frost. Q: Will there be anymore epic storylines with cinematics like the wrathgate questline? A: We have big plans for additional in game cinematics! We are happy with how the Wrathgate questline worked out, and want to do more lines like this. Q: May I create a group with 4 friends and then use the LFG interface to gain the random dungeon reward? A: Yes. In fact, you can join it with a full group of 5 and still get the random dungeon reward. The reward is for doing a random dungeon, not necessarily for having random members. Q: Crowd control is all but dead in raids. Is that something you plan on bringing back? A: Like say... with the Faction Champions encounter in ToC? ;] Q: Are there any plans to open the other "sanctums" in Wyrmrest (i.e. Obsidian Sanctum, Azure Sanctum, Emerald Sanctum)? A: Possibly. =] Q: Are hardmodes going to get anything to make them feel like a different fight visually or auditory A: I find the hard modes very different visually. Much more black and white imo. Q: Any chance that the hybrid system that is going to be implemented for T10, could be retro fitted to all WotLK raids? A: I'll take that as a good reaction to the t10 system. =] However, it unfortunately won't be retroactively applied. Q: Will 10-man raiding guilds see Legendary quality weapons (items) drop in their raids anytime soon? Or in Cataclysm? A: Our current plan is to reserve Legendary weapons for the 25 person encounters, I wouldn’t rule it out in the future though. Q: Any plans for a gated system in IIC like in Colliseum that prevents us from doing hardmodes from day 1? A: We do have a system that unlocks bosses similar to how we handled TOC and Sunwell. We are restricting hard modes to raid leaders that have defeated Arthas in regular mode. Q: In the future will hard modes have greater fidelity like Sarth, Sarth+1, Sarth+2, Sarth+3 rather than the Binary Normal/Hard? A: Generally we have learned that hard modes should be more binary, but that doesn’t mean we will never do something like Sarth 3 drakes again. Misc. Q: When Race change is live will we be able to change to any race in our faction no matter what class we are? A: No, you can only Race Change to a race that allows your specific class. Q: Any chance the Legendary items will grow stronger as players level up as heirlooms? Its too much work, just to ditch after a patch. A: This is something we have talked about a great deal. One of the concerns about making a weapon “best in the game” that scales up, is that players will continue to do old, outdated content in order to obtain the weapon. This ends up being not very fun for the other participants. While obtaining a legendary weapon is an incredible accomplishment, it is important cycle out weapons on a somewhat regular basis to make sure players are always playing new content. Q: Any chance of being able to link more then one authenticator on one account? (in case I lose or break one) A: We are talking about the authenticator and how to make it a better experience. Your suggestion is one we are talking about. Q: Do you have plans to have acheivement points redeemable? A: Achievement points are a prestige reward only. There are no plans to turn them into some kind of currency. Q: Any plans on adding bonuses to certain titles your character obtains? Like "...of the alliance" gives +5 to all stats A: We have no plans to introduce combat advantages to titles. Titles in World of Warcraft are very specifically set up as prestige rewards only. Q: Can locks have a summonable flying mount now please A: Now? As in right this second? No. Q: Will Alliance ever get an ingame band like the Hordes L80ETC? A: Sure, if somebody knows of an awesome Alliance band... Q: When do hunters get to tame druids? A: Right after druids get a hunter form. Q: What will happen to Mankrik's Wife? Please don't tell me she's gobbled up by the lava? A: You'll have to wait and see. =] Last question! Q: Who are the two developers answering these questions? A: Game Director Tom Chilton and Director of Production J. Allen Brack. Also see: mmoc.

Weapon skill

Ah, such a frustrating mechanic. Back in the "old" days where it was still a desirable skill for melee classes it at least made some amount of sense to have to raise it manually. Having +5 or +10 extra weapon skill on top of the base 300 meant that you ended up with a LOT less glancing blows. As a rogue, that meant loads of white damage extra. Weapon skill got changed. A few times even. Currently it's equivalent is called Expertise. But in 4.0 (The cataclysm) it'll get removed yet again. However, we still have Weapon skill. No longer as a bonus stat, but still as a dated mechanic that we need to work through on every character when they gain a level. Be it mains or alts. Unarmed skill, Axes, Defence, Maces, Polearms, Swords, Two-Handed Axes, Staves, Wands, and more. Warriors, rogues and hunters have it especially bad as they got nearly a full range of weapons to choose from. And luck would have it, you'll end up wielding each weapon every so and then as you upgrade them from greens, to blue, and epic. Or in the modern days of alts from Hierloom to dungeon blue, to raid epic. At 1/400 weapon skill you'll miss, miss, miss, miss. Starting from 350 or so, you'll hit more, but only do 1% of the weapon's damage if you hit. And you can forget about getting crits. Those numbers steadily increase as your weapon skill increases, but... So does the time in between gaining skill points in that skill. If your class doesn't have any instant attacks - Such as rogues training bow or crossbow skill, well damn, you'll be taking HOURS for those last few skill points. Luck would have it though, you've found this post! Personally I'd prefer weapon skill to be removed entirely, but for a lack of that option I'll give you a few weapons with a "fast" attack speed so you can hit mobs more often, and get skill points more often. Indeed, weapon speed increases the rate at which you gain skill. So, let's see: If you run into a nice epic / blue item that nobody during a dungeon run is interested in don't be afraid to roll greed for it. After all, it'll save you hours of time at any point in your character's development stage. On overall though, you should be able to find most weapons easily on a vendor. Simple white junk you can grab and re-sell again later. You also want as low dps as possible, since the monster you're trying to raise your skills on will then survive for longer, and thus give you more skill points. Daggers: * Poignard. Can't beat this one really. Low dps and widely available. Fists: * MH: Dalaran Knuckles * OH: Left-Handed Brass Knuckles Axes: * MH: Dalaran Axe * OH: Marshfang Blade Axe * OH: Biting Axe * OH: Icy Quick Edge * OH: Tomahawk Maces: * Furious Saronite Beatstick * Dalaran Cudgel Swords: * Dalaran Sword Polearms: * Ethereum Phase-Spear * Dalaran Spear Staves: * Dalaran Stave Two handed Axes: * Mag'hari Battleaxe * Dalaran Great Axe Two handed Maces: * Manual Crowd Pummeler * Dalaran Hammer Two handed Swords: * Barovian Family Sword * Dalaran Greatsword Bows: * Dalaran Bow Crossbows: * Frigid Crossbow * Dalaran Crossbow Guns: * Dalaran Rifle * Moonsight Rifle Thrown: * Dalaran Dart Wands: * Consecrated Wand * Cookie's Stirring Rod * Wand of Onyx Dr.Z's cooking tips The trick is to get your meat to turn crispy brown. If you are ending up with 'crunchy', then you should really pull it from the pan sooner.

Alt-a-holic

Yeah, I've been in denial long enough. I guess it's time to come out in the open and just admit it straight out, I'm an altaholic like no doubt plenty others. Not so bad as to have a dozen lvl 30-40 characters spread among different servers, but still. I just went ahead and started leveling my "bank alt" so she can reach level 20 and have a mount to move faster in Undercity. Seriously. It's a lot like how It went with the warlock when blizzard added enchanting levels needed for disenchanting. First he's 20, then 30, 40, and before you know it you've got another level 70 character on the list. I'm sorted on professions, one of each of the basic professions, and multiple skinners and miners. Next up, one of each class. Just missing a warrior and a priest now. Already had the priest as bank alt for the private welfare guild bank, and now she's suddenly level 8. I suspect she'll hit 20 in due time, then roll on straight to 40 and probably more. The warrior is alliance, to spy on them :P When cataclysm comes around, I guess she might turn into a worgen or goblin for the fun of it. It's a real shame blizzard changed the way those hierloom items allow certain shoulder enchants. I still got +30 AP on a pair of plate and leather shoulders. But the cloth version simply refuses to accept the same Zul'Gurub enchant. Still, +4 stats on the chest, and +30 spellpower on the staff makes for a happy alt. Things not to do in the kitchen You know how meat from the supermarket always has at least 30% extra water in it? Well, I had two. Put some butter in the pan, turn them around so and then, and repeat until done. Unlike regular "slightly more expensive" meat from a proper butcher, you then end up with a layer of boiling hot butter mixed with water in the pan. Now, since I was also planning to bake some diced ham bits to mix with the potatoes I figured I'd get rid of all that grease and pour it into one of those white plastic / foam things that you normally buy the meat in. "Normally" when you pour said grease and water into one of those, it's been standing there in the kitchen for about thirty or more minutes. Cooling. This time however, it was still sizzling and hot as fuck. I figured, what the heck and held the white container above the sink and proceeded to pour the hot grease into it. It fell "straight" through, as if it wasn't even there. o_O At least that proves those things are definitely not heat resistant. That was definitely one of those, "don't try this at home kids" moments. PS: No pigs were hurt during the writing of this post, all meat was already dead when I bought it. Battle.net OK, blizzard has now officially announced you "Need" to merge your WoW account with your Battle.net account. Make sure you do it before November 12th. Or you won't be able to play the game anymore. You even get a free penguin to boot. See MMOC for a shot of the penguin ;) Blog The RSS seems to be acting up strange, am I the only one noticing this, or, is anyone else getting this page to show up white randomly? Linky This one's bordering on porn, so don't click it if you're not at least 18 years or older. (And not at work obvioulsy) But hot dam it's is SO FUNNY! linky. Go check it out, awesome comic.

A dozen reasons why 3.2 sucks

Emblems! Emblems and badges from 5 mans, 10 mans, 25 mans, there's no end to it nowadays. Emblems of Conquest drop like candy from every heroic that previously dropped emblems of heroism / valor. Meaning you can now buy ilvl 226 loot from dungeons you were previously struggling through in ilvl 200 gear. If that doesn't mean anything to you, just skip to the last part of today's post :P And now there's yet another Emblem added in 3.2 - Trial of the Crusader. These drop from the 10 man, and 25 man instance, on normal and on heroic mode. And you get 2 for doing the daily heroic as well as the new boss in Vault of Archavon. Way back when Karazhan, Serpentshrine and Black Temple were still the mainstream you only got 1 type of badge. Obviously there was a general outcry when higher level loot was made available for those low level badges you were awarded in something as simple as 5 man heroics. We figured blizzard was doing a better job when 3.x came around and there were badges for 5-10 mans and another type of badge for 25 man instances. The former allowed you to buy slightly lower ilvl items than the one from 25 mans. But, rather than maintain what instances drop each type of bad, Blizzard is again catering to the casual and social aspect of the game. Rather than change the gear you can buy with said Tier-1 badges, they now make those low level bosses drop higher level badges. This means you can't stockpile as much as in TBC but the end result is still pretty much the same. Free loot. And, being forced into the same 5 man dungeons you've been doing for nearly a year now to be able to keep up. Some will applaud this no doubt, others will not. The main grievance in 3.2 however, is the complete and utterly generic loot distribution system now in place for gear tokens. "Trophy of the Crusade" These drop from the new 25 man instance, and unlike the ulduar tokens can be used by any class at all. Less gear to disenchant you might think, and while that's certainly true you also need the aforementioned "Emblem of Triumph" in combination with these trophy tokens to be able to buy the 25 man instance armor pieces. Luckily the Hard mode 25 man instance actually drops 3-4 class linked Regalia tokens which don't need anything else. But hard mode is in fact "hard". So all those wow players who've been spoon fed over the last year and a half with easy instances and optional hard mode bosses won't know what hit them. If you're after the hard mode 25 man gear, good luck and hopefully you're in a high end guild. If you're in a mid level 10-25 man guild however, the easy / normal mode for the new instance is so damnably simple that you'll notice your average pug succeeding. Alts and casuals getting the achievement in guildchat. While at the same time you're sitting around being frustrated over the fact that you need yet another few dozen Emblems of Triumph to be able to buy the item you want. Technically you could be doing those 5 man instances that you're probably sick of by now, or do the 10 man version of the instance just to get badges. Badges, badges, badges, badges! I just want random loot without being forced to grind badges elsewhere. Making the badges a requirement for main gear rather than trinkets, rings etc off the side was imo a poor choice by Blizzard. Onyxia is a fun reminder of old times but the class specific gear (much like in VoA) will undoubtedly set some teeth on edge. So what do you do in a raid week? 25 man ToC, 10 man ToC, Vault of Archavon. And then, either 4-5 days of banging your head against the wall called "hard mode" and slowly watch the guild fall apart due to people who've been spoon fed with easy modes getting bored and leaving? Or, do you persuade your fellow raiders to go back into Ulduar - in which all the gear that could potentially drop is already outdated due to the new ToC instance - to farm the Legendary mace for your healers? Most people are bored of ulduar by now, and not getting any usual gear from there certainly doesn't help. How's your guild managing? Unless everyone "knows" that you're a casual lot, or zomghardcore you've probably got some trouble filling raids. Well, you can blame patch 3.2 Fear not! Patch 3.3 is available on the PTR and indeed Icecrown citadel, long awaited is available for running around in. Monsters and bosses don't give any loot yet but the items seen so far look very promising. It'll surely be a good change of pace over having every druid and rogue look the same, or every paladin, deathknight and warrior wearing the same gear with slightly different colors. See MMOC for some screenshots: * Weapons 1 + Dungeons 1 * Dungeons 2 * Dungeons 3 Iirc there will be 13 bosses inside ICC itself, with obviously arthas - aka the lich king himself at the end. Unlike the poor excuse of a dungeon that is the loot pinyata called ToC, ICC should prove to be a lot like Black Temple. Robokill I found this little gem on Armor Games: Robokill. It's a pretty well made top-down 2x shooter that should keep you going for a few hours. If you enjoy the short demo or already reached level 16, just google the "full version" on google or pay the meager 9.95$ for it. I'd recommend googling the full version though, as the game isn't very big and the max level is only 34. Poll end Q: What are you most looking forward to? * 4.x The Cataclysm! - 46 (48%) * Diablo 3 - 21 (22%) * 3.3 Icecrown + Arthas - 16 (16%) * Starcraft 2 - 9 (9%) * Other - 3 (3%) Pretty predictable results I guess :P Diablo 3 scored pretty high, sadly we won't be seeing more info about that until blizzcon next year, and an actual release as I suspect won't be until 2011. New poll up, are you sick of badges yet? * If yes, good for you! * If no, watch the video again before voting.

Whuzzaaaa

It's been a busy weekend. Update: * I'm going to kill my neighbor, and I'm working on a good murder plan. * The police are generally retarded, unhelpful, and useless for anything other than making your life harder. They sure as heck are proving to be unwilling to help in any domestic disputes. Hence I'm going to kill my neighbor. Or at least make the bitch suffer. Then kill her after. * Also looking for a new house so I don't have to look at the red bloodstains on my roof all day. * Remind me to delete those previous lines so I don't leave evidence of that fact. * Cooked and cleaned, installed heat reflective insulation material of some sort behind one of the radiators here, three to go. I cut it to size and placed books on it so it flattens first.. That first batch was a horror to install. * Killed a plant, possibly by drowning it with water.... * Got "brewmaster" completed today, and "what a strange long trip it's been". Up to 7075 achievement points or so. Haven't really been making an effort on that though. Yeah that damn mount is pink, of all things. * Alt paladin dinged 80 at last. Making the total tally 3x80 and 5x70, all of them with epic flying skill. No shortage on gold here. * Got another tinfoil piece, just two to go then all the F-ranks are done. * Armor games slacks on updates. * MSN messenger is STILL acting weird. * Cleaned out my old Old OLD pc that I'm using as a lamp stand (p2 350 with 6gb hd) and found out it still has some 35 MB of data that I'd like to save somehow. However..... It can't access internet, It won't recognize USB sticks, doesn't have a CD burner, and it freezes up every 10 or so minutes. Still trying to work out how to get it off in an efficient way that doesn't involve chopping the data into 1.44MB floppies. So I can turn the thing into an aquarium afterwards. And, well,,,, OMG it's sunday evening already o_O

What a long strange trip, conslusion

Brewfest started this sunday. And with that has arrived the "nearly" one year anniversary of the achievement system. Some crazy no-lifes have already gotten over 10.000 points farmed. Crazy. Brewfest and more importantly the Brew Master achievement. Which should be the last most people need to complete this achievement and obtain the 310% speed Violet Protodrake. The same speed as birdy and metal birdy, all the pvp arena flyers, and even the Yogg+0 reward: Mimiron's head are. While most of those 310% mounts require either some effort, or a crazy amount of luck to obtain, the violet proto drake is just the result of dutifully doing all the World events and festivals. Which, a lot of people did. That violet drake is a HORRIBLE color, but an important (useful) thing to remember is that blizzard "may be" intending to allow a few things to be linked to the achievement of getting a 310% mount. Such as allowing some crafters to create more 310% speed mounts - flying carapets, copters etc - and any owner of said achievement would (in the next expansion) be able to use any of their flying mounts and enjoy 310% speed. A good reason to put a little effort in trying to get one at least. It's only 30% faster than the regular 280% one, but combined with the multiplying talents (15% or 30%) that adds up. Faster flight means faster farming, faster questing, more profit! I still want that Remote T_T It's the only item from mr.direbrew that's any use. The rest are (cute for alts) ilvl 200 trinkets that you wouldn't use for much. Update: Got it :) The teleporter would come in handy in the expansion, when Blackrock Deeps / caverns, and the new raid "above" BWL are added. Would save so much flight time.

Raging sheep!

For the most part, WoW players are sheep. And not just any kind of sheep either, mindless drooling idiots that will believe anything and everything you say and take it as actual truthful facts. No, don't worry, there's no don't get offended just yet. Since you're reading this you've already proven you're to be different and unique from the general herd. Lets clarify with the use of some examples. Presume you're in one of the three high end raiding guilds on the server. Competition is strong, sometimes you get the first kill on a boss and sometimes the other guild will beat you to it. At the same time you're having fun and socializing with the other members of your guild, while the other guilds are doing the same in their collective green text environment. All good so far. A new content patch arrives and all the guilds on the server start trying to get the usual first kills. Your guild manages to kill the first two bosses and then wipe the rest of the evening on the next one. One of the other guilds kill the boss you spent all night wiping on, and just like you made a post on the forums showing off your first kill screenshots, they do so of their first kill screenshot. Nothing unusual right? Until, someone from their guild decides to make fun of the fact that you wiped on the third boss. One becomes two, two becomes three, and suddenly a whole bunch of players are crossposting over the two topics about who was first, who was better and then the real fun begins. Someone starts calling the other group idiots, losers, and plenty of other degeneratives that I'll leave to your imagination to fill in. A guild feud started that day, and competition for the next bosses will be even stronger. People from guild-A will refuse to group or Pug with people from Guild-B because they're idiots, assholes, can't play for shit, etc etc. Even if it's a new recruit from another server, or a recently leveled character from a completely different guild. As soon as a player has the Guild-B tag above their head Guild-A will boycott them. Why? Because most WoW players are sheep, cattle, herd animals, unable to form their own opinion. Comical So, you may wonder were I'm going with this rant. It's not so much a rant as a thought that was raised on a not-so-recent discussion on the MMOC forums regarding Tim Buckley, the author of Ctrl Alt Del. As WoW players once again displayed the uncanny ability to act like sheep. Tim Buckley is an asshole, Tim Buckley is an idiot, Tim Buckley can't draw for shit, and the list goes on. So, I ask one of the ranters, "why" do you feel this way about him? His answer, quite blatantly came down to: "Because people said so". Wow! I mean, would you jump off a 20 story flat "because people say so"? I sure wouldn't. Me: Do you personally know him then? Him: No. M: So basically you came to the conclusion of him being an idiot solely on the opinions of other people? H: Well, yeah, everyone says so, it must be true right? Everyone says so. Rrrright. A perfect example of sheep. Now, I'm not going to say Tim "isn't" a complete asshole as I can't prove or disprove his character traits. In all likeliness he is in fact a complete ass, but since I don't personally know the guy I'll keep my opinion on him neutral. I refuse to act like a sheep. (Insert lol haha you're playing WoW just like 11 million other players joke here) But seriously, more people should stop and think about that. Your opinion is your own, at least take the time for come to your own conclusions rather than let others dictate your mind. Whispers from the dark Funny enough, I ran into another sheep myself while playing on my rogue some time ago. I didn't think to make a screenshot to show it off here for comedy value, but I think you'll get the idea. SomeIdiot whispers you: Asshole! Huh? OK, so, I'm not stealing anyone's mobs, I'm practically alone in the zone, and didn't gank or corpse camp anyone for weeks if not longer. What would this be about I wonder.. I shiftclick his name. SomeIdiot Level 58 (Some minor guild) - Orgrimmar He's not in my zone, probably an alt, and in a guild that I've never had any dealing with in my life. This should be interesting. Me: While I'm certainly not the nicest guy on the server,,, I highly doubt I've done anything to offend you recently. Why exactly would you then call me an ass? Him: Everyone in the guild says you are. /spit Me: And, everyone in your guild has known me exactly how long? -SomeIdiot- is ignoring you. Amazing. No doubt the pinnacle of human evolution. I did some asking around and had a chat with one of the more reasonably minded characters in that guild, and it turns out they were talking about evil raid leaders in the high end raiding guilds. A conversation apparently during which some 12 year old got so hyped up that he decided to whisper me. Sheep. Black sheep. I might be a judgmental bastard at the best of times, but if you do get on my shit list at least you'll know it's personal. So, ask yourself this. Do you control your own opinion?

Rogue FAQ 1.0

It's pretty basic so far, but feel free to drop in some suggestions. e.g. "stuff you wish you knew earlier but never bothered to ask" It's a FAQ though, not a guide. Simple questions, simple answers. Rogue FAQ 1.0 Q: What's the ArPen Cap? 100%, or 12.31 * 100 = 1231 Armor Penetration Rating. Less if you have talents that boost this obviously. Be aware that having both of these active: * http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40256 (612) and http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45931 (665) Is already more than the cap, especially since you'll likely already have a decent number of ArPen rating on your gear. So it is highly discouraged to use both at the same time. Q: What's my HitCap? Assuming you have 5/5 precision: * To cap specials (yellow attacks) you need 99 hit rating. Shouldn't be too hard to reach that. * To cap poison attacks 315 hit rating. Poison is considered a spell and affected by precision as of 3.0.1 * To cap poison attacks, while improved Faery fire or misery(shadow priest) are active, you'll need only 237 hit rating. * To cap white attacks you need 722 hit rating. Don't bother with that though. * If you have a Draenei in your group, you'll need 33 rating less. If you don't have 5/5 precision or simply less of it: ~32.78 hit rating equals 1% hit ~65.56 hit rating equals 2% hit ~98.34 hit rating equals 3% hit ~131.12 hit rating equals 4% hit ~163.9 hit rating equals 5% hit Once you reach your poison hit cap the value of hit rating will decrease substantially (provides you with much less dps increase per point), thus, once you reach the poison cap it's recommended you try to work on the expertise cap and/or start stacking agility or ArPen. Q: What's the expertise Cap? ~32.78 expertise rating equals 4 expertise = 1% less dodge, parry, and block on your target. So 1% increase to hit your target from behind, 3% increase from the front. Bosses are presumed to have 6.5% dodge, which means you need 26 expertise, or 214 expertise rating. If you have Weapon expertise 2/2 you need 16 expertise, or 132 expertise rating. If you're a human(or dwarf) wielding a sword(or mace) or Orc(with axes) then you only need 13 = 107 rating Q: What gems should I use? Epic ones obviously. Or the Jewelcrafting ones if you have access to those. Alternatively, The difference between 20 Agi, 40 AP, or 20 ArPen are "very" marginal. Personally I'd suggest the following: Meta: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41398 Red sockets: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40112 Yellow sockets: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40147 Blue sockets: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=49110 : only one though, you can usually just flood the rest of your gear with red gems. Q: What does AEP/EP/MAEP mean? Agility Equivalence Points and alike. Basically it is a way to compare other stats to 1 point of agility as a base. For example 1 Agi = 1.5 hit = 1.75 crit = 2 AP (Those values are just an example, for now) Q: What weapons are best for Mutilate? Two big juicy high dps daggers, a slow (1.7-1.8 speed) for mainhand, and a fast (1.3-1.5 speed) one for offhand. Q: What weapons are best for Combat? That really varies what the best weapons in the current patch are. For 3.1 that was Mainhand fist + offhand dagger. For 3.2 it's 2 axes (MH slow, OH fast obviously), nobody knows yet what 3.3 will bring but the MH slow OH fast will always remain true. Q: What is better for DPS, combat or mutilate? Or Honor among thieves? This is a FAQ, not a theorycrafting guide. And it really depends on your playstyle. HaT got nerfed in 3.2 so it's worthless now. Combat is king, but only marginally ahead of mutilate at the time of writing this. Mutilate isn't bad, and blizzard has intentions of making it more prominent. As they want rogues to be a primarily "dagger wielding class" Q: What stats are beneficial to me? Get: Agility and Attack power. Avoid: Spirit and Strength (Strength only gives half the AP value per point) Get: Crit, Hit, Haste, Expertise, ArPen rating. Avoid: Spell power, Mana regen, armor, block, dodge, parry rating. Stamina is never bad, but it doesn't help your DPS either. Q: Why can't I use some abilities when I'm not standing behind my enemy? Some abilities require you to be in front (gouge) while some require you to be behind (backstab, ambush) your target. You can't really go "lol backstab in your face". Front and back are actually two 180 degree circles, but don't take those as 100% accurate all the time. If you want to backstab something, get behind the target. This also means combat spec (which doesn't rely on backstab) is quite good for leveling. Mutilate can also be used from the front as of a recent patch. Q: Why "is" a slow mainhand better than a fast one? Slower weapons have a bigger damage range than faster weapons. e.g. a 1.3 speed dagger might do 50-60 damage, while a 2.6 speed sword will do 100-120. Even if their DPS is the same. Over time the damage will be the same, but that only applies to autoattacks (white damage). Since sinister strike, mutilate, ambush, backstab, hemo all use the weapon's damage for instant attacks it's simply a matter of BIGGER is better. And thus slower weapons are a prime choice for your main hand attacks. Q: What are the best glyphs to use for DPS? Combat: Sinister strike, slice and dice, rupture, killing spree, tricks of the trade. Sinister strike is mandatory really. Minor glyphs don't matter much. Mutilate: Mutilate, tricks of the trade, hunger for blood. (rupture and slice and dice can be used, but probably won't give you much benefit) Q: Why doesn't Vanish always work? Server sync lag mainly. You click vanish, and your client thinks you're in stealth. The server receives an attack command from the other player or npc. The server "then" receives your vanish command. The server allows you to get hit. You lose stealth, you die, etc. As a "fix" blizzard has added a 0.5 second immunity to vanish. It's nearly impossible to notice but there have been many cases where a rogue has been able to survive a lethal crushing blow from a boss mob by vanishing "right" at the correct time. Your combat log will show you received a 60K hit, gain stealth. But not actually taken damage. At any rate, blizzard is "aware" of the issue and has some plans for fixing it in due time. Obviously, it's not a very high priority. Q: What professions will give me the best DPS improvement? See this link. Basically: * Engineering gives "up to" 47 EP for mutilate and "up to" 57 EP for combat, depending how good you keep all your cooldowns on the glove enchant and belt enchant running. See here * Jewelcrafting gives 42 EP (or, AEP if you prefer) * Blacksmithing, inscription, enchanting, leatherworking and skinning are all 40 EP. * Alchemy is 40 but requires you to have a flask active. Don't bother with the rest if you're looking for more damage. Tailoring is shit, and both herbalism and mining are primarily just for PvP. Q: What races are best for PvE? In order from good to bad: * Horde: Orc, Troll, (goblin?), blood elf, undead. * Alliance: Human, Night elf, Dwarf, Gnome. If you want to know "why", just look at the racials. Q: What addons do you recommend I use? Classtimer, to see your "timers". Bartender, for more bars. Grid, to see who else is in the raid with you, and allow you to select tricks of the trade targets more easily. Fubar, just because it's awesome. Bigwigs, because you need it for raid warnings. Get them on curse (yuck) or through mmoui minion. Q: What enchants should I use? * Weapons: Berserking. This one was made a bit less dramatic in 3.0.8 -5% reduced armor instead of a whooping -25% * Helm: Arcanum of Torment. Requires revered with Knights of the Ebon Blade. * Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Axe. Requires exalted with the Sons of Hodir. (Or inscription enchant) * Chest: Powerful Stats +10 to all. * Cloak: Major Agility +22 (or engineer enchant) * Bracers: Greater Assault +50 AP (or Leatherworking enchant) * Gloves: Crusher +44 AP (or engineering enchant) * Legs: Icescale Leg Armor +75 AP +22 crit. * Boots: Icewalker +12 hit, +12 crit (or engineering enchant) * Belt: Eternal Belt Buckle +1 socket = 20 agi Q: What poisons work best in PvE? For combat: * MH Wound poison and OH Deadly poison. Depends on the speed of your offhand, attack speed, and haste which one should be MH and OH though. Generally you want it like that however. Without sword spec (fist/mace MH and dagger/fist/mace OH): * OH speed = 1.4: DP/WP : For example 2.6 MH, 1.4 OH * OH speed > 1.4: WP/DP : For example 2.5 MH, 1.6 OH With sword spec (either MH or OH sword or axe or both): * OH speed = 1.4: WP/WP * OH speed > 1.4: WP/DP For assassination: * Deadly + Instant (someone verify?) Q: Why not use Instant poison as Combat? Without talents wound poison simply does more damage. Less damage per hit, but WAY higher proc rate = more damage over time. Instant poison is still useful, but only if you are specced deep into mutilate. Q: What poisons work best in PvP? Crippling is pretty much mandatory. Mind numbing poison / Wound poison depending on the situation. Q: Why can't I use cloth / Mail? You can use cloth, but there is no cloth with stats that benefit you. And, you can't train mail or plate armor. Rogues are "stealthy", so no clinking mail for you. Q: Where do I train certain weapon skills? At the weapon master, see: http://www.wowwiki.com/Weapon_master As a rogue you can learn: * Melee: Unarmed, Daggers, Swords, Axes (as of 3.2), Maces. All one handed only. * Ranged: Bows / Crossbows / Guns / Thrown Q: Are there any useful links where I can look for more information? Some Extra info sources: * Some old stuff this FAQ is based on: http://rrvs.blogspot.com/2009/01/rogue-wotlk-stuff.html * 3.2 Professions in detail: http://rrvs.blogspot.com/2009/07/slow-week-for-32-professions.html * PvE DPS: http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t24301-rogue_pve_dps/ * Spreadsheet: http://elitistjerks.com/f78/t39136-combat_3_2_mutilate_3_1_spreadsheets/ * Spreadsheet: http://elitistjerks.com/f78/t27244-roguecraft_spreadsheet/ * Rogue Info: http://www.wowwiki.com/Rogue * Rating values: http://www.wowwiki.com/Combat_rating_system * Gear list: http://www.shadowpanther.net/

Friday! Woohoo!

Last week was pretty busy with lots of new info about the next expansion. This week is a bit less busy. All things shall have balance. In progress I'm working (on and off) on a Rogue FAQ, which I'm sure a few of you should find interesting. In progress here. Don't be shy to contribute. My BvS character is up to Season 9 now and should be reaching Season 10 tomorrow. He's getting strong now ;) It's quite funny, I'm seeing that style signature on the MMOC forums more and more each passing week. Poll End Closing poll: Have you merged your WoW account and Battle.net account yet? * Yes - 47 (61%) * No - 21 (27%) * Will do later - 8 (10%) Keep in mind that the battle.net account merge for WoW players will soon become mandatory. If you haven't already done so, it's highly recommended you get to it soon. You wouldn't want to be locked out of the account page due to the huge flood of players who "forgot" or didn't bother causing the page to time out when Blizzard throws the switch. Blizzard is working on integrating battle.net further into WoW and other games. See the bottom of this post. You'll be able to add your battle.net friends to your WoW friendslist based on their Real ID and always see where they're hanging out! Anyhow, a new poll is up, let me know your mind. * What are you most looking forward to?

Cataclysm progression

Last post for this weekend, more next week no doubt. Still, today's another venerable "wall of text" for your enjoyment! If you're wondering why I'm not really bothering with posting much raid and dungeon info here, that's because there's just not that much to say about it. Sure, cataclysm starts with 4 raids and six 5-man dungeons and two more revamped old dungeons, but other than that... See for yourself. I've always enjoyed BRD (Blackrock Depths) though, it's BIG and good for soloing. In Cataclysm we'll be seeing Blackrock Caverns make an appearance, in mostly the same style and inspiration. It's got great potential. Icecrown Citadel - Patch 3.3, will have 12 bosses, 4 floors, and make use of those two airships you can see flying around in the zone. LFM BRC As far as "how" you'll find people to go to those dungeons with you, Blizzard is planning to implement Cross Server LFG. This should greatly increase the ease at which you find people to play with. At a turn-side however, this will make it a lot easier for ninjas and simply horrible players to get away with doing what they do best. Being idiots. Not only that, but, Blizzard intends to give some sort of reward for group leaders who successfully take a 5 man group through a cross server dungeon. The end result? Everyone will want to be leader, and nobody will want to make a regular group anymore... Time will tell how that fares. In due time the XS-LFG will most likely be expanded to be usable for raids as well. Further expanding the ninja problem. Hopefully some sort of reputation / Karma system will be implemented someday so you will have an easier time filtering out the rotten apples from PUGs. Account-wide (rather than character specific) achievements would go a LONG way in helping with that imo. That aside, I sincerely hope there'll be some gear checking and balancing when the system picks people to make a group with. I don't know about you, but when I'm trying to do the day's daily dungeon quest I surely can't be arsed with getting forcibly teamed up with somebody's green geared alt. Oh, and they're planning to make XS-LFG available starting 3.3 :) Professional Craftsmanship How's that for a clever subtitle eh? Archeology will "primarily" be used to provide you with a new sort of glyph. Namely, "Ancient glyphs". These glyphs can't be made by scribes like the Major / Minor glyphs can. Archeology doesn't actually "make" glyphs either, but you use your ancient findings to trade in for the new items. For further character profession you can choose between some "Paths", you can change paths like any respec, and dual spec remembers the path per spec as well. Earning ranks down your selected Path of the ancients takes time and is limited to a certain maximum each week. Each path will have 2-3 ancient glyph choices, you can respec if you decide to go down another path. Initially there will be six paths available, but more are said to be added later in content patches. (4.1, 4.2 etc) * Path of Aman’Thul, the High Father * Path of Eonar, the Lifebinder * Path of Norgannon, the Dreamweaver * Path of Khaz’Goroth, the Shaper * Path of Aggramar, the Avenger * Path of Golganneth, the Thunderer Logically the paths will most likely focus on a certain aspect of gameplay. For instance: Tanking, physical dps, caster dps, healer, pvp dps, pvp healer. And provide some interesting utility here and there. Golganneth's path for example gives the bonuses: * Earth's Embrace: Physical damage taken decreased by 4% * Battle Hardened: Reduces the duration of stun and bleed effects by 20% * Medic: Bandages heal targets by an additional 30% * Fortification: (instant, 5 min cd) : Nearby allies take 10% less damage for 6 sec. * Breakthrough: (instant, 5 min cd) : Increases damage dealt by 10% for 10 sec. Only usable after dealing a critical strike. See MMOC for a few screens of the new Glyphs and the new Glyph intereface. It also looks like we'll bet getting one extra Major glyph at level 85, though that's not confirmed yet. More talents Blizzard believes there are too many talents currently, they won't be adding another tier to all classes. Instead you'll just get the expected 5 talent points. However, the talents are also getting a full scale overhaul. The interface will be improved as well, you'll be able to see all three trees in one view instead of separate tabs. Most of the passive talents, such as "+1% crit" are being removed. Instead these bonuses will be given passively(Heh, funny). And you'll get more active talents. You can see the passive bonuses at the bottom of each tree. These will increase automatically as you put more talents in each tree. Each class has their own variation of those. Paladins and warriors for example, will receive health and blocking in their tanking tree. Melee damage and crit in their "damage" tree. T-t-t-teamwork! Blizzard is doing a LOT of cool things for guilds in Cataclysm. One such features is a guild feed, probably RSS, in which people can see what bosses they've killed. This should leave little doubt about who's "first" or not. As stated earlier, your guild will also get it's very own achievement tab in which guild wide achievements will be stored. These achievements, players gaining XP, winning battlegrounds, Arenas, reputation and more. The maximum guild level will initially be lvl 20, each level will earn the guild a single talent point which can be used in the guild talent tree. Some such, talents will slightly increase the gold drops for all monsters killed in raids, dungeons and outside for all guild member. Some will reduce the cost of repairs, improve the effect potions have on members, reputation gains (awesome for grinding), xp gains from monsters (great for your alts), and what looks like mounted speed up to 10% (finally) re-added, mass resurrection (out of combat). Once the guild reaches level 20, any excess experience gained becomes a currency. This can then be used to buy patterns and hierlooms which become available for distribution. Be aware however, that those items are guild-bound. Should you ever decide to leave the guild you obtained the items from (or get kicked for being an idiot) the items will automatically be returned to the guild bank so they can be given to another player. Information wise, there's also a HUGE and much demanded (by myself included) feature being implemented. Profession listings. At last! You'll be able to check the professions and recipes of ALL members in the guild. No longer needing to ask whether there's an enchanter, blacksmith or whatever "online", simply look up the information you seek, check the required materials and ask the person in question directly. Some other stuff Music! If you've listened to Ozzy Osbourne at Blizzcon, hopefully you've developed a taste for more. I present you with: Finger Eleven. Just check it out. If it's not your thing, click it away. No (physical) harm in checking, right? Rock on!