Chris Miller
Kansas City, MO - http://
Chris is a database and network administrator who has been playing World of Warcraft since retail launch. He's a raid leader and guild officer of the finest guild on Alleria/US.
Chris Miller
Kansas City, MO - http://
Chris is a database and network administrator who has been playing World of Warcraft since retail launch. He's a raid leader and guild officer of the finest guild on Alleria/US.
The coolest gift
I've been extremely fortunate to be in some guilds with exceptionally generous people. When I was levelling my first character, a warlock, I found a very nice guild where people shared a lot of drops. I was out working on level 19 one day when a hunter on guild chat mentioned that they'd had a set of Black Velvet Robes drop. For a level 21 caster item, it's pretty much the best thing ever. I said something to the effect of "wow, those are really cool" in guild chat. An hour later, they were in my mailbox. I was just stunned at the generosity. Those robes sell for a lot of gold, even with the level 21 requirement making them less desirable for twinks in battlegrounds. Is this sort of generosity common? I have a very limited perspective, having been in exactly two guilds, so I'd like to hear your stories. What kind of items have you seen given away (or sold at well below cost)? What kinds of criteria are used for giving things away? I'm less likely to give something to someone's alt than their main, but I'd like to read your comments on this.
Breakfast Topic: What do I level next?
Throughout vanilla WoW I'd managed to create a small selection of alts that I managed to level all the way to 60. Since the expansion, I've been focusing on gearing out my main character, the irrepressibly cute gnome warlock pictured here. But what's next? I have a druid, warrior, and a hunter that I've leveled up to 60, and a Draenei mage that I've leveled up to 20 just to see the new starting area. I'm tempted to level the mage up as a tailor so I can crank out more shadoweave cloth for the warlock's nefarious purposes, but leveling my druid alchemist up could also be a nice moneymaker. I enjoy playing all the classes I have, or I wouldn't have leveled them up as high as I have, so that's not an issue.Any thoughts on what I should level next? Are there any leveling catches that I haven't heard, things that make a hunter, druid, or warrior easier to level than the others?
Beginning Karazhan
I got a chance to lead a raiding force from my guild into Karazhan last week. It went really well. I was very pleased to find fight after fight that managed to rely on coordination and communication, as opposed to old style raiding which relied on how fast can mages, priests, paladins and druids spam their respective cleanse spells. I started out with a conservative group, which to me means a group that's heavy on heals at the expense of damage dealers. This makes the fights take longer, which means the fights are a lot slower. When things begin to devolve, we can all see very clearly what's wrong with our tactics and modify them during the fight or at worst after the fight. This works great up to the Curator, where if the group doesn't have enough damage dealers then the event becomes very difficult.
The instance is pretty. Very pretty. The fights are engaging and require adjustments for class balance, which is great because many of the fights in "Vanilla WoW" had very hard class requirements for crowd control. As it is we can do most events with one priest and one or more paladins. I actually prefer a shadow priest for the Vampiric Embrace goodness, which helps out the paladins a lot with their mana usage on long heal fights as well as improving our raid's damage output. Even with the priest nerfs that went in, Shadow is still a very viable raid spec. In addition I've had a paladin play offtank with great results. I haven't had any druid tanks yet, but only because the scheduling hasn't worked out yet. In other words, this is a great small-guild instance, it only requires 10, you need adequate healing and tanking which can be supplied by multiple classes, and you need adequate DPS. The gear checks aren't even horrible, a group that's geared with nice blues from Shadow Labyrinths, Steamvaults, and the Tempest Keep instances will do very well here.
So how are you doing in Karazhan? Do you have any stories to tell?
The sad state of engineering
While many trade skills aren't living up to our expectations, engineering is the saddest panda. While the gathering professions get to gather new materials (although maybe not in the quantities they'd like) and nifty epic patterns and weapons, engineers have gotten a variety of new flares and items they can't even make. Yes, flares. And items that can't be made because of bugs that will go "in to a future patch."There were many engineering recipes dropped between beta and retail release of the expansion, as a result there aren't many recipes available to progress from about 355 to 370, and the recipes that are in game require very expensive materials. Also, most engineering trinkets cease to function against creatures or other players over level 60, so as an engineer levels the stuff they've been using becomes less and less useful with no replacement in sight. To compound matters, none of the trinkets or bombs can be used in arena combat, including even marginally useful trinket pets. As compared with jewelcrafters, who can use all their pets in arenas. The only positive preview we've gotten for things coming for engineering is this post, in which Drysc hints at a frost grenade. Since it's a grenade, and probably a consumable, it's also a non-player in arenas, and since many engineers took the profession for it's PvP utility this is not a very promising development.
I've dropped engineering after being an engineer for over a year. How many engineers are left out there? Why are you still an engineer? Are you finding it has enough utility to justify keeping it, or are you hopeful that there are enough new things coming that it will be once again worthwhile?
Breakfast Topic: So how are those keys coming?
So the expansion's been out for over a month, you've gotten all your raid keys done, right? RIGHT? The overwhelming looking raid attunement chart hosted by WoWWiki seems intimidating, but a lot of things turned out to be easier than I'd anticipated. For example, you don't need to complete Shadow Labyrinth, The Steam Vaults, or Arcatraz for your Karazhan key. The Shadow Labyrinth key is at the end-boss, Murmur, but the fragment in The Steam Vaults can be reached without actually killing any bosses, and the one in Arcatraz can as well. The reputation buildup just from doing the usual instances and quests was enough to provide me with almost all the reputation I needed for heroic mode keys, but I haven't started any heroics yet.
How are those keys coming folks? Horror stories with that pickup group in Steamvaults got you down?
Whither Zul'Gurub?
We used to run Zul'Gurub weekly, if not more often. The loot was OK (a couple of GREAT tanking swords drop there, and not a lot else), the reputation rewards were fantastic, as were the enchants. Since Burning Crusade, we haven't even gone to Stranglethorn Vale. Is it less fun? I'm not sure. With the boss scaling issue, and trying to get everyone up to level, we just haven't taken the time to check it out. Since the shoulder enchants and head slot enchant are still very good, I may try to get a group to go back on a bijou and coin farming mission. We might just go back to see if we can run the place with 5 people for kicks.That said, if I never set foot into Molten Core again, I'll be happy. I'd like to finish Blackwing Lair and poke into Naxxramas since I never managed to get there, but the new 5-man instances and new raids are keeping me adequately busy for now.
Any plans to go back in time now with new and improved gear and abilities?
Social guild events
One of the things my guild does is bi-monthly guild events. Every now and then we all get together and do something fun or crazy, and then get together in Stormwind or Darnassus to have a few ceremonial ales and /dance around the fireworks. We have a few people in the guild who set the events up, a few folks volunteer/get drafted to help out, and everyone has a good time. No real guild progress is made, no huge bosses downed, just general craziness and fun. We do occasionally n00b races, where we have members make level 1 alts, summon them to a secret location and have them run to another secret location, usually PvP flagged (with some of our experienced PvP'ers riding shotgun to prevent any spawn camping). Gift swaps during the holidays, and so on. Does your guild do any fun social events? Got any concepts I can steal...uh...use with appropriate credit?
Breakfast Topic: How many times have you changed your talents?
With the new talent trees and the challenges of leveling, I've had to adjust my talents several times. On my warlock, I did a post-2.0 build before the expansion pack that was very heavy demonology, a leveling build that was heavy affliction, then I tried multiple builds for post-70, settling on a hybrid 40/0/21 build similar to my old raiding build.Fortunately I'd had my old raiding spec for a very very long time, and my cost to switch everything now is up to just 30G. How many times have you unlearned your talents lately? What's your re-spec cost up to?
Server stability one month later
So, how are the servers treating everyone a month after the expansion release? Alleria's actually gotten (knock on wood) significantly better, with only one hard server disconnect last weekend. It seems that all of our instabilities are on weekends, last weekend's was Saturday, the weekend previous was on Sunday. There have also been no queues for the last two weeks, even during prime times, lag has been "acceptable" for me anyway. How are your servers treating you?
Breakfast Topic: Most annoying mob in The Burning Crusade
With every new expansion comes a new mob to hate. Pictured here is my most hated mob for The Burning Crusade. Found in the Shadow Labyrinth of Auchindoun, these Fel Overseers hit cloth really hard, and have a very annoying Intimidating Shout fear effect that is annoyingly resistible and resets aggro on the tank until the tank is back in melee range. When I say "annoyingly resistible" I mean that I often resist it, and the tank doesn't, so the tank is halfway across the room and I'm being stabbed at for for 1,200 to 1,900 hit points per swing, with a very nice critical hit one time of 4,796. My favorite part is how this thing is classed as a "demon", but immune to both Banish and Enslave. The best method I've found for dealing with them is to make sure everyone is in very short range, so everyone gets feared, including the healers. Hunters are excused if they can feign fast enough to achieve the same effect. This generally means the mob will follow the tank around. Since there's no warning, and he hits so hard, trying to stay in berzerker stance to have anti-fear abilities up is somewhat hazardous. The cool down on the fear is very short, on the order of 30-45 seconds, so even fear ward and berzerker stance will eventually be on cool down when the fear hits. If I don't get feared, I either will try and drain-tank the big guy, or simply run after my tank, so the tank is in melee range as soon as the fear fades. Either way has about a 75% success rate, where success is me not needing a rez at the end.
So, The Burning Crusade has been out for about a month now, have you found a new most annoying mob?
Warlock Spells: Ritual of Souls
The last in the "Warlock Spells" mini-series, Ritual of Souls is a spell everyone can love. Why? Healthstones! And who doesn't love a nice, refreshing healthstone every now and then? The fact that it's a reduced shard cost for the warlock just makes the warlock happy.
This spell is only usable out of combat. The warlock starts the spell and a small altar drops out of the sky. Two people in the party/raid assist, and the altar disappears, to be replaced by a red crystal. One shard is consumed, and up to 10 healthstones can be pulled out of the crystal for the next 5 minutes. The healthstones will be just like getting one from the warlock made one-at-a-time, benefiting from the Improved Healthstone talent. As an added bonus, the red crystal that spawns will dispense healthstones for a full 5 minutes, whether you are in combat or not. So before a long fight, warlocks can drop one of these, give out healthstones, and if someone uses their healthstone during combat they can pick up another one and use it after the 2 minute cool down on healthstones has expired.
Bugged Instance Gates?
User Chris McDonnald sent us a tip about an issue with a gate in the Mechanar instance in Tempest Keep, Netherstorm. It seems that the gate pictured here has an annoying tendency to lock closed if your party wipes on the final boss. It's been confirmed by Drysc as a known bug here, where Drysc goes on to say that it's not intended, however it requires a client side patch that most likely won't be included in 2.0.7.
Blizzard seems to have a bad track record with implementing gates in dungeons. Anyone remember the door to Baron Rivendare on the undead side of Stratholme? Or the gate right before the Razorgore encounter, just inside the instance in Blackwing Lair, which originally would only reset 2 hours after a wipe? Or the door to Vaelastrasz in Blackwing Lair shortly after it was released, which would jam shut in certain circumstances? Or the gates in the Rend encounter in Upper Blackrock Spire? That's the list I came up with off the top of my head. Why do they need to put these gates in, and why can't they check what's obviously been a problem area in the past (well, except for the Razorgore encounter, which was an intended reset time but someone changed their intention later).
So, a word of warning. Make sure you have a Shaman have an Ankh up, a Warlock have a soulstone up, and a Paladin use Divine Intervention as required, because if your party wipes here, you either get to put in a ticket in order to be transported through or re-clear the dungeon.
Warlock spells: Seed of Corruption
The next spell that warlocks receive is a level 70 spell called Seed of Corruption. This is an incredibly nasty spell, I'm having a lot of fun with it.Basically it's a different version of the warlock spell Corruption, it does a certain amount of damage over time. What's different about this spell is that it has its own, built in finishing move. When the target has sustained 1044 total damage, whether it's from Seed of Corruption, other spells you cast, or spells other players do, the seed "goes off" and inflicts all hostile targets within 15 yards with a one-time shadow damage spell. This spell will kind of chain react with other seeds, so if you cast it on, say, 4 targets, the first one exploding will contribute to the other targets exploding. Finally, I can't throw this and Corruption on the same target. Which is sort of a bummer, really.
This spell is incredibly useful in a few different situations. The spell does, at a minimum, about the same damage/mana as Corruption on a single target. When there are multiple close-packed targets, the efficiency really starts to shine. For the downsides, read on.
Ding! 70!
My warlock hit level 70 during one of the horrendous trash pulls in the Auchindoun's Shadow Labyrinth. It took about 2 weeks, a little over but for the first four days my server was unplayable. I have a few suggestions for those of you who are trying to get 70 in the minimum amount of time spent. First, get out of Hellfire Peninsula as quickly as possible. There are so many people in that zone that I spent way too much time waiting for spawns. Second, unless you are a mage getting powerleveled with the help of a entire guild, quests are the way to go, not grinding and not instances. Finally, my pattern was Hellfire Peninsula to Zangarmarsh to Nagrand to Terokkar Forest to Blade's Edge to Shadowmoon Valley. I did Nagrand first Terokkar Forest was very heavily in use, and I wanted to stay out of that mess. They're about the same level, so it works out. I haven't even been into the Netherstorm area. Why did I skip Netherstorm? I'm a warlock. Shadowmoon Valley is full of demons. I was completely playing to my strengths.
I started The Burning Crusade with about 150 gold on my warlock. I ended with a tad over 1500, not counting green items (sold via my bank alt) but counting all consumables, repairs, flights, and other expenses. Whenever there were quest rewards with no usable options, I picked the 2 handed weapon or the plate armor, those items tended to sell better. Unless you blow all of your cash on tradeskills, you should have basic flying mount cash very quickly.
I managed to find groups to finish nearly all of my group quests on an ad hoc basis. On a couple of quests I got help from in-guild. Now that I've finished leveling, my goals are to finish up all my keys, do some instances, and help the rest of the people in my guild level.
Warlock Spells: Soulshatter
Soulshatter is another new skill that warlocks receive, this one at level 66. As a variation on the usual "Spells cost
mana" theme, this spell costs you 8% of your base health. Base health is your health before any bonuses from items, so it's probably between 3 and 4 percent of your hit points. It also costs one Soul Shard. For the warlocks this spell is great because we didn't have a practical way to dump aggro before, and now we can easily reduce our produced threat to stay below the threat of our tank. The 5 minute cooldown means it's only usable once or maybe twice per fight, but that's usually enough to keep you far enough down the aggro list to not be a threat.
Sorry, no action shot for this one. Trying to capture an instant-cast spell with the screenshot tool would run me out of shards fast.
mana" theme, this spell costs you 8% of your base health. Base health is your health before any bonuses from items, so it's probably between 3 and 4 percent of your hit points. It also costs one Soul Shard. For the warlocks this spell is great because we didn't have a practical way to dump aggro before, and now we can easily reduce our produced threat to stay below the threat of our tank. The 5 minute cooldown means it's only usable once or maybe twice per fight, but that's usually enough to keep you far enough down the aggro list to not be a threat.Sorry, no action shot for this one. Trying to capture an instant-cast spell with the screenshot tool would run me out of shards fast.
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