The WoW Ironman Challenge

I’m sure some of you have read the recent posts by Psynister and Vrykerion about the WoW Ironman challenge.  The basic idea is to see how far you can get by leveling in all white/grey gear, no talents/glyphs, and no groups.  For more detailed info, look at either of their posts.  The rules they’ve put forth for it (as ripped from Psyn’s blog) are as follows:

1. Use only white/grey items.
2. No spending talent points. No specialization at level 10. (Regular skill training is fine.)
2. No Primary or Secondary Professions other than First Aid.
3. No means of XP boosting (No Recruit-A-Friend, No Guild, and obviously no Heirlooms)
4. No consumable bonuses (food, potions, elixirs, etc) – Rogue Poisons allowed
5. No enchants.
6. No Groups. (Since clarification was requested: That means no dungeons, no Dungeon Finder, no battlegrounds, no anything that puts you in a group and no grouping up with people to quest or anything.)
7. No Death Knights.
8. No Glyphs

Since I’m constantly rolling alts and looking for fun new ways to play the game, I’ve decided I’ll participate too.  All I need now is an idea on what race/class I should go with.  So please leave a comment telling me what you think I should play!

6th Try is the Charm

After not even a week of attempts, Kanori got a nice new ride.

BA Secret Santa 2010 (Guest Post)

Looks like I have a special guest post from the lovely Ophelie of Bossy Pally fame. And I have to say, her two favorite mounts listed, are the only two that I’ve ever really, REALLY wanted to get. So enjoy the post and follow her blog if you aren’t already. She has a lot of good stuff there.
–Deyndor

Ophelie here, from Bossy Pally, spreading some holiday cheer to Swift Retribution! I noticed that Deyndor’s been talking a lot about leveling characters and farming older content for it’s spicy drops. In the spirit of older content giving us gifts, I made a top 10 of my favorite low level farming spots. Enjoy!

10- Troll Patrol Dailies in Zul’Drak
I know, I know, I’m probably the only person in the world who does these dailies. But c’mon! You get a chance at the Deputy Pa’trolla Badge! What wouldn’t you do for a trinket that gives you an awesomeness buff?

9- Tempest Keep
Ashes of Al’ar is, hands down, my favorite mount in the game. I’m not normally one to gawk at mounts, but Al’ar is just so…gorgeous… The only reason TK didn’t score higher on the list is that in order to farm him, you still need to convince a few friends to come with you, week after week, and, on the off-chance that the mount does drop, you need to convince them that you’re the one who deserves to keep it.

8- Karazhan
If you’re level 85 and have the proper key (or a friend who can open the gate for you), then Kara is a great place to farm for the fantastic horse Midnight. Since Attumen and Midnight are the first encounter in the instance, once you’re finished your business for the week, you might as well stick around and collect some gold off mobs too. If you’re able to make it past the opera scene, the philanthropists in the halls behind the stage go down easily and carry 100g each.

(c) Dimer, Wowhead http://www.wowhead.com/user=Dimer

7- Temple of Ahn’Qiraj
Looking to fill out the mount tab of your spellbook? The Temple of Ahn’Qiraj (AQ 40) can help with that! It can be difficult to find a group to go in there (despite claims of the contrary, the first boss resets constantly when soloed), once you make it in, prepare to be served with colourful Qiraji Resonating Crystals. With the exception of the red crystal, the mounts drop quite frequently and it’s very possible to collect them all in one adventure. If you’re the type who enjoys collecting items for complicated rep quests (and I certainly am), you can also enjoy fighting with your teammates over Scarabs, Idols and Items off bosses.

6- Netherspite Reputation
Once a very tedious and competitive grind, Netherspite is now easy and relaxing to farm at 85. And if you’re a gatherer, the gold making opportunities are endless. This area is also fantastic for your fledgling level 70s. It’s not as crowded as it once was and provides tons of experience and gold.

5- Winterspring Saber/Horde Raptors
I’ve never managed to complete the horde raptor grind- logging into my horde character every day to kill some birds or whatnot was just too much to ask. The Winterspring Saber grind, however, was surprisingly pleasant. It’s a great way to relax after raids while chatting with guildies and, now that there are three repeatable quests instead of one, it’s a pretty fast grind.

4- Heroic Sethekk Halls
According to my completely biased and unscientific observations, the Raven Lord is the second most visually appealing mount in the game, after Al’ar. He drops from Anzu in Heroic Sethekk Halls and, now that you don’t need a druid to summon him anymore, he’s easily farmable by any level 85.

(c) Blackthundercro, Wowhead http://www.wowhead.com/user=Blackthundercro

3- Sholazar Basin
If you’re an herbalist, Shalazar is still a gold mine. And even if you’re not, getting to exalted with the Oracles faction opens up the door to a number of mini-pets and, if you’re lucky, the Reins of Green Proto Drake. I haven’t been lucky yet, but I’m still trying.

2- Heroic Magister’s Terrace
I remember when this place was horrible to run. Those who complain about Cataclysm heroics being hard have clearly forgotten about Heroic Magister’s Terrace. Fortunately, we’ve grown stronger while HMgT stays the same level. Pretty much any 85 character should be able to fight their way to our friend Kael’thas Sunstrider who can drop the adorable Phoenix Hatchling or the less adorable but still pretty cool Swift White Hawkstrider. Not to mention that the Kael’thas fight is really fun.

1- Stratholme
Stratholme has got to be my favorite instance ever. I still go and hang out there, just to hang out there. I’ve yet to see the new and revamped Stratholme, though, and I’m really looking forward to it. Baron Rivendare has moved on to greener (or rather, blacker) pastures and his relative Aurius has taken his spot. If you’re part of the pool of unlucky players who never got a glimpse Deathcharger, you can keep trying as Aurius Rivendare is the new owner of Deathcharger’s Reins.

(c) Salus, Wowhead http://www.wowhead.com/user=Salus

And there you go! My top 10 favorite low level content to farm. Now go forth and get more enjoyment out of older content!

Happy Holidays!
Ophie xxxx

And Then There Were 3

Now I just need to figure out how to heal with her.

Well Hey There

So it’s been a while since I’ve updated.  Unlike usual it’s actually because I’ve been somewhat busy lately.

Just as an update, I found a raiding guild for my warlock, however after a couple nights running with them I remembered that I don’t really care for raiding on my warlock anymore, and have stopped raiding on him.  They’re a good group of folks though so I think I’m going to stick with them.

Another thing is that I think I may be switching mains come cataclysm from my Warlock, to my Shaman.  I’ve been thinking about it a lot and shaman healing is just too much fun.  But before I do that, I want to try some actual raid healing on her.  However, I’m really sick of wrath raids, but never did anything beyond a few T4 runs in BC.  And since she already has her exp shut off at 70, I figured why not?  I’ve found a guild that does BC raids at level that I’m going to app to.

And last night I bought a new monitor, with a higher resolution than I used to have, so I think tomorrow I’m going to redo my UI and try for a completely custom one.  So once I get that finished you can expect a post about it.

A Fond Farewell

Don’t worry, it’s only the alt account I started for the Recruit-A-Friend bonus back in January.  I never use it anymore so why pay for it?  Besides, the only character from it that got marginally high level (if you could even call it that) is Antumbra, my <SAN> priest, and I transferred her to my main account when I brought her from Borean Tundra to Argent Dawn.

Cataclysm Spoilers. Well, not in this post.

So in the event that you’ve been living under a rock, or up in a dirigible (no, that one won’t work, Cory Doctorow still has web access up in the blogosphere)  you will by now know that MMO-Champion has release an massive amount of spoiler data from the Cataclysm F&F Alpha.

Now, since I’m not much of a number cruncher, and am really pretty lazy, I doubt that I’ll post much, if anything about the cata alpha/beta.  However, since Jaedia and Anexxia asked so nicely, I’ll make sure to have the post title obviously show that there are spoilers in it.  I’m not avoiding spoilers, but I know that some people prefer to do that so the game is more fresh/fun/interesting/waffle when it’s released and they go to play.  So out of respect of those, I’ll make it obvious that you should avoid the post.

What do you do when your raid is canceled?

Well, since I suggested this BA Shared Topic, I should probably participate shouldn’t I?  If you’re looking for more responses, they can be found here.

So I was talking with Eda on twitter tonight and she mentioned that she’s had 4 raids in the last 2 weeks get canceled. And that got me wondering, what do people do when their raid is canceled?

I’m sure there will be the mundane like farming stuff or running heroics, but I’m sure there are a lot of people with some really interesting and fun things too. Maybe you invade an enemy capital by yourself. Maybe you go play an alt. Whatever it is, share it!

Now, I don’t raid anymore, but when I did, it was always a bummer to have the raid get canceled.  I mean, you set aside time to go do something, and then you’re left with nothing to do right?  Wrong!

Whenever my raids got canceled, if I didn’t go to that fictional place called the outside world, I mostly leveled alts.  However, I’m not the type to make an alt, and stick with it for a long time.  In the time I was raiding, I had no less than 8 alts.  On my main server that is…

Of course I had Deyndor that I would level.  Or Ollyn, my DK on the same server as Deyndor.  But then I also had my other pally Kanori.  And of course another DK on my main server.  And a rogue.  A hunter.  A priest, a couple druids.  Throw in a dash of shaman and you’ve got an idea of everything that I try and do.

And of course, even though its sporadic, it’s caused me to level up a decent number of toons.  For ones (currently, although only the shaman was added to this list after I stopped raiding) above 60, I have two DKs (79 and 69), two pallies (71 and 70), and a shaman (65).

So yeah, kind of boring, but I level alts, or run heroics.  Or at least, I did.  Now I don’t even really run heroics, just the leveling.  But it’s been a blast, so I’m fine with it.

Anyway, what do you, lovable readers, do when your raid is canceled?

Blogaversay!

Apparently today marks my one year blog-aversay.  I meant to make a big post, but I’m far to tired.  It’ll work well with the BA topic for this week though, so I’ll lump it together with that.

Hard to believe I’ve kept this semi-updated for a year.  Ah well, here’s to hoping that the next year hold better writing, and more updates.

Cataclysm Warlock Changes…again

Alright,  Zarhym let us know what the changes are looking like for warlocks so far.  I’ll list my responses to in green.  Enjoy!

In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, warlocks will receive changes to their class talents and abilities. Outlined below are some of these changes. Keep in mind that this is an early preview and that these modifications are still under development, so you may see further adjustments to the listed changes as we get closer to launch. That said, here is a first look at these new warlock spells and abilities!

New Warlock Spells

Fel Flame (level 81): Quick-hitting spell dealing Shadowfire damage. This is similar to the mage ability Frostfire Bolt, in that the lower of the two resistances (in this case shadow and fire) on your target will be used for calculating its damage. Additionally, Fel Flame refreshes the duration of Immolate and Unstable Affliction. Our goal for Fel Flame is to provide a spell that’s good for mobility and for use by Destruction and Demonology specs. Also, did we mention it uses green fire? Yep. Instant cast.

I’m happy to hear about in instant cast that will also refresh Immolate (and UA for my affliction brethren).  But they’ve avoided the real issue here.  Sure it’s green fire, but will all of our fire be green now?  Because just one spell isn’t enough.

Dark Intent (level 83): Increases the target’s chance for a critical effect with periodic damage or healing spells by 3%. When the target lands a crit, you get a buff to your damage for 10 seconds. This effect stacks up to three times.

So is this something that warlocks will mostly hog to themselves? I guess it would be beneficial for anyone, but would giving this to someone else really be a warlock way of thinking?

Demon Soul (level 85): Fuses the warlock’s soul with his or her demon. This provides warlocks with a self-burst cooldown to use. The specific effects granted by Demon Soul depend on the demon chosen. Demon Soul lasts for a certain number of charges or until it expires (around 20 seconds), depending on the demon used. 2-minute cooldown.

This could either be awesome or useless, depending on what each demons effect is.  I would think it also has the possibility to change what pet each spec favors for raids.

Soul Shard Overhaul

This major change regarding Soul Shards was previously announced at BlizzCon 2009. Soul Shards will no longer be inventory items, but instead a new UI resource mechanic. Warlocks will have 3 Soul Shards that can be used during a fight and will not be able to gain additional shards during combat. Soul Shards will not be required outside of combat. Soul Burn will consume a Soul Shard resource, thereby allowing you to use the secondary effects of some spells. Soul Burn has no mana or health costs and is off the global cooldown. Planned secondary effects are outlined here.

• Summon Demon + Soul Burn = summon the demon instantly.
• Drain Life + Soul Burn = Reduces cast speed by 60%.
• Demonic Circle + Soul Burn = Increases movement speed by 50% for 8 seconds after teleporting.
• Unstable Affliction + Soul Burn = Instantly deals damage equal to 30% of its effect.
• Soul Fire + Soul Burn = Instant cast.
• Healthstone + Soul Burn = Increases total health by 20% for 8 seconds.
• Searing Pain + Soul Burn = Increases the crit chance of Searing Pain by 100%, and subsequent Searing Pain spells by 50% for 6 seconds.

First, hooray for more bag space!  Now then, it says that soul shards will not be required outside of combat, but can they still be burned then?  The only reason I ask is for an instant demon summon after a wipe.  It would also be nice if they would give us an idea of how quickly we’ll regain them.

And wasn’t there something mentioned at BlizzCon about still using Drain Soul to regain shards during combat?  I guess they changed their mind since we “will not be able to gain additional shards during combat.”

Next you will find a list of some of the warlock spell and talent changes for the release of Cataclysm. There will be further changes, but those revealed below should offer some insight into our goals.

Changes to Abilities and Mechanics

• All warlock damage-over-time (DoT) spells will benefit from crit and haste innately. Haste will no longer act to reduce the DoT’s duration, but rather to add additional ticks. When reapplying a DoT, you can no longer “clip” the final tick. Instead, this will just add duration to the spell, similar to how Everlasting Affliction currently works. At first I was excited about this, but the more I think about it the more I realize it will probably breed laziness in DoT refreshment.  One of the things that I loved about Affliction when I played it was having to keep track of my DoTs and refresh them at just the right time.  I guess that will take some of the fun of Afflic away.
• Curse of Agony and Curse of Doom will be converted into Bane of Agony and Bane of Doom. Bane spells are considered magic instead of curses. This means you will be able to cast one Bane (e.g. Bane of Agony) and one Curse (e.g. Curse of Elements) on a single target.  This one should be fun.  No more being CoE bitch during raids.
• Hellfire will no longer deal damage to the warlock.  RIP durability free wipes.
• Imps will lose Fire Shield, but will gain a new ability, Burning Ember, which is a stacking DoT.
• The succubus melee range will be increased. The succubus will no longer have Soothing Kiss, but will instead have Whiplash, which knocks back all enemies within 8 yards.  My tank is going to hate me.  She already yells at our Boomkin about Typhoon.
• Voidwalker Torment will do increased damage and generate a lot of area-of-effect (AoE) threat. Suffering will become a single-target taunt.  Hello viable pocket tank. 😀

New Talents and Talent Changes

• Pandemic will now cause Drain Soul to refresh Unstable Affliction and Bane of Agony on targets below 25% health.  Is this in addition to what it already does? Because that extra damage on crits is nice.
• The ability Fel Domination will be removed (because Soul Burn accomplishes the same effect).  Makes sense, I wonder what it’s replacement in the tree will be.
• Demonology will gain a new direct-damage spell, Demon Bolt. Demon Bolt will add a debuff that improves the damage done by the demon to the target.
• We plan to add a new talent, Impending Doom, which will give certain spells a chance to reduce the cooldown on Metamorphosis and Curse of Doom.  What tree will this be in?  If it’s in anything other than Demonology it’ll have to be a low tier talent for it to actually be useful for a Meta build.
• Metamorphosis will no longer be subject to demonic crowd control. Furthermore, abilities available only while under the effects of Metamorphosis will be altered to put more emphasis on the warlock’s own spells.  FUCK YES.
• Shadowburn will now do additional damage to targets below 25% health.  I’m not specced into Shadowburn, so I can’t really comment on this change.  Seems like a decent buff though that could bring it more into the cookie-cutter spec.

Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses

Affliction
Spell Damage
Spell Crit
Shadow DoTs

Demonology
Spell Damage
Spell Haste
Demon Damage

Destruction
Spell Damage
Spell Critical Damage
Fire Direct Damage

Shadow DoTs: The damage caused by Shadow damage-over-time spells is increased.

Demon Damage: The damage caused by pets and Metamorphosis is increased.

Fire Direct Damage: The damage caused by Fire direct damage spells is increased.

These all make sense for the trees they’re associated with.  I wouldn’t mind seeing haste more than crit for Destruction, but I guess I’m just weird like that.

Well that concludes this Cataclysm preview for the warlock class. The development of these changes will continue to evolve in the coming months. Please be sure to provide any feedback and thoughts you might have on what was covered here.