10 Man Setup for Deathbringer Saurfang

My job ate my time today. I wrote half of an angry post, then just worked myself up into a frenzy because I was so angry at work and at what I was writing about that I think it degenerated into something poor and beneath me.  Maybe.  I might finish it and post it at a later time too, who knows?  I mean, how poor and base does an article have to be to be below a warlock?  Six feet under?  Twelve?  Below a Mage dancing gaily with Hunter?

In any case, I turned my efforts from the right brain to the left brain, or whichever one houses my creative side, and decided to dabble around in MS Paint.  My ICC raid group has now successfully gotten through the first three bosses in ICC and we are starting to learn Deathbringer Saurfang.  Or D$money.  Whichever you prefer.  When we first attempted the bugger, none of us had really prepared ourselves for the fight, as we weren't expecting to be so successful on the Gunships (I believe we two or three shot the jetpack bonanza).  Therefore, we just sort of "winged it".  Chaos ensued.  Massive warlock kiting was done by yours truly, along with much squishing of said warlock.

Afterward, Fuu and I decided to remedy our illness with a healthy dose of tankspot videos.  From that intense study, I came up with the following placement diagram for our group.

 

As you can see, we have three healers, three ranged, and two melee.  That's our normal learning composition.  Crucial to our success is having at least one hunter who can frost trap in the "slow" area.  Myself and a mage usually round out the ranged corps.  Our tanks tend to stand on opposite sides of the boss so they can easily tell when a taunt has worked, which puts our melee to the back and side of the boss.  The key to this battle is controlling the pair of adds spawned at the boss in regular 35s intervals.

Previously, we had stuck our healers a bit closer and left the back around for the ranged to try and run around and kite the things.  This didn't work so well.  Not only did we usually fail in DPSing while kiting, but it was difficult to get them off healers quickly enough to prevent them from having to kite.  Thus, we ended up with all of us running around like idiots and not enough real work being done.   Even so, we managed to get the bastard to around 40% before losing some folks and at that point he'd begin healing again.

This setup solves many problems.  First of all, it can be difficult for a hunter to lay a frost trap in the right space unless they can anticipate the path of the adds.  Putting the healers at center and back does just this.  They're going to have initial aggro (provided the tanks and melee kept their stabby stabby to themselves, your frat boys you), so that should bring both goombas right down the middle.  Lay a frost trap there and now they're slowed.  Our shammy healer could also put down an earthbind totem if they make it past the frosted area.

This gives the ranged plenty of time to open up on first one, and then the other add, eventually pulling them each off the healers and killing them slightly before they reaches the battalion.  It might be a bit tricky to stay spread out, but this minimizes movement and maximizes DPS potential.  From the video, it also looks like you're going to have to grow a couple of kahunas to be able to stand there and stare down the baddie for it to die at your feet.  Play chicken well, my friends, because if you lose and get nommed on, you're probably gonna die in one or two hits.

In any case, it's a terrible picture with terrible implications.  You can always sub a ranged DPS for the extra healer and put him/her on the unbalanced side.  Otherwise, feel free to mock me and my clip art.  Angry wizard is angry.

The Hypocritical Elephant

The second Elephant in the Room that I'd like to acknowledge resides in the "LFD Tool" bandwagon.  Often in close proximity with or because of a gear score conversation, it seems the blogosphere has recently been inundated with stories of fail and triumph... emblems.  There have been quite a few positive sounding reviews and helpful pointers, but I think the vast majority of the press has been negative.  Not because the tool isn't as toolrific as the Backstreet Boys in their prime, but because utilizing it requires you to play well with others... something at least half of us fail at and then the other half totally calls them out on it in a vicious circle of newbtastic, negative glory. 

Yes, this Popic is one of those firmly ensconced in the "annoy the hell out of me" area.  Don't get me wrong, I love the tool more than a quad popped collar on a calm day.  I just get sick of whining after a while.  Maybe I'm just an elitist prick, but I suppose I have lower expectations of my fellow gamer than the rest of you. 

Sure, I sort of think of myself as all that and a bag of shards.  I mean, I am a warlock and an all-star, but that really isn't the mechanism at play here.  Honestly, I just realize that out of 10 million people, I'm probably going to come across at least 50% that are worse players than I am, and that's if I'm just average (which is about where I consider myself, maybe slightly above, but only because I spend a lot of time researching my classes, much like any of you reading this.  Chances are, if you're reading blogs, you're going to be "above average".  That's just the truth of it).  That means there are at least 5 million people worse than me in skill playing World of Warcraft.   But skill isn't the problem here, is it?  It's gosh-darned common courtesy.

So if I'm of average rudeness (which is probably again close to true, though I may again be above average since I have a rather good tolerance for rude individuals.  Or is that below?  Or am I really an elitist prick and setting the curve?), that means there's another 5 million people who are more rude than I am.  What this all adds up to is that there are a lot of rude people out there, and I probably have about a 50-50 shot of grouping with them if we were doing a two man group.  However, we're not.  We're doing a five man group.  Each slot isn't exactly statistically isolated either.  You see, if you get one nice person in your group first, then that's one less nice person in our 50-50 spread.  You're at 49-50 (if there were a theoretical 100 people).  That next spot is more likely to be an asshat.  By the time you get down to filling a whole group up... well, is it any wonder there always seems to be one bad egg?

My point here is why do we keep getting surprised by the lack of warmth in random groups?  We should be surprised when we get a good one!  And that's what we should be writing about as bloggers: the success stories, what works.  Megun over at Forbearance said it best here.  I don't give a shit about holiday cheer, but what does grind my gears is hypocrisy.  By calling out newbs with vehemence and derision and then writing "how to" guides, aren't we being just a little bit hypocritical?  Sure sure, express your opinions, vent if you must, but let's try to bring it back to the positive.  Instead of just blatantly trashing someone, why not use it as a chance for constructive criticism?  Tell about what the person should have done, though they may have chosen not to.

For instance, I have a story of fail (yes, I actually have many, I just haven't felt like sharing them.  I get pissed for all of about five seconds when it happens, and then, you know what, I move on).  Well here's the short version: Fuu and I zone in on Abi and Ful, her ready to heal an me ready to pull around 45% of the overall damage done, as has become my trend (cuz I'm BAMF and we all know it.  Oh and others might actually be trying to gear up.  No waaaay.).  Having queued as DPS/Heals, Fuu notifies the group right away that she needs to switch spec.  Easy enough right?  Oh, and I should mention we're in Gundrak for about the twenty seventh time this month.  Always Gundrak.  Some folks were getting Occulus (Solidarity with the MM, fo'shizzle.  I got yer back Jess) consistently.  Not us.

In any case, the important point here is that you zone in on top of a staircase.  Zone in, and immediately switch specs while the rest of us do our little high dive with a triple somersault and a half twist. Ten.  Mr. DK, either being illiterate or rude, decides to ignore the fact that not only has his healer notified the group of a quick spec swap, but also is not even with us, having not completed her dive... and pulls.  Normally, I'm badass enough that even this wouldn't be a problem.  Pop demon form, charge in, AoE the piss out of the group (like 8k+ DPS in demon form, ffs.  Ridiculous numbers.  Demonology is great fun for trash and quick dying stuff.) and they're down before any mage can so much as blink. 

DK decides to pull the next group, even though he's sitting at 40% health, getting no heals, and the first three are not quite dead.  Herculean though I may be, I cannot instantly shut off my immolation aura and the second group is going to immediately squish me.  I mean, it's not like he was thinking about snap aggro or anything.  Squish goes the warlock, squish goes the party.  Healer walks down the stairs all like "Oh hai angry trolls that are not my friends".  Splat. 

Even this would be no big deal.  I would not have written this narrative had this been the end of it.  If we had simply rezzed, been like "oops can't read or write" and moved on... no biggy.  People neglect to read chat all the time.  Besides, sometimes I like to stretch my demonic wings and see just how much I can take. 

DK says something like "you guys all suck" and immediately drops group.  Seriously.  One bad pull.  In Gundrak.  One healer obviously not being ready.  One 8k burst of DPS from a warlock that didn't pull aggro UNTIL he pulled group two.  W.T.F.DO.YA.THINK?  Mis-communicating has NOTHING to do with skill.  But, who cares, anyways? What part of that was us sucking?  We got back in queue, go another tank, and rolled that place like John Wayne rolls his own cigs.  (I would think such an iconic cowboy would be really fast, but I really don't know.  Maybe the Marlboro guy woulda been a better reference?  Still, I like John Wanye.)

There's my fail story, in all its glory.  I enjoyed ranting and hope I was mildly entertaining.  That's step one to writing one of these.  We're pretty good at that.  It's step two that I feel we're missing on a lot of cases.  Here comes step two...

What he should have done is just wait a cotton-pickin' second (which is longer and harder to count on your calloused fingers than a normal second, since you've been, you know, picking cotton) for the healer to switch specs.  Simple enough right?  Another good lesson is that if you don't let one bad egg sour the group, you can actually have some fun.  The DK's asshatery became a bonding point for the rest of us.  When we got a new tank, we laughed about the dumb stuff and then quickly and efficiently took down the instance and got a few achievements to boot. And really, none of this struck me as newsworthy until I got on this rant about bandwagon topics.  I mean, it's nothing new or out of the ordinary, except maybe for the lessons I gleaned from it.

The bigger picture just bugged me: why don't I have any good rant stories?  Why do rant stories annoy me?  The answer to the first is that I generally just brush crap like the above off, check off a few lessons learned, and turn a potential fail into a win through persistence.  That, and maybe I've just been lucky.  The answer to the second is that many of the rants don't try to turn the negative into a positive.  I don't have a problem with ranting.  In fact, when done right, it can make for a quite humorous read.  I do, however, have a problem when people merely point out a problem without offering any kind of solution. 

Many of the articles I've read are not taking that second step.  They do a great job describing the incident, but they often fail to say how it could have been fixed.  Mostly, I think this is because the authors think the fixes to be obvious.  After all, this is why they're ranting in the first place, right?  But what if they're not?  How are you helping the cause if someone is out there scratching their head and not understanding what is wrong with the situation?  What illumination are you providing to the dark cloud you've cast?

Let's bring this Wall O' Text to a close, shall we?  And while we're at it, let's try not to be hypocritical.  I've identified a problem: distinctly negative postings without a constructive resolution.  Okay, now to take my own advice.  What's the resolution here?  Well, bloggers are generally helpful people.  That's why many of us are out here, to answer questions and provide infotainment.  We just simply need to do what we're already good at: help "newb" players out.  For every negative, we need to try to offer a solution.  We need to make sure we're being clear not just how something is bad, but also why it's bad. 

Keep your chins up and don't let that bottom half get to you.  Do your part, do your job, play adequately, and you're fine.  Don't let some asshat tell you otherwise.  If you're out here reading, you're probably already doing your part to make yourself a better player, and isn't that all we can really hope for?  None of us are going to play perfectly, but we can always try to play better.  In the face of negativity, persevere.  Isn't that what we have to do IRL anyways?

To Pull or not to Pull: Tank Etiquette 101

Hey gang!

Like most of you, I've been running chain heroics ever since 3.3. I'm not here to tell you about all of the fail pugs out there that I've encountered; I'm not going to talk about how crazy it is that tanks get Queued up so quickly while the "poor" DPS has to wait until I grace them with my Uber tanking presence. I'm also not going to talk about the Oculus incident (is it one or two C's PLEASE DONT FLAME ME) /cower

Nope, this is going to be about Tanking etiquette.

When you push that button that has that almighty icon of a Shield, you have just taken on the responsibility to protect your fellow mates (or absolutely random people). These tips are ESPECIALLY important if you are running with 4 other people that you've never ran with before. Let's treat this instance like a relationship.

What do we need for this relationship to succeed?

*Communication- With all relationships this is Key to success. These people cannot read minds. You, as the tank, should not assume that your healer knows you are about to pull the entire instance. Before your very first pull, take a look at your healer. What type of healer are they? A druid who is a mobile healer? Or a paladin who needs to actually stop running to cast spells. Personally, I never look at someone else's gear because I learn little to nothing about them. Let them know what your plans are for the instance. Do you plan to full clear? Do you plan to chain pull? Now, I'm not saying that you must have an hour chat with these folks but don't be that mute tank who assumes everyone knows the instance and has the ability to keep up with you if you go running off.

*Awareness- Don't assume (you'll see a trend of me using this word because assuming gets you into a heap of trouble) that everyone is a pro or Elite. Now, you don't need to treat them like a noob but treat them as if they are just geared for the instance and have never set foot into this place before (with the new instances this could actually be the case). Think that every hunter is going to pull for you, think that every healer is going to run Oom the moment you take any amount of damage. Watch your party member's health (and your healers mana) like a hawk. If someone is taking damage that they shouldn't, this might indicate that something has gone unexpected and the warlock ass pulled something. Awareness can really save your group from certain wipe. Most tanks stay out in front (don't let the rogue out in front of you, even if he assures you he "knows what he's doing") watch & occasionally turn around and make sure everyone's there and nothing is trailing behind. Would you leave your date behind to pick up the check on the first date? I think not!

*Togetherness- This is definitely something that separates the enjoyable runs from unnecessary wipes. On your first date together as a couple, you want to do things together right? You don't invite some girl out to putt-putt and abandon her on the first tee, "See you at the arcades! Have fun!" Well, you wouldn't do this to your party either, you have queued up TOGETHER! STICK TOGETHER! Do not leave your healer & DPS behind because that mob insulted your mother, just bloody wait a minute. I cannot tell you how many times, as a healer, I was left behind because I wanted to, you know... loot the mobs? Don't turn it into a luxury to get loot or skin in the instance. If you feel that this might be hard for you, type:

/range 30

This will pop up a window and will show you who in within 30 yards of you at any time during your run. For me, I will physically turn my camera around and see what's going on.

*Pace- You, as the tank, are put into the driver seat when it comes to setting the pace of the instance. You can go as fast or as slow as you feel comfortable but really think about everyone else's well being. Think of it this way, you are on your first date and you really like this girl. She seems like she enjoys your company. You can take your relationship at many different speeds but there are consequences if you pick the incorrect one. If you go too slow, she will become disinterested in you and may find you boring and look for someone else to please her and fulfill her needs. If you go too fast, she will most likely slap you in the face & leave abruptly with you unsatisfied and demoralized. Finding that happy medium is really best. I ALWAYS suggest starting off slower and working your way gradually faster until you find that happy medium that we all seek.

*Courtesy- This is going to be my motherly advice but BE NICE! Don't be a dick and yell at everyone because they are not Elite sauce like you are. Open the door for her, pull out her chair. Now you don't have be a kiss ass, but if the healer asks you to slow down in any variation (rude or not) actually slow down. Actively listen to the other people in your party. If someone doesn't like the way things are going, don't blow up in their face. Try to understand what they are saying. A lot of times you need to wade through the language that they are using. Be the bigger man! Often times, they are upset because someone isn't pulling the proper DPS or if the Hunter has +Str gems. Once those types of things drop into your party chat the mood of your instance run has just gone from potentially fun and enjoyable to awkward and uncomfortable for everyone. Be aware and actively avoid being an asshole.

I'm not saying that if you follow these key points, every LFG run will be successful, but it sure helps. As tanks, we have the luxury of queuing up whenever we feel like it and having a group at the drop of a hat. DPS do not. They could have been waiting for 30 some odd minutes for their "Da da da!" noise. If you jump in, realize that you don't like it what you see, drop group, you have just wasted that persons time and labeled yourself as a huge dick. Really think about what the end goal is for why you are queuing up. Do you want a quick badge run? Then actively try to make this possible with the least amount of resistance from you.

Go out there and be the best damn tank you can be!
You may get a little nookie if you do it right ;)

<3 Fuu

The Reality of Aff'lock Gearing

There are a couple bandwagons I've wanted to jump on recently. You see, normally I don't pay all that much attention to writing about the Big Topic.  Usually I feel that everyone else does a more than adequate job of covering the big stuff, and I can be more entertaining by turning my talents elsewhere.  I mean, after about the 25th failed PuG description, they all just lose my interest.  We get the point: there are bad people out there. Horses are Bad People.

Then there comes a point where the topic has traversed from annoying, over-analyzed Popic to Elephant In The Room.  EITR is where I start to believe each blogger need take a stance.  If you get to a blog, and they haven't written about EITR, then they're just not paying attention.  The whole Ferraro escapade was one such topic, in my opinion.  At first, it was a small deluge of writing, then a torrent, then annoying, but then I felt that I had to at least acknowledge it in all it's Annoyed Glory because everyone had said at least something about it and wtf am I doing that I'm not opining.  I'm not sure what this phenomenon is called, other than I, personally, feel the urge to write on the bandwagon at some point, so to speak, after reading so much about the Popic.

My feelings traverse the spectrum from General Interest > Mild Disdain > Intense Hatred > Revived Curiosity > Thought Provoking In-Depth Analysis.  Or something like that.  Sometimes things stop and park it firmly in the Intense Hatred area, and in that case... you probably won't see the NSFW rant on here.

Okay, enough baysplanation already.  The topic I wanted to acknowledge today is the "Gear score is Bollocks" party.  Several bloggers that I read have already done this Popic.  Spinks here.  Shock and Paw here.  Gnomeaggedon here, to name a few.

I'm not going to redo a well-done topic, but suffice it to say that I, too, think gear score is bollocks.  There are a plethora or reasons, but let's look at the one nearest and dearest to our sharded hearts as Affliction Warlocks.


The reality of Affliction Warlock gearing is that gear score will not accurately represent a good affliction warlock.

Why is this?  Well, let's start with the tier gear.  T9 is the new "norm" for gearing since Triumph badges are falling like Purple Rain.  T9 for Affliction Warlocks sucks!  There, I said it.  It's complete crap.  T8 and T7 are better.  Period.  Affliction warlocks like SP and Haste on top of getting the hit cap.  It's even better for us to talent to hit cap, since we need those points in the tree anyways (and where else can they go?  Pushback reduction?  Puh-lease.  I'd much rather have stats on gear and talent for hit!).  The point here is that I'm still sporting some ilvl 219 pants (T7.5, i think the ilvl is 219) and they're GOOD.  I'm finally starting to break up my set bonuses, but they served me well for a long time.

The new T10 pants are really only a MINOR upgrade over the T7.5 pants if you're already hit capped.  The T9 pants are right out.  Srsly?  Srsly.  I'm jumping two fracking tier levels and only geting a MINOR upgrade.  Eventually, maybe, I'll be able to balance out the hit and thus make more use of those points on the pants, but why are they moving hit around on different pieces?

And that's only one example.  Blizz has apparently seen fit to hurl Crit down our throats since, "hey dots can now crit."  Well, I don't give a Sewer Rat's ass... give me haste or give me death!  Haste is almost equal to SP in terms of DPS gains and it is almost always a trade off with Crit.  Since we're getting Crit shoved down our throats, it really over-values the few haste pieces for 'locks that there are out there, a lot of which are found in lower tier levels.

Now the set bonus for T10 is worth it, but I'm going to have to get there first.  There are also some great Frost Emblem pieces.  On the whole, however, the Triumph level was a complete bust for aff'locks: there just wasn't a lot there that was good!  Thus, it's not a bad thing as an aff'lock to be sporting some "old" gear.  Much of the lesser ilvl stuff is actually better than the Triumph "equivalent".

So while everyone else is blazing by your gearscore, you should feel secure in the fact that you know your stats, you've done your research, and T9 is just not for you.  For affliction 'locks, right now, it should all be about Frost Emblems.  Screw Triumph and the entire Argent Crusade.  Give me that new faction rep with the cool, upgradeable rings.  

The bigger picture here is just that I know, intimately, of at least one spec where an ilvl based gear score is complete crap.  And if there's one, there have got to be others.  (Oddly enough, my DK is not one of those.  T9 is some good juju for the DK, despite the less-than-ideal bonus for Frost).  So anyone who judges an aff'lock by a gear score is a dolt, say I.  Judge them by inspection and performance, as we should judge anyone, if we're going to do it.  Judging by gear score is just lazy.  If you're intelligent enough to be leading a group (which can be debatable at times), then you should be intelligent enough to make an informed decision without resorting to some arbitrarily assigned number.

So is gear score useful?  Maybe.  Should it be The Bar to be set?  Absolutely not.

The Azerothian Walk Of Shame

Fulguralis looks down at the floor and kicks the hollowed out skull that lies there.  The mass of bone skitters across the floor before smacking loudly into three more just like it.  The sound of cracking bone fills the chamber and reverberates back on the adventurers standing in its midst.  The warlock grins even as his wife cringes beside him.

"Not a good time to lose one's head," Fulguralis interjects into the silence.

"Oh, don't get heady, JackHole," the pretty little Dwarven Priest next to him scoffs, elbowing him jauntily on her way up the ramp and out of the chamber.

"Good one," his Paladin wife snickers, following.

"Hey!" Fulguralis calls out, hurrying to catch up.  "Someone's got to revel in death in this Light-infested ménage we have going."

"Shut up and get ready for Lady Deathwhisper," A second Dwarf, another Paladin, pipes up.

"What's up with all the little people in this group?" Fulguralis points out.  "Am I right Mr. Rogue?"

The Rogue merely rolls his eyes and then fades into the scenery, obviously off to start more trouble.

Fulguralis calls after him, "Don't you go dying on my now, buddy! I don't want to be the only tall one left!"

The warlock grins.  For all his bluster, it feels really good to be with a group of adventurers again.  His sister had been having all the fun lately, what with reviving a legendary sword and all.  She had really been growing into her power, and he was surprised to find a tinge of pride amongst his usually self-centered emotions.  A warlock could go soft with a lack of adventure.  Fulguralis pokes around in the bones, making sure there aren't any spoils missed. 

Yes, an assault on Icecrown was exactly what his sharded soul craved.  Besides, a warlock could never have too much death in his life.  Too much destruction?  Maybe, but never too much killing. 

Up the hill, the party of adventurers are greeted with yet another room filled with menacing monsters.  The Rogue, of course, is already sneaking around inside when Fulguralis arrives.  He quietly unsheathes the new blade he'd found buried in the corpse in the last room and throws a quick magical enchantment on the blade to strengthen it.  A large Lich dominates the rear of the room before him, her minions filling the empty space before her. 

With a cacophony of clanking armor, his wife descends the steps, hurrying in case the Rogue were to accidentally step on a twig and reveal himself.  Closing in the monsters, she throws her shield at the group, catching their attention.  A flurry of activity follows as the adventurers quickly and efficiently dispose of the minions.  Facing the Lich, the Dwarven Priest begins to discuss strategy with the Animated Tree that stands just to her right.  Fuubaar stoops down to clean the black smears of off her shield, and the rest of the party lounges around in a similar manner, preparing themselves for a struggle against the Lich. 

Lady Deathwhisper, Fulguralis recalls her name, though he cannot for the life of him figure out how to tell a Lady Lich from a Mister Lich, something about the pelvic bones... but who wanted to go there?  They all looked this-side-of-the-grave to him anyways, and really, they just needed to be put on that side of the grave.  Who really wanted to be King of such a motley crue?  Or was that spelled crew?  The warlock was no scribe.

A strategy had apparently been decided on as the stout, Dwarven Paladin walks up and swings a large hammer towards the Lich.  It bounces harmlessly off of a now-revealed, glowing blue force field, eliciting a groan from Fulguralis.  So she wasn't going to make this easy.  Hefting his sword, the warlock grins as more minions began to spill from the sides of the room.  Bring it!

*     *     *

Fulguralis views the now calm battlefield.  The lich, having been dispatched by the narrowest of margins, leaves quite an impressive bounty for the adventurers to divide amongst themselves.  A few of the party are reclining over near the Priest, resting after a short stay in the spirit realm.  The rest of the party pokes around the room, looking for anything missed.

After several minutes of searching, Fulguralis decides to take a ride on the large, vertically moving platform in the room to see where it leads.  Riding up with him, his wife sighs contentedly, clearly reminiscing about their recent struggle with the Lich.  There are fights that are satisfying even to servants of the Light, and the near brush with the spirit realm they'd both just escaped was one of those.  They had been so close to losing the entire party, but the Lich bitch had fallen just in the nick of time.

Atop the lift, Fulguralis is greeted with the sight of a battle raging on in his absence.  Horde and Alliance members alike trade spells and cross sword before his eyes.  Apparently, the airships of each faction have made a simultaneous drop off and, for some reason, a fight had started.  One of the obsequious Elves probably called one of the female Tauren a beefy cow thinking it was a compliment, or maybe the proud Dwarf had poked fun of the male Blood Elf's ostentatious make-up.  Who knows what starts these things?  Point is, they happen, and Fulguralis wasn't about to miss out on the opportunity to watch a good fight.

Sidling up to the struggle, he reaches down into his magical backpack, seeking out some popcorn.  Finding none, he spots the Alliance Airship a small ways off in the distance.  Surely they'd have a vendor.  The warlock begins to head towards the ship with a snack purchase in mind.  Suddenly, a particularly viscous spell smacks him in the back.  Whirling around, he finds himself face to face with at least a dozen Horde.    
 
"Whoa guys.  I'm just here for the..." the Warlock begins, holding up his hands.  But he never finishes.  A hailstorm of attacks are launched towards him and the next thing he knows, Azeroth looks strangely devoid of color. 

"Well this is just great," he mumbles to himself in the realm of spirits.  "I guess I won't be doing that again.  Maybe that wife of mine will make herself useful and rez me."

"I heard that!" A voice wafts from seemingly thin air.  A few moments pass and the warlock is not returned to health. 

Man, she really takes this 'till death do us part thing seriously, Fulguralis thinks to himself.  Reluctantly, he begins the long walk of shame back to his body.

Shadows, Now With More Cunning

The night before last, we finally finished the Quel'Delar quest chain. The hardest part, as expected, what knocking out each of the new heroics. As previously mentioned, they can be difficult enough to still cause a myriad of problems with random PuGs, so a good, preformed group really helps here.  I'm not going to ruin the storyline for anyone who hasn't done it, but I will say that the last two steps after you get out of heroic mode can be solo'ed. Don't let the word "Sunwell" scare you... you aren't going retro-raiding.

After it's all said and done, I was able to pick up a rather amazing 1H weapon for my DW DPS set. You can check out the stats (and my addons) in the following screenshot:

You can see I use both Pawn and Ratings Buster addons.  As with most 1H DPS weapons, this one is devoid of any Strength stat, which is a bummer, but the other goodies more than make up for it.  The best thing?  It's slow.  And by slow, I mean fucking slow.  2.7 swing speed slow.  That's good stuff for a DW DK.  Especially with a 205.6 weapon DPS.  Pop this puppy on your MH and watch your OB numbers skyrocket. 

It had been marginally tough to find good, slow, 1H DPS weapons.  I now have a 2.6 off hand and 2.7 main hand.  Since I've talented so that my special attacks hit with both hands (Threat o' Thass), this means I'm seeing some great numbers now, with the beefy QD netting me awesome crit numbers for a DW.  Yep, this one is going to be a staple for a long, long time.  Not to mention the sweet lore and epic quest chain involved.  I felt bad for Fuu because her priest had to get the mace.  The mace still has great stats, but it's not the Quel'Delar you just saved.  It's more like a simple quest reward and not like you're wielding an epic piece of awesomeness.  Poor priests.

Now, I'm hoping I can get a second hilt to drop so I can get this bad boy for my Warlock.  (Still, having recently acquired Seethe on my lock, it wouldn't not be nearly as big of an upgrade... or used as much since melee 'lock = fail). 

Oh, and did I mention that you get announced in Dalaran?  Yeah, who doesn't like when some hot belf chick is screaming your name?  I'll cop to that one.

Feel free to drop a question about my UI too if you see something you like/don't understand.  Yeah, I use Fortex on my DK too, wanna fight about?  I'll QD all over your face.

Ventrilo Hosting Rec

This isn't a content post or a review or anything.  This is just a quick "service announcement".  I wanted to call attention (or explain already garnered attention) to the small Host Ventrilo button that I've placed in my left hand bar (find it near the blog Azeroth stuff).  To some, it may reek of "Ad" and to an extent, it is.  I've labeled it a "recommendation" however, because that sounds better.  

Anyways, here's the deal:  I've been using Host Ventrilo to facilitate my Venting for somewhere around 4 months now.  Before that, we'd been piggy-backing on a friendly guild's vent for alliance activities.  They'd also used Host Ventrilo (for over a year) and I got the info for my own from them.  When Aion came out and I started my own guild over there, I figured I should get my own small server.  It's actually gotten quite a bit of usage, so I'm glad I did. 

Recently, they've started an Affiliate Program where they basically give you a reference ID and a nifty link so you can be rewarded for any word-of-mouth promotion you do on their behalf.  Here's the one-liner explanation from what they sent me: The HostVentrilo Affiliate Program works just like a referral service, where we reward you with 25% from each signup, just for letting your friends and family know about HostVentrilo.com!  It's quite simple, you refer someone, they click on your link, and you get some money off your next bill.  Easy enough right?  They also gave me a nice little button, which is what I put on the side.  I wanted it to be as unobtrusive as possible, because I've never tried to make money or go the ad route with my blogging hobby.  I write here because I enjoy writing.  That simple.

Still, I feel Vent is a key gaming resource and recommending a good host server to me is like pointing you at a quality resource site.  It's just a bonus that I can be rewarded for it.  So feel free to use the link, or not, if you're looking for a place to buy a vent server.  As far as my limited research shows me (asking around), Host Ventrilo is competitive in pricing and great with reliability.  It's very easy to set up, easy to get up and running, and has virtually no down time (I've never logged on to find it down or inoperable yet).  The quality is good, the client is easy to get... I mean, hey, it's Vent.

In the interest of full disclosure, I just wanted to make sure y'all know that I would, in fact, get some money if someone used that link to sign up.  That's all.  I get nothing for showing it off or writing this post.  If anyone has any questions about it, feel free to leave a comment or email.  Thanks!