Quick night in Warlock mode

I had a good quick night playing wow last night, in Warlock mode. I’ve loving Destruction as a spec choice as it takes very little management and stops and starts easily. For long fights it get a bit the same quickly, but I suspect that will change when i start learning how to use the cooldowns and specials I’ve been ignoring while leveling.

After jumping around a few zones my Warlock dinged 90 and I started throwing timeless isle gear at him. After thre 90s have been through the Isle of Random + Random there was a set of Boots, Bracers, Cloak, and two Rings gathering dust in my bank. Then it was a quick quest accept for the Black Prince storyline, another YUP for the start if the Warlock green fire quest, then finally off to timeless isle.

A few minutes in and I had a Chest token, and the bloody random gift gave me Bracers again. Boo hiss. Alas I was only able to get to 455 ilevel, but that felt a lot faster than I remember. As you’d expect it is the trinkets and old-ish blue gear which is holding my ilevel down, and the game tells me I should be doing the older LFRs to gear up. Hmm. Maybe later.
As a fresh 90 I look like a hodge-podge clown suit freak again. Perhaps some transmog is needed to save embarrassment.

I also finally got the mats to craft the Sky Golem, which I think is far more of a fun mount to use than it is too look at. Finally.

Happy killing folks.

WoWers are such murderer hobos.

Whats the go fella, where you been?

Well heck, another period of life where playing WoW (or any game) means logging in, checking mail, doing the odd transmute, and then getting back to whatever is urgent IRL.

I don’t mind life being busy as most of it is great stuff but I miss the folks a little. To the guys I banter with, you’re not forgotten.

My little warlock is level 89.5 and I’m really keen to get to 90 soon and look at ow blisteringly difficult the green fire quest is. I was a Warlock in the original game, and played Warlock heavily in TBC. The idea of green fire has always been an uber sexy wishlist and it is really the only reason my warlock is being played.

I’ve read that an item level of greater than 470 makes it more plausible, and after 500 it is muc easier. That makes sense, but it also means I’ll be burning dungeons and lfrs to gear up and I was hoping to avoid too much of that. Ah well, expect to see my noob Warlock in your LFR run. I’ll be in the back with the disturbing smile and the goal to win on threat.

Some refs for later

• Icy Vein’s guide to Warlock Green Fire

Third 90 and more to come I suspect

My Druid ding’ed 90 in WoW last week, which makes a tally of three level ninety characters: a Death Knight, a Warrior, and a Druid.

Next will be my slowly leveling Shaman who is now level 71 (the toon in the top left if the image below) and a long time lost Shadow Priest who is level 82 (bottom left character).

In my character list I also have a handful of 85s and then each class smattered down to a lowbie Monk at level 13. I do not really want to repeat the 85-90 grind so many more times, but the leveling path in Pandaria is so fixed there is little choice. Perhaps I could level by only queuing in Dungeons and just farm my way through the Pandaria starting area for materials to sell. That will only be moderately dull as well but will ensure my lowbies have the ability to increase their professions.

The Wrath of the Lich King content on the baby Shaman is sensational by comparison to 4x more Pandaria zones and a Cataclysm story.

If I cannot raid regularly in 5.4 due to work & life, then I might as well start working on these alts. Getting through the levels is something I can do whilst also being interrupted, and it is not “hard” content to do.

WoW patch 5.4 looks good thus far

There is a stack of new material to read for patch 5.4, and what I’m reading at the moment makes me think that it will be a good patch. Why? Because a lot of the material is further along that what we saw with the early v5 patches, which means I think I am getting a better view of things to come.

Linkage of interest (spoilers and opinions follow):

• wowhead’s build highlights
• wowheads’s Tier Armor preview
• and current patch notes (yup, wowhead guys really do great summaries)

My highlights so far are:

• There are new temporary titles for the people completing the realm best challenge modes, and the character only has the title while they hold the record. To keep the title you need to keep the record. That is so darn cool! i.e. “Darkmaster” for Scholomance. What warlock does not want the title Darkmaster?
• DK have a change to Blood spec where Dancing Rune Weapon does not cost runic power anymore. Cool! I’m going to macro that puppy in now and use it all the time.
• Interesting that Fel Armor for Warlocks, Shadow for priests, and Moonkin form for Druids no longer reduces damage taken, from 15% to 0%. The Hunter talent was reduced from 15% to 10%. Why the difference? Do Hunters still need protection from standing in bad and raid damage, but the casters are meant to know better?
• Pvp Season 14 Armor for Warlocks is awesome looking. I want a t16 Warlock now.
• Pve T16 for Mages is very beautiful. The glasses are a little odd, but the overall effect is stunning.
• Flexible Raid will be interesting and I can see a huge potential for guilds to use this.
• The “virtual servers” acting as realm combinations is a new feature which is interesting. Does this mark the unavoidable merge of low pop realms? It depends on how it is added, and what the effect is. i.e. If I join a guild on a different server using this virtualisation and then that realm becomes high pop, do I get unjoined?
• The new solo content in the Proving Grounds is something I like to read about. Will the rewards be cosmetic (like Brawlers and Challenge modes) or gear-ups like Heroics and Scenarios?
• The Siege of Ogrimar / Garrosh encounter is going the way I didn’t like, but hey – can’t have it all. Garrosh is corrupted/empowered by Y’shaarj who is one of the old gods, and gains all sorts of boosts from it. Reading the summary thus far the end fight in SoO might feel similar to the end of Ulduar. Not a bad thing, I would have preferred that Garrosh was a nasty bastard without having him “corrupted”. Why must our evil villains be corrupted to be evil?
• Apparently support for dedicated sound hardware has been nurfed in WoW, and this makes the shitty chopping sound I’m getting since patch 5.3 make sense. I’ll have to research how to alter my sound config to not stutter now.
• We have new item levels as:
  • 521 for Raid finder, 527 for Flex raids, 541 for Normal raids, 547 for Thunderforged, 554 for Heroic raids, and 560 for Heroic Thunderforged gear.
  • That means that the Normal mode gear you might have now (522) will be upgraded slightly by Flex, no real upgrade except the Tier bonuses for LFR.
  • Unless you’ve also already upgraded your 522 to 530, and then even Flex offers nothing except Tier gear. The numbers seem well thought through.
• The Engineer’s SkyClaw mount might be in this patch.
• Blacksmiths get another new daily transmute – the Balanced Trillium Ingot. I’m still transmuting the other stuff. Hopefully this is a useful waste of Trillium bars.
• Les excited by a new Celestial Tournament, which will likely be the new daily quest hub. Probably also another bloody faction to grind up with. For pitty’s sake.

Lastly we have the Death Knight new Tier bonuses…

T16 PH – Death Knight DPS
2 pieces: Item – Death Knight T16 DPS 2P Bonus – Killing Machine and Sudden Doom grant 500 Haste or Mastery, whichever is highest, for ($hnd * 2 + 4) sec, stacking up to 10 times.
4 pieces: Item – Death Knight T16 DPS 4P Bonus – Death Coil increases the duration of Dark Transformation by 1.5 sec per cast. Pillar of Frost increases rune regeneration speed by 100% while active.

T16 PH – Death Knight Tank
2 pieces: Item – Death Knight T16 Blood 4P Bonus – Dancing Rune Weapon will reactivate all Frost and Unholy runes as Death Runes, and make your next 4 Death Strikes free.
4 pieces: Item – Death Knight T16 Blood 2P Bonus – Every 4 Heart Strikes, Rune Strikes, or Blood Boils will add one charge to your next Bone Shield.

For Blood I can see DRW being a bloody awesome Boom tool. It becomes a burst effect for either recovery or threat/dps. I really like that idea. The 4x set is also clever in terms of quality of life improvement where Tanks need to think about refreshing Bone Shield less.

For DPS the 4x set looks nice in terms of boosting dps on use, which is better than the current 4x set which I think is situationally great or average. Not sure on 2x set as yet.

Death Knight Tier 14, dress wearer’s set

Why is the DK t14 set wearing a robe/dress? (source)

It’s creepy, has skulls, and will be immediately recognisable. It does not suit the rest of the Death Knight style gear. Heck the Hunter gear looks more like DK gear than this. Perhaps there was too many Warlock sets crafted and they thought the feminine side of DKs needed a spin. I hate that dress.

Still in other T14 news the Monks are wearing lamp shades, the Priests have funny hats, and the Warlock looks awesome.

One alt down, four to go

I’m on a leveling mission: Get each of my toons to the highest level possible before the expansion.

I recently ding’ed 85 on my Warlock – Arkham, which is the second character I ever rolled in World of Warcraft. Now I move onto the remaining four: Priest, Mage, Rogue, and Shaman. For leveling I am using only dps style, and only infrequently doing the 5-man dungeons. As while I know the Dungeons are fantastic for gear and XP, I cannot commit to playing very long due to kiddlet interruptions. I don’t want to be that guy, who goes AFK for ages and needs to be kicked from the team.

As far as the Warlock goes the updates for the class in Mists of Pandaria look very appealing from a cosmetic perspective. It is tempting to fusk around and see if they still play as ruthlessly as they did in The Burning Crusade.

Next highest character is the Shadow Priest at level 81, which I created toward the end of TBC and has almost (a brief journey into Ulduar) always been an alt for Alchemy and Herbalism. Yeirah, you’re up. Get to the face-melting.

Related articles

• Such a silly silly wow’er (typhoonandrew.wordpress.com)

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.

Warlock Play Tips

Starting from a post by Altosis on Warlock Raiding Tips (threat pulling, damage coefficients, spec advice), I have a few more general comments to make about Warlock play style, which goes beyond the raid.

(a) Don’t put DoTs on creatures that have a Aggro reset, or you end up dead. If you have to, then make sure you know that your DoT is gone before the reset. This happens a lot in raids, so get used to hearing and regretting the line “stop dps”.

Mobs such as:

– Attumen when he jumps on Midnight’s back. Give the tank plenty of agro time, and then burn him down.

– The Undead huge skeletons in Kara just after Maiden.In particular their threat table is such that you want to be at worst 3rd on it. Do not go higher or you’ll get smashed. For them 2nd place on threat equals dead.

– The Ogre trash in Gruul’s Lair.

I have died more times that I care to mention because I didn’t realise that my DoT was ticking during an aggro reset.

(b) Dead = Zero DPS. This is an extension of the point above, but has far more ranging applications. Survival allows you to help and do more damage; and also shows that you know the fights.

(c) Curse of Elements is Awesome, for a lot of people, not just Warlocks. Help everyone with damage, not just your Curse of Doom or Agony. This applies when you have other casters who can get he benefit, especially if their gear is better than yours (shocked!).

(d) Summon those guys who get lost. Its so much faster than waiting for them to run, or get help, and only costs 1 shard. In fact don’t be affraid to use shards, as hording them is pointless. I try to finish a run with about 5-10 spare. That means the last few bosses are getting Shadowburnt all the time.

(e) Get shards from all the trash you can, and stop when your bags are almost full.

(f) Play the spec you like; period. If I have to watch a new Ret pally gear up through kara I don’t want to hear about how Demo or Destro is not viable at low +SpDam. Ignore the Leets, play your way. True for any class, and especially Warlocks.

(g) Use your Soulstones and Healthstones all the time. In raiding it goes without saying that you should be doing this all the time, but do not ignore this when soloing, etc. It helps, makes recovery faster, and keeps you in the habit.

New Warlock Pet Wishlist

Q. What if somebody gave me free reign to create some new Warlock Pets?

A. Demonology Warlocks would be so darn Pet focused that the Hunters would re-roll.

And here is why…

Top 5 – Strange Warlock powers

A few spells for Warlocks are just strange and often barely useful. My top picks would be:

1. Ritual of Doom. The Doomguard is very nice looking, and its an affect that defines the Warlock. “say hello to my little friend…” The summon requires a full party, one character has to die, it costs a gold in reagents, and honnestly I’ve never seen this used outside of Goldshire.
2. Firestones. Odd little things that melee dps would drool to use and pyro Mages might like, but i don’t find much use for; especially when I was affliction.
3. Hellfire. This used to be such a fun AoE, especially as a final “up-yours” to the mobs or players killing me. Now I find that the opportunities to use it are few are far between. Such a pity, an emo warlock killing themselves in spitefully reflects the class well.
4. Infernal Pet. Just like the Doomguard above, this is the other level 60 pet. Again this is perfect from a RP sense, but altogether useless at 70. Thankfully you don’t need such harsh requirements to summon, but you do need to consider a long cooldown and expensive limited use.
5. Lash of Pain on the Subby. In most scenarios you’ll not be using your Subby because she can deal out damage, you’ll be using her because you can seduce. It bugs me that even with this spell teh damage is poor. It would be better if she was not such a one trick pony.

A new old helm

Quick post to flaunt my Warlock finally getting his T4 Helm from Prince. Karazhan is mainly a badge run for me, and the helm I replaced was only about +10 spell damage behind the T4 and had better stats. Still, I’m happy. I’ve passed on that roll about 3 or 4 times so that others could get it, and the other night I was the only eligible toon. Huzzah!