Achievements: Evil or Glorious

Well as you all know, Fulguralis & I hit 80 a while ago. We are patiently waiting for our guild to catch up. I have made sure that the moment someone says, “Who wants to run [insert Heroic here]?” I can reply, “Ow Ow Pick me!” I am currently at my Defense cap for Heroics and currently working on more +Stamina gear Blah Blah Blah…

Anyways, so minus the instance time Carry the 2 = I have a lot of free time on my hands. I am finding that my ADD is taking over and the journey around the world has begun.

/ADD Begin

OK, here’s how this all started. I’ve always wanted a title on Fuu and since the achievement hit the fan, I knew how to get one: Merrymaker! I saw the list of objectives that must be accomplished: Kiss some Bros, Find Metzen the dumb@#& Reindeer, Dance with Ful in my cute Snowman outfit, bake some cookies for the kids. Wait… WHAT!? I haven’t lvled cooking since I left the starting zone. ZOMG, how am I going to pull this off? To make the highest recipe for this achievement, you will need 325 cooking; Game Plan. There have to be power lvling guides out there to help me with this. I’ve always heard that it’s very cheap to lvl cooking with fishing, so let’s start there.

I did end up finding the perfect guide for me so I wanted to link it if anyone else was ever in the same position or just wanted to learn more about fishing http://www.elsanglin.com/ Going from lvl 50 to lvl 325, I think I spent around 100g including the pole, lures and spices. I worked on this accomplishment for around four days. Not too shabby.

Finally, with my new title over my head and my new skillz that killz, why stop now? I want to be able to fish in Northrend as well. I’ve become a fishing monster Grrrrrrr! Shhh, you’ll scare away the fish.

What I’ve found is that these achievements have given me an excuse to explore completely different aspects of the game that I never thought I would find myself doing. I even participated in my very first BootyBay Fishing contest. Of course, I didn’t win but I got to see the ruthless aspect of fishing. Thank the Lord I’m on a Carebear server :)

What have you found yourself doing since the achievements went live? Is it something that you would have never done before? Are you quietly collecting cute little non-combat pets and not telling anyone? Your secrets safe with me ;) Tell me what you’ve been doing with your spare time and maybe you’ll win the "Cool" Award.

PS: Isn’t that guy creepy? I wouldn’t want that guy in my kitchen.

Warlock Bugs and DK Macro

I realize I seem to link an awful lot around here, but I like to give credit where credit is due without regurgitating other's posts. Also, nearly all of my information is gathered from blogs in general, since many of the main research sites are blocked at my work. This equates to mucho linkage and difficulty providing an original twist. Or, at least, coming up with original posts that aren't random stories and pictures of personal exploits. For that, I apologize, but I will also continue to do it. Chances are, if you're reading this, you're not here for my shining insights anyways, but rather to grin at my various idiosyncrasies. Woot, big word.

In any case, in keeping with that tradition here at KES, I'd like to link the MC yet again. I love her work and the way she lays the info out without being preachy. Plus, good Warlock blogs are in short supply nowadays so I'm gonna spread the love on thick if I can :-). In any case, she does a wonderful round up of the warlock bug fixes coming our way.

I don't have much to add other than this may entice me to drop Immolate from my rotation again. I'd noticed some odd behavior with it and had just written it off to being scatterbrained or glitchy. However, what I was seeing would be best explained by the bug they're fixing, so I guess that it was, indeed, what I was experiencing. Thus, Immolate is back on my bad side. Add that to the fact that I really don't want to have to worry about clipping on another spell and the merely marginal DPS gains, and you get a picture of a spell that can safely be dropped without too much grinding of teeth. I tried to like the fire, I really did, but I guess I'm shadow to the core.

Immolate, you are the weakest DoT, good bye.

Other than that stupid spell, I see that Corruption may have been screwed up as well. I'm hoping the fix fot that will bump my DPS a bit as Corr accounts for a large chunk of DPS and the everlasting affliction method of refreshing is my bread and butter. If you're using the set-and-forget method of Dotting, this should be a welcome fix.

After reading all that though, I still fail to see a true aid package for Warlocks. Unfortunately, I think we're still going to be average DPS'ers and struggle to put up big numbers. That makes me sad, but what can we do? Maybe I'll send my imp to live with a Blizz developer for a bit. I haven't been using him since the Wrath Felhunter changes anyways. After a week of his banter, I'm sure changes will appear. OP Imps would be pretty cool too. Say, let them DPS in shifted form and make it an AoE fireball. Yeah, completely OP. I'd even start to learn to like fire then. For Sar, they could even make it green fire. However, until I learn the RL imp summoning spell, I guess I'm just going to have to be patient.

In that case, I think I'll switch gears to my DK then, since melee classes seem to be in ship shape right now and my DK is the closest playstyle I've found to warlockery. It can actually be a quite satisfying little change when you want to feel cool again.

If you've been following patch notes, you've probably seen some the DK changes coming up. There are two in particular that I'm excited about found on the DK.info site:

1. Heart Strike no longer has a haste debuff but will now be able to strike two targets.
2. Vampiric Blood: In addition to its current effects, also adds 20% health temporarily.
   

Striking two targets is fun. Woot for that. Also, being able to "bubble" your health is a cool thing too. Especially since I just wrote a macro last night to make better use of this ability. I'm pretty sure the macro has been done before, but I just "winged it" (or would that be wung?) last night and was pretty proud of it.

Basically I wanted to make use of Vampiric Blood right before Rune Tapping for life, thus maximizing the tap and using VB more often without having to think about it. This one-button feature is kind of an "Oh $h!t" button, hitting you up with a quick, larger heal while also increasing your self healing abilities from your auras and stuff. As a blood DK, it works quite well and has saved my butt a couple times when I felt like being Death Knoobish and pulling more than I could handle (Disclaimer: For safety's sake Death Knoobing should only be attempted in a controlled soloing environment. This author does not condone the use of Death Knoobing outside of said environment). In any case, here is what I wrote:

#showtooltip
/cast Vampiric Blood
/cast Rune Tap

This is neat in that it lets you cast the two simultaneously since VB is an "ability" and thus not tied to GCD. It will also cast either one when their respective cooldowns are up, even if the companion spell is not. I thought it was pretty slick, though I'm sure I'm not the first one to think of it, and it can come in quite handy.

Because I Felt I Needed More Pictures

Well today's random story time is going to be tied together by several pictures into a (hopefully) coherent post. Leading off, to your immediate left is an old picture of two bears dancing. Those are Fuu and my RP Druids. They're a happy couple and doing just dandy at about level 12 over on Abi's server. We've never leveled Horde, so we're taking our time and enjoying it. Sometimes it is nice to start fresh.

Then, *insert clever segway here* we have questing for achievements on my main. I now have only to do Storm Peaks to get the Loremaster of Northrend achievement, having finished up Icecrown the night before last. For the record, when Blizz recommends 5 people for a quest, they're really saying its potentially solo'able. Don't ask me why, but it seems the 5 man quests don't really ever seem to require the full five people. I spoke some about this in my other post when we were running with four of us, one being a 75 druid healer. Some require more than others, but Fuu and I were able to duo a good percentage of it, more than enough to get the achievement for the zone. A good rule of thumb is to check up on wowhead what the commenters say. Most will give you a decent idea of how many people you actually need. If a commenter says he/she solo'ed it on an 80 Rogue just the other day, for example, chances are you can duo it no problem.

We also recently finished up Scholazar Basin too. I'm sure how I feel about how Blizz has done the quest based achievements in Northrend. I mean, if you go for these same goals in Outlands, you have to do every single quest to get the achievement. It seems in Northrend they alleviated this PITA somewhat in that there are extra quests. On one hand, this is nice because if you missed one random quest from somewhere out of the way, you don't have to go searching for it to finish off the zone. However, personally, I find it difficult to stop after I've gotten the achievement and still have quests left in a chain. Be it a cool story or just a desire for completion, I find it kind of annoying. It's like... I just finished 75 quests here, I should be done according to the achievement, yet I still have 5-10 more.

What's up with that? Do I do them? They don't really get me a whole lot. I mean, the gear is low for me, the money is so-so, and I no longer can use the achievement as an excuse. Sometimes it's hard for me to just let go, but there are times when that is a good thing. Take, for instance, the final couple of quests I had left in the Basin. One was the extremely fun ride-on-the-shoulders-of-another-giant-and-kick-gratuitous-amounts-of-ass quest. I'm glad I didn't miss that one, the game is about fun after all. Did anyone else notice that when you tried to jump with this character, he just kinda locked his knees and floated a bit? Despite his size, he's got no ups. Here's a decent screenie, and yes, I just jumped from that cliff full of dead bodies behind me, but you can't really tell (it looks superimposed to me):

Look Out Below?

Finally, to wrap up this incoherent quest babble, we have yet a third random picture. This one is a holiday hold over that I found while looking last night in the ever popular screenshots folder. I was being silly one night and had the crazy idea that riding the reindeer mount somehow reminded me of a shuttle launch. Therefore, I went outside to the Dalaran Aeronautics and Space Administration's (or DASA's) launch facilities and preformed a test launch. It was captured in all its splendor by a Gnomish Positioning Satellite (GPS) as it exited the lower Magisphere. All right, that's enough puns for one day, here it is:

Stormwind, we are "Go" for launch

And one more thing. Ever fight a dragon or plan on it? Secret Agent Cat has a great post called L2Dragon. I particularly liked the picture since I'm a visual learner myself. It's worth checking out if you feel so inclined.

Maintenance Day

Rumor has it there is some major maintenance coming our way today, so be prepared to do something else tonight. Here's hoping the servers won't all be down *crosses fingers*.

Rumor also has it that this is an indication that another nifty patch is coming real soon. I sure do hope there is some warlock love in it. Do we need it? Hell yes! Don't believe me. Read the MC here, or BRK here. Both places you'll see sympathy for the devil. One from a 'lock herself, the other from the hunter extraordinaire (even if it is just a clever jab... I'll take it).

Many 'locks haven't been posting DPS number (me included), probably out of pure shame. That, and, perhaps like me, you're almost 90% sure you'd doing something wrong but can't figure out what it is. There is no way you're that bad. Right?! I mean, I'm being routinely out DPS'ed on trash by my pally tank counterpart. That's ridiculous, I'm obviously just facerolling or something. But I've checked and rechecked my rotations, tried different spells, even thrown down on some good old AoE, and none of it seems to matter. Sure, on bosses I can still maybe compete, and when I don't have to worry about things like aggro, positioning, etc, I can AoE stuff with the best and still be decent.

But since WHEN has DECENT cut it for us? I can't heal. I can't tank. I can't CC very well. And I'm reasonably sure that those aren't just due to a lack of skill (perhaps the CC'ing, but fear isn't exactly the CC of choice, my banish is just dandy thank you). Give me some DAMNED DPS. I want to KILL SHIT. It's kinda what we do, right? Ugh!

Okay, okay, I'll stop complaining. I just love my class, I love my spec, I don't even mind the rotation... it's challenging. It's just frustrating that when you complete the challenge, you don't get cool numbers to show for it. IF you're lucky, you get average numbers (Like MC, I'm somewhere ~1.5k on average). Woot?

Right... 1,2,10 /calming breath

If all this hullabaloo is not for you (woot rhyme), check out a class neutral post about PuGging over at BBBB. He gets wordy at times, but I think its a really good example of my feelings on avoiding PuGs, randomly finding good ones, and hoping your guild catches up. Oh yeah, and always remember only you can prevent asshattery.

And I'm sure I have some pictures around here somewhere... gotta remember to get them to work with me. Oh yeah, work...

It's a Geyser!

Have you ever been startled at the force of a particularly forceful toilet flush? You know, the kind that get the seat all wet like it's trying to make believe its something more epic than a mere toilet? Like it thinks its Old Faithful or something? Well apparently I'd forgotten how forceful the toilets at work are. Luckily, as is common practice in public restrooms, I stood well back from the toilet when initiating the explosion, thus, no harm no foul.

Ah work, back to the grind. Back to regular posting again. You see, at work I can't play or otherwise waste time, so I'm back to writing and reading. Hence, you get to hear more from me. Yaaay (or groan, depending).

Oh yeah, WoW-blog, stay focused.

/focus on

Fuu and I were able to complete a variety of group quests in Icecrown yesterday. If any of you are struggling with these so-called five man quests, fear not... they do not all require five men (or women). In fact, none of them do. We were able to complete all of them with a level 75 druid healer, an 80 hunter, me, and fuu. We even three manned two of them before we convinced the healer to be dragged around Icecrown.

Mind you, if you bring a low level healer into Icecrown that cannot fly... the zone is designed under the assumption that you can fly. Plus there are phased areas. As a 'lock, you can bypass the need to fly with some clever summoning. However, if you summon to a phased area, the individual will show up in the phase they are in. It may not be the same one you are in, thus you won't see each other. For the curious, you can /target them still, which is interesting.

Also, be mindful that the cauldron quest "Basic Chemistry" can be a bit buggy. Blizz knows of this and is working to resolve it. We spied a cauldron without an orange glow on it that was farthest from the entrance that gave us good luck. We'd previously had some troubles with glitchy behavior and bad raid warnings. This last one worked like a charm. Be it because of the lack of orange glow or the actual cauldron itself... who knows? Keep in mind that to complete this one, you'll need at least two people with the neutralizing agent due to cooldown issues on the item. You'll probably want at least one more person to help with the crap that spawns. A couple passerby helped us on our final attempt which was quiet pleasant and went swimmingly.

All of the other fights are just large boss-types. If you have a good tank (like I'm fortunate enough to have), you will only need minimal heals for the fights, but will definitely need some. A lower level healer worth their salt can do it, as ours did. Be careful of AoEs and other random things that will kill the healer right quick though. In the ring of blood-type boss fight (Battle for Vahallas or some such), the first round is a bunch of randoms which will zip straight to the poor low level tree if you are not ready. Other than that, just keep the tree at max range and you'll be fine.

So grab yourself a healer in need of experience, a good tank, and a couple DPS and knock these out. They have decent rewards and are pretty fun. Plus, we could all use a few more healers at the level cap.

Burn Baby Burn

Recently, despite my innate hatred for fire spells as an Affliction Warlock, I've started throwing Immolate back into my rotation. Now that I'm a lot more comfortable with it, it isn't as hard to keep so many DoTs up. On more complex fights, it still is usually the first spell I throw out though. I can't say I'm noticing a large difference in DPS, maybe an extra 20 on average. Maths would say that immolate is better than an extra shadow bolt. Perhaps I need to pick up the immolate glyph to really make it worth my while.

For those who are curious, the rotation I've been using since the patch and am still sticking with is this: Corr, Haunt, CoA, UA, Immo (new), SL, SBolts. I'm sure there is some criticism for this rotation. Most are advocating throwing in another SB early to make sure to get Shadow's Embrace up. I throw it in as soon as I have space, or a Nightfall proc. Why? It's easier for me and the embrace is low on my list of things to keep up. Perhaps it shouldn't be, but oh well. I lead off with Corr just because it is instant and easy to "set and forget" since I'll keep refreshing it with Haunt.

Putting Haunt early is a must, same with CoA. I'll sub whatever curse in that slot if I need to change too. It's nice to have those up while you're doing the rest of your crap. The real meat of the DoTs are the three in the middle. UA and Immo run up at about the same time, so you can always cast them back to back if you're good. SL will run up half as much, so every other time you'll throw down on three refreshes. Haunt will usually start creeping in on the front of these spells too, so what you're really getting for a refresh rotation is something like: Haunt, UA, Immo, SL (half time). Obviously you'll refresh your curse whenever you're forced to. The rest is shadow bolt filler. I usually like to life tap right before haunt runs out to keep my mana up. This works out pretty well, IMO.

For trash I just start truncating DoTs depending on the life span. Real short trash may only see Corr, Haunt, SB's. Usually if I'm farming I'll put on a SL on multiple mobs before doing some sort of AoE, as it kind of takes away from the beating. I'm not real happy with trash DPS on the whole right now, but I haven't read anyone who is. I'm hoping future patches will show us some love there, otherwise we'll just keep doing well on bosses but never topping charts. Sad but true. We need to be at least moderately respectable on trash to keep up nowadays, as we don't just wtfpwn bosses anymore. It is very hard to compete with the hunters of the world.

I really need to do more instancing to test all this, but I believe I've already made a post bemoaning the lack of grouping Fuu and I are able to do at the moment, so I'll spare you another rant. Mostly, I've been running quests to get exalted with the Oracles and slogging towards a long term goal of one day being a "Loremaster". Plus, my DK is now at 64 and slowly making her way up. I'm not sure what's in store for her yet, but DK is totally easy-mode for me right now and a welcome distraction to the current frustrations in warlockland.

In other news, I need to take some more pictures...

Violet Hold Heroic Sucks

Yeah, so what's up with having to restart an instance every time you die. I know, I know, its exactly like BM, but that sucked too. This one is even slightly worse because you have this whole random couple of bosses thing. Why is that bad? Well let me tell you...

You see, 90% of them are easy tank and spanks. Even the water elemental one you can kill the adds with a simple crystal dohickey. They're all pretty straightforward.

Then there is that one dude who summons the orbs and makes you kite him all around the friggin crumbling, broken, irregularly shaped room. He SUCKS. If all the other bosses are max 5 in difficulty on a 10 point scale, he is an 11. It's higher than 10.

Now, I know there are plenty of tougher raid bosses out there, and maybe even a more difficult heroic fight. I'm not saying this is the most difficult fight ever created, just that it is a huge PITA. Combine that with having to restart when you fail, and you create an incredibly frustrating situation. Get unlucky enough to have him as your first boss, and you get a lootless, thankless, expensive waste of time.

I compare the frustration of this fight akin to the 1% wipe on Prince in Kara, when you know you're doing everything right, but just can't beat it because of some stupid luck mechanic.

It wouldn't even be so bad if you could go right in at the boss right again instead of having to go through all the crap you already cleared to get back to the point where you failed. Forget learning this fight, you either need someone who knows and has done it going in, or prepare for the pain of failure... repeatedly.

Perhaps your experience wasn't as bad as mine and Fuu's. Granted we were both undergeared, but you have to start somewhere right? I felt way worse for her because she was uber frustrated though she was doing her best to try and kite the idiot around. There is just very little margin for error for a tank here. It didn't help that the pugged healer just kept repeating "You HAVE to keep him away from the orbs." Thanks bro, do you wanna tank it? Its not like we're not trying. It's stupid random boulders and curves that kinda get in your way when you're focusing on avoiding an orb and walking backwards. I mean, I have a hard time walking backwards IN REAL LIFE. I mean, I AM blonde, but it can be tough... and I'm not usually fighting anything while doing it and avoiding crazy orbs. At least not on Fridays.

And then when you're just getting the hang of it... he ports you back to him and you all die instantly. Sweet. GG Blizz. Lets go through some more portals to get back and give it another try. Nah, F@$& this guy.