kudos to those who solo

Quick post to spread the word – mmo champion has videos of a DK who successfully completed Yogg+1 solo, straight after doing a solo kill Mimron on hard mode: Firefighter! Also in the post is a Malygos solo by a Warlock. So we have a Death Knight doing what they are darn good at, by demonstrating that Firefighter is nigh on impossible for some groups now, but plausible for a solo DK. That is great.

Then a Warlock stepping up and showing that it is not just plate wearers can solo old content. Malygos is a darn healthy fight. Just amazing efforts by both the Death Knight and the Warlock.

PuG Warlock advice on Threat

Would you take advice from this Warlock?

If a tank pulls, starts with an low AoE ability on all mobs (like Blood Boil) then how can a Warlock pull threat without casting a spell? I though it would take at least a damage spell to pull threat, and waiting is a zero threat ability.

Or should all pulls in a standard 5 man be high threat AoE? What about doing multi-pack pulls?

In a 5 man should the dps wait for threat, or just go?

Ardana from Calestraz suggested that I did not “have threat” when I used Blood Boil while running through one pack, then planted a DnD on the second pack.  It seems to me that the Warlock did not wait for threat to be well established.

Even when they had aggro and I taunted, the Warlock and the other dps just kept on killing.

Warlock might have been right that I did not initiate a high threat cycle to allow him to dps straight away… I’d add to that and say that while the pull might have been less than ideal for a small pack, the concept of watching, thinking, and acting accordingly is beyond most 5 man players.

TL;DR = I hate pugs.

AFK, Real World Crit my Gamming

Its been a long time since I posted regularly, and by golly gee its been busy – both in game and out.

I’ve been planning a huge life event (because you can’t say wedding without somebody charging you a 200% bullshit surcharge), changing to a new and exciting job, and also burning time on trying to find a house to buy. By comparison a Sarth 3D kill will a tank and healer AFK, and 3 screen-lickers is easy.

But you don’t read a wow blog to ponder my real life ramblings, so straight to the wow goodies:

A new Guild

After much nashing of teeth and requests, I’ve moved 3 toons into Insidious of Nagrand. The members are almost all people I knew before joining, and it is great to have a few of the wow circles I know combine into a guild. Darn good people really help the game stay fun.

I am a very happy player at the moment with the guild.

General Instance Grind is dull

I am sick of running heroics. Period. Five level 80 characters means a heroic is dull and old content. That goes double for OCC due to the suckage of players and stupid fight mechanics, and triple for HOL and and HOS which just take too damn long.

That said, I’d do any of them with a good set of players and enjoy it; just wish that the Pug system could allow some team matching based upon likes as well as dislikes.

Warlock love

I dusted off my Warlock recently and in the free time I had between jobs, I now have a Level 80 toon who is hopelessly under-geared. It is frustrating to be a solid level 79 who can top the damage and scream flaming death at everything one day, but at 80 then be reduced to a total scrub again.

Thus begins the gear grind on my 5th level 80 character. He has over 100 recent achievements, but the good ones are:

• Level 80 (duh!)
• 1500 quests (when did that happen?)
• The regular Dungeon Master (all the LK normals complete)
• Heroic UP: Girl Skadi and Lodi Dodo at once – which is easy now with 264 epic toons to run with.
• First item of the T9 badge set – and the dread that all the others will take months to get.
• Looking for Many award.
• A stack of H runs, gear updates, and wasted money on ilevel 200 gear.

Death Knight, still darn fun

• DPS gearset is looking OK. T10 in four places now, with three items the “Santified” upgraded T10. Just need to replace my Helm, Neck, and Ring – and I’m golden.
• Tank set is a little more work, but still ok. I have a T10 Glove from VoA that is altogether pointless unless I also grab another T10 item – which will be soon. T10 Shoulders for Tanking look average, but will at the very least get me the first set bonus.
• Took the time to actually get the Weekly Raid, Daily quests, and the VoA all done in one week – which for me is a twice a year thing given the time that takes and the amount I play.

Druid, Bear is for Tank, but Boomkin is feathery fun.

• Also got VoA and weeklies done, and slowly bumped my Boomkin set to mid 4.5ks, which is ok.
• Then got into my guild’s ICC 10 man run, and replaced 4 items in one night. Now the Boomkin set is in the health 5250 range, and the Tank set ios around the same level. So in one or two runs my Druid has comparable gear to my DK (dk = 5.45/5.1 vs Druid = 5.25/5.2).
• Boomkin is fun, and the form is so cool that it makes me behave like a stupid kid. Silly jokes in raid chat, bouncing while dps’ing, and altogether strange behaviour is what the CritChicken does to me.
• I love the Starfall change.
• I can’t wait for a UI element that will make detecting the procs faster. I know it won’t help my dps (as I have been known to faceroll when tired), but will certainly make me feel guilty about it.
• I think getting runs will be easy now should I choose, as 5.2 seems to be the sweet spot for getting invites at the moment.

Next update will either be really soon. or another month away. No idea – we’ll see.

Hope the bosses drop all the good stuff for you, and you find a game ticket on the train.

Insane alt-a-holic rules

There are some things I’ve been doing with Alts that will drive me insane eventually.

Having one DK character active was a tad dull, so I added a Priest as another. Then I found that my second choice of toon was interesting for a short time, but not fun overall, so I added a Druid instead. Then decided to add a lowbie alt Hunter to be silly on; and then was impressed by a Tank I saw and added my old Pally.

But having seen a DK, Druid, and Pally tank, I felt like I was missing out on having a Warrior, so pondering starting a Warrior. But my Shaman also has ok gear as heirlooms, and the Mage will get some play soon.

So Death Knight, + Priest, + Druid, +Paladin, + Hunter, + Warlock, + pondering a Warrior or Shaman, + Mage afterward…

Yes, I’m an Alt-a-holic again. So now I need a rule set for what to play.

Food for thought, salty goodness?

About a week to go till the 70+ run begins and the choice between 1st and 2nd is still hard. Pally and Druid both still rock, and even my hunches change from day to day. I’m torn and confused. Druid Cat dps output is not high, and I attribute that problem to the lump between the keyboard and chair (me). Pally multi-mob grinding seems awesome and even the *adjustment* in the patch will not totally diminish that role.

Not that it counts as much, but the 3rd and 4th spot of Warlock and Shadow Priest are affected by all sorts of rumour and hearsay,  and while they’re not in the real running, I like to watch them. Especially on the back of the 3.0.3 changes. My initial impression of Warlock and Priest changes from 3.0.3 is that Warlocks did not get as much love as Shadow Priests, and SPrs are getting very serious play at 80. I’m glad both got some love.

Demo Warlock Talent Build

I thought I’d go affliction, but then it occurred to me that most of the day 0-12 specs will be adjusted and tweked, so just play with something fun.

That fun is a full demonology talent build, which puts the Felguard and Subby in as major partners.

Affliction Warlock Talent Build

Looking at the Affliction tree for Warlocks at 70, its seriously fun times. The tree has gained some potentially powerful spells, and the opportunity is present for Affl-Locks to construct strange and bizarre spell rotations. Much like the Paladin build earlier I’m taking a punt on a build. This setup was copied from a L80 setup for Afflict raiding, and I can see easily why its potent.

Edit: As 3.1 is fast approaching, consider this spec out of date. I’m sure the basics will be ok, but I’m not claiming this is accurate anymore.

Warlock farming

I noticed a cute trick a week ago that I had to share. Warlocks with a bit of Demo can sacrafice their Felpuppy for Mana return, then put up the Armour buff that regens health. This equates to huge mana and health return! I was farming the Elemental Plat for motes of fire and air, and had zero downtime. Zero….as destruction.

SB, SB, SB, ShadowFury. Deathcoil or Fear is something goes astray. That rocks! I know affliction can multimob farm, but I can drop 3 mobs in a sequence, faster than dot/dot/fearing them. 28 motes of fire, and 5 motes of air in 30 minutes.

EgoP hates Warlocks. Good.

Did you know that Hannalore at Egotistical “hates” Warlocks; but in a good way imho. She hates us soul drinkers because we are selfish, evil, and a bit emo. Heeeeellllllooooo, its called Warlock!

To get even close to the Uber-Emo meter they would have to introduce an undead black-tinted fallen hero, who struggles daily with the path between good and evil. And thats not going to happen, not for weeks yet.

If you hate Warlocks Hanna, I can’t wait to see what you make of Death Knights. I love the haters, it pisses them off.

A few Warock powers get a mention, and the anti-Fear banner is dragged yet again into the post. My advice, get used to fear. Its staying and if you don’t like it go get one of the many trinkets, buffs and items that make it easy to counter-act. Fear is no longer the “I WIN” button it was 2 years ago.

My Class of Choice

Via a shared topic we were all asked why we chose the class we love?

Um, I can’t choose. I’m an alt-a-holic. But I can explain why each class appeals.

My top 3 classes

The top 3 are basically the ones I have at the highest levels. And thats mainly due to those are teh ones that I’ve spend the most time on. For me part of the immersion is the time spent.

Paladin

- Some of the best flavour in the game. Mounts, special quests, and a raft of non-wow lore to build from.

- Hybrid means that even if one tree gets nurfed back to the dark ages, there are a few more roles I can do. Hybrids are very powerful for that reason.

- Tanking AoE is the most fun you can have wearing plate. I’d say it was the most fun you can have period, but a Warlock’s Seed of Corruption is totally incredible if you have a paladin tanking. If I could have one message to deliever to the Devs about Pally Tanking: Please keep AoE tanking for Pallys.

- Almost unkillable if played correctly.

- Offers great buffs to the group.

- Plate wearing healers are much tougher than all others. That means that when something aggros to you, you’re not totally smashed in the first hit.

Warlock

- some of the best flavour in the game. Mounts, special quests, etc.

- pets used to be awesome and the best in the game. I think the Hunter pets in Wrath will make Warlock pets secondary.

- an outstanding damage class.

- a great set of odd abilities that add real facility to the raids (banish, enslave, drain life, seed of corruption).

Druid

- More special quests, flight form (got it a few days ago, its incredible – Can I haz flavour?).

- Hybrid means diversity. Diversity is good., see Paladin above.

- Feral is DPS and Tank at the same time! Um, I say this makes Druids almost broken when compared to other hybrid classes, but its is also wonderful.

- Having HoTs means that you can stack heals then shift back into another form and continue to kill. The HoTs are powerful and directly useful.

- Sprint to get out of trouble, and stuns to stop mobs casting.

So I don’t know.

An interesting question would be if I had my time again, what would I play? Or if a new expansion was released (say called WotLK) what would you choose to level?

Um, at this stage still a Warlock, but that depends on how they resolve the Paladin, and if Druids get more buffs than nerfs. So the jury is still out. All I know about the beta is that Hunters are getting significant love, paladins have had the “spirit” of the class declared, but anything else is still in flux.

Pfffft – that means Alpha-Pally rather than Paladins that have had serious time in a solid build for a long period in Beta.

So Warlock for now.

The Runners Up

Then there are these classes that I like and have tried, but not taken far. In most cases this is because of time and also that what they bring to the game is covered by one of the three above.

Priests

- Bubble, burst heal, Hots are currently very good.

- Shadowform is great mechanically, and also looks fantastic! Its eye candy for all those guys who like a toon to have a consistent appearance.

- Stamina buff is something that everybody loves. Handier that Warlock stones.

- Shackle and Mind Control.

Rogue

- Very hard to kill due to how many “get out of trouble” abilities they have.

- Great dps, and some good utility for runs.

…And Not

Hunters

- Funny pet class, that I seem to encounter over and over played badly. Which tells me two things: (a) its a popular class that is easy to solo, and (b) its hard to do very well.

I’d like to say that low attention span players should avoid Hunters, but I really want them to avoid Warcraft altogether. If you are a bad Hunter go learn what BRK has to say, or re-roll in a Hello Kitty MMO.