Jul 25
After a long stretch I finally got my druid up to 80. For a while there I thought I was going to be leveling him just through the daily fishing quests, but I ended up doing a good chunk of Northrend after all. I finished off in Sholazar Basin which I had never completed before, so that was a nice change.
Now, to decide if I want to level my hunter, warlock, or death knight next.
May 26
I gave up on reading Elizabeth Bear’s Blood and Iron last night. What killed the book for me were the constant obscure references to events that happened outside the book. It was like eavesdropping on a couple of old friends: “Of course I couldn’t because of what happened last Thursday” “Oh yeah, and when you think about the stuff from Christmas, it’s not surprising that they did that.” This is the first book in The Promethan Age series.
Blood and Iron is a contemporary urban fantasy that assumes a world of magic hiding in the shadows of our own world. The Prometheus Club has been battling against Faerie by using technology to repel the Fae. They are on the point of eradicating Faerie forever for their numerous crimes against humanity. The Faerie court’s hunter is involved with the current incarnation of Arthur and seeks to entangle this Arthur’s Merlin. There’s also the hunter and the Arthur’s child who was abducted by (or surrendered to?) the Faerie queen.
The story is interesting but it seems deliberately convoluted. I didn’t care enough about any of the characters to continue trying to unravel it. I will not be reading any other books in this series.
Feb 23
I was reading Matticus’ post, What GMs Want to See on Your Guild App, and I stared thinking about some of my accomplishments in WoW. Since many of these were pre-3.0, I don’t have the achievements for them which makes me a little sad.
Healing
Tanking
DPS
Raid Leading
PvP
That’s all that comes to mind right now. It’s fun to look back on the stuff I managed to get done. I would say that raid leading is probably the most challenging part of the game – not the fights themselves but all the dealing with people and their issues, balancing things so that it all works out.
Feb 1
Poor BigRedKitty’s been forced to spec Survival. Should I ever get around to leveling my hunter and follow down that path, it looks as though Power Auras would be a great addon to have. If I’m feeling ambitious, I might see if this could be of use on my other toons.
My druid is only 71 or so (and he’s only that high due to doing dailies), but if I decide to tank with him Big Bear Butt Blogger has me covered with Bear Tanking Specs and Gear Pre-Naxx.
Dec 28
Here are the Pawn scales I’m using for my toons in Wrath of the Lich King. As always, Pawn is for quick comparisons, not for squeezing every last point out of your gear. Read Skeleton Jack’s post on Pawn for some of the things to watch out for. I have tweaked some of these scales and I have no strong theorycrafting proof behind their effectiveness.
A few more points to note:
1. Each rating is relative only to itself.
Some pawn users assume that if they have two strings, that the rating that has the higher value is what the gear is better for. This is NOT the case. You should only use a rating to compare two items together, rather than using ratings to determine what an item is better for. (Note: This rule can be counterfeit, but that requires balancing points)
2. A rating that gives you numbers in the 100’s is no better or worse than one that gives you points in the 10,000’s
Remember, this is a relative comparison tool. So 900 – 1000 may be better than 90,000 to 95,000.
3. Pawn doesn’t account for everything
Raid buffs, gear changing, and Talents factor in here as well. These are static values to help determine relative value, but raid buffs, talent changes, and changes from blizzard will affect the relative value of these statistics, so these strings will more than likely be dynamic.
Balanced
(Pawn: v1: “Balanced”: CritRating=0.89, Agility=8.47, ExpertiseRating=9.22, DefenseRating=11.13, BlockValue=4.86, ArmorPenetration=1, Dps=3.56, Strength=3.84, ParryRating=8.24, BlockRating=8.42, DodgeRating=9.61, HitRating=1.98, Stamina=14.29, Armor=1, HasteRating=0.62, Ap=0.43 )
Survival
( Pawn: v1: “Survival”: BlockRating=8.49, Strength=2.91, ParryRating=8.56, Agility=8.02, ExpertiseRating=7.22, DefenseRating=11.61, Stamina=14.25, Armor=1, DodgeRating=10.09, BlockValue=4.98 )
Threat
( Pawn: v1: “Threat”: ArmorPenetration=4.54, CritRating=4.03, Dps=16.15, Strength=4.66, ParryRating=0.41, Agility=3.26, HitRating=9.56, HasteRating=3.02, ExpertiseRating=9.56, Ap=2 )
Based roughly on Elitist Jerks Tanking Spreadsheet. Needs to be edited for sockets.
( Pawn: v1: “Heavy”: RedSocket=16, CritRating=0.8, Strength=1, MetaSocket=8, ExpertiseRating=0.7, BlueSocket=16, YellowSocket=16, ColorlessSocket=16, HitRating=0.7, BlockValue=0.9 )
Based roughly on Matthew Rossi’s post,The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Heavy. This is for leveling as a Prot Warrior. Vene has a good post for Raid DPS as a Prot Warrior.
See this post for Fury Warriors.
Mostly from this thread on Elitist Jerks.
Mitigation
( Pawn: v1: “ProtMit”: DodgeRating=18, BlockRating=1, Ap=1.2, CritRating=0.6, Strength=9.5, ParryRating=14.5, ExpertiseRating=1.5, Agility=14.5, HitRating=1.1, Stamina=19.1, Armor=1.2, SpellPower=0.8, DefenseRating=16.5, BlockValue=16.5 )
Threat
( Pawn: v1: “ProtThr”: Intellect=0.2, DodgeRating=15.1, BlockRating=0.9, Ap=4.7, CritRating=2.4, Strength=18.8, ParryRating=12.8, ExpertiseRating=6.1, Agility=12.2, HitRating=4.2, Stamina=16.8, Armor=1.1, SpellPower=3.1, DefenseRating=13.9, BlockValue=17.4 )
( Pawn: v1: “Holy”: Intellect=2.25, RedSocket=24, CritRating=1.1, MetaSocket=75, HasteRating=1, BlueSocket=14, Stamina=0.1, SpellPower=1.2, Mp5=2.5, YellowSocket=30 )
Based on a run of EnhSim, DPS simulator
( Pawn: v1: “AEP Calc”: Intellect=1.14, CritRating=0.64, Agility=1.39, ExpertiseRating=0.67, OffHandDps=4.33, YellowSocket=32, ArmorPenetration=0.52, RedSocket=32, Strength=1, MetaSocket=16, HitRating=0.68, BlueSocket=32, MainHandDps=8.82, HasteRating=0.81, ColorlessSocket=32, Ap=1 )
Based on this post.
( Pawn: v1: “Resto (EJ)”: Intellect=7, RedSocket=105, HasteRating=3, BlueSocket=86, YellowSocket=112, SpellPower=5, Mp5=10, CritRating=3 )
EDIT: There is something broken about these scales for weapons. Do not use them to decide which weapon to use.
( Pawn: v1: “Beast Mastery”: Intellect=7, RedSocket=128, CritRating=5, MetaSocket=168, HitRating=10, Agility=7, HasteRating=2, BlueSocket=128, YellowSocket=128, ArmorPenetration=6, Mp5=8, Ap=4 )
From this thread
( Pawn: v1: “Cat (Toskk)”: ArmorPenetration=1.0161, RedSocket=37.312, Strength=2.332, CritRating=0.83, ColorlessSocket=37.312, MetaSocket=103.21, FeralAp=1, Agility=1.6992, ExpertiseRating=1.0362, BlueSocket=18.66, YellowSocket=26.92, HitRating=1.0334, HasteRating=0.7236, Ap=1 )
From Flyv
( Pawn: v1: “Bear (Toskk)”: RedSocket=113.7, YellowSocket=101.3, ColorlessSocket=172.4, MetaSocket=329, Stamina=7.185, Agility=3.429, Health=0.411, BlueSocket=172.4, Armor=1.066, DefenseRating=1.885, DodgeRating=2.685, ExpertiseRating=1.306 )
From Flyv
( Pawn: v1: “Resto”: Intellect=5.79, HasteRating=2.87, CritRating=2.05, SpellPower=9.4, Spirit=5.13, Mp5=10 )
From this Elitist Jerks Post
( Pawn: v1: “Unholy”: ArmorPenetration=0.544, RedSocket=39.7552, CritRating=1.12, Strength=2.4847, ColorlessSocket=39.7552, HasteRating=0.621, Agility=0.7336, HitRating=2.474, BlueSocket=17.3929, YellowSocket=25.2329, TwoHandDps=7.567, ExpertiseRating=1.391, Ap=1 )
Other specs, Warlocks, Priests, Mages, and Rogues are out of luck here. I suggest Elitist Jerks as a starting point. Good luck in your search!
NOTE: No warranties, either express or implied, are hereby given. All software is supplied as is, without guarantee. The user assumes all responsibility for damages resulting from the use of these features, including, but not limited to, frustration, disgust, system abends, disk head-crashes, general malfeasance, floods, fires, shark attack, nerve gas, locust infestation, cyclones, hurricanes, tsunamis, local electromagnetic disruptions, hydraulic brake system failure, invasion, hashing collisions, normal wear and tear of friction surfaces, comic radiation, inadvertent destruction of sensitive electronic components, windstorms, the Riders of Nazgul, infuriated chickens, malfunctioning mechanical or electrical sexual devices, premature activation of the distant early warning system, peasant uprisings, halitosis, artillery bombardment, explosions, cave-ins, and/or frogs falling from the sky.
Dec 27
I was talking with Jaimie yesterday about our Warcraft characters in a roleplaying sense. I don’t have much of a backstory for any of them, but I do have a decent idea of their personalities. It’s conversations such as these that have me considering an RP server if I reroll again.
Despite being a warrior that uses rage, Tristam is very calm. Solid and reliable are words that come to mind when I’m thinking about him. He doesn’t get angry and is very relaxed. He sees himself as the shield for the group. “Is a shield false and only a sword true?”
Merddyn is a warlock because it’s convenient and easy. He’s very self-centered and barely recognizes the existence of an outside world. He’s not looking to rule the world (far too much bother), he just wants what he wants and sees no reason why he shouldn’t just take it. “I’ve divided the world into two types of thing: The ones I can kill with impunity, and those I have to be more circumspect about.“
Anzu is a very angry shaman. I have no idea what he’s angry about. He quests so that he has a socially acceptable way to kill things. Merddyn will kill you if you get in his way, but otherwise doesn’t care about you. Anzu wants to kill you but won’t unless it’s acceptable to the Horde. “In the beginning, the Universe was created. This had made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.“
Early on, Andromache would have preferred to be an alliance paladin working with the Naaru rather than stealing the Light’s power. She wants to do what’s right. After having gone through Outlands, she has retained her strong moral and ethical sense, but no longer trusts the Naaru. “Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties – but right through every heart – and through all hearts.“
Arthemis wants to take things apart to see how they work. She’s chosen to be a hunter because people in cities tend to get upset when you take apart magical or mechanical things and you can’t quite put them back together. She’s happiest out on her own thinking. “Most things run on smoke. If it leaks out, they don’t work.”
As a druid, Emerys feels a deep connection with nature. He fits the stereotype of the hippie druid. He’s calm and quests because he wants to help maintain nature’s balance. “In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments – there are consequences.“
I don’t know why but I like having some idea of who the characters I play are.
Nov 29
BigRedKitty gave a breakdown of the Wrath Hunter talent trees a while back. Right now my hunter is pretty much straight beast mastery, but it’s useful to have a detailed description of the talents from the other trees. Who knows, I may decide to level from 70 to 80 as survival!
Lienna has a description of shot rotation macros for when I’m feeling lazy.
Jaimie and I haven’t played our hunters at all since the expansion. I’ve done the cooking dailies on mine and haltingly leveled engineering and that’s about it. Pike has put up a quick guide to Rez’ing Your Hunter for those of use who haven’t been playing our hunters lately.
Nov 25
Big Red Kitty shows off his new gun in Order Us About. Now I have to get my hunter to 80 and finish leveling engineering. No maybes, this is a must have!
Don’t miss the discussion on BM shot rotations a little farther down in the comments.
Steady shot had a post a while back on Choosing your pets for WOTLK. My hunter is probably going to stick with her cat. She’s had it since level 10 and I’m attached to it. The other option is the bear she tamed from Winterspring, but I haven’t really played with that yet. I’m not terribly excited about any of the exotic pets I’ve seen so far – we’ll see what happens when she gets to level cap.
Oct 9
We’re getting awfully close to 3.0x’s release – no official date yet though. Here are the builds I’m looking at for my toons. I expect that I’ll have made some silly mistakes in picking out talents, but I can live with that. 
Tristam is going to be tanking for any raids we get going between now and Wrath and for our static group after Wrath’s release. I need to track down more build information, but for now I’m thinking Warrior 5/0/54. (I should also look at this build from TankingTips.com.
Andromache is going to stick to protection as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up doing 5 mans for most of her leveling. I’m leaning toward Paladin 0/56/5.
Arthemis is definitely going for a primarily beast mastery spec. Exotic pets look like fun, but I suspect I’ll stick with my kitty pet for actual leveling. One of my favorite things about hunters is chain trapping. Thus I’m aiming for resourcefulness down the survival tree with Hunter 41/0/20. I know it’s sub-optimal for MQoSRDPS but this is not a grouping toon, it’s a fun toon so BRK can bite me.
The following toons are not 70 yet, so here’s where I think I’ll head given their current levels.
Emerys is likely going to stay feral. I’m leaning towards Druid 0/51/6 at the moment. (An alternate spec from ThinkTank is Druid 0/50/11)
Anzu is going to stay enhancement. I’m leaning towards Shaman 0/51/6. EDIT: Apparently resto is no longer as useful, so I’m thinking Shaman 6/51/0 instead.
I think I’d like to give demonology a shot on Merddyn, so I’ll try Warlock 0/54/0.
Flint is staying in retirement for now, so I’m not even thinking about priest builds.
Ciderhelm at TankSpot gives us something to look forward to in his Protection Warrior 3.0 Overview. After seeing what happened to hunter talents in the latest Beta build, I’m not taking anything as gospel. That being said, I did make sure to go farm for Coren’s Lucky Coin in the BRD Brewfest event on both my tanks.
I have a lot of alts either at 70 or approaching it quickly – warrior, paladin, hunter, warlock, shaman, druid plus my retired alliance priest. When the expansion comes out I’m going to have to choose which one(s) to level first and which will have to wait.
What will our static group do? We originally rolled on Quel’dorei to play with three of our friends. If they’re still interested in playing together as a group the characters we designate as our group characters will be used for group play. Assuming my warrior stays as the tank for the group, I am willing to take six months to get to 80 on him if that what it takes for us to play together. Ditto for any of my other toons if we decide to shuffle our roles around.
Jaimie and I have characters that we’ve leveled up in pairs (or mostly in pairs). Our two hunters will probably level together (dual core hounds ftw!). My paladin and her mage will probably level together (though paladin/shadow priest is tempting too). Our warlock/shadow priest combo was made to play together. That leave me with a druid and shaman to level on my own. There’s always the possibility of mixing and matching the pairings. If we don’t do that early on, we wind up with one of us running the other through quests the first toon has already completed. It’s not nearly so fun that way.
What do I want to do in Wrath? I’ve healed endgame. I’ve tanked endgame. I’ve even DPSed endgame a bit. I really don’t feel a pull to fill any particular role. My preferred endgame role isn’t going to be a major factor in my decision.
My first toon to 80 will probably be the one that’s most fun to play. Thus, I expect my hunter to be the first to hit 80 with my other toons trickling in over the next few weeks or months. My next pick would probably my paladin if I end up playing in groups a lot from 70 to 80. I’ll probably switch back and forth between my remaining toons and level them up more or less equally.
(inspired by this Voodoo Ventures post)
Aug 25
I had a guildie ask me over the weekend what I’m planning to do with my druid in the endgame. My response was "Nothing." I may do a couple of Karazhan runs with my alts if they get to 70 before Wrath comes out, but I really don’t plan to do endgame with them. This seemed to strike him as very peculiar.
For me, endgame is the end of gaming. In many ways it’s the end of fun. It’s great to have a character that’s hit the level cap, but your character will no longer be picking up any interesting new abilities. You’re done with achieving things on your own. My max-level toons go fishing and run instances and that’s it. I could do things such as killing six million Zaxxis or 25 dailies per toon per day or save up 214,748 Gold 36 Silver and 46 Copper. Frankly those all strike me as rather dull activities.
For fun, I start up another alt. I try to level my alts as quickly as possible. It’s not the journey so much as the feeling of accomplishment from hitting the next level. I love it when I pick up a new ability at the trainer and I try to figure out how it can be useful to me. There is a certain pleasure in knowing exactly where to go for quests.
There is a thrill to tanking the latest boss in our raid progression. I enjoy raid leading (most of the time). Trying to top the DPS on my hunter is a challenge. Destroying five player instances on my paladin is amusing. Despite this, the most fun in WoW for me is leveling.
Aug 19
On one of the blogs I read someone posed the question "What would your ideal WoW party consist of?" Here’s my answer as of late in Burning Crusade World of Warcraft. I am assuming you are forming up a group of level 1 people who are going to be instancing together from now to the expansion (and you are all reclusive millionaires so you can play as much as you want to before Wrath comes out and completely invalidates this).
Tank: Either a protection warrior or a protection paladin. The warrior for their numerous "oh crap" buttons and sheer survivability and the paladin for their amazing AOE tanking abilities. A bear druid would be a strong second place – the main reason I wouldn’t put them in first is that all those lovely plate and shield drops would get sharded.
Healer: I would go with a holy priest. From what I’ve seen there are no situations where a priest is a bad choice for healing 5 mans. In cases where the group is taking a lot of AOE damage, a paladin healer may not be able to keep up. A restoration druid or shaman would also be a strong choice, but they’re not as versatile as a priest. A discipline priest would probably work as a main healer as well, but I don’t know enough about them to say for certain.
DPS/off-heal: I would pick either a elemental shaman, a balance druid, or a shadow priest. All three should have a good sized mana pool and their gear should allow them to do a decent job of picking up heals if needed. I would lean slightly toward the shaman for utility and so that mail caster gear doesn’t get sharded. The shaman’s hourly self-resurrection would also be useful on rough runs. Retribution paladins and enhancement shaman are less likely to have the mana pool and gear to pick up on healing.
DPS/utility: Mages take this hands down. A warlock or rogue will probably pump out similar or slightly greater DPS but they’re nowhere near as useful. Mages offer the best CC in the game for humanoids and beasts, portals to capital cities, food, and water.
DPS/support: I would lean toward a hunter for this role, particularly a hunter with improved traps. A hunter’s traps provide CC for almost every mob in the game. Hunters can pump out some very strong DPS. A hunter with jumper cables can help with wipe protection. That being said, it’s easy to argue for just picking another one from the DPS/off heal category. An elemental shaman can bring totems for strong group buffs. A shadow priest provides a steady stream of mana and health while DPSing. A balance druid brings Gift of the Wild and a battle rez.
Here’s the party I’d make for running 5 person instances: protection paladin, holy priest, mage, elemental shaman, and shadow priest. The shadow priest could be replaced by a balance druid giving stronger off-tanking possibilities traded for weaker off heals/mana regeneration.
Classes/Specs I would not bring: Fury warriors,arms warriors, retribution paladins, rogues, warlocks, and enhancement shaman all bring DPS and utility to the group but their contributions pale when compared to those of the classes I’ve listed. These classes all have strong places in raids or in PvP but they just aren’t useful enough for 5 player instances.
Aug 17
Lassirra at The Hunter’s Mark has a post on WoW Web Stats Usability. She recommends LoggerHead for remembering to start and stop combat logs. I’ve used it for quite a while and it’s really helpful. The other utility she recommends is Combatlog Splitter. I’ve been splitting my logs by hand and it can be a pain.
Regular runs have lost their luster lately so I’ve been leveling alts. Team dot-fear-win (my warlock and Jaimie’s shadow priest) is up to level 52 and tearing through the zones. My shaman is up to 47 and aiming for 50 so that he can get past 300 jewelcrafting. My druid is only at 46 – he fell behind my shaman because the shaman got into a ZF run. He’s likely to stay behind for a bit as I really want to get my shaman up to 50 fast. I’ve gotten fishing up to 283 on my paladin by doing the daily quests. My hunter is up around 200 fishing so she’s almost ready for the Nat Pagle quest. We’re still doing Karazhan and Zul’Aman raidwise – my paladin and my hunter haven’t been needed so I’m down to 2 nights a week.
I’ve been grouping up with a bunch of new 70s lately. Some of them do amazingly well in groups while for others it’s obvious that they soloed their way up to 70. It seems to me that it isn’t the solo players’ fault that they don’t know how to play in a group – grouping before endgame is fairly strongly discouraged by World of Warcraft’s incentive system.
Ideally WoW would change so that grouping would be either neutral or provide a small bonus relative to solo play. At this stage I rather doubt that will happen. What if instead there were quests for each class/spec just below max level that tested some of the basics of grouping?
I picture these as some kind of tiny single-player instance with only a few encounters. The encounter would be set up to test a skill and would reward an achievement that others can see. It could be set up to have different levels of difficulty as well.
Here are a few suggestions for quests by class.
Protection Warrior – escort 3 DPS and 1 healer NPC through to a destination. Level 1 – NPCs watch their threat and the healer is skilled. Level 5 – NPCs are trying to top the DPS charts on 6 mobs at once and the healer keeps falling asleep.
Hunter – keep a mob off the group. Level 1 – the mob is trappable and the group doesn’t touch it. Level 5 – Every member with a DOT applies it to the mob and the healer likes to stand next to it and cast big heals.
Holy Priest – heal the group through 2-3 encounters. Level 1 – the tank is well geared and the DPS focus fire. Level 5 – the warrior is tanking as dual-wielding fury and the DPS likes to stand next to you when they pull then use their aggro dump.
Sure you could PUG and replicate all these experiences and more, but this idea has a couple of advantages. First, it would be an easy way to check that a player knows their class and role. Someone who has completed the level 5 quest will still have stuff to learn, but they have a solid grasp of what’s needed. Second, since this would be part of the solo game, players could complete it at their convenience. No need to spam "LF Tank, Healer, and 2 DPS for any instance" when you want to brush up your trapping skills. No need to worry about letting the group down when your 4 year old suddenly decides this is a good time to flush the cat down the toilet. The quests would be fairly short and could be repeated at will. Third, this could be used to award entry-level gear for a specific role. Want to switch that paladin from tank to healing? Run through these quests and you’ll have a decent healing set to get you started.
Jul 28
Tor recently had a review of Microlite d20. It looks like it could be fun. I think the kids are old enough that they might enjoy a tabletop RPG, but I shudder at the thought of doing all the bookkeeping involved in regular d20. I have considered D&D 4, but haven’t worked it into my budget yet (it’s behind that LCD monitor I’ve been meaning to get since March).
I’m not sure where I would start. I do have the last two years or so of Dungeon Magazine (amusingly enough my subscription expired with their last issue). I bet if I dug through there I could find some adventures that would appeal to them. If it goes well, I have the last two Adventure Paths for a more epic adventure.
If it doesn’t work out yet, I can stick to regular card games for now. The kids have a lot of fun playing Slap Jack – it’s simple and fast paced enough for all three. We play the WoW card game sometimes , but it’s a bit too slow for the younger two.
All three kids play World of Warcraft. Pasqualle is the most serious player, but her highest level character is only about level 10. Even makes many alts and we mock him for outfitting his hunter in an orange cloth dress. Alec likes to make up new characters or go mess with his siblings’ characters. They’ve all tried Lord of the Rings Online, but so far haven’t done too much with that.