Slowly but surely I've been leveling Decedereful, my DK, toward 85. Last night she just dinged 84 and I plopped the resultant talent point in it's place. Our guild has unlocked the first tier of increased experience gains, so with that and rested experience, the time I've spent has been quick. The zone path went from Hyjal, to Deepholm, to Uldum. I doubt I'll be able finish Uldum without hitting 85, but it will probably be close.
My second time through, a few things have struck me. First, leveling a gathering profession is infinitely more pleasant than the tailoring/enchanting hell I went through on my main. It was amazing to me that I maxed out mining as earlier as I did. I went from 500 to 525 last night in about an hour by doing large circles of Uldum. Pretty easy compared to how I've had to beg, borrow, and steal cloth and materials for my other professions. Engineering on this toon is still behind the curve, but there are a lot of 5-pointers which make it not so bad.
Apart from professions, I don't feel that my playstyle has evolved all that much. That is, I still feel like I'm doing exactly the same things I was doing at 80. I guess I was a bit spoiled by my warlock. There were significant spells added that you really had to think about, some that should be used extensively. With a Frost DW DK, there really doesn't seem to be anything that affects what I use. Sure there's a new strike that will steal some healing and there's the nice little spell that lets you instantly apply both of your diseases, but neither have really made it into my basic set of Things To Do. I'm still: Howling Blast > Plague Strike > Obliterate > Frost Strike... rinse, repeat. I throw some blood strikes in to keep some death runes active, but otherwise, I'm just using those four abilities as needed.
I guess I find myself sort of disappointed, yet not at the same time. I can see where some of those new abilities will have situational usage, and I look forward to using that healing stealing strike thingy in PvP, but it's sort of same-old, same-old. Really makes me appreciate the care they've taken with Warlocks anew. There were really smart changes to 'locks. DKs seem to largely have been left alone, which seems odd to me given that they basically destroyed several playstyles (i.e. DW and Frost tanking in general). Maybe this is a good thing, I don't know.
Any Frost DK's out there? How do you feel?
And I don't care what anyone says, Uldum is fun the second time around too, even though it is the epitome of a Universal Studios rollercoaster.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Moar Mouseover Macros!
Labels: Macros 2 comments
Here's another thing I've done recent that I think really helps the flow of Affliction. In Cynwise's marvelous post several weeks ago on macros, there was a particular item he uses for PvP that really struck my PvE fancy. It was his simple, one line, mouseover macro for Fel Flame.
/cast [@mouseover,harm] Fel Flame; [harm] Fel Flame
What this does is simply cast Fel Flame on your mouseover target (if you can harm it), or, if you're not mousing over anything, on your current target. Great for getting rid of pesky totems. However, as someone who only rarely PvP's on my 'lock, it's probably not all that useful for me. Generally I only want to Fel Flame my target in order to refresh UA on the move, so it's situational at best.
Really, I've never used mouseovers a whole lot before. PvE is more about entering with a strategy, and part of that strategy involves knowing what to target. That's why we spend so much time marking. So it seemed like mouseovers were a more natural fit in the PvP world.
Yet, a few very nice uses came to mind eventually as I was playing, so I worked them out. The first one? Soul Swap. What about all those times when you want to just throw some DoTs on a boss add without really switching, or maybe you can start your DoTs on the "x" a smidge early even while you Drain the Soul of the skull. Soul Swap would seem like a natural fit for a mouseover in PvE, and I got this:
/cast [@mouseover,harm] Soul Swap; [harm] Soul Swap
Simple, eh? Just replaced the spell with what I wanted, then threw it on my bar. I didn't have anything else naturally bound to my SS spell, so it worked out like this for me. And the use! It's awesome. I have this bound to my "7" key. So I tap 7 once, the green ball flies to me, then I use my mouse to find the add, mouseover, and tap "7" again. Heck, usually when I know it's coming up, I can get my mouse ready so that it's 7, slide, 7 - super quick - and then I'm back on the main target.
It's really nice for dailies too. I'm out in the Highlands for the Wildhammer clan right now, and I'm toasting hoardies to get my insignia quota for the day. Dot the first up, mouseover-swap to a second guy. Basically, I kill them in convenient sets of two. Or, if I'm feeling really cocky, I'll just let the dots roll through on those two and repeat the process on another two. Throw in a shadowflame every now and then for good measure, and in a jiff I'm rolling in ale and dwarven hugs (which are a firm, open-handed slap on the arse) for saving the village.
The second semi-obvious use that reached up with a bony finger and tickled my sharded soul was a use with Curse of the Elements. If you're an Affliction Warlock specced into Jinx, then you don't want to be casting CotE on each and every trash mob. No, you want to find the last one that's going to die, cast it on him, and not worry about the rest of them. My CotE is cast using the "alt" key below my Haunt spell, so I modified that to look something like this:
/cast [nomod] Haunt
/cast [@mouseover,harm,mod:alt] Curse of the Elements; [harm,mod:alt] Curse of the Elements
This one's a little more complex, but not too terribly crazy. First, you can see I'm specifying a simple Haunt cast with no modifying buttons. Second, I append "mod:alt" onto what I would refer to as your "Preconditional Statement". That's just a complex way of saying "the crap in the brackets". It's interesting that you can set different preconditions, combining them by use of a simple comma, and then separating your larger conditional by a semicolon, which is what I've done in that second line. The conditional, if read out, would sound something like this:
If no modifier is pressed, cast Haunt.
Otherwise, If I'm mousing over something, I can harm it, and alt is depressed, cast CotE at my mouseover target; If that first conditional isn't passed, I can harm my target, and alt is depressed, cast CotE on my current target. (Since "@target" is the default for cast, though you can specific it if you desired).
Pretty interesting, no? What this allows me to do is when I'm on trash, find that last mark, which a lot of the times nowadays is my CC target (but which could be something else too), mouseover, and cast my curse. If we happen to be on a boss or other single target, I just don't point my mouse at anything and it's business as usual.
It gets even more useful when I have my focus frame displayed, so I don't have to hunt for a name plate, but just hover of my feared focus in the frame and pop him with my curse. CotE will not break fear (or sheep), so it's a great place to use it, as those are usually saved to last. It will break something like an ice trap, fwiw. I have used it on a banish target as well, but I've had mixed success. I do not believe Jinx will trigger from a banished mob. The curse will stick (provided you sneak it in before you banish), it just won't spread.
This has been incredibly useful in my PvE adventures. It does mean that you have to be a bit careful where your mouse is pointed. After all, you won't want to accidentally pull another group, but I haven't had any of those mishaps yet. Heck, I'm more likely to pull with my pet when he decides to take the long way around after we jumped from somewhere (I thought that was supposed to be fixed!).
So mouseovers are one of the new tricks that Cataclysm has seen me put into my bag. I'd never used them prior to this expansion, and never really felt the need. Now, however, I don't think I could live without these two. What new code has Cata seen you pulling out of your macro closet?
/cast [@mouseover,harm] Fel Flame; [harm] Fel Flame
What this does is simply cast Fel Flame on your mouseover target (if you can harm it), or, if you're not mousing over anything, on your current target. Great for getting rid of pesky totems. However, as someone who only rarely PvP's on my 'lock, it's probably not all that useful for me. Generally I only want to Fel Flame my target in order to refresh UA on the move, so it's situational at best.
Really, I've never used mouseovers a whole lot before. PvE is more about entering with a strategy, and part of that strategy involves knowing what to target. That's why we spend so much time marking. So it seemed like mouseovers were a more natural fit in the PvP world.
Yet, a few very nice uses came to mind eventually as I was playing, so I worked them out. The first one? Soul Swap. What about all those times when you want to just throw some DoTs on a boss add without really switching, or maybe you can start your DoTs on the "x" a smidge early even while you Drain the Soul of the skull. Soul Swap would seem like a natural fit for a mouseover in PvE, and I got this:
/cast [@mouseover,harm] Soul Swap; [harm] Soul Swap
Simple, eh? Just replaced the spell with what I wanted, then threw it on my bar. I didn't have anything else naturally bound to my SS spell, so it worked out like this for me. And the use! It's awesome. I have this bound to my "7" key. So I tap 7 once, the green ball flies to me, then I use my mouse to find the add, mouseover, and tap "7" again. Heck, usually when I know it's coming up, I can get my mouse ready so that it's 7, slide, 7 - super quick - and then I'm back on the main target.
It's really nice for dailies too. I'm out in the Highlands for the Wildhammer clan right now, and I'm toasting hoardies to get my insignia quota for the day. Dot the first up, mouseover-swap to a second guy. Basically, I kill them in convenient sets of two. Or, if I'm feeling really cocky, I'll just let the dots roll through on those two and repeat the process on another two. Throw in a shadowflame every now and then for good measure, and in a jiff I'm rolling in ale and dwarven hugs (which are a firm, open-handed slap on the arse) for saving the village.
The second semi-obvious use that reached up with a bony finger and tickled my sharded soul was a use with Curse of the Elements. If you're an Affliction Warlock specced into Jinx, then you don't want to be casting CotE on each and every trash mob. No, you want to find the last one that's going to die, cast it on him, and not worry about the rest of them. My CotE is cast using the "alt" key below my Haunt spell, so I modified that to look something like this:
/cast [nomod] Haunt
/cast [@mouseover,harm,mod:alt] Curse of the Elements; [harm,mod:alt] Curse of the Elements
This one's a little more complex, but not too terribly crazy. First, you can see I'm specifying a simple Haunt cast with no modifying buttons. Second, I append "mod:alt" onto what I would refer to as your "Preconditional Statement". That's just a complex way of saying "the crap in the brackets". It's interesting that you can set different preconditions, combining them by use of a simple comma, and then separating your larger conditional by a semicolon, which is what I've done in that second line. The conditional, if read out, would sound something like this:
If no modifier is pressed, cast Haunt.
Otherwise, If I'm mousing over something, I can harm it, and alt is depressed, cast CotE at my mouseover target; If that first conditional isn't passed, I can harm my target, and alt is depressed, cast CotE on my current target. (Since "@target" is the default for cast, though you can specific it if you desired).
Pretty interesting, no? What this allows me to do is when I'm on trash, find that last mark, which a lot of the times nowadays is my CC target (but which could be something else too), mouseover, and cast my curse. If we happen to be on a boss or other single target, I just don't point my mouse at anything and it's business as usual.
It gets even more useful when I have my focus frame displayed, so I don't have to hunt for a name plate, but just hover of my feared focus in the frame and pop him with my curse. CotE will not break fear (or sheep), so it's a great place to use it, as those are usually saved to last. It will break something like an ice trap, fwiw. I have used it on a banish target as well, but I've had mixed success. I do not believe Jinx will trigger from a banished mob. The curse will stick (provided you sneak it in before you banish), it just won't spread.
This has been incredibly useful in my PvE adventures. It does mean that you have to be a bit careful where your mouse is pointed. After all, you won't want to accidentally pull another group, but I haven't had any of those mishaps yet. Heck, I'm more likely to pull with my pet when he decides to take the long way around after we jumped from somewhere (I thought that was supposed to be fixed!).
So mouseovers are one of the new tricks that Cataclysm has seen me put into my bag. I'd never used them prior to this expansion, and never really felt the need. Now, however, I don't think I could live without these two. What new code has Cata seen you pulling out of your macro closet?
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Pebble Approves!
Labels: Gear, Instances, Officer Stuff, QotD 0 comments
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!
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
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
Monday, January 24, 2011
Quick Post and Heroic "Nerf" Idea
Labels: Instances, Reflections 4 comments
We made it back, mostly in one piece. I've acquired the debuff: "Epic Double Ear Infection" which, which made me especially vulnerable to the AoE of the Airline Boss. You know the one, Pressure Drop. Yeah, awful. Nearly one shot me.
Luckily I hit up the healer yesterday and go some solid buff food. Told me it'll take 3 days before I stack enough immunity to clear the lingering stacks of Pressure Drop. Until then, it's like I'm leveling in Vashj'ir. Everything sounds so muffled and is just a bit wavy. Thus, this is the best, most entertaining analogy I can come up with.
In other news, they didn't Rogue-drop the patch on me while my back was turned. They also tweaked Fel Armor away from stupid mana and back toward good health. Much rejoicing.
Finally, I wanted to add one little idea to one of the discussions I've seen floating around the blogosphere. This one is relating to the "Heroics are Too Hard" conversation. There have been several good posts both for and against nerfing heroics. Before my brain blew up on the plane, I had this idea: Instead of trying to tweak the difficulty of the dungeons, why not simply fix the rewards to adhere better to the effort invested.
The problem, as I see it, is that we're still being rewarded as if heroics were as easy as they were in Wrath. The gearing path is still the same. Yet, we're not completing things with enough regularity to feel a sense of progress, leading to friction. I'm not sure that the issue is being able to fully finish heroics or not, it's being able to complete enough that you feel like you "got somewhere". Since heroics are clearly the desired path step in "gearing up", then getting somewhere is synonymous with getting gear.
Therefore, let's simply tweak the rewards so we can get gear just a bit faster. Doesn't have to be as fast and easy as Wrath. The heroics can retain their challenge. It just seems to me that we should be getting a bit more gear than we are. This could be remedied simply by increasing JP for each boss, decreasing JP piece costs, or increasing the number and rate of items that drop. It could be doing one of those things, or all of those things.
Along those lines, my favorite solution is this: Rework the daily dungeon reward to be given with the demise or a random boss. Instead of only being rewarded for a complete dungeon clear, since some dungeons can run quite long, make it trigger on the first or second boss. Something early and achievable in about an hour. I don't really want to see the heroics made simple, but I would like to feel like I accomplished something in an hour. A nice VP reward would help that, I think.
Sure, some PuGs might simply drop and quit after getting the VP Boss down, but some PuGs drop and quit now anyways. At least then everyone has gotten something.
Maybe this could be even easier to implement by simply adding another daily quest. Like the weekly raid quest, perhaps this simply rotates and requires the "head" of a certain boss in exchange for VP. Why not? You wouldn't have to even muck with the LFD reward system then. The amount of VP rewarded could be tweaked so we're looking at reliably getting maybe one piece a month. I don't think that's too fast, but I do think there should be a path that rewards you for time spent. Perhaps that's catering to casuals, but it really sucks when you spend your precious 2 hours some night beating your head against a middle boss in a dungeon and leave with nothing but a minuscule amount of JP to show for it (because heaven forbid anything but mail drops when you're 3 clothies, a leather, and plate wearer).
I don't know, maybe there are pitfalls there I'm not thinking about in my muddled state. It just seems to me that a big amount consternation is just do to lack of feeling like we're progressing. There would seem to be better ways to ease this rather than ruining a challenge. Not that I think any of the proposed "nerfs" necessarily do this. They really seem to "walk the line" between outright nerfs and well-deserved changes. I guess we'll see, but I just felt the urge to try to think outside the nerf-bat.
Luckily I hit up the healer yesterday and go some solid buff food. Told me it'll take 3 days before I stack enough immunity to clear the lingering stacks of Pressure Drop. Until then, it's like I'm leveling in Vashj'ir. Everything sounds so muffled and is just a bit wavy. Thus, this is the best, most entertaining analogy I can come up with.
In other news, they didn't Rogue-drop the patch on me while my back was turned. They also tweaked Fel Armor away from stupid mana and back toward good health. Much rejoicing.
Finally, I wanted to add one little idea to one of the discussions I've seen floating around the blogosphere. This one is relating to the "Heroics are Too Hard" conversation. There have been several good posts both for and against nerfing heroics. Before my brain blew up on the plane, I had this idea: Instead of trying to tweak the difficulty of the dungeons, why not simply fix the rewards to adhere better to the effort invested.
The problem, as I see it, is that we're still being rewarded as if heroics were as easy as they were in Wrath. The gearing path is still the same. Yet, we're not completing things with enough regularity to feel a sense of progress, leading to friction. I'm not sure that the issue is being able to fully finish heroics or not, it's being able to complete enough that you feel like you "got somewhere". Since heroics are clearly the desired path step in "gearing up", then getting somewhere is synonymous with getting gear.
Therefore, let's simply tweak the rewards so we can get gear just a bit faster. Doesn't have to be as fast and easy as Wrath. The heroics can retain their challenge. It just seems to me that we should be getting a bit more gear than we are. This could be remedied simply by increasing JP for each boss, decreasing JP piece costs, or increasing the number and rate of items that drop. It could be doing one of those things, or all of those things.
Along those lines, my favorite solution is this: Rework the daily dungeon reward to be given with the demise or a random boss. Instead of only being rewarded for a complete dungeon clear, since some dungeons can run quite long, make it trigger on the first or second boss. Something early and achievable in about an hour. I don't really want to see the heroics made simple, but I would like to feel like I accomplished something in an hour. A nice VP reward would help that, I think.
Sure, some PuGs might simply drop and quit after getting the VP Boss down, but some PuGs drop and quit now anyways. At least then everyone has gotten something.
Maybe this could be even easier to implement by simply adding another daily quest. Like the weekly raid quest, perhaps this simply rotates and requires the "head" of a certain boss in exchange for VP. Why not? You wouldn't have to even muck with the LFD reward system then. The amount of VP rewarded could be tweaked so we're looking at reliably getting maybe one piece a month. I don't think that's too fast, but I do think there should be a path that rewards you for time spent. Perhaps that's catering to casuals, but it really sucks when you spend your precious 2 hours some night beating your head against a middle boss in a dungeon and leave with nothing but a minuscule amount of JP to show for it (because heaven forbid anything but mail drops when you're 3 clothies, a leather, and plate wearer).
I don't know, maybe there are pitfalls there I'm not thinking about in my muddled state. It just seems to me that a big amount consternation is just do to lack of feeling like we're progressing. There would seem to be better ways to ease this rather than ruining a challenge. Not that I think any of the proposed "nerfs" necessarily do this. They really seem to "walk the line" between outright nerfs and well-deserved changes. I guess we'll see, but I just felt the urge to try to think outside the nerf-bat.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Free Bird!
Labels: IC Fridays 2 comments
Fulguralis whirled and surveyed the hillside. Three more orcs were running toward his position and he'd yet to see any sign of his dwarven backup. He turned back to watch as the attacker he'd just been focused on continued in a frenzied path away from the Warlock. Suddenly, the orc stopped, looking around as if seeing the world anew, and turned back to face Fulguralis with a sneer on his face. The induced fear from the coil of death had apparently worn off. The savage uttered something guttural and charged. Fulguralis raised a hand calmly and fired a quick burst of green flame that consumed the beast.
"Aw, you match," he cooed pleasantly as the emerald-skinned attacker toppled over and skidded to a halt.
A feral snarl from around the corner of a ruined dwarven dwelling alerted him of his companion's imminent appearance just a moment before the furry man-wolf sprinted into view. Valentis had a wild look about him that was only exacerbated by the lolling tongue that came with the dog-like panting. Poor guy wasn't used to this type of action, apparently.
"Two more coming anti-clockwise 'round the bungalow!" the Gilnean yelled.
"What?"
"From the left side," Valentis clarified.
"Why didn't you say so?" Fulguralis retorted. Ignoring the frown he got in return, the Warlock pointed toward an open doorway. "Wedge your furry ass in there."
Valentis complied, then questioned, "What am I supposed to accomplish from here?"
"Just heal me," Fulguralis answered.
Taking a deep breath, he tapped into his lifeforce to refresh his magical abilities. It wouldn't do to start shooting blanks now. The spell stung a bit, but like most things in life, it got easier the more you did it, and Fulguralis had tapped his life a lot over the seasons.
A squawk to his left commanded his attention. He turned toward the captive gryphon and regarded it with a questioning eye. What did it want? He followed an avian gaze to the ropes tied to stakes in the ground. Ah, yes, he thought, freedom. Such an expensive commodity these days, it seems.
"I'll do it," the Warlock replied, "but it's gonna cost you. Don't be flying off before we finish these orcs off, you understand?"
The bird didn't speak common, but something it its demeanor reassured the Warlock. He didn't consider himself an expert on bird-lion-hybrid expressions and body language, but he was pretty sure that this was one pissed gryphon. Kneeling down, he struggled to undo one of the knots affixed to a stake. After several seconds of futility, he gave up and just blasted the entire thing with some fire.
"Call whoever tied these King of the Knots for felssake," he mumbled. The gyphon cawed in agreement and thanks.
After standing up, Fulguralis turned to find himself surrounded by five orcs, their tusks gleaming menacingly. The Warlock looked up at the sun burning high about the Twilight Highlands, and sighed heavily. Five to one, he counted. Shoulda stayed in the Dream. A small ball of thorns suddenly appeared and began orbiting around him. Fulguralis stared at it curiously for a moment before realizing it had come from Valentis in the doorway. I'm not that fat, he thought.
Frowning, he turned his ire on the pentagram of orcs that were steadily closing in around him. He grinned at the shape. Apparently they didn't want to live.
A loud screech behind him was all the warning the Warlock had before a bundle of feathers whooshed over his head, causing him to duck. The gryphon he'd freed flew straight at the pinnacle of the five-sided formation, fluttering above the flustered orc's head and scratching him occasionally with sharp talons. That left four to deal with.
Fulguralis called his Midnight from the void, and sent her over to dance for one of the two green skins behind him. He induced a state of horror in the other while the two charged in at him. A large, demonic skull appeared above the Warlock and spewed violet flames all over the orcs in front. The burning of the shadowy fire slowed them and Fulguralis took the opportunity to jump behind a nearby log. From there he set about corrupting, cursing, and afflicting one of the orcs. Once that was completed, a mottled green a purple orb returned to his hand from his first target, ricocheted, and slammed into the second target, transferring all of the diseases of the first. Both orcs cringed in pain and a quick bolt of shadow to the face of each sent them flying to either side of the doorway behind them. A startled Valentis stood wide-eyed between the settling corpses.
The Warlock was pleased when a quick tapping of his life was immediately recouped with leafy healing from his Gilnean partner. Valentis hadn't completely flaked on him yet. Midnight, his Succubus, still had one orc in hand, so Fulguralis turned his attention to the feared green skin. He cracked a sharded soul he's stored up and used it's energy to fuel a large ball of molten air streaking toward his would-be assailant. He watched with glee as the fire engulfed the orc, burning out his very soul and leaving nothing but a pile of ash and some scraps of cloth.
One on one, now, Fulguralis mused happily. He ordered his minion to whip the man back to reality, and fired a couple bursts shadow for good measure. The orc stumbled but did not fall immediately, so Fulguralis queued up another salvo. As his focus was falling, a bright shaft of light behind him sent him diving to the ground. He rolled over just in time to see a green ball of concentrated natural wrath take a sixth orc in the chest. The dead weight fell on him heavily, causing the Warlock to grunt.
"Sorry about that last one, mate," Valentis said, striding over as a shimmery dust fell down his body, returning him once more to his human form. He frowned at the heap of limbs and began helping Fulguralis extricate himself. "Jumped right out of the bush. Sod's law, eh?"
Once on his feet, Fulguralis brushed himself off and took a moment to view the carnage around him. Near the body he'd just crawled out from under, there was a pair of daggers that were shiny with an applied poison. He'd come very close to returning to the Dream.
"Thanks," he said earnestly to the Gilnean.
"No' at all," Valentis replied happily. After an awkward moment, he continued, "What do you say we take a look in that keg over there?"
Fulguralis smiled, "I think that's the best idea you've had yet."
The two men sauntered over to one of the intact kegs that still sat under a ruined awning. Valentis pulled two more-or-less usable mugs from the wreckage while Fulguralis set about knocking a hole into the wooden barrel. They filled up a smaller cask to take back to the dwarves - there was no way they were carrying the whole thing - then filled up the mugs with the remains. No reason to let the extra go to waste.
The happy squawk of the freed gryphon beside them caused them both to grin, and Valentis reached out to pet the beast. Fulguralis settled back onto a banister and looked up at the clear blue sky. In doing so, he noticed a tiny spec, growing larger by the second. It looked to be another gryphon descending on his position, a shiny plate-clad rider on its back.
Sure, now the reinforcements arrive, he thought.
"Aw, you match," he cooed pleasantly as the emerald-skinned attacker toppled over and skidded to a halt.
A feral snarl from around the corner of a ruined dwarven dwelling alerted him of his companion's imminent appearance just a moment before the furry man-wolf sprinted into view. Valentis had a wild look about him that was only exacerbated by the lolling tongue that came with the dog-like panting. Poor guy wasn't used to this type of action, apparently.
"Two more coming anti-clockwise 'round the bungalow!" the Gilnean yelled.
"What?"
"From the left side," Valentis clarified.
"Why didn't you say so?" Fulguralis retorted. Ignoring the frown he got in return, the Warlock pointed toward an open doorway. "Wedge your furry ass in there."
Valentis complied, then questioned, "What am I supposed to accomplish from here?"
"Just heal me," Fulguralis answered.
Taking a deep breath, he tapped into his lifeforce to refresh his magical abilities. It wouldn't do to start shooting blanks now. The spell stung a bit, but like most things in life, it got easier the more you did it, and Fulguralis had tapped his life a lot over the seasons.
A squawk to his left commanded his attention. He turned toward the captive gryphon and regarded it with a questioning eye. What did it want? He followed an avian gaze to the ropes tied to stakes in the ground. Ah, yes, he thought, freedom. Such an expensive commodity these days, it seems.
"I'll do it," the Warlock replied, "but it's gonna cost you. Don't be flying off before we finish these orcs off, you understand?"
The bird didn't speak common, but something it its demeanor reassured the Warlock. He didn't consider himself an expert on bird-lion-hybrid expressions and body language, but he was pretty sure that this was one pissed gryphon. Kneeling down, he struggled to undo one of the knots affixed to a stake. After several seconds of futility, he gave up and just blasted the entire thing with some fire.
"Call whoever tied these King of the Knots for felssake," he mumbled. The gyphon cawed in agreement and thanks.
After standing up, Fulguralis turned to find himself surrounded by five orcs, their tusks gleaming menacingly. The Warlock looked up at the sun burning high about the Twilight Highlands, and sighed heavily. Five to one, he counted. Shoulda stayed in the Dream. A small ball of thorns suddenly appeared and began orbiting around him. Fulguralis stared at it curiously for a moment before realizing it had come from Valentis in the doorway. I'm not that fat, he thought.
Frowning, he turned his ire on the pentagram of orcs that were steadily closing in around him. He grinned at the shape. Apparently they didn't want to live.
A loud screech behind him was all the warning the Warlock had before a bundle of feathers whooshed over his head, causing him to duck. The gryphon he'd freed flew straight at the pinnacle of the five-sided formation, fluttering above the flustered orc's head and scratching him occasionally with sharp talons. That left four to deal with.
Fulguralis called his Midnight from the void, and sent her over to dance for one of the two green skins behind him. He induced a state of horror in the other while the two charged in at him. A large, demonic skull appeared above the Warlock and spewed violet flames all over the orcs in front. The burning of the shadowy fire slowed them and Fulguralis took the opportunity to jump behind a nearby log. From there he set about corrupting, cursing, and afflicting one of the orcs. Once that was completed, a mottled green a purple orb returned to his hand from his first target, ricocheted, and slammed into the second target, transferring all of the diseases of the first. Both orcs cringed in pain and a quick bolt of shadow to the face of each sent them flying to either side of the doorway behind them. A startled Valentis stood wide-eyed between the settling corpses.
The Warlock was pleased when a quick tapping of his life was immediately recouped with leafy healing from his Gilnean partner. Valentis hadn't completely flaked on him yet. Midnight, his Succubus, still had one orc in hand, so Fulguralis turned his attention to the feared green skin. He cracked a sharded soul he's stored up and used it's energy to fuel a large ball of molten air streaking toward his would-be assailant. He watched with glee as the fire engulfed the orc, burning out his very soul and leaving nothing but a pile of ash and some scraps of cloth.
One on one, now, Fulguralis mused happily. He ordered his minion to whip the man back to reality, and fired a couple bursts shadow for good measure. The orc stumbled but did not fall immediately, so Fulguralis queued up another salvo. As his focus was falling, a bright shaft of light behind him sent him diving to the ground. He rolled over just in time to see a green ball of concentrated natural wrath take a sixth orc in the chest. The dead weight fell on him heavily, causing the Warlock to grunt.
"Sorry about that last one, mate," Valentis said, striding over as a shimmery dust fell down his body, returning him once more to his human form. He frowned at the heap of limbs and began helping Fulguralis extricate himself. "Jumped right out of the bush. Sod's law, eh?"
Once on his feet, Fulguralis brushed himself off and took a moment to view the carnage around him. Near the body he'd just crawled out from under, there was a pair of daggers that were shiny with an applied poison. He'd come very close to returning to the Dream.
"Thanks," he said earnestly to the Gilnean.
"No' at all," Valentis replied happily. After an awkward moment, he continued, "What do you say we take a look in that keg over there?"
Fulguralis smiled, "I think that's the best idea you've had yet."
The two men sauntered over to one of the intact kegs that still sat under a ruined awning. Valentis pulled two more-or-less usable mugs from the wreckage while Fulguralis set about knocking a hole into the wooden barrel. They filled up a smaller cask to take back to the dwarves - there was no way they were carrying the whole thing - then filled up the mugs with the remains. No reason to let the extra go to waste.
The happy squawk of the freed gryphon beside them caused them both to grin, and Valentis reached out to pet the beast. Fulguralis settled back onto a banister and looked up at the clear blue sky. In doing so, he noticed a tiny spec, growing larger by the second. It looked to be another gryphon descending on his position, a shiny plate-clad rider on its back.
Sure, now the reinforcements arrive, he thought.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Pre-Vacation Miscellanea
Labels: Fun, Shout Out, warlocky 2 comments
Larisa over at the Pink Pigtailed Inn finished up her tripartite awards ceremony today. To me, this is the WoW-blogosphere equivalent of the Emmy's. Or Oscar's. Or Globe's. I don't know the difference between those. They all feature celebrities and red carpets and shiny objects. And while I'm sure Larisa lays out a metaphorical red carpet and has plenty of shiny mugs available for the consumption of ale, let's not confuse our gala event with theirs. Ours is so much classier. I mean did you see when Tamarind stole the microphone from Chastity during the acceptance speech?
Quoth Tam: "Ima give it back to Chas real quick, but first I wanna say that Gnomeaggedon gives the best hugs of ALL TIME." (Only, you know, less Kanye and more Austin Powers). Then someone told the poor blinkered bugger that that was the previous award. Poor Chas.
Nah, I lied. That didn't happen. Or did it?
Farcical humor aside, I wanted to congratulate Larisa on another year of well presented awards. I even netted a stellar nomination this year (nom nom nom), so I was super-psyched. Thank you for that. I busted out my purple crush-velvet suit for the occasion.
Really, the awards, to me, represent one of the things that make our little corner of the world special. I'm sure there are other, more "official" blogging awards out there, but Larisa is one of the cornerstones of our community and that makes it more "real" for me. Plus, I don't envy her the task of having to make the choice and put her opinions out there.
Good times, and now I'll awkwardly transition to the next part of this random post.
This is fair notification that Fuu and I will be on vacation next week. Therefore, don't expect any posts. We're flying out Saturday at dawn and will be back the following Saturday at midnight. Should be a great break from things and hopefully we won't get stuck anywhere. For the curious, we'll be in Cabo San Lucas, completely unplugged, drinking and laying by the pool. First true vacation we'll have taken in almost two years now. Weddings and houses will do that to you, I suppose.
What this means is that they'll probably drop all those Warlock changes we've been hearing about next Tuesday, and I won't be here to talk about it. That's okay, from what I'm reading, they mostly suck anyways. It would just be angry ranting. So, in a nutshell, here is my take on the proposed changes:
Anyways, there will be an RP post up tomorrow, and then radio silence for a week. Unless someone wants to submit a guest post between, oh lets say, now and Friday at midnight. In that case, I'd schedule it for next week. Otherwise, go sit at Larisa's bar and drink until she turns into a Warlock. :-)
Quoth Tam: "Ima give it back to Chas real quick, but first I wanna say that Gnomeaggedon gives the best hugs of ALL TIME." (Only, you know, less Kanye and more Austin Powers). Then someone told the poor blinkered bugger that that was the previous award. Poor Chas.
Nah, I lied. That didn't happen. Or did it?
Farcical humor aside, I wanted to congratulate Larisa on another year of well presented awards. I even netted a stellar nomination this year (nom nom nom), so I was super-psyched. Thank you for that. I busted out my purple crush-velvet suit for the occasion.
Really, the awards, to me, represent one of the things that make our little corner of the world special. I'm sure there are other, more "official" blogging awards out there, but Larisa is one of the cornerstones of our community and that makes it more "real" for me. Plus, I don't envy her the task of having to make the choice and put her opinions out there.
Good times, and now I'll awkwardly transition to the next part of this random post.
This is fair notification that Fuu and I will be on vacation next week. Therefore, don't expect any posts. We're flying out Saturday at dawn and will be back the following Saturday at midnight. Should be a great break from things and hopefully we won't get stuck anywhere. For the curious, we'll be in Cabo San Lucas, completely unplugged, drinking and laying by the pool. First true vacation we'll have taken in almost two years now. Weddings and houses will do that to you, I suppose.
What this means is that they'll probably drop all those Warlock changes we've been hearing about next Tuesday, and I won't be here to talk about it. That's okay, from what I'm reading, they mostly suck anyways. It would just be angry ranting. So, in a nutshell, here is my take on the proposed changes:
- Curse of Exhaustion Nerf - Who cares?
- Demon Armor and Fel Armor no longer cost mana and last until canceled - Um, was this an issue for anyone?
- Drain Mana has been removed from the game - Cuz it's so game-breaking and we use it constantly
- Fear now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds - I don't PvP on my 'lock so, meh.
- Fel Armor Health to Mana Nerf - Absolutely sucks. Mana? We don't need no stinkin' mana.
- Seduction (Succubus) now has a PvP duration of 8 seconds - Goes along with Fear, says I.
- Talent Specializations
- Affliction
- Unstable Affliction duration Nerf - Wouldn't want to be too cool in PvP, I suppose. Where's my offsetting mastery buff?
- Demonology
- Demonic Rebirth now highlights summoning spells when active - Wahoo.
- Demon Soul: Imp redesigned. - Spaz is a pain in the ass, I don't use him.
- Felstorm (Felguard) damage Nerf - Sucks
- Immolation Aura damage Nerf - Sucks
- Inferno no longer increases the radius of Hellfire, but instead increases the duration of Immolate by 6 seconds in addition to its existing effect - Uh, 'kay? It was sorta huge anyways.
- Master Demonologist (Mastery) buff - We're really struggling to make Mastery a relavent stat, aren't we?
- Destruction
- Burning Embers Nerf - Sucks
- Fiery Apocalypse (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 8% - See Demo comment above.
- Improved Soul Fire now increases Fire and Shadow damage done by 4/8%, rather than 7/15% spell haste. In addition, this talent has been moved to tier-3 Destruction, switching places with Aftermath - I could think of better fixes... like say just moving Emberstorm, keeping the spell haste, and tweaking it slightly so it's more like a trinket pop than something to keep up. Maybe max 5/10% haste but stacks with Heroism effects.
- Shadow and Flame can now proc from Incinerate in addition to Shadow Bolt - Wouldn't want to get too shadowy now, would we?
- Affliction
Anyways, there will be an RP post up tomorrow, and then radio silence for a week. Unless someone wants to submit a guest post between, oh lets say, now and Friday at midnight. In that case, I'd schedule it for next week. Otherwise, go sit at Larisa's bar and drink until she turns into a Warlock. :-)
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Quick Gold Making Tip(s) of the Day!
Labels: Game Economics 5 comments
Hey Gang!
I wanted to make a quick post about something that I saw last night when I was on my Jewelcrafter. After I do my Jewelcrafting daily for my token, I head over to the auction house to stock up on the raw gems that weren't used for the daily that are running on the less expensive end.
On my Server, Nightstone should be renamed to Nightmare! Even when the raw gem isn't used for that Jewelcrafting daily, it still runs around 40g each minimum. So, if I see that it's less than that, I try to pick those up and hope that I get some lucky prospecting.
Tip #1: if you have spare raw gems that are part of the Jewelcrafting Daily that day, Post them on the AH. By around 8pm server time they will shoot from 10-20g each to 40-100g (depending on what it is). Post them in Batches of Three at a time because that's how many the Jewelcrafters need. If you don't enjoy selling your goods on the AH, you can always use the Trade Channel to Bark out that you are standing next to the Quest giver and have raw gems for that day.
Tip#2: If you are in desparate need of some quick gold, check out cut uncommon gems. Many Jewelcrafters are skilling up on huge batches of these and posting them in bulk on the Auction House. How does this make you money? Firstly, all cut uncommon gems vendor for 9gold each. When these Jewelcrafters post massive amounts of gems, they probably weren't paying attention to the vendor cost and just putting them on the Auction House without much thought. Check out Each Gem color and see if any cut uncommon gems are being posted for less than 9g. If so, buy them up and vendor them for easy profit.
The great thing about both of these tips is that you don't need to be a Jewelcrafter to make money from them.
Have you discovered any new tricks since Cataclysm?
<3 Your Friendly Neighborhood Fuubaar
I wanted to make a quick post about something that I saw last night when I was on my Jewelcrafter. After I do my Jewelcrafting daily for my token, I head over to the auction house to stock up on the raw gems that weren't used for the daily that are running on the less expensive end.
On my Server, Nightstone should be renamed to Nightmare! Even when the raw gem isn't used for that Jewelcrafting daily, it still runs around 40g each minimum. So, if I see that it's less than that, I try to pick those up and hope that I get some lucky prospecting.
Tip #1: if you have spare raw gems that are part of the Jewelcrafting Daily that day, Post them on the AH. By around 8pm server time they will shoot from 10-20g each to 40-100g (depending on what it is). Post them in Batches of Three at a time because that's how many the Jewelcrafters need. If you don't enjoy selling your goods on the AH, you can always use the Trade Channel to Bark out that you are standing next to the Quest giver and have raw gems for that day.
Tip#2: If you are in desparate need of some quick gold, check out cut uncommon gems. Many Jewelcrafters are skilling up on huge batches of these and posting them in bulk on the Auction House. How does this make you money? Firstly, all cut uncommon gems vendor for 9gold each. When these Jewelcrafters post massive amounts of gems, they probably weren't paying attention to the vendor cost and just putting them on the Auction House without much thought. Check out Each Gem color and see if any cut uncommon gems are being posted for less than 9g. If so, buy them up and vendor them for easy profit.
The great thing about both of these tips is that you don't need to be a Jewelcrafter to make money from them.
Have you discovered any new tricks since Cataclysm?
<3 Your Friendly Neighborhood Fuubaar
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