Random Asides

Yahtzee! I left notes for this post from last week. I'd forgotten about that. It's always nice to log in and have prompts for a post. This is going to adopt the format of Random Asides

One.

I learned how to discern which bosses I'd downed in the LFR. This was a source of consternation for me, as I could never remember what I'd actually accomplished. In the LFR screen, there's a little icon that appears next to the name of the wing. Hovering over it will list the bosses you've looted.

I know for many of you this is not a new trick. For derps like me, I'd been trying to find the old raid lock screen (despite knowing we don't have locks anymore). I figured there had to be someone that would indicate what you've done during the current reset period.

The only downside to the mouseover? It doesn't tell you how many total bosses there are. It just lists the names. I had to look up things to make sure I knew what each wing contained (3 in each of the first two). Perhaps it seems silly to you, but in LFR I generally don't know the name of what I'm fighting. It's more like, "this is that one fight where the floor randomly disappears." Such is how my brain works when I'm not "really" raiding.

Two.

Apart from that, I actually didn't get much done. I had been doing a good job of running dailies from two zones. The problem is that the Golden Lotus dailies keep expanding. So where before I'd be done in 10-15 minutes, now it pushes a half hour. Tricksy Hobbitses.

I should be taking a well-reasoned approach, like prioritizing one faction and making sure I at least finish that each day. Instead, it generally depends on where I logged off and what is on TV in the background. A poor plan, indeed.
  
Three.

I've been playing around with the Ask Mr. Robot premium edition. Of particular note for me is the upgrade-question-asker-thingy. (I'm being profoundly specific, I know.) It's the big spy glass that lets you ask a question such as "How best should I spend my valor points?" Then, it generates a list of items that would benefit you most. Totally worth it's weight in shards. I've been gleefully abusing this feature to tell me what to buy and where to shop. It would also help immensely with my problem in section two, but only if I can force myself into focus.

I think it was another blogger that mentioned to me the find-stuff-in-your-bags-feature had discovered an overlooked item. I've not installed the required addon to use this, but I can see where it would be helpful. When you're running LFR with the TV in the background, items have the tendency to sneak into the inner folds of your backpack. Or maybe you also left your fishing outfit enabled. Oops.

Four.

Because my brain isn't focusing in WoW, I played a decent amount of League of Legends over the weekend. Also, I downloaded some new songs for Rock Band. Yep, I still play that occasionally. Having not explored the DLC in many years (handle it!), I was pleasantly surprised by the offerings. I need to upgrade my drum set.

I'm ashamed to admit I have not gotten very far in ACIII yet. I love the game, it just requires a high level of focus. It's a hard game to pick up and not play for 27 hours straight. I find if I don't have sufficient time allotted for it, then I end up just running around climbing things and picking fights with guards. Totally worth it and fun, mind you, but not all that conducive to progressing.

Ah well, such is a gamer's life. Better too many games than too few, amirite?

From Zero to Gear-o

Terrible pun. I know. Deal with it. It reflects how I feel I've geared... very much in giant, terribly pun-y, leaps. Or something.

This past weekend, I finally got over the LFR hump. Immediately, I won a belt (and then nothing else for several runs). I also hit honored with Golden Lotus. As a tailor, that meant two more purples. I purchased a trinket and OH on the AH. I sold a purple robe to make the money back. I think I went from about 30k DPS to 60K DPS in a matter of hours. Pretty crazy.

I spoke a little about a rep path for Warlocks in my last post. If you're a tailor, getting honored with GL is huge. I also snagged a ring from the Operation: Shieldwall quartermaster for VP. I was nearing the cap after the last few weeks of dailies/heroics/LFR. I figured a ring was a good choice, since there's a second slot, so if I immediately get a drop, my purchase was not wasted.

I don't think I'm able to reliably juggle more than two hubs at a time, so GL and O:S are where I'm starting and would suggest other 'locks start there as well. O:S has the best rewards if you consider the eventual ilevel. GL is pretty much required to get started, but the tailoring really sells it if you're a tailor. Klaxxi is another option, but that's sitting in the 3-hole for me.

When 5.2 drops, it will shake this list up. I'm sure the new rep they come up with will take precedence. I'm hoping to have capped one of my first few before it does, but that may not be in the cards. I'm slow.

If you're looking for solid items to purchase on the AH. There's an OH purple that I snagged for 4k. There's also a trinket (Dragonling something) that can be filled with cogs to be pretty solid. With cogs, I don't think it was a whole lot more than 3k. If you're curious, I'm the Fulguralis on Alexstrasza. Check me out on Mr. Robot. I've only started reforging/properly enchanting/gemming the purple items. Until very recently, I was replacing things too quickly to be mess with it.

On an unrelated side note: I actually really enjoy trash now. With SS+SB, I feel like I actually contribute. Especially when I can time my DS so I'm constantly full of shards, and spreading DoTs like a madman. When I got to a stand and sling boss, it was almost boring. At least until I realized I really need to manage my shards better. For long fights, it's hard to keep Haunt up, and I think I want to be sure not to clip it, so-as to maximize the use of each shard. Mana has not been a huge issue as long as I remember to tap once every minute or so. Sometimes I forget and end up low.

I need to throw stats and spec into the primer, but I've not had the chance to snag any screenies yet. Maybe this week. I'm sort of counting on a talent reset with 5.2, so I can take the pet sacrifice talent instead of the super-pet talent that I have now. Nibs tells us that sacrificing the pup is actually pretty warlockerly of us, plus there's a very low danger of g- gui- guilt? Is that how it's pronounced? I guess if you're specced Destro you should be more concerned.

The Grinch Was a Warlock

I had a fleeting concern the other night. I say fleeting because I'm a Warlock, not a Paladin. As this concern has to do with others' feelings, it's not very warlocky of me to have it. Still, it was an interesting thought that I wanted to share.

It came, uninvited, when I logged into a raid my buddy was running. I'm not a regular raider anymore, but I get asked to come regularly. I'm only able to make perhaps every fifth raid, but I do like the occasional nighttime Deathwing ride. My gear/skill is tolerable enough that I'm never a drag on the teams I help out, but I'm no longer competing for top spot on the charts, either.

Anyway, I noticed I had a somewhat jaded attitude, especially toward gear. My buddy, the raid leader, is rather new to the game still. He joined at the end of Wrath. He's in the prime of his WoW career. Everything excites him. Especially the loot.

Me, on the other hand... I think it's fair to say that I'm in the winter of my time with WoW. This isn't to say that I have immediate plans of leaving, just that I've been through enough that I don't get very excited about a lot of the game. Especially the loot. Indeed, I find myself focused more on long-needed quality-of-life improvements (like talent tree improvements) than the more transitory tier gear, or raiding instances. It just doesn't get me excited because I know if I wait a few months, there'll be a new batch of content.

Now, I haven't really said anything to this person, or really in public (apart from this post), but I've developed an attitude that anyone who cares about gear is silly. I'm not an asshat about it. I don't force this belief on others. I just sort of do the behind-the-screen eye-roll when people get overly excited about a drop. When someone starts talking about gear score and what gear you should have and yadda-yadda... I want to scream: NONE OF IT MATTERS! But I don't.

As I was stopping myself from yelling yet again during the raid (while a prolonged who-gets-the-loot discussion was going on), I thought: Why should I rain on their parade? They think gear is fun, and divvying up the spoils is a big part of the game to them. Who am I to ruin that, to steal that joy? Doing more than my private eye-roll would be akin to walking into their house and taking a poop right in the middle of the living room during a party. Or maybe ordering a minion to. If it were a party of mages, I might be on board with this plan, but it's a party of friends.

If we pull back and look at the state of WoW from 30k ft, I think it's fair to say that, in general, more players are in the winter of their careers than the prime. This isn't to say there's a significant portion of each, just that the game's been out for a while. Newbies are going to naturally get harder and harder to find. Yet how many veterans are raining on the newbie parade? How many let their jaded attitudes go further than a private eye-roll?

I, for one, am going to endeavor to keep my curmudgeonly-ness sequestered in the dark corners of my soul. I want for others to find the same joy in this game that I've experienced over the years. I'd love for them to make it to their own winter. I don't want to be the Grinch Who Stole WoW. It is perhaps a personal flaw in the first place that I even feel the slightest bit of resentment toward their joy. Why is it sometimes such a struggle to just be happy for others?

And then I realized I'm a Warlock. I'm not supposed to be happy. Period. I'm supposed to enslave demons, and lurk, and stuff like that. I carry around the souls of the dearly departed in candy-like crystals. I've probably popped one or twelve in my mouth simply to taste the sweetness. I shouldn't feel too guilty about a spot of random irritability, right?

SERIOUSLY GUYS, THIS GEAR IS GONNA SUCK IN LIKE... when is MoP coming out again?

JK. Get on wit' your bad looty self. You go, newb.

To Wrap Up The Week

No fiction today, sorry. I've been sick all week, plus work has been busy. Amazing how that happens, right? It's like they wait until I feel like crap to all show up at my desk and want stuff done.  In any case, the day's already flying by and it's not looking like I'm going to have the appropriate time to dedicate to a good bit of fiction.

On that front, though, I'll pass along some news.  I've compiled a short story based on the posts I made for the Fall of the Lich King that we're planning to submit for the Blizzard Fan Fic contest.  It's short at around 3,500 words, but represents some good memories from what I consider the pinnacle of the game.  (Right now, anyway.  I reserve the right to have the future change my judgement, but killing Arthas was truly a great moment in gaming).

It'll be prettied up, and I added a new little bit at the end to tie it all together.  When it gets done, I want to try to offer it around here for your e-reading devices.  I'm not sure if I'm allowed to go through like Amazon or B&N or any of those places, but at the very least we're going to try to set up a little download mirror that will let you download it for free.  I'll be open to suggestions when we get it up.  We're also working on getting the rest of the fiction in a single, coherent format so you don't have to comb through archives and such around here... making it more of a novella than a collection of posts.  We'll see how it turns out.

Apart from that, I've been thinking about gearing all week, and wanted to wrap up the hot topic with a few last thoughts.  Cynwise wrote a great article today sort of tying things together and hashing out the basics for each gear path.  As he says, there is not really one thing you can point to as a good solution, and each PvE and PvP path has its problems.

My final thought on the whole thing is that, reading Cyn's bullet points, I can't help but feel like the PvP system is better suited for PvE players, and the PvE system would appeal to PvP'ers more.  That sounds crazy, but look at it this way.  If PvP seems more suited for a gradual build-up over time, a steady progression to gearing with periodic resets... isn't that what we want in PvE?  We want to make steady progress, and if stuff resets along the way, that makes the entry barrier to raiding that much shorter.

Then you have PvE, where gear seems to retain its value for longer and the player base gets more stratified (borrowing Cyn's word, a good one) over time.  Aren't those things that appeal to your typical PvP player?  They want to be rewarded for being beating another player, and then to have that reward mean something.  It's almost like Blizz has it backward.

At the same time, though, one has to acknowledge that, to some extent, each of these paths are products of their respective environments.  For instance, how would gear resets work in PvE with each tier?  Or in PvP how could you maintain a stratified player-base without ruining competitiveness?  There's simply no easy solution.  At the end of they day, all we can really say is that they each have their own problems.  And those problems may be more or less annoying depending completely on the person. 

What drives Cyn bonkers, I may take comfort in.  What I can't stand, he sees as a ray of hope.  Yet, we both play Warlocks and love our class/the game enough to blog about it (ad nauseum, for years).  It's really two sides of the same coin. 

Wherein I Get Angrier And Less Constructive About Gear

Coming on the heels of yesterday's attempt at offering a rational solution for what I perceive to be a problem, I've now seen the Blue Post regarding clarifications for the Valor Point changes in 4.3.  For a good summary of the information, check out WoW Insider here.

My initial reaction is to throw things.  It's a joke that the raid finder's limit on VP is 500 per week.  Can you even get anything for 500?

For the record, a new piece of gear PER WEEK is not fast.  I understand the need to cap VP gains so that people don't chain run and replace all their gear in a short amount of time.  What I do not understand is why the devs feel the need to force us into a breadth of activities to achieve these Valor Points.  You can't just pick the path you enjoy the most, because the limits on each are set low.  You have to do multiple things if you want to gear SLOWLY.  As in, one piece of gear per week slowly. 

That is bollocks.  How can they get this right with PvP, yet bone it up so hard in PvE.  Slap an overall VP limit that is right around the average cost of a piece of gear.  Then, simply let folks decide what they want to do to get there.  It's fine if you put a slightly lower limit to encourage people to try a different path each week... but 500 is far too low for that.  Heck, 1000 is too low. 

I'm okay with big items like tier pieces and/or weapons costing double.  But in my opinion, the goal should be to make it possible for people to gear up, on average, one piece per week.  At that pace, content will be cleared, and you don't have to worry so much about when to nerf.  They've already admitted that we're behind, in general, where they want us to be... why impose more limits on VP?  Open it up for Light's sake!

The problem I see, the disconnect, hinges directly from the statement that the "aim is to return to the days of valor points being a consolation prize rather than being central to the gearing process."  Aka - we want you to gear through raiding.  Then fix your damn drop system!  It's awful.  The loot tables are awful.  What drops is awful.  The things people need don't drop, and the items people can't use always drop.  Who are these tuned for?  I've not seen one post ever where someone has said: "Wow, I seem to get all the drops I need through raiding."

VP is a necessary part of the gearing process because Blizz has MADE IT SO.  EGADS!  It's working as felling designed (if not intended).  How the fel do any of these VP changes help make it easier to get gear through raid drops?  All I see is a bunch of restrictions as if they're afraid to make VP "too good" and to limit the number of drops you can get to make sure people don't "overfarm" or something.

Here's a thought: GETTING GEAR IS FUN.  By placing all these ridiculous limits on gearing, not only do you make it harder to understand, but you are restricting THE FUN.  You wouldn't have to nerf the fel out of the raids if you'd simply let us gear a bit faster. 

The base problem I see is this: The gear you get per hour spent doing PvE things is horrible right now.  As I said yesterday, for PvP it seems tuned correctly... and CP/HP is an integral part of the process (you don't have drops).  So either fix the drops in PvE to be more effective, or embrace that fact that token points really aren't that bad when tuned correctly.  I don't think a new piece of gear per week is too much to ask.  Especially at this new, faster release rate.  If you want us to burn through content, you're going to have to speed up the gear.  Instead, we seem to be going the other way with it.  Why?

I've seen the "gearing up" malaise strike a lot more people this expansion.  It takes the form of "why even try when the gear is going to be obsolete in a month or two."  It's pretty simple to understand why.  If you spend a whole lot of time and effort getting something, then you want it to last.  Seems at direct odds with pushing people through content faster.  Make up your mind, Blizz.  What do you want?  Valuable gear spread out over time, or fast paced adventures through quick-released content?  You can't have both.

QOTD: Legendary Tips

We finally downed our first Firelands boss last night. We had been working on Beth'tilac, but after two weeks of wiping (and much tweaking of strategies), we decided that we just didn't have the gear for it. Beth'tilac is a gear check, and we just weren't getting the adds down fast enough.

Most of us are over 359 average ilevel, but not by a whole lot.  Many have stopped running heroics out of sheer boredom with them.  We try to do a few a week, but we are definitely not capping VP (and we don't require that).  If we were less casual, that average gear level is probably enough. After all, I've seen stories of folks going in with that sort of gear and doing just fine. Being pretty casual, we probably need a bit more gear.  It was doubly frustrating because everyone else seems to think that this fight is cake.  Well, the cake is a lie.  If your group is struggling, feel in good company.

So, in the last half hour, we decided to swap over to Shannox.  The only reason we didn't do him first was because we didn't want to waste a bunch of time clearing the trash to get him to spawn.  We've done enough trash runs that most of the trash no longer gives rep, so there's little drive to do it.  Still, it was time to try another boss.  The hunter's horn sounded thrice, and then... 

We one shot him.  Yeah.  It went something like this:

/Ful starts reading strat over vent
/Shannox pats into range halfway through the reading
/We say "screw it" and pull
/yadda yadda yadda
/Shannox dies

I know, I yadda'ed over the best part.  Well, we killed one dog early.  The second dog we dragged out until Shannox had like 35% health left.  Then, we finished them both off.  We were just sort of winging it with only the vaguest idea of what we were supposed to do, and it worked.

So, I have to say: Shannox is far easier than Beth'tilac... especially if you're not high on the gear curve.

The side effect of an unexpected one-shot is that we got out first chance to see one of the BoP embers needed for the caster Legendary.  As one might guess, we found ourselves ill-prepared to deal with it.  I don't know if you've ever been in a casual raid group before, but it's been my experience that whenever something special like this drops, there's this moment of mini-panic where everyone is thinking "oh shit, now what do we do."

You see, casual folks tend to have a wide array of different opinions when it comes to gearing.  And Legendaries can cause guild-stress even for the prepared.  It's just one of the truths of the game.

Fortunately, rational heads prevailed and after a few moments of collective flailing, we had it narrowed down to three people who both wanted the opportunity (not everyone wants the responsibility... you're pretty much saying you'll be there for every raid and then some) and could make good use of the resulting item.  The three rolled and, well, yours truly came out on top.  So, if our ragtag guild somehow manages to construct the Legendary, I will get it.

I'm super-psyched about this.  I don't think I've ever had a shot for anything cool in the many years I've played this game.  Generally, there hasn't been a whole lot unique and cool for casters, but also I've never been in a position where it was really possible.  I hesitate to get too excited, because actually being able to do this is a long way off, and could never happen, but it feels nice to even have the chance.  I've been a dedicated guildy for a lot of years now, and my current guild-mates are some of my very best friends, so though they may give me crap about it... I'm thankful nonetheless.

Which brings me to my question of the day.  Now that I have a shot at the Legendary... does anyone have any tips?  Is there anything I can do to be ready for it?  Are there any other Warlocks out there rocking this bad boy?

So, I'm Dumb.

This is a follow-up on yesterday's post and the ensuing discussion in comments.  Thankfully, sharp readers caught my idiocy, and gently steered me in the right direction.  (Have I mentioned how much I appreciate my readers/commenters around here?  I am continually impressed by the thoughtfulness and consideration that goes into comments around here.  It really does seem to break the troll statistics.  Not all Internet communication is flawed!)

First of all, the most helpful thing to most Warlocks is probably recognition that, unless you get a fortunate drop or go AH'ing, the bracer slot seems to be one of the worst for epic'ing out.  Generally, we're all saving our VP for that, because there just really isn't much out there.  I hear that shoulders come in a close second.

My goof comes when talking about Mr. Robot and hit cap.  I'll try to make a long story short.


There is, apparently, ranged hit.  I'm not sure what ranged hit is or where it came from.  It just showed up one day (likely with Cataclysm, and I've been oblivious of it).  Now, when the stat changes first swept through, I certainly had a small bit of trouble with confusing Melee and Spell hit.  Unless you're cognizant of the little heating in the stat column, it can be an easy mix up.

Lately, I've apparently been looking at this Ranged hit.  I made sure I wasn't doing Melee, but I guess it never dawned on me that ranged hit does not equal spell hit.  After all, it seemed to me that the ranged hit cap was 14%, which was the number to hit back when we got 3% from talents.  We no longer get any hit from talents.  Or racials.  Thus, you need a straight 17%.

My confusion, then, was that I was still showing 14% in the hit column, and mousing over confirmed that my chance to miss a raid boss was 0.  The scaling of ranged hit is such that while in reality, I had around 16.5% hit, ranged hit is around 14%.  Thus, following the advice of Mr. Robot, I was in the correct ballpark.  Enough away to think that something was screwy, but close enough that I didn't realize how screwy.  I figured it was just some minor glitch from something I was doing just a bit differently.  Such things have been known to happen in Azeroth from time to time.

Finally, I decided to write about the odd occurrence.  What better way to puzzle something out than throw yourself on the mercy of the interwebs (also, it just so happens that I have a WoW blog).  I would have liked to troll EJ, the Den, and the Mr. Robot forums, but I'd just not had time at non-blocked-internet-home to be able to do it.  Hence a cry for help.

The first suggestion was that I was looking at Melee hit.  Nay, said I.  Falleth for that farce again, I did not.  What ho?  Ranged hit, you say?  (The saying being done by my armory iPhone app.)  What sort of devilry is this?

Once I'd sorted out my confusion, it became obvious: I needed to expand one more drop down on my stat screen.  I did as much last night during my daily run.  Sure enough, I was just below hit cap... to the tune of about, oh, say the one piece I'd neglected to reforge because I believed I was already capped.  Ugh.

Fortunately, I finished the Firelands dailies last night, unlocking the ancients as the last of my three.  There's a ring there that's a minor upgrade.  So, I picked it up and reforged the night away.  Now I sit safely at 16.99% hit (Mr. Robot hath been vindicated in my mind, and I'm sorry for every doubting), and my haste doth overfloweth.

All is well that ends well.

(Thanks again for the comments that helped me along the way)

If I Could Only Get Rid of Those Blue Bracers...

I finally achieved friendly with the new Firelands faction the other day.  Thus, I was able to pick up the epic cloak from the vendor, which is currently listed as best-in-slot for me (not including T12 Heroics).  Cape in tow, I ventured off to my local reforgery.  I also took the opportunity to pop in my Moonwell Chalice.

(Side note: it took me a while to figure out that the small, lightwell-like thingy that popped up next to me was my newly equipped trinket "on use."  Fuu kept asking about it and I kept saying "must be a quest or something."  It was the trinket... duh.  Pretty neat effect, if not very warlocky.)

I consulted Mr. Robot and made the necessary adjustments.  I feel compelled to note that I'm still having a bit of a "hit issue" with Mr. Robot right now.  Basically, he is having me over-stack hit by almost exactly one piece.  I haven't had the time to really puzzle out why this is.  My solution for now has been to simply ignore the reforge on my helm.  I'm still showing above cap on my character sheet (14% and hovering over confirms that I have 0% chance of missing a raid boss), and I'm not wasting the extra hit form that reforge.  I'm not entirely sure why Mr. Robot is having me do this, since wasting his seems sub-optimal.  I'm sitting at like 14.1% and the helm would put me at around 14.5%.  That's ~40 points of waste.

Now, perhaps there's a good reason for this.  Maybe there's a legit bug that people have been talking about on the forums.  Were I a good Warlock with extra time, I would go over and start up a conversation with Mr. Robot himself.  He has been great about addressing concerns in the past.  I just haven't had the time to give it proper attention.  And I'm pretty sure that, minus the one oddity, the reforging is correct.  I did have to double-check though.  You should probably do the same, or let me know what I'm missing here.

With cloak and chalice, I ran a FL trash clear and definitely saw some improvement.  It wasn't massive, as the cloak upgrade ends up being minor (what with the epic quest reward), and the chalice isn't head-and-shoulders above the Soul Casket that I replaced... but I'd say maybe a couple hundred more DPS on average.  I'm running Affliction, so I'm simply popping the mastery bonus up front.  Demo folks may want to bind the trinket to meta somehow, as I guess it rolls through.

In other news, you should check out Cynwise's new other blog.  As opposed to the Battlefield Manual, these are his Field Notes.  It's still Cynwise, only shorter (sometimes) and more personal (IHMO).  He's been writing more often over there as a result, and that is a "win" in my book.  If you haven't checked it out, I suggested you give it a look.  Being (personally) less PvP and Wall-of-Text inclined... I'm quite enjoying it.  In fact, I think I may have to go tour Lakeshire sometime soon.

Warlock Trinkets Explored

I wanted to delve a bit deeper into what seems to be a popular issue around here: Warlock trinkets. It seems many of us are getting to the point where we've opened Firelands vendors from the dailies, and an assortment of new gear is offered to us.  For folks who have dabbled in raiding, the choices seem to be more side-grades than upgrades, complicating the decision.

For many piece of gear, you need only consult some simulations or gear lists and you can probably make a reasonably informed choice.  Trinkets, however, have been notoriously hard to quantify.  Even in an isolated sense, you have procs to try and calculate.  Procs that everyone may not use in the same situations or equally as often.  In the most complicated scenario, you have interactions of stats and procs with other stats, skills, and spells.

For instance, currently for Demo 'locks, the word on the street is that if you pop the Chalice before popping Meta, you will receive the benefit of the mastery stat bonus throughout your purple demon phase, even when the trinket timer runs out.  For as long as there have been Warlocks, there have been little idiosyncrasies like this.  Rolling Corruption was one of the big ones.  More recently (and perhaps "working as intended") we have the Shadow and Flame crit boost that seems to be taken into account at time of application, and not updated with each DoT tick.  Thus, many guides will suggest you lead off with a Shadow Bolt to be sure Corruption benefits (refreshing via Haunt does not cause a recalculation of Crit currently).

This is all very complicated and confusing, at least from where I'm sitting.  Those of you who read here regularly will know that I'm not a huge theorycrafter.  I dabble just enough to try to come up with a solid approach to playing my class.  I'm not a bleeding edge kind of guy, so I don't need to play perfect.  I do, however, desire to play well, and that requires a bit of research from time to time.

Back to the trinkets.  The current issue is whether or not to pick up and use the Moonwell Chalice.  I think many people, like me, have been able to pick up solid trinkets from previous content.  In my case, this means the Stump of Time and Soul Casket.  Neither are drops, so they're attainable "in the long run."  They're also both 359 ilevel and the Chalice is 365.  In my guides, I've advocated trusting Ask Mr Robot for direction as far as gearing is concerned (and don't really pay attention to ilevel).  So far, it has been a great tool.  For the effort/time I put into it, I get way more in return.  I could spend hours with a simulation tool trying to make gear lists and such, but Mr. Robot makes it easy.

The conundrum here comes when Mr. Robot lists the Chalice below the Stump of Time and Soul Casket.  Usually, I have a lot of faith in the gear listings there.  However, it's trinkets.  For all the reasons mentioned above, I realize that trinkets are one of the hardest slots to math out.  Ergo, a robot might not be the best choice to use in making the best choice.  Some Human Brain might need be applied.

Generally, what this means for me is that I'm going to give them each a run under practical circumstances in real raids.  See which seems to perform best.  It's not really scientific because there are a myriad of other variables that could be affecting me, but if I'm on the fence, it's a good way to make a personalized decision.  Also, quite frankly, they're probably so close that it really doesn't matter.  If I were really worked about a moderate DPS increase, I should probably work on being smoother with my rotation.

Still, I like to make good decisions.  I threw up a quickie post on Monday saying as how I wasn't planning to buy the Chalice.  I got several responses that may have changed my mind.  One of the most helpful included a link here.  If you follow, you'll see that it's a google shared document that contains a link to several shared spreadsheets.  These spreadsheets contain a rather complex and involved mathification of the current trinket offerings.  It even covers more than just the Warlocky angle.

The lead-in document explains how the author does all of these calculations.  It seems to be a good overall approach.  It also gives a much higher value to the Chalice.  It's food for thought for some of you more theorycraft inclined out there, and I wanted to share.  Credit goes to commenter Dl3mk3, who found the spreadsheet in a post by Faelkin on the Mr. Robot forums.  I'm not sure if Faelkin is the author, nor how to contact him... but if this is your work, feel free to contact me if you'd like additional credit (or if you don't like my posting it and want me to take it down).  I think it's good work and deserves recognition.  Also, it can be helpful if you're like me and agonizing (perhaps needlessly) over your trinket choice.

What the information tells me is that the Stump of Time is pretty darned good, and the Soul Casket not as much.  I'll plan to sub the Chalice in for the Soul Casket when I go through my next round of reforges and see what kicks out.  I'm pretty confident the Chalice will be a better choice in the long run, but even if I'm wrong... it is pretty much rated the same as the Soul Casket for me on Mr Robot, and the Chalice is a higher ilevel (meaning more overall "points" by design).  I doubt I'm sacrificing anything, and it may be better.  Seems like a win-win.

Moonwell Filled.

I've faithfully done my dailies for several weeks now. I think Fuu and I can count the days we've missed on one hand. We've been good little worker bees.  Personally, I rather enjoy dailies and working toward something.  I'm sure I'll wear them out eventually, but I really don't mind how Blizz has presented this "grind."  I actually enjoy it a lot more than TB.  It always bugged me in TB that you get to the end goal, "exalted," but then you still have to grind a bunch of tokens to buy anything.  I appreciate this path a bit better, where you grind all your tokens on your way up the ladder, and then open a world of purchasable items for simple gold.  It feels more rewarding, and that counts for something.

Anyway, I've only opened the Moonwell so far.  There was some discussion in comments here last week about the Moonwell items.  I was a bit confused, as people alternated between mentioning the trinket and off hand.  I want to clarify: after filling the Moonwell, the new vendor will offer you items that include both a trinket AND an off hand.  One is the Moonwell Chalice trinket and the other is the Globe of Moonlight off hand.

This is all well and good, but the problem for me is that Mr. Robot indicates that my current gear selections - including the Soul Casket, Stump of Time, and Book of Binding Will - are better.  Thus, I did not buy anything (well, I did grab a Crimson Lasher and a Mushroom Chair).  I probably should have checked this out more beforehand, but oh well.  I'm don't think any of the other vendors hold any other possible upgrades for me.  Our resident Blacksmith is taking care of patterns... I'm in the queue.  So I guess it's not a loss or anything.

I did get to do the locket quest, which I give two thumbs up.  Good stuff.  If you get the glitch (like I did) where it says you don't meet the requirements for the quest when talking to that Druid dude, just click through his little spiel about Dire Maul and then you should be able pick up the quest.  The exclamation point doesn't always show up, but it was there for me.


Now, just a few more faithful days and I think I'll open the Armorer next, see what he has...

A Revisit to Reforging

Elkagorasa to the rescue! Last Friday there was a nice little post over at Elk's site in response to my Reforging for Dummies article. The article generated a lot of Twitter buzz, because, as we discovered, there is a moderate amount of confusion among Affliction 'locks about what to reforge. Some were thinking Mastery was better, and that Crit should be our prime candidate for expulsion (as opposed to my published negativism toward Mastery).

After some research and discussion, we verified that, for the most part, Mastery is going to be our least favored stat, though Crit is a close second. Still, my advice should hold from the article. Yet, I was unsatisfied. I didn't feel optimized, but I certainly didn't want to go and try to figure it all out manually. Surely there is a resource out there to do this for me.

Enter Elk and a Friday endorsement of the Ask Mr. Robot website that is even now linked in my resource area. Having been sucked in to the article by the piece of blog candy that sucks in all of us e-writers (yes, a link... and I'm jk, Elk is firmly ensconced in my reader anyway), I was rather intrigued by the site. I had been using WoW-heroes for many moons now, but find it woefully lacking for reforging advice.

Mr. Robot does it for you. Check out Elk's article for some wonderful screenies and a quick run down of what the site does. That's what I did. Then I went and tried it out for myself. Wonder amongst wonders, the site was not yet caught by the work filter, so double bonus. It loaded my character from the armory, populated it's lists, and even gave me an Affliction stat weighting that looked pretty decent with what I expected.

Click, click... optimize... and we're off! Mr. Robot crunched all the numbers for me and offered an optimized solution in a manner of seconds. Over the weekend, I decided to take the plunge and blindly follow the advice. It's only gold, right?

Reforging at the behest of the laudable Mr. Robot found me completely rearranging everything from gems, to enchants, to gear stats. When I was done, I had followed all of the reforging advice, all of the enchanting advice, and most of the gemming advice. (I will not cave and ruin my color matching OCD, though Mr. Robot even takes whether or not the bonus is worth it into account it seems.)

After dropping about 1k of gold to do all this (with some help from the guild bank as far as gems), I got a chance to run a heroic. Imagine my surprise when I found myself about 2k higher. 2k! From just rearranging stats. (Side note: I was trying to add Shadowflame when I could as well, so that may have slightly skewed things upward too, but I wouldn't call its addition successful because I have a compulsion against running into 8yd range. One which I didn't overcome as much as you'd think. Fwiw - I went from around 11/12k to around 13/14k.)

So I'm going to jump on the band wagon here. It doesn't get much simpler than letting a Robot crunch the numbers for you. For the casual among us, the default stat weightings seem to be grounded well enough that they'll be applicable (Elk notes that the devs make use of SimC for this). For the more hardcore theorycrafters, you can tweak until your heart's content to get the perfect weighting. After just a short weekend of trial and error, I love this site, and it's definitely improved my damage output. The initial investment to get on board was high, but I did replace one piece of gear after my initial foray and re-ran the optimizer. I was pleasantly surprised that I only had to shift around a few things. Carrying on like this should be minimal, especially since I really shouldn't have to re-gem or re-enchant, having obtained all my hit from gear reforges.

So, to you, Ask Mr. Roboto: Domo arigato!

Reforging for Dummies

Let me start this by saying that, prior to the last couple of days, I'd never really been a big fan of reforging. I hesitate to use the phrase "dumbing down," but there is such a thing as being "too customizable," in my opinion. And there's nothing the engineer in me hates more than something that is too user friendly.

Back in the day, before the fall of the Lich King, you had to be clever with your itemization, gems, and enchants. There was a rather interesting trade off where you had to decide whether to exist as much as a percentage point over the hit cap, or risk going a few scant points under. Entire posts were written debating the merits of being close to cap against being over cap. Snow fell only on uphill slopes that I, of course, walked on to get everywhere. It was a golden age of snowshoes and tough moral dilemmas.

However, what I call interesting, a lot of other people call blatantly annoying. What's worse than getting the new, awesome, super shiny upgr- Oh it has no hit on it. Damn. Burn it all to fel. Enter reforging. The salve to our irritable bowel syndrome. The panacea to our collective case of conjunctivitis.

Being Catholic, my initial reaction to change was one of intense fear and suspicion. It is something that is bred into me like an overactive sex drive and a love of the "occasional" drink, as well as an affinity for the pleated skirt. What was wrong with the old ways? Doesn't too easy = bad = sin = anger = fear = the dark side? Isn't there some sort of inherent nobility to my suffering? HAS EVERYTHING I'VE EVER DONE BEEN FOR NAUGHT?!

Okay, I'm catastrophizing. But seriously, I'm the type of person that sometimes struggles with change. I had my old system worked out and working for me, and then they had to go and gunk it up. So I did not welcome reforging with open arms.

Yet, now that I'm max level and beginning to to tweak gear for raiding, I'm starting to see it's allure. No longer am I pigeonholed into lesser gear for fear of losing my cap. No longer do I develop a twitch when the new epic trinket awards me with a whole percent of wasted hit points. I simply reforge, and then I'm done. Or unreforge (isn't that just "forge"? IDK).

The beauty of reforging is that it allows you to mess around with numbers to try and hit the cap exactly on the nose. It's still a bit challenging, as you can only get so much from each piece. In fact, it sort of becomes a game within a game as you try to work the puzzle pieces together to fit perfectly (as possible). Right now I have achieved a scant 0.04% overage. I was irrationally excited by it since, after purchasing the scarily hit free Justice Point hand upgrade, I knew full well that the loss of hit from the slightly worse piece it was replacing would be a challenge to make up. In the past, I would have just ignored the upgrade, because no way would I be able to gem/enchant swap enough to make the purchase worthwhile, sinking tons of gold into the process and probably ending off with a worse itemization than when I started.

Now, though... WAHOO REFORGING!

Being still somewhat resistant to change and extreme measures for min/maxing, I wanted to pass along my simple rules for reforging. These rules are supposed to be the "basics" when you're mucking around for hit cap. Sure you could reforge everything to the best stats possible, but I'm not dealing with that right now. I'm deriving these from my current stat progression (found in the guides up there on the left), so they may change over time. I want to try to keep it simple though...

Affliction Warlock Hit Reforging Rules of Thumb

1. If you need more Hit, try to steal it from Mastery. Mastery is the worst.
   
2. If you can't steal Mastery, get it from Crit or Haste (you can get into Haste plateaus if you want, but I'm not worrying about that yet, I'm still switching gear too frequently).
   
3. If you have too much Hit, unreforge or put some back into Crit or Haste. Forget Mastery.
   
4. ???
5. Corrupt things for Profit

Demonology Warlock Hit Reforging Rules of Thumb

1. A clever Demo lock told me we should shoot for 1996 Haste. Meander around this rating if you want.
   
2. Crit and Mastery are about on the same level, so steal from either of these for Hit.
3. Too much hit? Unreforge or metamorphosize some into Haste.
   
4. ???
5. Enslave things for Profit.

Frost Death Knight Hit/Expertise Reforging Rules of Thumb

1. Melee hit cap is 8% and Expertise cap is 25 (check your mouseovers).
2. Steal it from Haste.
3. Pop it back into Mastery. Bwuh? Yeah, Mastery is actually decent here. Or my fave, Crit, is always good.
4. ???
5. Freeze things for Profit.
   

And right now, that's the long and short of it as far as I'm concerned.

Pebble Approves!

Hey Gang!

So, back to live action! Our vacation was a great chance to unplug from all things interwebs. Which is really odd for Ful & I because we have smart phones, our jobs require us to be on the computer constantly, and we play an addictive MMO. Telling me that I can't do much more than play Plants verse Zombies for an entire week was pretty brutal. I mean, it's hard to pwn newbs when you're in the pool catchin some rays.

Anyways....

So, last night I got a chance to flex my tanking muscles in our weekly guild Heroic run. We were lucky and drew The Lost City of Tol'Vir. Which, by the way, if those stupid cat people can find it, how the hell did we lose it?! Harrison Jones must have been drunk: "Now where did I put that damn City....hic!"

So, we sauntered in, marked up the kitties, threw in the cat nip... wait... I mean the Frost Trap, and ripped it up. This place was rock solid. We downed the bosses with little issue. There was still a challenge but it wasn't eye bleeding pain. We zoned in and zoned out within an hour. It was a blast! Our clothies & hunter got a few upgrades, we all got a decent chunk of Guild XP/Rep, Faction Rep, Justice & Valor Points, and a Chaos Orb for our time spent. All and all, it felt like we had accomplished something. Something that we could have felt in Wrath long before now. Hell, by now, we would have ROFLStomped everything that Blizzard offered us and then we would all quit because we were bored out of our minds, sitting in Stormwind on our Welfare Epics on the biggest mount in the game blocking the Sun.

Cough*

Excuse me....

So, last night was the first night that I actually felt like we had mastered that Heroic. It felt really good and I believe that we've been able to hurdle the gearing issues that a few of our guildies have run into. As of right now, we have (from what I remember) four more Heroic Achievements to get for our guild. That would mean that we've, atleast, seen all of the new mechanics and all of the bosses once.

I've come to the realization: Our Small Guild could not have achieved this feat of strength individually. It was only achieved with the help of everyone collaborating and pooling there resources to assist everyone to get over the "Gear Wall". This was only possible with:

-Multiple Tailors using their cooldowns
-All unneeded Greens & blues disenchanted and donated back into the guild
-Buying Gem cuts for the masses & keeping the guild bank stockpiled
-Alchemists converting Volitle Lifes into needed Airs & Fires & making Flasks
-Blacksmiths making belt buckles that are still extremely expensive
-An ocean of Fishers catching and stuffing buckets of mats for our cooks
-A metric ton of chefs cooking up a storm for everyone's food buffs
-An extensive & organized Guild Bank full of useful mats for every walk of life (Leveling, Professions, Raiding, etc.)
-An entire guild full of people who are ready & willing to run anything with you (Dailies, heroics, regulars, Achievements, etc.)
-Alts that have turned into mules for professions that we're using for Guild Mains (Poor Abigora only sees the Jewelcrafter Daily & the occasional Mt. Hyjal to pwn some elementals)

I could sit here & swoon all day about my guild and how incredibly awesome they all are but I wont because, well, that's annoying. <3

TL;DR The New Changes to Guild Stuff is Awesome!

Pebble Approves!

yeah, I'll bet you were trying to figure out where the title came from.... whelp, there you have it.

Question for you dear reader: Has your guild changed & evolved with the introduction of the Guild Achievements? Has it proven to be a good or a bad thing?

<3 Your Friendly Neighborhood Fuubaar

Affliction Warlock Pre-Raid Shopping List

I was able to do some shopping over the weekend.  Basically, I went to each rep QM and made a list of what was good for 'locks, then checked off what I either had covered or had already purchased.  It seems to me like rep gearing is the way to go, as I'm not too thrilled with the Justice Points offerings.  There are some decent pieces, but I seem to like the rep gear better.  Valor Point stuff is good, of course, but it's going to take a while to build those up with my current heroic success rate (few and far between).  Focusing on rep gear basically lets me face smash against heroics, not worry too much about building up JP or VP, and still gear up steadily.  In any case, I wanted to put the list up on here in case it is helpful, and for my own reference.  Definitely let me know if I missed some items. 

Some caveats: There was a good comment yesterday that mentioned PvP gear might be a good alternate route into heroics and raiding.  With the boost to a Tol Barad win, you get almost a piece each win.  Maybe every two.  So you can upgrade quickly.  I'm not really doing TB, so I didn't take that into account.  I'll probably use that route on my DK when I get her to max.  Also, I'm not looking at heroic drops in this list, only stuff you can buy.  Drops will come and if I get lucky, then I can just check these off my list.  Sure I may have it happen where I get a drop right after buying something, such is life, but I don't want to depend on drops.  I don't have the time to run them enough for that to be a valid gearing path.

With that being said, here's the list.  The faction is on top with the location of the QM in parenthesis.  Then the item below with the rep level in parenthesis, and perhaps a comment from me.  Bada bang, bada bing:

Pre-Rad Purchaseable Items

• Hyjal (Nordrassil) - Will get tabard last.
• Arcanum (Rev) - The rest of their stuff has spirit, so we don't need much from here.
• Wildhammer (Thundermar)
• Gloves (Hon) - Got these already, good chunk of hit.
• Ring (Rev)
• Neck (Ex)
• Therazanes (Throne of Therazanes) - Doing dailies here first, then WH.
• Lesser Shoulder (Hon) - Got this easily.
• Ring (Rev) - Have this.
• Greater Shoulder (Ex)
• Ramkahen  (Ramkahen) - Using my tabard for this first, feet are my worst slot right now.
• Chest (Rev) - Don't need this as I was fortunate to come across and epic drop: Dizze's Whirling Robe
• Feet (Ex)
• Earthen Ring (Silver Tide Hollow)
• Helm (Hon) - Got this, good for hit.  I used an old meta gem cuz the new ones are so expensive.
• Cloak (Rev) - And this.
• Gloves (Ex)
• Baraden's Wardens (Tol Borad)
• Insidious Staff (Rev)
• Stump of Time (Ex)
• Justice Points (Stormwind)
• Gloves (1650) - Better than the WH early rep reward, but no hit!  Probably will not buy these.
• Helm (2200) - Basically a straight upgrade to the ER rep reward.  This is definitely on my list.
• Off-hand (950) - I have always liked MH/OH better, but am using a staff right now.  If I get a good MH drop, this is pretty cheap and good.
• Legs (2200) - I have Narkall's Leggings (a quest reward!) and these are a decent upgrade, but I'll go helm first I think.
• Neck (1250) - I got this right away because it has a good chunk of hit.  Great to get to that heroic hit cap early.
• Chest (2200) - I got that epic, so this is not needed for me.
• Shoulders (1650) - I have another decent quest reward here in Blight-Lifter's Mantle, so I'll be holding off on this one.
• Belt (1650) - This was one of my earliest heroic drops with Stratosphere Belt, so I'm set in this slot.

HAOW: 4.0.3a Affliction Warlock Glyphs and Rotation

So we've already covered speccing, pet choice, and stat priority.  Next we need to talk glyphing and rotating.  This final installment on How to Afflict Others with Warlockery will cover the art of slapping stickers on your spellbook, as well as how to spin in circles with enough intensity to cause others to puke (no easy feat, I assure you).

The Glyphs
Previously, I had been running with the BoA, Haunt, and Corruption in my Prime slots.  Felhunter, Soul Swap, and Shadowflame contributed in the Major area.  Unending Breath, Souls, and Drain Soul rounded out my minors.  You'll see I made one change after running with these for a week, but otherwise I like my original choices.  Here's the breakdown.

Prime

• Glyph of Haunt - Chosen for the simple spell damage increase.  If you're specced Affliction, this one is a no-brainer as you should be frequently using Haunt.
• Glyph of Bane of Agony -BoA should be our main bane. Longer running means bigger ticks at the end and more damage.  This is good stuff.
• Glyph of Corruption - The extra Nightfall procs are only going to minimally help your DPS (to the tune of maybe 50 more DPS at 80).  My alternative here would be Lash of Pain.  Thanks to Poneria for pointing out my goof (LoP is Prime not Major), I will have to consider swapping this in here whenever I go Succy.  Totally worth it, as long as you have your Succubus out.  Luckily, glyph swapping is pretty simple and painless these days.

Majors

• Glyph of Soul Swap - A total must have for any Affliction Warlock.  Soul swap makes us beastly on trash and any fight where you need to swap targets.  Being able to not remove your DoTs when you swap is a great DPS bonus, plus incredibly useful.  It could be bad if you switched early and something didn't die for lack of DoTs.  This alleviates that concern as well. 
• Glyph of Shadowflame - I got this to be able to potentially slow the Valks in the LK fight.  We haven't gotten back to it yet after the forced patch reset, so I can't report much.  I don't see a whole lot I'd rather have in this slow though, and I like the utility of a spell we should be throwing in every now and then.  If you don't like this choice, Life Tap isn't a bad glyph, it's just that I haven't really found myself having any problems with mana right now and I'd rather have something useful.
• Glyph of Fear - Made a change here.  With CC being key in heroics, I think every Warlock needs to be running with glyph.  It makes Fear as good as a Sheep, and along with a nice focus macro makes you the cock of the walk.  Definitely worth the slot.

Minors

• Glyph of Unending Breath - To swim quicker I guess.
• Glyph of Eye of Kilrogg - It'd be nice to have an eye in the sky?
• Glyph of Drain Soul - Doesn't hurt...  See a theme here?  Yep, warlock minors still suck completely.  None are really gonna help your game, so just pick what you'll use.
  

The Rotation
Now that you've got your stickers on your spell book, let's bust open the blasted thing!  As we've come to expect, Affliction Warlockery will continue to be dominated by rotational thinking.  Some classes may rely on reactions to procs, but we are all about premeditated murder on this side of the spectrum.  If you've made it this far, you probably already know that aff'locks are for dots.   That's what we do and we do it well.  So here's the carousel of disease.

Before you do anything, make sure your buff yourself.  All 'locks should be popping on their Fel Armor, but you'll also want to make sure your Soul Link is active.  All specs have it now, so make sure it's up.  Good stuff.

Above 25% Health, Single Target
Corruption > Bane of Agony > Unstable Affliction > Haunt > Shadowbolt x2 &gt Curse of the Elements.  Spam SB until a refresh of each disease is needed (monitor them individually with a DoT timer.  Fortex or Xperl is great for this).  Life tap sparingly.  You don't have to worry about clipping for anything but BoA, so ideal refresh time is to start casing somewhere in the last two seconds to make sure you don't get any drop off.

After the initial set up, there are a few cooldowns to watch for as well.  First, we want to throw in an Improved Soul Fire whenever Soulburn is off cooldown, letting us cast it instantly.  ISF doesn't stack with heroism-like effects, so try to use it outside of those times.  Second, we want to use Demon Soul when it is off cooldown as well.  Finally, you may want to use Fel Fire to refresh your UA cast.  I use it exclusively.  There is some debate whether it's better to use FF or UA for a full refresh.  I fall firmly in the FF-user category.  When all is said an done, I think it provides me with better DPS.  When maths are done, I think it comes out to about the same with a slight skew toward UA. 

A lot of folks will want you to open up with a Haunt and SBx2 combo to get your SE and ISB stacks up early.  I am not one of those people, and here's why.  With the addition of Soul Swap to our arsenal, I believe it is in our best interest to get our "Big 3" up as soon as possible.  That way, if something starts to die more quickly than expected, you can inhale a swap and be ready to go.

The aforementioned folks will try to convince you that buffless ticks on your DoTs equates to a DPS loss.  I have my doubts about this.  Sure in a theoretical environment, this would be the case.  I mean if you just add everything up, I'm with you.  But often starting out with a nuke is a bad idea.  Maybe we'll crit and draw aggro.  Additionally, aren't we missing full ticks of DoTs while we're casting?  It would seem to me that if we slap up the DoTs quickly, it's safer from a Soul Swap perspective, and it'd be at least a wash in DPS as you'll get ticks while casting the other crap.  I don't think a simulation can take things like "am I moving into position" or "is this going to die quickly" into account.  And once everything is up, we're all the same.  The order does not matter.  There are no more rolling bonuses.  All of the spell buffs are percentage based modifiers which apply to every tick individually.  The only things you need to make sure to do before you start a rotation are your normal pre-fight buffs and trinket popping.

So my recommendation is to throw up the Big 3 first if they're not already there as part of a swap.  That's what makes the most sense to me  After that, I want to get Haunt and SE rolling.  This is when an early Nightfall proc is a sweet addtion.  Then, finally, I'll pop CotE on something.  Usually I try to put it on a later target, since with the talent Jinx it works as an AoE debuff now.  The less you have to worry about refreshing CotE, the better.  On a boss, just pop it on him.

After you get your stuff set up, you should be able to just watch a dot timer and refresh as needed (Corruption should always be refreshed by Haunt, but if you let it fall off, then make sure you get it back up).  Even if I were trying really hard, I realize I would never be able to perfectly line my spells up.  Not matter how I slice it, I'm still going to end up watching timers for each spell individually, so I don't bother with a castsequence macro.  I mean, what if fire spawns under me, then it's all gone to shit unless I sit still and literally DIAF (or am really good at macros I guess).  Simply using timers makes sense to me, but feel free to swap up the order as fits your playstyle.  What matters is that you use all of the spells mentioned above and keep them ticking the best you can with minimal down time.  How you execute best is up to you to decide.  (I can definitely offer tips and suggestions if you want to email or comment!)

For life tap, you want to use it sparingly.  Basically, the goal is to life tap only enough so that at the very end of a fight you're Out Of Mana (without having any downtime due to OOM).  Any extra life taps are lost DPS to Global Cool Down.  When I'm going to tap, I try to weave it in right after I cast a Haunt refresh.  The benefit to tapping right after casting Haunt is that you'll generally beat the fly time for the haunt spell and thus get a nice little heal to offset some of your tap.  Not freaking out healers or wasting the health regen is a good thing in my book.  I almost never succeed in the gold standard of OOM at the end, but I'm not ending over 50% either.  We have a ton more mana now, so with replenishment and such, it's been completely reasonable to never life tap.

Curse choice used to be a problem, but since we now can do a Bane and a Curse, it's not so much of an issue.  Use CotE and BoA, period, unless another 'lock is taking care of CotE, then you're off the hook.  Affliction talents buff BoA enough that it'll be better for us than Bane of Doom.  It's really this simple.  Also, don't forget you have Curse of the Tongues if you're on Crowd Control duty for something like Faction Champions (remember that? /shudder).  It's a good one to remember for any PvP like shenanigans.  Oh, and one more time: absolutely do NOT clip BoA when you use it.  You've probably heard it a million places, but the last tick does almost half of the spell's damage, so you'd be missing out on a lot and it still clips.  Just try to time your refresh for when it's over.  It'd be better to have a bit of downtime for that spell than to clip it.  (The other dots are not so prissy, but BoA must still run it's course prior to a refresh).

Under 25% Health 
The rotation stays the same except at this point you'll want to start using Drain Soul instead of your SB filler.  Don't worry too much about keeping the Improved Shadow Bolt buff up either.  DS will be doing a hell-ton of damage if your other dots are up.  So keep 'em up (DS should also help by refreshing Corr and UA).  The only caveat here is that if the baddie is about to die in the next 21 seconds, you shouldn't refresh BoA as it won't have time to run it's course.  Other than that, keep up the Big 3 and Haunt (which should refresh Corr and SE), and CotE for sure. It's also good if you can try to time your refresh casts to be immediately after a Drain Soul tick.  Just look for the abnormally large damage number on your screen (or get an addon that helps you. I don't use one, but suggestions welcome in comments).

Multiple Target Situations
If there are three or more targets, you should be thinking "Area of Effect" spells.  Now, this hinges a lot on your tank and the difficulty of the mobs.  If aggro is a problem, or if it is deemed best to down one target at a time (maybe CC is being used, maybe the leader wants a quick burn, whatever), then we'll just do our normal single target rotation (with Soul Swap!).  The difference in this case would be that you might be able to get away with throwing corruption up on the other targets, depending on the situation (the extra chance at nightfall procs is fun).  If you've specced into the Seed of Corruption talent, a Soulburn is a great (and effective) way to do that.

Also, proper target switching can really help your DPS as well.  Back in the day (which was a Tuesday), when people used to use CC, it was key to know when to switch targets.  Switch too soon and the first guy might not die, or the tank might not be ready and you'll find yourself munching mud.  Switch too late and you're gimping your DPS and taking longer to kill things (which I guess, given the name of the blog, isn't all bad, but we still want to do our job the best we can).  Being dependent on damage over time spells, Warlocks need to be highly cognizant of when to switch.  There is no hard and fast rule, but the goal should be that your dots would have started dropping off the instant the baddie hits 0%.   Thus, if it's got like 5% health left, dropping fast, and you don't have anything to refresh, you'll probably want to get set up on the next target.

Soul Swap makes switching a lot easier now.  With one quick, instant click we inhale our Big 3 to exhale onto the next target (starting them at full duration).  This really levels out our DPS into something respectable on trash and add fights.  All around, the spell is just amazing, especially with the glyph.  Switching targets used to count as downtime, but no more!  Now it's just a chance to get a free DoT refresh with a bonus set.  The ease of multiple target ramp-up now makes it more imperative than ever to watch out threat though.  You don't want to be that guy. 

Some of this may seem like a lost art to old warlock hands, since in the Wrath world (... of warcraft), a vast majority of your muli-target pulls were simple AoE groups.  Still, I wanted to start out with the more controlled, rarer multi-target situations because it's going to become increasingly important for to know. But lets be honest: we still love huge baysplosions of damage from straight AoE spells.  And for Affliction Warlocks, we have two main choices: Seed of Corruption or Rain of Fire. 

Seed of Corruption tends to be the better damaging spell for us, but not as easy to control.  The explosion area of seed can often reach outside of, say, a Paladin's consecrate and cause you to get unwanted aggro.  Thus, our AoE spell choice should be highly dependent on the situation.  If the tank clearly has everything locked down and you're not going to get stragglers, definitely make use of seed.  It will explode all over the tank-led dance party and cause you much glee.  Don't forget to toss in a Soulburn + SoC near the beginning to get Corruption up on all the targets too.  Great times, huge numbers!

However, if you have other adds wandering around, not clearly in the tank's control, use RoF.  It's sized to perfectly fit on top of a consecrate (or DnD), so if you're running with one of those tanks, you should be able to just rain on top of their aura with little fear of pulling the mobs off.  You may have to be careful not to just spam if your gear is significantly better than the tank, but, for the most part, the aura abilities of a tank can outstrip our RoF.  If you're running with a Warrior or Druid tank, just try to center your RoF on them as they lack for visual cues.

If you happen to be close enough, throw in a Shadowflame as well.  Again, be wary of aggro pull, but when you get a chance to go wild... man, we can put up some good numbers.  

Summary
So it's simple: In good AoE situations, use SoC (tossing in a SB + SoC).  In shaky AoE situations (where you want more control), use RoF.  Both will yield solid damage results.  If you've got a crazy situation where AoE is probably a bad idea, don't be afraid to switch to your single target rotation (using Soul Swap).  After all, a live 'lock has far better DPS than a dirt napper.  For single targets, get your dots up, s-bolt spam, and refresh as needed.  Make sure to the big 3: Corr, BoA, and UA, plus Haunt, and CotE.  Under 25%, switch from SB filler to Drain Soul.  Sho'nuff you'll be toppin' da meters (or at least doing your job). 

As always, questions/comments are welcome and I'll do my best to clarify anything I may have failed at in this attempt at 'splainin.

HAOW: 4.0.3a Aff'lock Pet Choice And Stat Priority

At this point we've covered speccing, and will soon cover glyphing and rotating. That leaves us really with two remaining fundamentals to cover what I would call the basics: Pet Choice and Stat Priority. With so many minions at our disposal, it's important we know how to use them in the correct situation to maximize our effectiveness.  Also, it's imperative that we understand what changed with stats in 4.0 if we have any hope of gearing correctly come Cataclysm.

Pet Choice Guide
As usual when creating guides, I find myself wading through the EJ forums to see what they've mathified.  And, also as usual, the choice is hardly as clear cut as some might have you believe.  In fact, there seems to be little in the way of new information.  DPS-wise, minions appear to have been left relatively in tact by the 4.0 patch.  Before we get into that, let me start with a baseline explanation on how I approach pets.  Copied from posts before, here's my mantra:

Do I always have the "best" pet out? No. Some nights I just run with what's simple so I don't have to think about it. At most, warlock pets (as affliction) are only going to give you a couple hundred extra DPS over the course of a raid night. It's nothing to scoff at, but it's not absolutely vital either. I like to think of it along the same lines as bringing the right elixirs or buff foods. They are things that some would call a "must" to every raid, and they certainly help, but you really have to know your class, spec, and rotation first before getting the most out of those littler bonuses. It depends a lot on the seriousness of your raiding/playstyle.

This guide is going to focus on the pet choices from the standpoint of a the Affliction Warlock. If you are thinking demo/destro, you'll have to look elsewhere (though some of this may help you as well). What this means is that we're looking at the following choices of pets: Succubus, Felhunter, Imp, and Voidwalker.  The Infernal and Doomguard are still with us, but they don't replace a pet, come our for 45 seconds, and share a 10 minute cooldown.  Thus, they're almost more of a trinket pop than anything else right now.

We can immediately eliminate one of those choices right off the bat: the Voidwalker. While this pet can be quite useful solo'ing, it is basically a tanking pet, not a DPS pet. It really has no place being out in a raid unless in extreme/strange situations. (I personally have seen a warlock take it upon himself to VW pull every mob in a run, but I wouldn't recommend it).

I'd like to find some concrete numbers that compare the pets, but everything I've seen so far is highly dependent on what talents you're taking and other details.  As such, here is what I believe the hierarchy of pure DPS to be, highest listed first:

• Infernal - First for AoE situations.
  
• Doomguard - First for Single Target situations.
• Succubus - Especially if you pick up the low hanging fruit (talent) in the Demo tree.
• Felhunter -However, remember what he may lack in pure DPS... he does provide a buff.
• Imp - Untalented for me.  When this guy is talented as in a Destro build, he gets a lot better, but I'm inclined the let the Destro's have him. 
  

I mentioned about the Infernal and Doomguard, but I continued to list them above just to give an idea of where they stand.  For their short duration, they will provide a significant DPS boost, and they won't replace our regular minions.  It's really a win-win.  Thus, we must know when to call them forth. I find it helps to think of them like poppin' a healthstone. You're generally only going to get to do it once a fight, so you want to save it for those critical times when you're trying to beat an enrage timer or could really use the extra boost.  Using it during a Heroism: perfect.  Makes the decision simple.  If you don't have a Heroism, just use your big warlocky brain.  Try to make sure you bring them out so that they get the full 45 seconds of fight time, but otherwise, it's always going to be a boost. The cast is instant now, so you don't really have to worry too much about mucking up your rotation.

Trick of the trade: When the first AoE hits for the Infernal, it can stun non-immune mobs. This can be quite useful in situations. Think last wave of the Halls of Reflection.  The Lich King is breathing down your backs and you're, literally, up against a wall.  You've got adds all over the place and your tank is probably crapping themselves. You drop this big guy right on the group, stunning them, damaging them, and giving the little boost your group needed to victory, escaping the LK's clutches one more.

For the regular minions, I generally run with the Felhunter. With the addition of Demon Soul to our arsenal, I've found that this pet synergizes the best with my Affliction playstyle.  I believe the Succubus may still take top honors in a pure math contest, but in my comparisons, the Felpup is better.  Since the Demon Soul benefit for your pup is a straight bonus to DoTs (as opposed to a bonus to shadowbolts), I think it makes sense.  I'm probably not the best S-bolt weaver, but, by the Shadow, my DoTs shall run uninterrupted!  Thus, you can consider me a Felhunter guy.  The Succy can be useful for solo'ing with her CC utility, which I've made extensive use of, but if I'm in a dungeon or raid, the Felpup is coming out. 

Bringing up the rear is the Imp. This guy does two things that may make you consider using him. First, he'll give everyone some bonus health. This does not seem to stack with the Warrior buff, but sometimes is worth having when you're sans Warriors. Secondly, he's ranged. Sometimes, your melee pets just aren't going to cut it (aka Onyxia air phase), so you need a ranged buddy. That's when you should think Imp.

It's important to note that the Improved Imp talents do quite a bit to help the little guy's DPS. I am not personally specced that way (it's a Destro lock thing), so if you are or want to be, you will probably have to modify my advice a bit. I'm not sure he overtakes a talent Succubus, but I haven't gotten at any concrete numbers yet.

Also, recall that all pets are "free" now.  No longer do we need to watch our shards when having "learning" nights, still only to be left at the whims of our Imp.  Hoorah!

And that's that. Quick recap for those of you in the cheap seats:

Pet Choice Hierarchy

1. Infernal - When you want a quick AoE boost.
2. Doomguard - When you want a quick single target boost.
3. Felhunter - When you aren't running with a Mage and a Priest, and if you find it works best with you Affliction playstyle.
4. Succubus - When your raid doesn't need your buffs, especially if you talent/glyph it.
   
5. Imp - If you need ranged or you decide to talent for it.

Stat Priority
The second part of today's article is going to focus on Affliction Warlock stat priorities.  This is meant to guide your gear selection criteria.  I'm not big on gear lists, as I usually just make the best of what comes to me (though I will sometimes pass along my emblem purchase wish-list).  If you're the type that likes to farm an instance to get that Best In Slot item, then by all means, have at it.  Where I'm playing, I can get by with smart choices on not so best in slot gear, and preform admirably.  A simple understanding of stats is really all you need to decide on just about anything.

I maintain that the easiest way to keep gearing simple is to be sure you understand the weights of each stat as it goes towards our DPS. You don't have to do tons of research to break this one down. In fact, I'll give you the link that got me started down the road to simplicity. Nibuca, who has long been my favorite affliction warlock did the gruntwork for us many moons ago. You can find that particular article here. It's one of my faves (still and still).

She does a wonderful job of explaining things, and I have found using a similar method to be very effective. The simplest way to get started, in my opinion, is to get the addon Pawn, use "good" values, and, for the most part, trust the numbers that it kicks out.  The addon even lets you compare two pieces. However, I never want to advocate blind usage of an addon, and we should strive to at least have a basic understanding of what's going on, even if we use an addon to make life easier.

In that spirit, lets look at what the stats are really telling us. Pawn basically allows the user to add a weight to each stat, so it can calculate how they go together and give you a simple value for comparison. Obviously, different stats will weigh in differently for how they effect our DPS. Ignoring the weights for everything except for major stats, we get the follow weight relationships.

Warlock_Affliction_PreRaid   Sta=0.0262  Int=2.9937  SP=2.4187  Hit=1.5690  Crit=0.9617  Haste=1.2767  Mastery=0.9037

I pulled the numbers from the EJ simulation thread found here for 4.0.3a.  The author indicates it's from a "pre-raid" geared Affliction Warlock*, and this was the simulation run that most closely mimics what I believe to be my spec.  These numbers are mostly arbitrary, in that it's not so important what they are, but whats vital is how they relate to each other. Therefore, we can set a simple priority ranking of stats that looks like this:

Hit (until capped) > Intellect > Spellpower > Haste > Crit > Mastery >> Stamina.

Recall that spell hit cap is 17% raw.  Mousing over the stat in your character screen now not only gives you percent, but also lets you know what your misses will look like at the next three levels (important for raiding).  For Affliction Warlocks, we want 17% straight up.  That'll let us hit everything we need to hit.  For non-warlocks, melee hit cap is 8%, fwiw.  Everything after spell hit cap is completely wasted.  Not like defense or other "capped" stats where it's still kinda useful just marginally less.  Wasted.  As in, you get no more benefit.  Therefore, a good thing to do is try and swap in gems and enchants, or reforge to supplement your gear and "overstack" as little hit as possible.

It's interesting to note how far Spellpower has fallen.  It used to be our best stat.  Now, you want to hit up Int (and all the stats in between) first.  Also note that Int is nearly double Crit for Aff'locks.   Thus, if you're looking at two pieces and one bumps you up by 1 Int but the other bumps you up by 2 Crit, you would get nearly the same DPS gain out of each piece.  That's a very cut down example, but it illustrates what we're looking at I think. An addon like Pawn makes this very simple, but we can also keep in mind the relative weights and make an informed decision on our own. It make take a little more work, but at least we know what's going on.

Haste is a neat case too.  DoTs have changed how they use haste so that now you have certain "plateaus" of increased damage.  The scaling goes up in a stair-step look rather than a smooth line.  Check out this great post from Cynwise for a lot more (wonderful) information on this phenomenon.  The short version, though, is we'll probably shoot for a certain amount and tweak other stats once we get just over that stair step.  I'll try to follow up with that number when it solidifies.  For now, you're not going to having anything bad happen by stacking haste as usual.

Finally, it's important to note that Spirit does not show up on that list.  It is now, officially, worthless to us Warlocks.  Dump it.  Regem it.  Reforge it.  Do whatever you need to do to get rid of it.  Sure it might help with mana regen, but due to stacking Int we should have a huge pool, and we always have Life Tap.  Spirit stacking is to Warlocks what melee attacking is to Hunters.  Just don't do it.

You can apply the same principles to talents and gem slots. If they increase a certain stat, you can check out the ratings and compare your trade-offs. I don't have specific numbers for talents, but gems are a bit easier to compare (Pawn does this for you based on what's in-game): you just need to figure out what gem you'd like to put in, and then you'll know the stats you're looking at, and it's back to a basic stat comparison.

I would certainly recommend proper usage of the Pawn addon as well as a perusal of Nibuca's wonderful article, but the point here is that we obtain a basic understanding of what is really going on with this sort of breakdown.  Thus, we should always be able to find our way in the dark.

If you understand the stat weights, it's simple enough to come up with your own "shopping list" for the emblem gear.  I can often be found at the vendors, comparing the boosts from different pieces.  It's not uncommon to find that higher ilvl gear isn't as great as what you already have because of how you're doing your stats.  That's pretty much how I felt about the entire T9 set.  Where'd the haste love go?

Got any questions or comments about these two topics?  Hit me up in comments and I'll do my best to respond, even if it's quite lengthy. 

*Note: Better gear changes stat weights because of diminishing returns and other miscellanea. You'd really have to download, install, and run your own Simulationcraft to get your personal, perfect numbers. I don't do this, but rather "ballpark" it to try and make an intelligent decision. This is also why I don't blindly rely on Pawn or BiS lists: to some extent gear choices will not always work the same for everyone, though we can pretty much all end up in the same place.

Worgen Druid Starter Kit

One of my concrete plans for Cataclysm is to roll a new toon. I mentioned it in passing yesterday, but I wanted to talk about it more in-depth today.  The decision is simple, obviously, and certainly not unique.  They're going back and redoing all of the early areas, so of course a lot of folks are going to want to experience that.  I'm no exception.  I've never been a big alt guy (I only have two max level toons in 3+ years of playing), but give me fresh content and I'll give it a shot.

As an aside: I do have several low level toons of each different race just to get a feel for the starting areas, but I never stuck with it once I hit the spot where I was revisiting areas.

In any case, I was easily convinced by the promises of Cataclysm to roll and alt.  The question then becomes: what class?  I could debate over race too, but with new races being added, it made that easy.  If you're Alliance, of course you want to at least try a Worgen. 

Back to class.  At first, I really thought I wanted to play a Shaman, but that isn't an option for Worgen.  One of the keys for my future alt was that it have the option to heal.  I have a straight DPS toon in my 'lock and a tank option in my DK; a healer option would round out my corps.  My current toons also represent a clothie and a plate wearer.  Really, in the absence of a Shammy option, leather seemed the way to go, which obviously meant Druid.  Simply, it was the class that met all my criteria. 

So, once I'd decided on rolling a Druid, it only made sense to investigate what sort of heirloom gear I could deck it out with in order to expedite the leveling process.  Not that I don't want to see the sights, just that I don't want to have to worry about experience gains.  I should get more than enough with a 20% boost.  Plus, I'm not doing this for the challenge of leveling or anything.  Being a bit OP isn't a big deal.

My planning consisted of two parts.  First, I asked Fuu to generate me a shopping list of heirloom spellpower leather gear.  She'd already done the heirloom thing, so it was familiar territory for her.  Plus, she's a gear list champ.  (Tanks... amirite?).  Second, I threw up a few questions I had yesterday to you, dear readers.  I got some great responses, so thanks for all that. Based on feedback, here's what I see to be the popular wisdom out there right now, and/or some tips that could help you if you're thinking of going a similar route.

• I'm going to level with as much of a balance spec as I can muster with the new tree system.  I will give priority to healing, but look to enhance my spell DPS as well.  Conventional wisdom is that Feral is probably the easiest leveling spec, but balance isn't bad either.  It's important to remember that my leveling is predominantly in a duo with Fuu; I rarely solo.  Thus, it won't be as bad for me to level a healer as if I were trying to do go it alone.  I think eventually I'd like to dual spec feral/resto, but that's not going to be for many moons.
• If you're going to the spellpower route, it may make more sense for you to pick up the cloth heirloom gear.  It's still got great SP stats and can be reused for a lot of the other caster toons.  I'm going leather because cloth bores me.  I've done the cloth thing, and like I said, I'm not really an alt guy anyways.  I doubt I will be rolling more toons with the intention of taking them to max level.
• I'm still not sure what happens to heirloom gear after they consolidate our currencies.  From what I've heard, heirlooms will clearly still exists, and probably be available for the new "Justice Points" or whatever they end up being called.  The issue I have here is what about things like Crusader's Seals vs. Emblems?  Right now you can get the same gear for different prices.  They're roughly equivalent in effort, but how does that get reconciled when the currency fix gets implemented.  How are Stone Keepers Shards taken into effect?  I'm worried that I'll get a bunch of gold from these things, but then have none of the currency needed to heirloom my baby Druid.  Thus, I'm trying to buy now, at least insofar as what I already have in the bank.  
• If you fish or PvP a lot: don't forget there is gear available through those routes.  I'm focusing primarily on PvE (though I imagine there will be some BG runs).  I will get a piece of BG gear just because I have the Stone Keeper's Shards, but otherwise I'm not too concerned about it.  I'm not a max level fisherman anywhere either (my 'lock is somewhere around 400), but if you are you can net yourself a nice heirloom ring.
• Don't forget the enchants!  I haven't gotten there yet, as I'm just now shopping for the gear, but you can get some solid enchants on any and all of your heirloom pieces.  
• Rumor has it that there will be a couple new heirloom pieces as part of the guild leveling system in Cataclysm.  Keep your eye open for those when it drops.  I believe my entire guild intends to re-roll, but we're smaller too, so who knows what this will make available to me.  I'm certainly not switching guilds, but I'm sure there will be a lot of pure leveling guilds popping up or reviving in the early days of Cataclysm.  Look for one of those if you're interested. 

Some good tips, and pretty much all thanks to some great comments left here yesterday (I did go back and try to look a few things up as well, but I think everyone was pretty much spot on).  I'd like to leave you with the shopping list that Fuu provided me.  I've split it up based on current currency and have bolded what I intend to purchase.  My budget is 900 Stone Keeper shards, 120 Emblems of X, and 40 Champion's Seals.  That's just what I happen to have on me, and I don't really want to farm for a complete set of heirlooms.  Just wanted to use what I have.  Because of how it worked out, I will be farming up 20 more Champion's Seals, just so I can make good on those and use the other currency elsewhere.  I think you'll see it makes sense, and will give a solid leather spellpower starting kit.

Shopping List provided by Fuu:

Stone Keeper's Sharded Gear

• Leather SP shoulders - Lasting Feralheart Spaulders - 200 Shards
• Staff SP + Hit - Grand Staff of Jordan - 325 Shards
• PVP Trinket - Inherited Insignia of the Alliance - 250 Shards (for the heck of it... I mean I have 900)

Emblematic Gear

• Leather SP shoulders - Preened Ironfeather Shoulders - 40 Emblems of Heroism
• Leather SP Chest - Preened Ironfeather Breastplate - 40 Emblems of Heroism
• Staff SP + Crit - Dignified Headmaster's Charge - 65 Emblems of Heroism
• SP Trinket - Discerning Eye of the Beast - 50 Emblems of Heroism
• Haste Trinket - Swift Hand of Justice - 50 Emblems of Heroism

Champion of Clubbin' Baby Seal Form Gear

• Leather SP shoulders - Preened Ironfeather Shoulders - 60 Seals
• Leather SP Chest - Preened Ironfeather Breastplate - 60 Seals
• Staff SP + Crit - Dignified Headmaster's Charge - 95 Seals
• SP Trinket - Discerning Eye of the Beast - 75 Seals
• Haste Trinket - Swift Hand of Justice - 75 Seals