MagicRunes vs RuneWatch

RuneWatch and MagicRunes both provide cooldown information for a Death Knight’s runes, and of the DK mods they are the best I’ve found. If you’re now leveling a Death Knight as your alt, as so many people seem to be, then consider geting both and playing with each.

There are many more mods out there, and they’ll all do some basic stuff. Frankly most are re-skins of the Blizzard UI’s Rune section, and most are exceedingly ugly. For a mod to be useful it has to give you accurate information, and be presented clearly. Adding art style to a good mod is valuable; making the Blazzard frame overly complex and fancy without anything extra is pointless.

Both MR and RW are good – I am torn between them, so much so that I use both.

MagicRunes

• better graphical timing of runes, as timer is displayed as a bar rather as a number
• needs a optional disease timer

RuneWatch

• design style is more akin to DK flavour, rather than a straight information mod
• includes disease detection and timing (a major point of differentiation), which for Unholy spec, is really handy.
• initial load state is way too huge for most UIs, but is simple to alter

Both

• support different layouts, styles, and symbols. No issue making each of these look and function in a reasonable way
• track rune cooldowns very well
• well supported and updated

Invasion Farming

The invasion brang all sorts of opinions about what and how to have world events. Everyone had an opinion, and usally this leads to arguments.

However something that a heck of a lot of people seem to be taking advantage of is the invasion attacks, and the free purple loot you can get.

Pictured here is my Pally farming for Necrotic Runes.

You need about 10 runes to finish an intro quest, and then 15 runes for each of the purchasable Shoulder and Glove slot items. That is 40 runes for two epic items….awesome! I’ll be taking advantage of these on all my toons. If only the other Chest and Leg items were available for purchase!

Those you’ve got to get from a rare spawn, and given how rare they are, and how heavily farmed these are – good luck! I have only had two drop, and one I could not use (mail drop for a cloth squishy, see below).

As a prot pally I am used to him being able to aoe solo grind 5-7 of these at once, and I think the best I did was a staggered chain of pulls, totalling about 20 mobs before they all died. The runes have about a 20-25% drop rate from what I can tell. It took less that 2 hours to get 2 epic items, both which were cross-grades, but still worth it.

Similarly my Druid has new Gloves and Chest for healing, and my Priest has the Gloves and Shoulders. I’d love to get the Chest and Leg drops for the Priest, but the time is tough to spend, especially if I can’t get a group session going.

And that is a key for these areas, the guys who did the best went in with at least 3 in the group, and blasted their way through everything. I saw a pally x3 (2x prot, 1x ret), shaman (ele), mage combo totally domainate the area I was in last night; great to watch, horrid to complete against.

If you have a late 60s or level 70 toon who has not got epic gloves or shoulders you should do these events.