Chronicles of a Casual WoW Player

Loremaster, and angry fist waving at Sporegar

2010-04-13T10:04:00.001-07:00

So, I've decided to slowly make my way through all of the quests that need doing in order to get the Loremaster achievement. It's going to be quite the grind, as I have about 300-400 quests in the old world that will need doing, and a good chunk of quests in Outlands as well. Thankfully, I've been fairly systematic in getting quest achievements out of the way in Northrend, so there shouldn't be too many issues there. Considering it is highly likely that the Loremaster achievement will either be done away with or changed in a big way when Cataclysm gets here, it just makes sense to try and get it out of the way now. I'm hoping to have completed everything in about a month, but it'll be mostly a case of scrounging up those last few quests in the old world from NPCs in strange places that will make or break the whole thing.

One interesting thing that I've noticed in Zangarmarsh while trying to pound out the last couple of quests that I need there in order to get the achievement for that zone is that a huge chunk of Sporegar's quests don't count toward it. I did the rep grind so that I could do the quests in their village, but when I turn them in (including the ones that send me to Coilfang, etc.) they aren't counting. It's kinda frustrating, but at least I have a few more quests I can do for the Cenarion Expedition that should help count towards it so it isn't the end of the world. Moreover, the rep rewards granted for these quests appears to have gone up, so that should get me to exalted a little quicker so I can get that pet they have. =)

Yeah, Yeah...

2010-03-30T21:07:00.000-07:00

I know, I said I was having a good time on Alleria, but I wound up moving my priest to Spinebreaker, and things have been going pretty darn well so far. The Horde population there is huge compared to my previous server, so it is quite easy to PUG stuff. I've already plowed through ToC 25, and got far further in ICC 10 than I was ever able to on Alleria. City chat is awash with PUGs, and I'm really liking it for checking out content on an adhoc basis.

Another project that I have on the go there now is putting together a guild (Relaxomatic). I'm going for something a lot more social than anything else, but we will be looking at raid content and PvP when we have enough people. It's definitely something I'm enjoying, hunting down like-minded players to join the guild. Hopefully, we'll go on to amazing things in the coming weeks, and months.

Anywho, just a quick follow-up to my last post. =)

Poking Around Other Realms (Is the grass always greener?)

2010-03-10T17:42:00.000-08:00

Usually I spend my time Horde side on Alleria, but the last little bit I've been poking my head in on a couple of other servers where some friends are playing. First, I should point out that the Horde has a very tiny population on Alleria, so things are quite quiet over there. You can actually have a conversation in trade chat on that server if you so choose. On these two servers I've visited of late (Spinebreaker and Stormreaver) the populations are much larger (I'm referring to Horde on Spine, and Alliance on Storm). It was a pretty big surprise. I've been on busy servers before, like Area 52, but the sheer amount of chatter I saw in the main cities was astounding.

Granted, the vast majority of it was people looking to start pugs, or trying to track down a crafter to make something for them. At first, I thought I might like the idea of bringing one of my 80s over to such a server if only because it looks like there's a lot going on there. Then I started to wonder whether I'd be happy on a busy server in the long run. I do like the quiet on Alleria. There may not be a million and one pug raids starting every ten minutes, but people there are largely really nice and get along well. It's not like a high population server were asshats can sort of blend into the crowd a little bit easier. If you're a moron on the Horde on Alleria, people will remember, and good luck getting any groups for stuff then.

Some people may really be into the big crowds, but I think I'll continue to enjoy the backwater charms of Alleria. I may not be able to pug as much, but at least I'll retain my sanity thanks to the quiet here.

Blowing the Dust Off

2010-03-01T09:35:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm back after a lengthy hiatus. I've been up to quite a bit, futzing around in the 5-man Icecrown Dungeons, as well as taking a stab at some of the 10-man content. I'm still not a big fan of raiding (too time consuming), so I haven't even gotten past Deathwhipser yet. What I have been having quite a lot of fun with of late is battlegrounds.

I've always liked the competitive, yet relaxed nature of these PvP battles. I can wander around doing my dailies, or knocking out classic quests while waiting in the key, then eventually it's off to the battleground for a bit of fun. In theory I could do this with the dungeon finder as well, but I'm a healer, which means almost instant invites to these groups, so I wouldn't get much done with my questing before going off to a dungeon. Moreover, there isn't much left for me to get in terms of gear drops from the new 5-man dungeons, nor the triumph badge gear. I suppose there are the achievements, but I'm in no rush to go do those.

This past week, Strand of the Ancients has been the holiday battleground, so I've been spending most of my time there. Some people complain about how reliant the zone is for using vehicles to get things done, but I like that element of it. It adds an additional element to the battle, and makes your team work to protect them, not just having 75% of the players randomly fighting the opposing faction somewhere, which can often happen in a battleground. The big thing is just getting people to communicate in order to win, and it's surprising how rarely this happens. A lot of times no one in my groups would make a decision on which gates to storm (resulting in everyone randomly going their own way, and losing), or which graveyards to cap when on offense, and while defending the Strand, plenty of people would neglect to call out when the enemy was. I've pretty much taken it on myself to give out some basic assignments when on the ship heading into the battle, setting a gate order so everyone has a basic idea of what to do, and will hopefully work together toward that.

About the only real gripe I have with battlegrounds at the moment, though, is that the queue times are kind of long, with waits of 10-15 minutes being common, and that quite a few times I'd be dropped in a battleground when it's almost over, so I'm stuck in the queue for a lengthy period of time and only get a few hundred honor points from the battle when I eventually join. Apparently some of the changes coming in the next patch may address this, and more importantly it will be doing away with marks of honor. Word on the street is that after the next patch we'll be able to trade these in for honor points, and rumor has it we could be looking at 2000 points per mark. I have so many of those that I've collected over the years, and never spent. If this rumor proves to be true, I could have many hundreds of thousands of honor points to play with come next patch, and can get a respectable PvP gear set. I could certainly use it, as I'm playing in mostly PvP gear at the moment with the exception of a pair of i245 boots that I recently acquired.

So yeah, I'm pretty much in full-on dailies, and classic content mode right now, with liberal splashes of battlegrounds thrown in. Maybe once I get a little more PvP gear I'll even look into doing some arenas. As it stands, I like this mix of PvE and PvP that I've been doing as of late.

The Gear Score Debate

2009-10-22T08:55:00.000-07:00

Over the last few months we've been seeing more and more people looking to gear score as a way of screening potential additions to a PUG. The assumption is that the higher a person's gear score is, the more qualified they are to join the group. The problem comes in that not everyone thinks this is a good idea, and I happen to fall into that group.

There is a lot of gear inflation going on in WoW these days, and it is masking players' competency. I have been in a number of PUGs that have had members with very good gear scores performing badly (dying in the fire in VoA or ToC 10), having unusually low dps for their gear (makes me wonder if these toons were eBay'ed or the person was just lazy and playing with auto attack only). Gear score is not necessarily directly proportional to a player's skill.

On occasion it might be useful to catch someone who is way undergeared for a raid. Maybe the person is very casual, or inexperiened and does't realize a freshly minted 80 probably isn't going to get far in the upper echalons of ToC 10 / 25, or Ulduar. In that case, I just assume politely tell them that they'll need to gear up for such instances, and then find a new person for their slot. However, asking for gear scores and unrealistically high stats from people to run the heroic daily is just annoying, and more likely to get someone on my ignore list.

It's funny, Blizzard brought up the mantra " Bring the player, not the class" a while back, but now the playerbase's mentality seems to be bring the gear score, and not the player. I really do hope that Blizzard continues to trivialize gear as we move forward, putting the emphasis on tactics, not stats. It'll put more emphasis on player skill, not the gear they are wearing.

The Hunt for the Sinister Squashling

2009-10-21T09:30:00.000-07:00

Of all the things that I need to do for the Hallow's End achievement, the one I'm apprehensive about is finding the Sinister Squashling. There are a few ways to get it, with the most popular being a rare drop from the Headless Horseman, completing the daily quest where you bash a pumpkin that appears after putting out the fires from the horseman in a lowbie town and defeating his low-level shade, or possibly getting it as a trick or treat goody from an innkeeper.

Last year I was able to get the helm that is also required for the achievement, but no such luck on the squashling. I wouldn't mind getting the seasonal achievement out of the way this year, but I guess it's one of those things we'll have to wait and see on...

Hallow's End

2009-10-20T09:32:00.000-07:00

Another year, another two weeks of putting out fires in starting zones, and hucking pumpkins at people's heads. It's Hallow's End in Azeroth! Oh, and apparently there's this Headless Horseman guy hanging out in the Scarlet Monestary that has a really cool mount, but I say poppycock to such a rediculous rumor. ;)

Anyway, I'm not sure how much I'll get involved with the events this year. I've been running around gathering candy from buckets, and I'll probably do some of the other achievements, like G.N.E.R.D. Rage, but I doubt I'll go overboard this year. About the only thing that I really, really want is a Sinister Squashling, but that has more to do with my mild obsession with collecting pets than anything else.

I've been noticing that interest in hunting the Headless Horseman has dropped off fast on my server (at least on the Horde side). There was a flurry of requests for groups on Sunday, but yesterday it died off pretty quick, even in the evening when people are back home from work / school. Maybe it'll pick up later, or perhaps they're getting tired of seeing nothing but rings drop from the guy after they defeat him.

There's also a somewhat funny pic I took of a taunka near a candy bucket that I took while wandering around Northrend. It's on my other computer, so I'll slap that up later when I have some time. It's good for a chuckle. :)

Season 8 Weapons and Titles

2009-10-20T09:26:00.001-07:00

The folks at MMO Champions have a bunch of new images posted showing the weapons we'll be able to get from Season 8 of Arena. Blizzard is definitely going for a very spiky look with this batch. Not sure how zazzed I am for the style here, but seeing as we're heading into the home stretch on the whole Icecrown / Arthas arc, it's to be expected, I suppose.

Personally, I'm more interested in the titles available for the 10 and 25 man dungeon. Frost Ender isn't too bad of a title to get for completing 10-man, but Kingslayer is downright badassed. That being said, I'm still much more interested in going after Algalon for either the Starcaller or Astral Walker title. :p

Random Healing Thoughts

2009-10-19T13:36:00.000-07:00

Two posts in one day? Crazy! Anyway, I've been thinking about healing as discipline spec a bit more in conjunction with how some players like crunching numbers to determine performance. I'm usually on tank heals when I run 10-man content, so I'm focusing on the one person first, and toss shields around, with some penance being thrown on a particular person who somehow got on the receiving end of a good pummeling. The person(s) I'm assigned to stay alive, but when we toss up the numbers as to who is pumping out the most heals overall, I'm usually well behind the resto shammies, or resto druids in the group.

Obviously, I'm not healing the whole raid, so maybe I shouldn't think about it so much, but wow those classes can pound out the heals. I've just rolled a shammy and a druid as well to take a closer look at the other healing classes. Not sure which I'm more excited about: chain heals, or trees. Nontheless, I guess I should look at my healing in a more situational way. Is it fair to look at tank heals in the same context as other healing roles, or should I just worry about keeping my people alive? Maybe I just worry too much...

My Mr. Chilly Pet

2009-10-19T12:21:00.000-07:00

As most of you probably already know, Blizzard is giving everyone who plays WoW a new pet to play around with if they merge their WoW account onto Battle.net. I had done this ages ago, so this past week I found a cute little penguin waiting for me in all my toons' mailboxes, and cute he most certainly is.

I was thinking of grinding out more Kaluak rep so I could get the penguin pet from them, but now I'm not in much of a rush (though it's probably still worth getting to exalted there for the fancy fishing pole you can buy when you're exalted with them). Here's a picture of my little guy with my requisite female blood elf hunter. :p

Adorable, no?

A Jolly Romp Through Ulduar

2009-10-18T17:38:00.001-07:00

Continuing with my efforts to do a bit more raiding, I joined a PUG running 10-man Ulduar today. Overall, it was a good run. We downed Flame Leviathan, Ignis, Razorscale, XT-002, Kologarn, and Auriaya. The raid leader only decided to pack it in after we hit a wall on Hodir. We were thinking of switching out a few roles, and had to grab a couple of replacements, but ulitmately it was decided that it would have been mean to bring in random people with so many bosses already down, so everyone said their thank yous and went merrily on their way.

Seeing as this was the first time going into the instance for myself and a few others, everything still went quite smoothly. The experiences players carefully explained key facets of the fights, and I'd say everyone sorted out what they needed to do nicely. I spent the first half of the run doing tank heals in discipline spec, then switched over to shadow as we shuffled in a new healer to replace someone who had to leave.

Of all the fights that I got to do, I'd say that I liked going up against Ignis the best. It felt a lot more exciting, dodging fire and adds, while worrying if I'd be the next person tossed in his pot. Flame Leviathan was pretty fun too if only because I like driving stuff around. Zoom!...well, maybe not "zoom". Most of the vehicles in that sequence are pretty slow.

It was nice to experience some more raid content, and I even got the Combustion Bracers, which was kinda nice (saves me a decent chunk of change on the auction house if nothing else). Seeing what I saw on this run, I'm curious to delve further. The bosses deeper in are much harder I hear, but it would be cool to fight Yogg Saron, or possibly even Algalon one day. Hopefully that day will come sooner rather than later.

Fishing!

2009-10-17T09:21:00.000-07:00

So, I've been trying to top up fishing skills on my priest when I have some free time. As anyone who has done this at the higher levels will tell you, this takes quite a bit of time. If I'm doing this in an area where there is a lot of chat going on in general, or there happens to be a number of guildies on to chat with it's not too bad, but a lot of the time it's really quiet (the only exception being fishing in a major city, and ready trade chat, but one can only tolerate morons combining the word "anal" with randomly hot-linked in-game abilities for so long).

This has gotten me wondering what Blizzard will do about fishing in the future. There have been a few rumors fluttering around that changes are in store for the profession, but I have yet to see anything official. It wouldn't surprise me to see an overhaul to the way in which fishing is done, at least at the higher levels. If things continue the way they have been, a few expansions from now players will be casting hundreds of times just to go up one level, and that would just be silly.

It would be nice to see something done that brought players' focus back into the game while fishing. Half of the time I'm fishing in windowed mode, reading the news, and listening to music. When I hear the splashing sound of my line getting a bite, I switch back to my WoW window, and reel in whatever I've caught. If there was a way to work at getting fish, that kept me focused, and was fun, I'd rather like that. Final Fantasy XI's fishing system isn't too bad. Maybe that's something that Blizzard could look at. Who knows? As it stands, though, I can't see the current fishing system staying in use for much longer.

Do Ye Want ta Live Forever?

2009-10-16T10:09:00.000-07:00

Brewfest has long since come and gone. I did some of the stuff, making sure I got the pet for my ever-growing collection, but the one item that I am most pleased in receiving is the beer stein that summons the Brewmaiden. For some reason, I've always wanted that thing, but never got around to it. It's so great being able to summon the magical beer lady, wave at her, and she'll hardily chuck a beer in that person's direction. Put out a ponykeg, and then you have a real party.

It was a lucky opportunity to get it, and just about any other trinket I could need. A bunch of death knights needed a healer so to fight Direbrew, so I tagged along. All they wanted was the mount (and one of them was lucky to get the ram - we're all horde btw). None of them had any interest in the trinkets, so they were all mine. First to drop was the Brightbrew Charm, and later on a Pickled Egg dropped too, which has a nice spellpower bonus on it.

I like objects that summon creatures for some reason. I got the Argent Horn during the world event leading up to Lich King's release, and now I'm looking up old world items that summon people as well. One that would be neat to find is the item that summons the trio of horde helpers (two trolls, and an orc maybe? I can't remember).

Anywho, if you see a glowing dwarf lady like the one pictured above, don't forget to wave to her!

Just Like Old Times

2009-10-15T09:25:00.000-07:00

Both the daily heroic quest, and the Timear Foresees quests had me going to the Halls of Lightning last night. I love it when the dailies give a nice 2-for-1 like that. Even when they're right next door to each other, like Halls of Lightning and Halls of Stone, or Utgarde Keep and Utgarde Pinnacle is pretty good.

Anywho, with all the gear inflation that's been going on since patch 3.2 hit, I figured this run would just fly by like so many others do nowadays. That's not quite the way it worked out, though. I actually came across a group that wasn't ensconched in i200+ purples, practically capable of downing entire instances with a wand, but a group largely in decent blues and crafted purples that have just enough stats to get through heroics without turning the world on fire.

They were a really nice bunch to play with, and we got the job done, but the one thing I liked most about the run was that it reminded me of when 5-man heroics were still a challenge. There was a time when facing Loken had a lot of groups gritting their teeth and hoping for the best, but gear inflation has made him a cakewalk in HoL. It was nice to do a run that felt more like the early months of Lich King. I had to work to heal with some of the spike damage that was flying around. Lately, farming Conquest Badges has felt like I was just going through the numbers, but this run was a nice change of pace.

Sometimes it's the Little Things That Make Me Smile

2009-10-14T22:01:00.000-07:00

So, I was fiddling around with my hunter alt, and I hadn't really been paying much attention to the patch notes for 3.2.2. I noticed that my little turtle buddy had a grumpy face next to his health meter, so I figured I'd chuck him a hunk of bread to cheer him up. You could image my surprise when I saw my hunter actually chuck food through the air, and my turtle's head shot up to catch it. I was astonished, and thoroughly impressed.

While new instances, gear, and so forth are nice with content patches, sometimes it's the little things like this that make me love this game. These little interactions one might expect their character to have with the world around them are great to see being included in WoW. Now I'm left wondering what else Blizzard could add that would be in a similar vein. It would be cool if hunters could actually play with their pets sometimes...

Playable Races I'd Like to See Part I: The Consortium

2009-10-13T18:08:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, "But there's Goblins, and Worgens just around the corner!" I don't care, I'll always wonder who else could make a good playable race in future WoW expansions, so this will be a recurring post where I toss out who I'd like to see as a playable race in the future. So without further ado, I'll make out my first suggestion:

Ethereals:

While the goblins are more synonymous with Star Trek's money-grubbing Ferengi, I've always liked the Consortium. These guys are the true bastards of capitalism. Just do a few quests in Nagrand, or talk with their counterparts in Shattrath or Auchindoun, and you'll quickly realize, "Hey, these guys aren't very nice." That's why I think it would nice to have these magnificent bastards become a playable race.

Obviously, there would be some great aesthetic possibilities with playing as an ethereal. Gear could be given an additional aura, with wisps of energy flowing around the character, where the color is different depending on the color of the character's "skin". Of course, they wouldn't walk, but glide across the ground as they move.

As far as classes go, rogues, mages, and warriors would be obvious choices, as we've already seen them out and about in Outlands. Another possibility that I think would be cool is an ethereal warlock. However, they would have unique pets that they could summon if only because the void destroyed their homeworld, so voidwalkers may not be the most tactful choice for beings to summon. Perhaps their interaction with the warlocks of the Horde and Alliance has taught them how to summon additional beings that may be useful in stopping the void creatures that destroyed their world (fight fire with fire and all that). I'm not sure how a healing class would fit in, though, as there isn't much info out there that suggests that ethereals have any spiritual leanings like a druid, shaman, paladin, or priest would have. Perhaps that's something that could be fleshed out later. One class that I could see being omitted, and possibly a source of controversy, is the death knight. Those are the creation of Arthas, and it would be very difficult for Blizzard to shoe-horn an excuse into the game as to how he would be able to force ethereals to become DKs.

Racials would obviously be magic-related, like having an advantage in enchanting (possibly even better than the Blood Elves?). An offensive ability that I'd like to see is something that allows ethereals to syphon mana off their target, like a combination mana burn and mana regeneration (perhaps regenerating the mana of all party / raid members up to X%?).

Who ethereals would align themselves with would be an interesting question, though. We know the Consortium are a bunch of opportunists more than happy to play two parties off of one another in the name of profit, so would they ever ally specifically with the Horde or the Alliance? Would Blizzard go with the Ethereum or Protectorate as a possible faction to make playable? Another option (and one that I'd LOVE to see implemented one day) is putting the ethereals in a THIRD major faction independent of both the Horde and the Alliance with their own goals, and priorities. It could be some sort of League of Unaligned Races.

Both from an aesthetic standpoint (Glowing energy beings? Yes, please!), and in terms of lore (a possible independent race with no close ties to either Azeroth or Draenor), there could be a lot of interesting directions Blizzard could go with if they introduced ethereals as a playable race in WoW.

The Dragonmaw Presence in Outlands Going Forward

2009-10-12T20:21:00.000-07:00

***Spoiler Alert! If you aren't familiar with what's going on in Shadowmoon Valley, and don't like story spoilers, you may not want to read this post***

So, I've been thinking about Cataclysm some more, and one thing that has come to mind is the the Dragonmaw forces present there. If you are at least neutral with the Netherdrakes, you can work as a spy in the Dragonmaw ranks. Here you'll learn that they are busy tracking down any netherwing dragon eggs that they can find, and shipping them off to Grim Batol for Deathwing to use.

We've already heard how Azeroth will be changed by the Cataclysm, but not so much in regards to Outlands. Some have suggested that Blizzard will do very little there, and just gloss over any inconsistencies between Outlands and the new, decimated Azeroth. I'm not so sure. The netherwing dragonflight are the result of Deathwing's eggs being infused with the power of the twisting nether. Seeing as he has sent his former consort to the Dragonmaw, and asked them to send any netherdrake eggs they find it's hard not to think that Deathwing has some firm plans for Outlands. Perhaps he wants it to be nothing more than a nursery for his offspring. Who knows?

Moreover, Outlands is where Garrosh Hellscream grew up. If Deathwing is after the Netherdrake eggs over there, will Garrosh stand for it?

At the very end of all the quests to reach exalted status with the Netherwing Dragonflight, we learn that we've foiled what the Dragonmaw are up to in Shadowmoon Valley, and that they were likely wiped out by Illidan for not discovering that they had been infiltrated. Nonetheless, this doesn't change the fact that Deathwing is interested in these netherdrake eggs. Just because Overlord Mor'ghor may have been slain, I don't see Deathwing giving up (he could just send more competent Dragonmaw agents next time). The more eggs he can get a hold of, the more dragons he'll have in his ranks. Who knows, maybe he's figured out a way to harness the netherdrakes' exposure to the nether, and is able to make them much more powerful now.

It's funny to read how people think that the Cataclysm won't have an impact on Outlands, but they only seem to be able to think of such things in physical terms. It wouldn't make sense for the Outlands to be torn asunder right alongside Azeroth. They're separate planets, and besides, Ner'zhul already did a good job of ripping the Outlands apart. It would be cruel to the inhabitants of that world to have to be subjected to such a thing again.

While potential changes to Outlands won't be as bold, and in-your-face as Azeroth, I do see the possibility of political interests creeping in, and Deathwing's interest in netherdrake eggs is one such area where I could see this happening. It also opens the door to revisit old factions from TBC. Will the Naaru lead the resistence against Deathwing in Outlands? Is any of this possible, or will Blizzard be hesitant to make such changes since it may require deep sixing Illidan, and other major players from TBC, causing players to miss out on content (though this is a problem that could be rectified with a few more portals in the Caverns of Time)?

Late to the Party: Epic Flying!

2009-10-12T13:05:00.000-07:00

Well, I've had my priest since The Burning Crusade came out, and only in the past few days have I actually plunked down the gold and gotten myself the epic flying training. Every time that I've come close in the past, I've thought to myself, "I know, I'll go powerlevel enchanting for a bit!" While this has certainly been useful for getting my professions up to snuff, it constantly put other things off. It's only because I got the bronze drake from timed Culling of Stratholme that I decided to just save up and get the training done.

When I didn't have epic flying I never really gave it much thought. It was slow as hell flying around at 65% movement increases, but I was just as happy to set myself to auto-flying, then bugger off and do something else while my character slowly, but surely made his way to wherever it was he was headed. Now that I have the fast flying, it's actually kinda nice. I can get around faster than using one of the taxis, and it's saving me a fair bit of time.

I don't regret dilly-dallying to get the epic flying, but it certainly is nice to have it now. Makes it tempting to create a flying carpet for my priest, or farm out Netherwing rep so I can get one of those drakes as a mount instead...

Renewing My Faith in Raid PUGs

2009-10-11T11:13:00.000-07:00

Of late, I've had horrible luck in joining PUGs for 10 or 25 man raid content. I know I shouldn't get my hopes up too much, but these groups were just horrible. One couldn't even get past the first boss in the spider wing of Naxx, while another was wiping on the trash leading up to Onyxia. I guess it just goes to show that one's gear score is not directly proportional to their skill.

Thankfully, the last few days have been a little better. I was in one group that was able to clear 25 man Obsidian Sanctum, and get the Less is More achievement. Another group was doing a regular Trial of the Crusader 10 run. Here, we couldn't get past the Beasts of Northrend phase, but at least we were getting consistantly better with each attempt, and only called it because it was getting late.

It is a little frustrating that some people just farm out badges for fancy gear, or get carried by buddies for better equipment, but can't be bothered to learn any of the fights. Even if they've never actually fought certain bosses, at least reading up on what to expect would be nice, but a lot of people don't do this, and throw a fit when the party wipes. It's probably the single biggest reason I don't like PUGing raids all that much, but hopefully as I learn who is who on my server, I can figure out which people to invite for raid PUGs, and who to avoid.

The bads make me want to give up sometimes, but the good runs I've had of late definitely make me want to reconsider that.

Essential Addons for New Players

2009-09-21T12:31:00.000-07:00

After playing WoW for a while, any veteran player will tell you just how much add-ons enhance the experience while playing the game, and generally just make life a lot easier. Nonetheless, I still see plenty of new players asking questions about add-ons, what they are, and which ones they should use, so in this post I figured I'd discuss some of the most important ones. I'm not going to go into anything class / situation specific, just the more general add-ons that almost any new player can benefit from using.

Questhelper - Just like the name suggests, this one helps people keep track of their quests while leveling their characters. The most important feature that it brings to the table is showing where objectives are on the world map for whatever quests a player has in their log, as well as keeping track of one's progress through a quest (ie. if someone has to kill 10 of a certain type of monster, it tells how many out of that 10 a player has defeated so far). There are also a number of filters that can be applied to help deal with potential clutter on the map when one is doing a large number of quests in a particular area. It's one of the oldest, most popular add-ons for keeping track of quests, but a bit more simplistic compared to the next one I'll mention.

Carbonite - This works much like Questhelper in how it helps players keep track of their quests while adventuring. I do find that the maps are of a much higher quality when using this add-on, though. The mini-map can be moved around on-screen, and is much more scalable. There are also a lot more filters available in this add-on. The quest list that is displayed on-screen while playing can be moved around, and keeps track of more quests than that of Questhelper. One can also click a small dot next to each quest to get a quick note of the objective(s) for said quest, which is useful. Carbonite is a much beefier add-on for keeping track of quests for those that want a few more bells and whistles than Questhelper provides.

Omen Threat Meter - When you start running instances with other people, this add-on will be essential regardless of what class you play. This will tell you how much threat you are generating with your target. Basically, you want to make sure the group's tank is always at the top since it is his / her job to keep the monsters' attention in all fights. Threat is displayed via horizontal bars in order of greatest threat at the top, descending down from there for each player. Unless you're the tank, you don't want to be at the top, and if it looks like you're getting dangerously close to the top, make sure to ease off on the attacks until the tank has a safe amount of threat, or you may suddenly find a very big, angry boss suddenly pummeling you. This may not be quite so easy for healers since easing off on replenishing anyone's health could result in someone going down during a fight. In this case, just keep healing as usual, and hopefully the tank can taunt the creature off of you quickly should you happen to pull threat.

Deadly Boss Mod - Basically, this add-on will hold a player's hand through all of the boss encounters in instances in the game. Expect big warning messages saying this or that attack is coming in x amount of seconds, and it is targeting person y. While not a perfect solution, this is a very useful tool for anyone unfamiliar with the fights in a particular dungeon. The cakes will still be tough if you don't know what you're doing, but at least this will give you some cues when particularly nasty attacks are on the way.

Recount - The last add-on that I want to mention is Recount. It's primary use in-game is to keep track of players' DPS (damage per second). Basically, the higher this number is, the more damage your character is cranking out in fights. Since every class has a viable spec in their talent trees for damage output, it doesn't hurt to have this add-on kicking around. Some of the few exceptions one might see to this are paladins, or druids specced as tanks and healers. In any case, once you get to the higher levels, and especially at level 80, you're going to want this add-on in order to keep track of how well you're dishing out the damage when running instances and raids. Whatever way you adjust your enchants, gems, gear, or talent trees, this is what you'll be using to see if it had any effect on your character's damage output.

These are very much what I would consider absolute must-have add-ons for anyone getting started in WoW. There are hundreds more that are nice to have, which do everything from organizing your inventory to customizing your UI, or helping players keep track of ability cooldowns, but the four mentioned above are some of the most generally useful of the bunch that anyone can benefit from using. Carbonite is available through its developer's site, and most other add-ons can be found at WoW Curse if you're interested.

Things to Do Before Cataclysm

2009-09-08T12:37:00.000-07:00

With all of the things that Blizzard has announced for Cataclysm, one thing that it has gotten me thinking about is what I will need to do before the face of Azeroth is changed forever. We already know that two old world dungeons are getting a makeover (Dead Mines and Shadowfang Keep), and that most of the zones are getting redone. This alone got me thinking that I'm going to have to clear those instances soon, and finish up getting "Explorer" titles before the changes hit, as they will no longer be relevant. I do hope that those of us who have explored all of Azeroth up to this point get a special, updated title like, "Explorer of the Old World" when the expansion hits. I suppose the same may hold true for the Loremaster title seeing as all of the quests are getting changed up in Cataclysm...