Random Acts of Etiquette

like many of you, I've been taking full advantage of the dungeon finder ever since it came out. it's an amazing tool for both leveling and for gearing up once you hit 80. while it's truly awesome how easy and quick it is to get into dungeons now, the dungeon experience itself has changed a bit.

before the days of dungeon finder everyone in your group, strangers and friends alike, was from the same server. when everyone comes from the same place, your reputation matters. your behavior, good or bad, directly impacts your ability to get into groups in the future. with the dungeon finder bringing people together across multiple servers now, that behavorial constraint is no longer in place. as predicted by an oft-referenced (and mildly NSFW) behavorial psychology theory, player behavior has noticeably deteriorated in this new cross-server setting. in simple terms, you can be a complete ass and get away with it because you'll probably never group with the same people twice.

while there isn't much to be done about people with bad personalities (aside from adding them to your ignore list), good behavior sets a positive example for other players who just don't know any better. here's a short (and by no means complete) list of behavior suggestions when running randoms:

• say hi! players are in such a hurry to get on to the next dungeon now that they often don't even say hello anymore. WoW is a social game, so say hi; it's polite and quick.
• observe the Golden Rule: don't say anything if you don't have anything nice to say. if you have issues with another player's behavior or performance, don't start drama. you can attempt to politely explain what you think they could be doing better (in a whisper, not in party chat), but a lot of people don't take criticism well. just leave the group instead of yelling at each other in party chat.
• don't queue as a healer or tank unless you have the spec and gear to do the job. queue times for healers and tanks are short (nearly instant when I'm queuing as a tank), which tempts more and more players to queue in those roles just to beat the line. don't sign up for the role unless you can really do it, otherwise it's unfair to the rest of the group.
• don't judge a player by their gear. that warlock in quest blues and greens may just top the dps meters, know the instance inside and out and be an all-around amazing player that happens to be playing an alt. conversely, that paladin with all the shiny t9/t10 gear might be absolutely terrible (because they usually heal instead of dps, it's a friend's account, they're watching cowboy beebop, etc.). you won't know until you see them play, so don't vote-kick someone from the group just because they have a low gear score (the dungeon finder thinks that player has the right gear to be there, after all).
• if your class has group buffs, use 'em. and don't be cheap and do single-target buffs or the 10 minute versions either (yes, I'm looking at you mr. paladin). reagents cost peanuts at every level, so suck it up and do buffing right. (special aside for shaman: drop totems, damn you!)
• don't go afk. you're wasting the group's time while they wait for you. this is especially true if you're the healer or tank. I recognize that this is not always under your control (phone rings, baby wakes up, etc.), but do your best to be courteous to the rest of the group.
• compliment good play. if the healer's great, tell them. if the dps goes above and beyond (pulling mobs off the clothies, always on top of interrupts, etc.), recognize that. everyone likes positive feedback for doing a good job.
• thank the group at the end of the run. it was a group effort and you couldn't have done it on your own.

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Much Respect for Laptop Gamers

dear gods, have I been spoiled. my home PC recently decided to up and die on me (hardware failure of some sort) and I've been getting my WoW fix on my work laptop for the last couple days. to all you pro healers, chain-pulling tanks and l33t dps out there that play on laptops, my hat's off to you.

my laptop actually runs WoW pretty well (newer macbook pro w/4GB ram), although I now understand the whole 'I hate Dalaran because I always lag' thing. coming from the perspective of running WoW on a fairly beefy PC with a 24" monitor, though, wow... what a difference. it would be one thing if my only experience with WoW was on a laptop, but since I'm used to something a little bigger it's been a challenge to play as well as I'm used to. lower-quality visuals aside, the two challenges I've run into are not enough screen real estate for my addons and not enough keys to map all my abilities to.

I've only installed a subset of the addons that I usually run (just bartender, DBM, recount and omen), but bartender alone takes up a good chunk of my screen and even ends up covering up most of the built-in quest tracker. with omen, recount and the chat window added to that, a lot of screen space gets used up. I don't know how people add raid frames and healing UIs to that and still see what they're doing...

my biggest challenge, by far, has been figuring out how to map all my abilities to keys I can actually use. some of the function keys seem to be wired into Mac OS to do specific things, so I've lost a few keys there. I've also lost use of the number keypad (because there isn't one), which is where I used to map convenience keys like auto-run, mounting and such. most disruptive, though, is not being able to map abilities to extra mouse buttons like I did on my PC.

I like to map abilities I use often but reflexively (rather than as part of a rotation) to mouse buttons; things like taunts, interrupts and stealth, for example. that puts the ability right at my finger tips so I don't have to hunt for it when I need it NOW, but keeps it out of the way when I'm rocking through my standard rotation. tanking with my paladin this weekend made me realize how much I'd come to rely on those mouse buttons; sure I can play without them, but my reactions aren't nearly as fast.

I realize I'm lucky to be getting my fix at all, as a lot of people don't have the luxury of a second computer to use if their gaming rig burns out. I'm very much looking forward to replacing my PC and retiring from laptop play, though ;)

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Cataclysm Class Previews

I haven't been paying close attention to all the Cataclysm news of late, but one thing I did notice is that blizzard has started previewing class changes they'll be making. here are the previews they've released so far:

Shaman
Warlocks
Priests
Warriors
Death Knights
Rogues
Hunters

nothing here is set in stone, of course, but it's still interesting to get a glimpse of their vision for how they want each class to play in the next expansion. overall, most of the changes to each class look pretty cool. I really like the idea of thinning out the talent trees and replacing all those passive bonus talent point sinks with the mastery system.

there are a few things I'm on the fence about, such as the change to the rune system for Death Knights. I haven't quite wrapped my head around the new system, so I'll have to wait and see how it plays. there are a couple head-scratchers, too, like the new Leap of Faith (aka, 'Life Grip') Priest spell. when a friend first told me about it, I thought for sure they were joking. I say let 'em burn if dps can't move their butts out of the fire! of course, this attitude has a lot to do with why I don't play healers very often...

what has me the most excited so far is the Hunter preview. I played a hunter through most of The Burning Crusade and they still have a special place in my heart, especially beast masters. letting hunters keep more pets and more easily and frequently swap their active pet to adapt to different fights is going to be awesome. I'm kinda neutral on the removal of ammo from the game, although it's certainly a plus in the expenses department. I'm pretty happy with the idea of trading in my mana bar for a focus bar, too; having a resource system more inline with rogues rather than mages feels more appropriate to me.

I'm looking forward to seeing how all the new stuff plays :)

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Farming Up Fire and Shadow

I like to be as self-sufficient as I can, so I have alts with nearly every profession maxed out. two profs that I'm still lacking in my stable are leatherworking and inscription. when I started Raz, I made her a leatherworker to fill in one of those gaps. now that she's 80, I've been working on those last few points to 450 so that I can craft [Drums of Forgotten Kings] and [Drums of the Wild]. as anyone who's ground out those last few points can tell you, it takes an awful lot of [Eternal Fire] and [Eternal Shadow] to get there. here are some suggestions for how to get the materials you'll need.

Eternal Shadows are pretty easy to come by. [Crystallized Shadow] falls out of saronite and titanium veins fairly frequently and since everyone and their dog is a miner these days (thanks in large part to blacksmithing and jewelcrafting having the biggest impact on personal dps), you can usually find it cheap on the auction house. like, stacks of 20 eternals for under 200g cheap. if you don't want to buy it and you aren't a miner, you can farm crystallized shadow pretty easily off the Wandering Shadows and Shadow Revenants in Wintergrasp. a few things to note if you plan on farming these mobs:

1. when the battle for wintergrasp officially starts, all the elementals despawn until the battle's over, so don't plan on farming while the battle's raging


2. the wandering shadows will sometimes cast Chilling Touch, which can make farming them as a caster less than ideal


3. it should go without saying, but remember that you are always flagged for pvp when in wintergrasp, so expect to get attacked while you're farming

Eternal Fire is a bit harder to come by. on my server they sell for about 25g a piece, making a full stack cost upwards of 500g. ouch. luckily, for those of us not made of money, there are several farming options. unlike shadow, farming fire via mining is poor choice because [Crystallized Fire] is only found in titanium veins, not in saronite veins. if you're an engineer, you can extract crystallized fire from Steam Clouds with your handy-dandy [Zapthrottle Mote Extractor]; clouds are frequently found in Sholazar Basin and there are also a few scattered around the Borean Tundra. non-engineers will have to farm the old fashioned way - killing stuff :)

you've got four choices when it comes to farming locations; north-western Borean Tundra near Bor'Gorok Outpost, the canyon east of Dun Niffelem in the Storm Peaks, the Frostfloe Deep cave just north of Camp Tunka'lo (also in Storm Peaks) and the small, fiery area on the south-eastern edge of Wintergrasp. I'll tell you now that the cave is where the money is.

Frostfloe Deep is full of Wailing Winds mobs (and nothing else), which have about a 1 in 4 chance to drop crystallized fire. they're packed close together and respawn quickly; by the time you clear to the back of the cave (it's small), respawns should start popping up at the front again. note that these mobs will sometimes charge and stun you, which can be a problem when 2 or 3 of them do it in a row. they don't hit all that hard, but you don't want to be running around with 20% health or they'll kill you while you're stunned. fun fact - if you can get close enough to see it you might notice that they leave footprints in the snow! even more odd is that, judging by their footprints, they only have one foot...

the one major downside to farming in the cave is that you often won't be alone. if it's just one other player, then the respawn rate should keep up with the two of you. when you're competing with three or four other players, thought, it's time to move on to the next best spot, which is the canyon east of Dun Niffelem.

the trick with farming the canyon is that it's a phased area. if you haven't done the quest line to open up The Sons of Hodir daily quests, the canyon will be filled with both Seething Revenants (good) and elite frost giants (bad). you can farm it in this phase, but it'll be slow going as you'll have to dodge the giants. once you open up the sons of hodir dailies and complete Battling the Elements, the canyon will change to a new phase where the elite giants are gone, making farming this area viable.

I find farming the canyon to be a mixed bag. on the one hand, there are a fair number of mobs and they have decent drop and respawn rates. unlike the mobs in Frostfloe Deep, the revenants here can also drop [Relics of Ulduar], making this area more 'efficient' to farm if you're also grinding out sons of hodir rep. the mobs are much more caster/ranged dps friendly then those in cave, since they don't charge and seem to have a slower movement speed then players. on the other hand, the area is often heavily populated by other players who are either farming themselves or doing the Hot and Cold sons of hodir daily, so you may have to fight for mobs. if it's too crowded here, you can try your luck in Borean Tundra.

the elemental battleground next to Bor'Gorok Output in the Borean Tundra is teeming with low-level (70-71) fire and water elementals. they die quickly, but have a lower drop rate and respawn rate then the mobs in the Storm Peaks. I don't farm here much because, as the goblins say, time is money.

last on my farming location list is Wintergrasp. the drop rates here are technically better than anywhere else, especially when your faction owns wintergrasp and you can farm Flame Revenants in addition to the usual Raging Flame elementals. however, there are very few mobs in the area, they don't respawn all that quickly and you will literally have to fight for mobs since it's a heavily farmed spot in a pvp zone. I don't find farming here to be very efficient, time-wise, but your server may be different.

happy farming!

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Re-introduction

aaaannnnd I'm back. I felt like it was time to blow off the dust and start writing again. quite a bit has changed since my last post... I've moved to a new server (Proudmoore, US), joined a new guild and leveled a whole new stable of alts to play with.

with that in mind, I thought I'd re-introduce myself. I've been playing WoW since 12/2004; a month after it's original release. in the process of logging an absurd number of in-game hours, I've seen every corner of the world, conquered every dungeon, stormed a few castles, done a lot of quests and played every race, class and roll there is.

I'm not a hardcore raider or an arena master, but I do try to be the best player I can. as a result, I've learned an awful lot about the game and I'll be sharing that here :)

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meet Grysh

Grysh is our newest entry into our alt collection. so new, in fact, that she doesn't even show up in the armory, yet (else we'd link her). Grysh is a BE death knight, which we rolled on Elune (pve server where we had our first 60 way back in classic WoW). spoiler alert, we're going to wax poetic about what it's like to start up a death knight. if you don't want to know, stop reading now.

first off, it is an AWESOME experience! blizzard did a really nice job with the death knight starting area.

you start off at level 55 with no talents and 6 abilities. it's a bit of a mystery how the whole rune/runic power system works and we think that's one of the areas where the starting zone failed a bit. a couple quests that helped demonstrate your abilities would have been helpful. anyway, it's a very manageable skill set to open up with.

you start out in green-quality gear (which looks awesome, btw. very similar to Sylvannus' old look before the 3.0.2 patch) and you're standing next to Arthas in a floating necropolis in EPL. yes, *the* Arthas. after chatting with him, you start a series of quests that have you leading the assault to destroy the scarlet crusade. over the course of a very epic quest line, which includes events like using siege weapons and piloting an undead frost dragon to massacre scarlet crusaders from above you gain blue-quality gear and talent points as quest rewards. it took us a few quests before we realized we were gaining talent points as quest rewards; it's a brilliant system.

by the time you finish the starting zone (after an epic battle between the lich king himself and tirion fordring at light's hope chapel) you've hit level 58, are decked out in full blue gear and have all your talent points. after a quick stop at a capital city for your final starting quest, you could walk right into outlands without ever setting foot in the rest of azeroth.

where it really shines, though, is in all the little details that blizzard took care of for you:

• you automatically learn all flight points on both continents


• you automatically have artisan first aid up to heavy runecloth bandages


• you start out with several weapon skills at 270


• you leave the starting zone with about 20g in cash from quest rewards and selling off old gear


• you start with 4 12 slot bags in addition to your backpack


• you leave the starting zone with your mount, which is an epic land mount (even though you're only level 58), which was free


• one of the trinkets you get as a quest reward is comparable to the standard pvp trinket that frees you from all roots and snares

every time we thought to ourselves "oh, we're going to have to go train that" it turned out we already knew what we needed to know. the only thing you have to train yourself are professions.

we can't even do justice to the quests in the starting zone. they're just very well done. what really makes it feel special is that the zone actually changes appearance *just for you* based on the quests you've completed. this is what blizzard is calling phasing. it's kind of like an instance, except that anyone that's met a certain set of requirements will see the same thing you do without having to pass through an instance entrance or anything. in the case of the DK starting zone, it changes over time (buildings are destroyed, NPCs change locations, etc.) and those changes are permanent (i.e., they don't revert after 5 minutes for the next guy in line). it's pretty cool and hard to visualize until you experience it yourself. we'll be very interested to see where this gets applied in northrend.

so, for now we're going to focus on Grysh for a bit and let all the hubbub in northrend die down a bit before we go back. we're running around the noob lands leveling up skinning and herbalism (no cash cows on this server, so Grysh will have to fund herself), but we'll be back in outlands soon enough. we can't wait!

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feel our wrath!

wrath is here! yay! we managed to score a collector's edition at the store thursday morning and joined the hordes in the borean tundra to see what northrend was all about. our feelings are a bit mixed so far.

the good:

• new lands to explore


• new mobs to see


• getting xp from quests and feeling a real sense of advancement again

the not so good:

• way, way too many named mobs that need killing in the early quests which require to you compete not only against the other faction (pvp server, remember) but also against your *own* faction. this is our biggest complaint. standing around for 5-10 minutes and then having to basically kill-steal from everyone else around you to get your quest done.


• most of the quest rewards aren't gear upgrades. to be fair, we're wearing mostly purples so that's not a big surprise but to only find 1 item from lvl 70 to lvl 71 that was a clear upgrade was a little disappointing


• too crowded! everyone and their dog is in the borean tundra right now and the buildings are tiny, so it's really tough to see what you're doing through the sea of bodies and floating green text

we took Harl over and quested until we hit lvl 71. the new area is awesome, the quests are generally fun and so far it seems like there's less running around (no big fedex-style quests that we can recall) then old-world quests. everything seems pretty easy so far, even killing elite quest mobs, but that's probably because most of us 70s are over-powered due to all the purple we're wearing. people are a bit douchy in their efforts to get their quests completed (kill-stealing, etc.), but that wasn't a huge surprise.

overall we had fun, but once we got to 71 we decided we would wait for a while before going back for more. it's just too crowded to really enjoy the new content. plus, we got a little sick of being on a pvp server (getting fear bombed or nuked while talking to a quest giver gets old after the 6th time). so, we hopped back over to our old pve server, Elune, and rolled a BE death knight. more on that later.

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