Yet Another Warlock Nerf

Here's a guy who won't be writing any leveling guides. Ever. Haggis is his name.
He's been playing World of Warcraft since release, and still isn't 70.
He is ATM attempting to ding for one last time, and is liveblogging about it.

As he said, if he won't die from lack of sleep or go into a diabetic coma, he should be able to achieve his goal. I can't imagine what it's like leveling after more than 2 years - took me about 2 months with my first character. I find joy in pwning noobs in battlegrounds, he enjoys doing hammertime for 15 minutes. Can't figure out if he's a wacko or... just casual?

He's 3 bars away from level 70 now, so show him your support by visiting his site, digging it or posting a nice comment.

> The world's slowest leveler

Updated to Proximo 2!

Proximo is an enemy unit frame specifically designed for arenas. It will show your enemies when you or your other team members mouseover them, so you can see who you're fighting with as soon as the match starts.

The frame will show only when you enter an arena so you don't have to worry about it in instances or whatever.
The size and position is customizable (/proximo for commands; or hold alt and click on the window to move it) so it will fit in any UI.

Proximo can also announce low health, new enemy, player death etc. via party chat or raid warnings. It supports some macros but you won't have to worry about it at first.

Not only is this addon useful, it's also mandatory. Whether you're serious about playing arenas or you just want your 10 games per week, you will get used to Proximo pretty fast.

You can see the full list of features and download it at: curse.com, wowinterface.com, or wowui.incgamers.com. Or get the latest version from Wowace.

Other addons:
Proximo 2, Reslack, Afflicted, Proximo, Advanced Tradeskill Window, Posessions, Doublewide & Lightheaded, Auctioneer

Have you sold any brooms lately? I have to admit it didn't go well as I planned. I sold all flying and swift ground ones (15 of them or so), but didn't have any luck with Magic Brooms. Nobody wanted to buy them so I gave them away for free after a few days of trying. I sold Swift Flying Brooms for 30-40 g a piece so I guess it was worth it in the end.
Don't forget to get rid of the brooms before patch 2.3.2 hits - they will be changed to 14 days realtime duration! Yeah, bastards nerfed them. If nothing else, they will make a great Christmas present for random lowbies in Orgrimmar.

Anyway, back to the topic.

There are 3 recipes which are available only during Winter's Veil, and now's the time to take advantage of it.

Elixir of Frost Power is used in alchemy, and it's quite good for a level 28 elixir. Winter's Might weapon enchant is not great, but some mage twinks might like it. Lastly, Snowmaster 9000 is the only way to get Snowballs till next year's Winter's Veil.

The recipes aren't that hard to get - simply do all the quests and you should easily get at least one. Kaliope has some tips on that!

If you have a profession which can use any of this recipes, learn it just for the sake of it if you want. But just like with brooms, someone will want to buy it eventually, so I suggest you pay a visit to your favorite auctioneer (I like the one on the left in Orgrimmar's AH, how about you?) and buy as many as you can - for a reasonable price of course, which greatly depends on the realm but I'd say less than 40g.

Keep the recipes somewhere safe, and hope there won't be too many people doing the same thing. Trust me, in 2-3 months, you will easily get over 100g per recipe.



P.S. Here's some great tips on making gold with alchemy!

The most obvious way to make money with Alchemy is to transmute Earth to Water, since earth generally goes for 3 to 5 gold and Water goes for 15 to 20 gold. Get your Sporeggar rep up to Revered and start doing this transmute daily. It is the easies 10 to 15 gold you will ever make.

I was actually gonna make a post about it but too late now. And I wouldn't say this is obvious - I still see dozens of tards selling Primal Might transmutes etc. in trade channel for 5 gold.
If you choose transmute mastery, I recommend transmuting either Primal Might or Skyfire Diamonds. And not for someone else's mats and giving them the procs for a measly 5g! You'd have to be insane to do that. Take a couple of hours and farm the mats yourself or just buy it on AH.
If you have elixir or potion mastery, transmuting Primal Earth into Water is, as stated, the easiest 10-15g you will ever make. Each day.

> Making gold: Winter's Veil

Why not surprise your loved ones this year with some WoW themed gifts? I did a little research on Amazon, and there's quite a few cool stuff you could buy real cheap.

The obvious first - for someone who didn't start with World of Warcraft yet, this Battlechest is quite a money saver. Although less useful, WoW Collectors Edition is a classic. They already have both WoW and TBC? No worries - 60 day prepaid gamecard will do fine.

For those who will spend these holidays unplugged, WoW board game can easily entertain you and your friends. If you're planning to spend a lot of time outside, make sure you're dressed properly! Get the +20 frost resistance zip-up hoodie, or at least this stylish +15 frost resistance beanie.

If you're staying home this year, why not decorate your walls with this 2008 WoW wall calendar. Or if you're looking for something to read, you can check out this Master's guide: it has maps, profession info, stats, quests, strategies... An interesting read in maintenance downtimes. Or would you rather read some WoW comics? If you're not happy with my gold making tips, you could always try this unofficial gold making guide.

I have to mention the Outland map mouse pad! It would fit nicely with my mouse (which is bad btw).

My fellow blogger over at Camp Taurajo might wanna get the Camp Taurajo shirt. Perhaps that will get him to write more often.

Illidan's You were prepared shirt is /lol, but if you wanna be prepared for the next expansion, get the Wrath of the Lich King shirt.

There's also a bunch of class shirts available: warlock, rogue, mage, shaman, warrior, priest, druid, paladin, and last but not least hunter.
Or if you're not particularly proud of your class (loladins lol), get the Alliance crest or Horde crest shirts. Show them what you're made of!

> WoW Christmas gifts

I've tried it myself and it didn't work, but there's a lot of players reporting it does indeed help in some cases. It sounds weird but if your game loads slow, try running Windows Media Player prior to WoW.
It should help with loading time, low FPS issues and even latency problems.

As someone mentioned in the thread, Mac users should get the same effect by running Quicktime.

Let me know if it works!

> Increase your game performance

Galoheart really inspired me today - he got from neutral to exalted with Netherwing in only 6 days!
I've tried doing the Netherwing quests some time ago, but found it a bit dull, and Netherwing Ledge is kinda out of the way, unlike Skettis, where I can also often finish daily cooking quest as well.

I'm usually not THAT dedicated about farming, nor I want the netherdrake mount, but as I said - I'm a bit inspired right now and might get started with those quests again. And if (or when) I do, I'll definately remember to look for tips in Galoheart's guide he posted:

At Neutral with Netherwing faction you start off with having to report to Dragonmaw camp on Netherwing ledge which gives you reps from the Quest giver in Netherwing Fields in Shadowmoon Valley. Prerequisite is having 300 Flying skill and Mount.

You can do about 3-4 Quests/Dailies starting from Neutral. One or two the quests are one time quests for reps. If your a Miner/Herbalist/Skinner you get to choose to do One quest that match your skill for gathering for Netherwing.

...

The quicker you can get to Friendly you more daily quests open up. So do too at Honored & at Revered. Eventually you reach up to about 9 Daily quests including some one time quests you get to do at the different levels. There is one quest thats always in Shadowmoon Valley at Scryer or Aldor camp which you always have to remember to check and do easily or you will forget to do at Revered. So you want to get to Friendly-Honored-Revered as fast as possible.

...

When you get to Revered your doing all the dailies you can do. Finding Eggs from Mob kills, Hidden Eggs, Mining & Herbalism (need Skill) or on island or Dragonmaw camp is how you find them.

Be sure to check his post for the full guide, and some nice screenshots!

> Farming Netherwing Reputation

The latest 2.3.2 news surprised me today. I didn't expect a rogue nerf at least till 2.4, but AR/Prep was more ez-mode than SL/SL.

* Ambush: The damage multiplier on this ability has been increased from 250% to 275%.
* Hemorrhage: This ability now correctly does additional damage when its debuff has already been applied.
* Preparation now resets the cooldown of Shadowstep and no longer resets the cooldown of Adrenaline Rush.
* Shadowstep now adds a 3 second, 70% movement speed increase.
* Sinister Calling now also increases the percentage damage bonus of Hemorrhage and Backstab by 2/4/6/8/10%.

If you're a rogue, you can pretty much choose any spec atm and you'll be fine in PvP. That's hardly the case with other classes - some don't even have one decent talent tree.

Anyway, back to the point. I've read Ming's post today and it kinda makes me sick the more I look at it.

Also, a lot of people probably didn't notice this, as a hero of the rogue community, as soon as I saw the 110% hemo nerf, I posted two bug threads on PTR and bug forum

Self-proclaimed hero of the rogue community my ass... It's not the first time he said something like that either. Seriously, it was funny when Athene did it but in Ming's case it's just pathetic. But that's just me. I bet half of Ming's visitors would spec 0/0/61 if he said so.

Rogue needs damage more than anything else and even with AR/prep there are plenty of classes that can eat two AR's and still wreck us 1v1. Rogue's overall success (class as a whole, there will always be special players with special teammates like XOM) is still not top tier in anything other than 3v3.

*cough* roflcraptastic *cough*
Not even warriors can beat you, and they're your counter class (as much as I hate using this term).

We do have the best balanced talent trees with this change, unfortunately the best balanced class tends to be the weakest class as well.

Are you fuckin' kidding me? I thought you said rogues were finally the strongest class? No golden age?

Your Ambush is buffed (hello, anyone noticed?), Shadowstep's tooltip will soon cover half of your screen, and still rogues complain. Not to mention the class got quite a few buffs in 2.3.
To all those 'ima gonna reroll' rogue whiners out there - AR/Prep needed a nerf, face it. Rogues are fine, its a l2p issue.

Hate me, flame me, nerf me, unsubscribe me, /ignore me... I can't help it. I'm probably the only guy in the known universe who hates Ming, but I do. There, I said it.

> Ming sucks!

Time for another making gold post! This one will be short and sweet, since images speak thousand words. Or something like that.

Pattern: Imbued Netherweave Robe and Pattern: Imbued Netherweave Tunic
Where to get it: Arrond, Shadowmoon Valley: 55,68
Price: 6g

What's the catch? You can buy it only if you're Scryer. Arrond sells it in limited supply, but you can find the patterns pretty often, unlike Khorium Power Cores.

You think I'm bullshitting? You can't even imagine how many of these I sold already.
Screenshot or it didn't happen:


You can also try your luck with dozens of other vendor recipes, but for some reason these two seem to sell the best for me.

> Making gold: Imbued Netherweave recipes

Yes I know, Chuck Norris jokes are really lame and old. But that doesn't mean it's not funny!
If you ever leveled in Barrens, I'm sure you heard plenty of them, but these are a bit different. Ever since Chuck visited Barrens, people never stop talking about him. I wish they put Chuck Norris in those commercials, and not Jean Claude Van Damme.
This topic really has some gems and made me laugh, so if you're too lazy to read all 8 pages, I'll list some which I found particularly funny.

• Chuck Norris tore the Eye from Kilrogg
• Arthas rents the frozen throne from Chuck Norris
• Chuck Norris shot down the Exodar with a Shadowbolt
• Chuck Norris had to spec Grim Reach to get close enough to cast Curse of Recklessness before the mobs run away.
• Chuck norris can drain your soul through trade window!
• Illidan wasn't prepared for Chuck Norris.
• Chuck norris actually found a use for Firestone.
• Chuck Norris' life tap uses other peoples health.
• Burning Steppes and Searing Gorge were actually created when Chuck Norris first got Rain of Fire.
• The last time Chuck Norris received a whisper from an in-game gold advertising site, half of Asia had to be rebuild.
• Chuck Norris never cleared Mount Hyjal because the first trash wave refused to spawn.
• Chuck Norris' fear actually sticks for the full duration!
• Chuck Norris spat on the ground east of Lordaeron and thus created the Plaguelands.
• Murlocs use to speak fluent common up until Chuck Norris used Curse of tongues on them.
• Chuck Norris's Soul Fire Missed and created Molten Core.
• Chuck Norris is the reason warlocks are considered overpowered.
• Chuck Norris joined The Seven. 52 days after TBC release they clear all content. If only he hadn't spent 51 days on vacation.
• Chuck Norris can also Drain Wife; after that she doesn't want to kiss, have sex or cook.

> Chuck Norris plays a lock

Warlocks have a lot of tricks, and while they might not always require much skill to play (talking about SL/SL mostly), there's always things which separate skilled players over casual ones.
Perhaps you know all of this already, perhaps you don't. But it's always good to have an open mind and a few uncommon tactics so you can adapt to almost any situation.
I'm like Athene of the warlocks, giving away free tips. Read on to find out what hides in the warlock's trick bag!

1. I'll get this out of the way: use macros. There's plenty of them to be found, and a good place to start is my Useful warlock macros post.

2. I'll get this out of the way also since it's related to one of my previous posts. Get the Felguard Legionnaire. Enslave Demon is not completely useless - you can check this topic to see a list of cool demons which can be enslaved.

3. In PvP, always buff yourself with Detect Invisibility and Unending Breath. It's 2 more magic effects, meaning it might take 1 more priest's dispel or shaman purge to get your Fel Armor off of you. And those pesky Arcane Shot spamming huntards need to spam even more!

4. In PvE, you can break Fear on mobs by casting Curse of Recklesness (CoR) on them - use rank 1 CoR, it won't do much threat nor waste much mana, and the attack power bonus is negligible. When the mob is coming back at you, just throw another curse and he will run in fear again without the need to recast it.

5. If you send your pet to attack a rogue (or druid), even if he stealths the pet will attack him and break his stealth.

6. If you're using Succubus to CC in instances, pull with Searing Pain (or Soul Fire) for max threat. This is especially important for heroic instances: if your succy gets attacked it will probably get one shotted; if the mob goes after you it will give your pet enough time to reseduce the mob.

7. You can keep players in combat in arenas by sending your pet after them - they won't be able to drink. Also, if you didn't know, Star's Tears is the only drink you can use in arenas. Buy a stack, you never know.

8. You can banish druids in Tree of Life.

9. Always have your Felhunter's Paranoia buff on. There's no reason not to, and a lot of invisible reasons why you should.

10. You can summon yourself with Ritual of Summoning. Helps also if you get stuck behind objects in instances (happened to me in Shadow Labs on first boss when he feared).

11. You can Devour paladin's Hammer of Justice. Obvious, but often overlooked.

12. Spend 1 talent point in Shadow Embrace (affliction) if you can - it's one more magic debuff on your target - one more cleanse/dispel.

13. Use your felhunter to dispel Unstable Affliction on you - he won't take damage.

14. Banishing a warlock's pet will get rid of his Soul Link.

15. Get Boar's Speed.

16. You can cast curses on mages - some of them are retarded (sorry but it's true).

17. Spam Rank 1 Corruption to get that paladin OOM faster! Also spam it when the rogue pops Cloak of Shadows - it might stick on him and break his vanish.

16. Cast Siphon Life on hunter's pet - free healing ftw. Also, you can either cast Curse of Weakness to reduce it's melee damage, or Corruption (rank 1 is fine) for Nightfall procs if you specced.

17. If you have Dark Pact: when buffing up in raids, get your imp out of phase shift - tell your priests and paladins to buff him with spirit/mp5.

18. You can carry 3 healthstones of the same rank, if they are from 3 different warlocks, depending on how many talent points they put into Improved Healthstone. Also, you can make different ranks of healthstones for yourself in arenas, which is useful if the fight lasts a bit. Note: all healthstones share the same cooldown.

19. In arenas, summon Voidwalker first. About 12 seconds before the match starts, start summoning Felhunter/Felguard - spam Sacrifice and you should get the shield after about 5 seconds. If you have talent points in Master Summoner, it's a bit tricky - you can still get the shield, but it's really hard if you have latency above 300. Start casting about 8 seconds before the match then. This way, you should have the shield for the first 25 seconds of the match.

20. If you're low on health, use lower ranks of Life Tap.

21. If you're facing a wipe in instance, Life Tap to low hp and use Hellfire. You will kill yourself, but won't loose any durability.

22. You can cast Curse of Tongue's on mage's Water Elemental. If you're banishing the Elemental, try to Spell Lock the mage first (maybe also Fear if you're sure he won't break it instantly) so you don't get Counterspelled. You can also CoT + Siphon Life + Corruption to kill the pet.

23. If you see a warrior pop Spell Reflect, cast Curse of Recklesness. Congratulations, you're now immune to fear! You can also cast Siphon Life - it will heal basically heal you a bit due to Fel Armor bonus.

24. Hellfire triggers Prayer of Mending - if you're on full health, life tap and use Rank 1 Hellfire.

25. Recast Fel Armor on yourself before using bandages or Cannibalize.


Help me with more tips - that's what comments are for.
Did you know all this, or did I just make a totally useless post? Got any tricks for your own class, or did you find a way to beat warlocks?
What's your tip?

> 25 Awesome Warlock Tricks

10. Twinblade of the Phoenix
Drops from: Kael'thas Sunstrider (TK: The Eye)
Sells for: 18g, 4s, 62c

9. Soul cleaver
Drops from: Teron Gorefiend (Black Temple)
Sells for: 18g 17s 70c

8. Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer
Drops from: Illidan Stormrage (Black Temple)
Sells for: 18g 39s 48c

7. Pillar of Ferocity
Drops from: Anatheron (Hyjal Summit)
Sells for: 18g 43s 68c

6. Torch of the Damned
Drops from: Essence of Anger (Black Temple)
Sells for: 18g 43s 86c

5. Apostle of Argus
Drops from: Archimonde (Hyjal Summit)
Sells for: 18g 60s 39c

4. Cataclysm's Edge
Drops from: Archimonde (Hyjal Summit)
Sells for: 19g 57s 38c

3. Warglaive of Azzinoth (main hand)
Drops from: Illidan Stormrage (Black Temple)
Sells for: 24g 31s 12c

2. Warglaive of Azzinoth (off hand)
Drops from: Illidan Stormrage (Black Temple)
Sells for: 24g 39s 74c

1. Blade of Wizardry
Drops from: everything...
Sells for: 43g 29s 49c


- items listed here can be gained from drop only, not from vendors.
- items bought from vendors which require reputation, like Earthwarden or Stormcaller usually sell for higher amounts and are not listed here.

> 10 most expensive items

I said I'll visit Zul'Aman, and so I did. Although I'm not much into raiding, there's some nice items in there, pretty scenery, and I needed some reason to waste those consumables I've been gathering for months.

First of all, I got my Tattered Hexcloth Sack, and since then I'm thinking more and more about getting Primal Mooncloth Bags. 400g for one bag sounds pretty expensive, can't decide whether it's worth it or not.

Anyway, back on topic. The first night we managed to clean everything till Zul'Jin - since most of the people were there for the first time, including me, I think we did pretty good. Oh yeah, I should mention it was a PUG, not a guild run. Many of us didn't knew tactics, but after a couple of wipes we usually figured out what was wrong and successfully downed the boss.
Killing animal bosses (Nalorakk, Akil'zon, Jan'alai and Halazzi) was a cake, but Hex Lord Malacrass caused us some problems. We wiped about 5 times on him, but it was worth it!

We did a couple of tries on Zul'Jin, but we were missing another healer (he needs 4) so we had to call it off. The next day, we succesfully downed him, but it wasn't easy. I won't get into tactics too much, but the fight has 5 phases. He starts in Troll form, and every 20% of his health he switches to other form - Bear, Eagle, Lynx, and Dragonform. Eagle form is in my opinion the hardest - each time casters cast a spell, they get about 1,200 damage. In that phase, healers should use long cast heals (we said no Flash bubbledin!), while melee damage should get his hp to 40% as soon as possible. Also, a bunch of tornadoes spawn on his platform, which will follow you around and knock you away if you get close to it, so you will have to be moving a lot. If nobody dies in phase 3, it's pretty easy after that.

About other bosses' tactics, I'm not impressed. I could probably write an essay on rogue vs. warlock duel, but I can't think of anything that stands out. Sure, each boss has some trick (Halaazi for example one shotted our tank with Saber Lash - cleave-like spell which splits damage with offtank), but nothing spectacular.

I probably will go back there, but to be honest I'm not sure. There's not many items for feral druids there, except Staff of Primal Fury and a couple of other items.
But it's good to get away from daily quests and battlegrounds every once in awhile.

> Zul'Aman - tanking, looting, wiping

One of my favorite auction house moments are those when I find items which can be vendored for more then it's buyout price. Jaggal Pearls are one of those items, and so is Netherweave Cloth.

A stack of Netherweave will sell for measly 1.6g to vendor, so don't try to make profit that way. On my realm, it usually sells for 3.5-4.5 gold, but like every other item, the prices tend to rise and fall frequently. I don't find it this cheap everyday, but at least once a week someone puts it for less than 3g and here's how we can use it to our own advantage.
I usually just buy this auctions and resell the cloth in a day or two when the prices are back to normal, but if you have First Aid, you can simply make Heavy Netherweave Bandages; 1 Heavy Netherweave Bandage sells to vendor for 30 silver - 20 Netherweave Cloth is 10 bandages, meaning you can vendor it for 3g.

It won't make you a fortune, but it does feel good to earn a few gold on fools.

> Making gold: Netherweave Cloth

Well not really, there's nothing wrong with Wowhead. It's me gone berserk, because finally I can use item tooltips (example) without breaking my site's layout, or having to link to Thottbot.

The new Powered by Wowhead feature enables you to show item tooltips on mouseover on your site. Someone got more details on it, but it works really simple - just add a line of code to your site's source, and voila, if you ever linked to some item on Wowhead, the tooltips will be there. No need to change any previous posts or links, simple as that.

Bigbearbutt posted another method some time ago, but it refused to work well with my site, and frankly it was too much trouble for me to try and fix it. If you prefer Thottbot over Wowhead, you can check Mania's Arcania - it works pretty much the same way.

> Wowhead goes berserk!

As you might have noticed, there's a whole lotta links to other blogs on my site. Before today, I had only a handful of them because I didn't want to clutter my site too much, but it's impossible to pick the ones I really really like over those I just like, so I just copied them all from my Google Reader and added it.

There's probably a lot of blogs I forgot to add, so if you know any just post a comment (or email) and I'll check it out! I'm not much of a blogger so I don't have high standards when it comes to other people's writing, but if you make quality posts you have nothing to worry about, I'll gladly link to you.

Also, if I linked to your site, please don't bother saying thanks. Really, there's no need. If you want to thank me, please link back from your site to mine (if you posted a link back, your blog will appear with bold text). That's all I ask. Maybe also add me to your Technorati favorites or Digg, or some other social bookmarking site.

If you have any questions or requests, please feel free to contact me!

> Links

Advanced Trade Skill Window (ATSW) is a replacement for Blizzard's tradeskill window. It provides you with a much better overview of craftable items, and supports a number of useful features.

Although search is implemented in the standard interface now, ATSW has a much more advanced search functionality - you can filter items by level requirement, quality and more. It's much bigger than the standard interface so you can stop wasting time scrolling so much and trying to find a certain recipe.
It also supports production queues so you can go make yourself a cup of coffee or watch Lost. Furthermore, ATSW will show you all the reagents required to make an item, and whether you have them in your bank or on another character. It can even buy items from vendor as you produce them. The shopping list on Auction House does not work well with Auctioneer (at least not for me), but that's hardly an issue.

ATSW supports all professions, including secondary. It's just one of those addons I can't play without anymore. I highly recommend it to everyone!

Download: wowinterface.com or wowui.incgamers.com


Other addons:
Proximo 2,
Reslack,
Afflicted,
Proximo,
Advanced Tradeskill Window,
Posessions,
Doublewide & Lightheaded,
Auctioneer

I finally had some time to check out the new patch myself, so here's some things I noticed.

New cooking daily quest ain't that bad - I can finally get some Golden Fish Sticks without actually having fishing. You wouldn't believe but I actually had a hard time finding Monstrous Kaliri; usually they are the ones trying to find me.


Still didn't get my Tattered Hexcloth Sack nor have I seen Zul'Aman, but I'm getting close.


It seems Primal Nether can no longer be looted unless you have a profession that can use it.


I played a bit with the guild bank, and claimed the first slot for myself. It's great not having to relog now to get bandages or potions.


Battleground preparation time is great. Also, there's always a kind mage now who casts Ritual of Refreshment before the battle begins, so I can easily stack food for the whole day.


I don't think this was in the patch notes either - trinkets now show cooldown in spell description. A+


The number of Marks of Honor we get in mailbox is now also displayed without opening the mail first. Small change but hey, I noticed!


Daily quests for heroic instances have nice money rewards, but I'd rather get a bonus Badge of Justice instead of Ethereum Prison Key, especially since Mechanar is nerfed. My days of farming consortium reputation are long gone. Actually the quest in this image is for non-heroic instance, that's why you dont' get Badge of Justice.
Be careful with the chests in Hellfire Ramparts and Mechanar - supposedly you have to loot them first or you won't get Badge of Justice. Or something like that. Don't worry, it will be fixed in 2.4.


I hate it. I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it .....


Unfortunately, we don't get 4000 honor points, but 419 ain't such a bad bonus either, plus a bit of cash. Too bad it took me 2 and a half hours to win Arathi Basin. I guess alliance started winning more since noob classes like hunters and rogues got buffed (yes, flame me), and oh boy they got plenty of those.

Hehe's some other posts from the blogosphere which weren't published in time for my yesterday's 2.3 impressions.

• Wowinsider reports about Chaotic Skyfire Diamond dropping only for jewelcrafters. I can semi-confirm that: I had a non-jc friend farm it for several hours without a drop, and it dropped for some other guy who was a jewelcrafter within minutes. Also check WI's Zul'Aman preview.

• Warlock Therapy needs some therapy. Seems two Azure Whelpings aren't enough so he had to farm more.

• Kat got fish tracking! My fishing is still stuck on 229 for months now, maybe it's time to level it up.

• For Amava Knows Aggro the patch went pretty smooth, and also likes the hunter deadzone removed, but also raises a good point: the deadzone was part of the challenge of being a hunter. I have to agree on that - whenever I fought a good hunter, it was nearly impossible to get in his deadzone.

• White Whisker has some tips for Zul'Aman Bear, Eagle and Lynx bosses.

• Someone is worried mostly about double-freezing. I'm not much of an expert when it comes to hunters, but I'd like to point out that you can't fear two targets at the same time, nor sap, nor polymorph them.

• Mystic Chicanery ... well, just read it!

• Kaestrel's Aerie has the same problems with Auctioneer as me.

• Is Kaliope ever doing anything but farming?

Now post a comment on this post or I swear my next 10 posts will be rants and whining about hunters!

> 2.3 second impressions

• World of Raids reports about undocumented changes. I especially like the one about T6 Resto Shaman gear not having token cost.
  

• You can read about 2.3 from a warrior's perspective on Warriorpwns and The Positive Warrior.
  

• Jagoex from Warlock Therapy got Azure Whelping. Grats!

• Karthis talks about addon issues and Karazhan.

• Frostbolt.com has some Zul'Aman screenshots. Among other things.
  

• Laser Chickens have a right to speak also!

• Here's some random thoughts about the patch from Liquid Silver.

> 2.3 impressions

I couldn't think of any decent post title, so I shamelessly stole Wowinsider's. Sorry folks, I promise not to do it too often. :)

Name: Tattered Hexcloth Sack
What is it: It's a 20 slot bag. Duh!
How to get it: You will get a quest as soon as you enter Zul'Aman, which requires you to get a map from the platform where the first boss is. I hear it's possible to get it without aggroing the boss, but you will have to clear some trash. Since this bag is a quest reward, you won't have to /roll. How cool is that!
Getting rid of it: Don't even think about it. But if you have to know, vendor will give you a measly 5g for it.

You probably already know I have serious problems when it comes to storage, and while this bag won't help much (it's only 2 slots more), it's a great step in the right direction. I only hope we will see more of these bags soon, or at least in Wrath of the Lich King.
I'm not much into raiding, but I'll be visiting Zul'Aman for this one!

> Phat Loot Monday: Tattered Hexcloth Sack

There are some new categories added to the auction house interface, consumables and trade goods.

You will be able to search consumables for food & drink, flasks, potions, bandages, scrolls, elixirs, and other misc items like various drums made by leatherworkers.

For trade goods, the categories are elemental (essences, primals), cloth, leather, metal and stone (ore, bars and stones like Heavy Stone), enchanting reagents and rods, herbs, engineering reagents & devices, explosives, and meat.

It's an interesting and a welcome change, apart from all those nerfs&buffs we're hearing about all the time.

> 2.3 Auction House changes

Although rarely used, Enslave Demon is one of the coolest spells warlocks got. There's many demons both in Azeroth and Outlands which you can enslave, but they are usually marginally useful. Other than Felguard Legionnaires, I can think of only two places I've found enslave to be useful - first, in Botanica on those satyr-like demons, and second in (heroic) Blood Furnace - those imps at the start have firebolts which hit for about 3k. Yeah baby! Anyway...

Felguard Legionnaire is a level 67-68 elite, which can be found in forge camps in Nagrand (both Fear and Hate). The mobs have around 31.000 hp and hit for about 800 damage. If you're having problems finding groups to do those Nesingwary or forge camp group quests, look no further! If you're not a warlock, I'd suggest finding one, which shouldn't be too hard. These menacing felguards will be a cake for any warlock to enslave!
Unfortunately, you won't be able to bring these guys to Elemental Plateau to gank alliance/horde, but that doesn't stop you from spreading panic in Halaa, does it.

> Soloing Nagrand group quests, lock style

Additional Aimed Shot changes

In patch 2.3, aimed shot will not only reduces healing done to the target by 50% for a ten seconds, but we're also reducing the shot time by 0.5 seconds.

I predicted changes to Aimed Shot in one of my previous posts - it's not yet instant but 0.5 sec cast time reduction is a good start. And it will most likely be further reduced, judging by what Eyonix said.

Hypothermia back to 30 seconds, Ice Block trainable

It's a deliberate change. We initially felt like it was too quick at 30s and decided to test it out at 45s, but after playing with it for a while we felt like it opened mages to focus fire a little too much so we decided to keep it at 30s. It's worth pointing out that making changes like this and later un-doing them is not at all uncommon, it's just most of you generally don't see that process in action since it often happens before the patch even gets to the PTR.

Since I'm here, I'll also make a small pre-emptive strike against the incoming "what about other mage concerns!" replies I'm about to get and say the following.

Two things we'll be making improvements to in the near future (although these aren't likely to make it in on time for 2.3) are having iceblock be trainable (to make sure all mages have it as a tool for pve encounters and to open up other trees as being more viable options for pvp), and to-be-finalized improvements to mana issues in longer fights.

All the mage whiners out there can finally stop now! But seriously, Ice Block is one of the most important abilities that makes a mage what it is in PvP, so I guess the fire talent tree will be a bit more popular now. I rather not speculate what talent will replace Ice Block, but it will probably be nuke-the-hell-out-of-this-warlock type spell.
Can I now get Soul Siphon or Soul Link trainable? Or at least instant Corruption - I have yet to see a warlock without spending 5 talent points there.

> PTR changes: mage & hunter

Okoloth always fascinated me with his dedication of pulling interesting info from the WoW Armory.
This time, he analyzed 4.5 million characters, which is half of WoW's population a lot. You can check his site for more detailed statistics, but I was really surprised to see the class breakdown.

It seems the myth about druids being the least played class is finally over - only 7% of players choose shaman as their preferred class. If I had to guess, I'd say hunters are the most played class, but I would be wrong - warriors lead by 14% of total player base. Nerf mortal strike! Nah, just kidding. There's a lot of mages also, 2% more than there are rogues, warlocks and priests. Surprisingly, there aren't many paladins either.

Of course, this data does in no way tell us if a particular class is well balanced or not - the overpowerness (wut?) changes from patch to patch - I rather check www.geekboys.org/arena to see who dominates the endgame, which I plan to write about soon also.

> WoW population demographics

Mad Alchemist's Potion
It seems this new potion has a 95% chance to proc an additional elixir effect, and it's class dependant - meaning you will get buffs depending on your class, so casters should get Elixir of Draenic Wisdom or similar, and melee classes should get Elixir of Mastery or Major Agility. Good news. But I wonder how will it work with different specs or roles - what exactly will my feral druid get?


Druid

• Growl: The chance for this ability to land successfully on its target is now increased by hit rating.
• Challenging Roar: The chance for this ability to land successfully on its targets is now increased by hit rating.

I believe spell hit rating was previously increasing the chance for these spells not to be resisted so this is good news. Tanking druids still lack serious hit rating though.


Warlock

• Unstable Affliction: The silence from this ability is now subject to diminishing returns.

What can I say... nerf to dual lock teams.

Warrior

• Challenging Shout: The chance for this ability to land successfully on its targets is now increased by hit rating.
• Taunt: The chance for this ability to land successfully on its target is now increased by hit rating.

Same as for druids, a welcome and needed change. Intimidating Shout, Demoralizing Shout and Piercing Howl are not getting changed though.


Raids & Dungeons

• The Mechanar: The Cache of the Legion can now only be looted by players who are present during some portion of a successful attempt of the Gatewatcher Gyro-Kill and Gatewatcher Iron-Hand encounters. In addition, on Heroic difficulty Gatewatcher Gyro-Kill and Gatewatcher Iron-Hand no longer drop Badges of Justice. Instead, the Cache of the Legion contains a Badge of Justice for each player present.

My favorite Badge of Justice farming instance is getting nerfed :((

You can read the full patch notes on worldofraids.com.

Also, I'd like to point out that Ming, considered a very good rogue (and a very nice blogger) thinks Rogues are finally the strongest class in TBC.

I got no idea how I missed this, but Wowinsider is here to point it out. Druids will be able to shift forms without exposing themselves to vulnerable human form, which is in my opinion overpowered (I got a druid, remember). While the change looks very cool and somewhat logical, I believe it is hard enough for any class to catch a druid as it is.
Also from latest patch notes:

• PvP Trinkets: Insignia of the Alliance, Insignia of the Horde, Medallion of the Alliance, and Medallion of the Horde now clear the debuff from Judgement of Justice.

So long paladin, you shall not catch my druid anymore! Can this please be nerfed?

> New PTR build: Ain't getting better

PvE gear, PvP gear, trinkets, food, quest items, resistance gear, mounts, battleground marks, reagents, soul shards, potions, gems, pets, fishing & cooking stuff, bandages, items from seasonal events, primals, shards, dusts and essences...
Bag space has always bugged me since the day one. I was buying my first bank slot on level 12 or so, and by the time I was 35 I had 6 bag slots in bank. Sure, I manage my items with the help of banker alts but still, I often find myself destroying items I might need in future, or items I simply want to have as a reminder or for some sentimental reasons.

But what about the things I can't vendor or store on alts, things I have to carry around with me because you never know, like quest items or potions.
Warlocks, druids and hunters (and paladins, thanks Nibuca) in my opinion have the biggest problems. Hunters with their ammo pouches, druids with 3 sets of gear (tank, heal, dps), and warlocks like me who can't imagine having less than 30 shards with me at all times. Besides gear, I always have consumables like food and potions, and more than often several types of elixirs. And Archmage Vargoth's staff of course.

I believe it was with the release of The Burning Crusade we got keyrings. Can you honestly say you could live without it? Imagine going back to the bank to get your heroic key and making your party wait for you. Sure, we got a lot of additional keys in TBC with the introduction of heroic instances so the keyring is much more needed than before, but still, Scholomance key, Scarlet key, BRD key - I'm sure there's a few more from the pre-TBC era.

I don't need 5 keyrings, one for consumables, one for gear, or whatever else. But why not add a Consumables bag, or Quest Item bag. Quest items are a bigger issue while leveling, but we carry our consumables all the time, even if we don't use them that often.
I suggest one of the following:

Consumables bag - keeps all your food, potions, elixirs, flasks

Quest bag - I don't mean quest rewards bag; this would be used to keep your boar's intestines, cat's fangs, bird's feathers and similar items required to complete your quests.

Reagent bag - used to keep the reagents required for spells, like Holy Candle or Wild Thornroot. Since reagents usually take 3-4 slots, it's not really necesarry, but I'd take just about anything.

Trinket bag - I'll give my druid as an example: 2 different trinkets for tanking, two for dps, two for healing and 1 for pvp (one dps and Insignia). That's 7 trinkets I have to carry all the time! God forbid I take engineering - all those cool little gadgets and no place to put them. And I got tons of trinkets just sitting in bank which could be excellent in certain situations, or simply fun (Six Demon Bag :> ).

Sure, we got soul shard bags, engineering toolboxes, herb bags and similar which can ease up the space with certain profession items, but still, I sure don't carry a herb bag with me all the time simply because I don't do herbalism 24 hours a day.
From all aforementioned, I'd love to have consumables bag and trinket bags. I believe no player would ever complain about it. I hope we will see some new rings in the expansion, because by then not even guild banks will be enough for me.

> Bags, keyrings and more bags

Posessions will keep track of your items and money on all your alts, including worn items, items in your inventory, items in your bank and even items in your mailbox (that you've seen).

So, if you want to see if you have any silk cloth anywhere... you can just do '/poss silk cloth', and Possessions will show, in its window, all items matching 'silk cloth'. Mouseover that, and you'll see, for example, that you have 10 silk cloth in your bank, 50 silk cloth in your mule's inventory, and 5 silk cloth in your mailbox.

With 2 level 70's, several lower level toons and 2 bankers, it's impossible to track where your items are, or even if you still have them. It saves you from a lot of relogging when searching where your primals are, or if you have enough mats for that new enchant. Simply type /poss, not matter what character you're on at that time, and a window will open (pic) where you can search and filter any items across all your toons.

When you first install Posessions, log in with all your characters and open all your bags and mailbox, and that's it - you can start using it. There are no additional scans or hard to remember commands you need to use.
It does it's task more than well, and it will use very little of your memory so you don't have to worry about that.


Download Posessions from Curse.com

Other addons:
Proximo 2,
Reslack,
Afflicted,
Proximo,
Advanced Tradeskill Window,
Posessions,
Doublewide & Lightheaded,
Auctioneer

While writing about Posessions, I was thinking about how I need some sort of score system to rate the addons.
I don't intend to write about bad addons, still there's often a big difference in a good & useful addon, and those who are just brilliant and you can't live without them.

I introduce to you the Shardscore!
It's basically a simple scale from 1 to 5 explained below, plus one special score for those who even fail at special olympics.

Shardscore: 5 - Perfect


Brilliant, amazing, flawless... Simply the best. This one is a winner.


Shardscore: 4 - Very good


Nobody is perfect, right? Well, almost nobody. This means it's just one step behind.


Shardscore: 3 - Useful


This could use a few tweaks and features.


Shardscore: 2 - Needs more work


The idea is good, but there's a lot of room for improvement.


Shardscore: 1 - Even I could do better


While it still has its uses, this needs a lot of changes and work to perform better.


Shardscore: 0 - Terribad


This is awful. It's so terribly bad it doesn't even deserve a proper word!

> Shardscore

Bornak cleared up an issue with those Hallow's End brooms - it seems they won't dissapear on November 1st as I initially thought.

Just to clear up any confusion, the items with a duration on them won't all vanish on November first, you just won't be able to get any new ones.

What this means, the Duration: 14 days on your brooms means /played time, so the brooms will indeed stay for awhile longer. I plan on selling them in 4-5 months, how about you?

Since the brooms are not bound on pickup, make a level 1 alt, send the brooms to him, and simply don't play with him. Put the items in his bank for safekeeping.
Don't use your regular banker for this, if you even have one. My level 1 Tauren Warrior banker has about 3 days playtime, therefore I created a new one so I get to keep the brooms for long long time. I don't know yet if I will be reselling them or using since they are so darn great!
I'm a bit late with this tip I know, but you still have time to visit SM and snag a few.

> Making gold: Brooms

Mmo-champion (again) reports about a chinese guild TheSeven, who managed to clean The Burning Crusade content in 52 days. It might not seem as much of an achievement at first, but it is. TBC was released in China on September 6th, which is almost 8 months (I think) after the rest of the world got it.

It pretty impressive if you take a look at their items: warrior in T4 and Karazhan shield, and a bunch of other guys equipped with T3 (yes, Tier 3!).
While I don't mean to undermine their achievement, there are a few things to note. First of all, guilds like Nihilum didn't know the strategy behind a boss most of the time - I can only imagine how it's like for 25 people to not know what they're supposed to do, much less learn to do it correctly. Also, a lot of boss encounters were nerfed in patches since BC launched.

Still, I'd congratulate any guild that put an end to Illidan. PvE is really not my domain, so I'll probably kill him when Wrath of the Lich King comes out.

> The Chinese Are Prepared

Who do you think will be more overpowered in next patch, rogues or hunters?
Hunter's ranged attacks min range is now 1 yard . Mmo-champion calls it mega major über change. I'm completely and utterly dissapointed - Mortal Strike, Dispel Magic, and now reduced minimum range... Wait - it's not instant? Oh, no worries hunters, wait a day or two it will be.
I can't wait to see what BRK has so say about this!


Update:

It seems hunters won't be able to shoot from 1 yard afterall - supposedly it's a tooltip error.
But I can't help to wonder, why were hunters able to shoot from 1 yard on PTR? Imo, it's easier to say it's a bug then explain to the community why they did such drastic changes and then reverted it. Drain Life didn't get nerfed also - it's just a bugfix after 2.5 years.

Drysc:

There's a tooltip error, it should be "5-35 yards". We want melee and ranged to be kept separate, so that when in melee attack range you should not be able to use a ranged attack. There's some amount of 'give' there, especially in fast paced PvP which can produce some temporary gray area but that's fully known with this change.

Feeding the issue of the tooltip error is a bug currently where you can indeed range attack someone while being meleed, but that's in the process of being resolved as well.

---

Yes I know, I'm complaining a lot. I love my warlock and I'd hate to abandon it - every class got some love this patch, except locks and shaman. Oh wait, shaman got free spell damage from healing. I won't get the Merciless Gladiator mount, and it will be twice as hard in Season 3 with the newly nerfed lock.

But hey, seems my druid will have something to look forward to.

The Mad Alchemist's Potions "side effect" is actually a random buff from other elixirs. However it won't replace existing elixir buffs if you have one on.

It would be wrong to make an entirely new making gold post about this, because there ain't much to say.
When I first found out about Mad Alchemist's Potion, I thought the side effects would be negative, like on Fel Mana (hunter pot!) or Fel Rejuvenation Potion. It seems I was wrong. Although the buffs you get will be random, so it might not be exactly what you need at the moment, it's still a pretty solid chance to get a useful stat boost which does stack with other elixirs! Gosh I can't wait to try it.
There's not many potions you can make from Ragveil, so people usually don't even bother picking them up, but since this new pot is so cheap to make, expect Ragveil prices to increase. It won't make you a fortune, but you won't regret it either.

> Hunters, rejoice!

For the longest time I didn't even think I need any macros, but after learning more about them I realized they could actually help me. I won't get into /castsequence macros, because they are unnecesarry, and you shouldn't be lazy to press a few extra keys (unless you're a clicker!).
These macros are mostly for PvP, and will help you a lot in arenas and battlegrounds.


Destroying Shaman totems

/petattack [target=Tremor Totem]; [target=Grounding Totem]; [target=Earthbind Totem];

Simply change [target=Totem] if you wish to add more totems to attack. Saves a bunch of time for targeting totems and manually send your pet to attack it. Sure, you could use your wand for totems, but you can't do much else then.


Focus

/focus

This will make your current target focused, and even display an additional unit frame in for that target. You can target another player then, and use the following macro to cast on focused target without deselecting your current target:

/cast [pet:Felhunter,target=focus] Devour Magic
/cast [target=focus] Fear (Rank 6)

You can also easily modify this by yourself, for Banish or Spell Lock.


Use ranged slot

/cast [equipped:Wand] Shoot; Master Spellstone

If you have a wand equipped, it will shoot with it, and if you have a spellstone, it will use it.


Recast Drain Life/Mana

/cast [nochanneling:Drain Life] Drain Life

/cast [nochanneling:Drain Life] Drain Mana

This macro will recast Drain Mana or Drain Life when it finishes.


Easy Devour Magic

/cast Corruption(Rank 8)
/cast [pet:Felhunter, target=yourname]Devour Magic(Rank 6)
/cast [pet:Felhunter]Devour Magic(Rank 6)

This is absolutely brilliant. You can even replace Corruption on your bars with this macro - first, it will cast Corruption on your target, then, if there's any magic effects on you your pet will automatically dispel them, and if there are none, it will Devour a magic effect from your target.

Here's another version which I use for arenas:

/cast Corruption(Rank 8)
/cast [pet:Felhunter, target=teammate]Devour Magic(Rank 6)
/cast [pet:Felhunter, target=yourname]Devour Magic(Rank 6)
/cast [pet:Felhunter]Devour Magic(Rank 6)

Replace teammate and yourname with appropriate names. This will basically do the same as previous macro, but will first try to Devour Magic on your team mate. Excellent for fast dispel of Polymorph, Hammer of Justice, or similar effects from your healer.

You could use the following macro if you don't want any additional spell cast.

/cast [pet=felhunter, target=yourname] Devour Magic(Rank 6)
/cast [pet=felhunter] Devour Magic(Rank 6)

First, it Devours from you, and if there is nothing to devour then it will devour on your current target.

The following macro will Devour Magic on you, and if shift is pressed it will Devour on your current target:

/cast [modifier:shift, pet:Felhunter] Devour Magic; [pet:Felhunter, target=yourname] Devour Magic

Announce summon in raid/party

/script local C; if(GetNumRaidMembers()==0) then C = "PARTY" else C = "RAID" end
SendChatMessage("Summoning %t to << "..GetMinimapZoneText().." >>. Please assist.", C)
/cast Ritual of Summoning

If you're in a raid, it will announce in raid chat, and in party chat if you're in a party.


Use Healthstone

/stopcasting
/use Master Healthstone
/use Major Healthstone

It's my panic button! This macro will use your healthstone even when you're casting a spell - good when that warrior suddenly smacks you to 20% hp. If Master Healthstone is already used, it will use Major. Sure, they share the same cooldown, but my fights often last more than 5 minutes so often enough I use two.


Summoning with Fel Domination

/cast Fel Domination
/stopcasting
/cast Summon Voidwalker (Summon)

Feeling creative?
Learn more about macros:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/macros.html
UI & Macros Forums
Wowwiki Warlock Macros

> Useful Warlock macros