Yet Another Warlock Nerf

Or so they say.


The ez-mode SL/SL spec is, despite all nerfs, still the most popular build for PvP warlocks.
There's not much room for having fun in arenas - you either play seriously or stick to PvE, so it's a real gem to find warlocks who manage to achieve high ratings with non-demonology spec.
While affliction still has its bright moments, destruction is now usually considered obsolete, mostly since resilience is introduced which severely gimped the previous popularity of this build.

Heidiheinken achieved what most players dream of - almost 2400 rating, which is really amazing for a destro lock.
First few minutes in this vid will show you how to beat warrior and druid combo, which is currently the most popular in 2v2, as a SL/SL lock teamed with a druid. It has come excellent tips & tricks which you should always keep in mind. I'd love to see more of it, but can't blame the author since the movie is about destruction.

If you're interested, be sure to check out the video to see how this forgotten build is still alive and kicking.

> Destruction is dead

Can't say no to Failoring.





(from wowbash.com)





Q = Icelance? No, Q = QQ whine about warlocks.



Mage vs. Shaman: Epic battle. I just love Windows Paint made images.




> WoW humor 2: do you know how hard it is to play a warlock?

It's probably fake, but still there are some stuff here that should (not) be changed in near future.
I won't list all of them, but only those I find particularly good or dumb.

• Silence and Interrupt effects are now subject to diminishing returns.

Won't happen.

The Backpack has been redesigned. It will now start as a 10 slot bag, but it will gain 2 slots every 10 levels. New characters will be given an additional 6 slot bag. Existing characters below level 30 may have items moved to their mailbox that no longer fit in their Backpack. Players affected by this should also find a 6 slot bag in their mailbox.

That would mean 22 slots on level 70. I had my own suggestions about bags but this doesn't sound bad either. Too bad it probably won't happen.

The human Diplomacy racial now also increases healing received by 3%.

Lol ye right...

Cyclone now has a 15 sec cooldown.

It needs a nerf, but a 15 second cooldown sounds a bit too harsh.

Frenzied Regeneration: The amount of health restored now scales slightly with bonus healing effects.

It's something I've wanted for quite some time now, but not like this. Sure it has its uses when you're being smashed in PvP as bear, but it should also be increased by your strenght or agility so it would be more useful for tanking as well. Trading 100 rage for 2500 health is a high cost.

Celestial Focus: This talent now also reduces the cooldown of Cyclone by 5/10/15 sec.

Didn't we just nerf it?

Shredding Attacks: This talent now also gives the critical strikes from your Claw, Shred, Mangle and Maul abilties a 50/100% of reducing the effectiveness of the next direct healing spell on your target by 20%.

I like it - feral druids might have a chance to kill a healer with this.

Ice Lance now has a 6 sec cooldown.

Ice lance spam ftw. As much as I'd like to see it nerfed, its not necesarry.

Holy Shock: The cooldown has been reduced to 12 sec, from 15 sec and the amount of damage and healing done has been slightly increased.

Just give paladins a HoT and be done with it. But this sounds good also.

Mana Burn now has a 6 sec cooldown.
The effects of your Mana Burn and Fade spells now scale slightly with Shadow spell damage.
Focused Power: This talent now also reduces the cooldown of Mana Burn by 0.5/1 sec.

If additional Shadow damage effects Mana Burn, a cooldown would be nice.

Rogues can now generate combo points on up to 3 targets at any one time.

Reminds me of hunter's deadzone removal, kinda. A limitation you had to live with. It might also have an impact on Shadowstep's usefulness.

Cloak of Shadows: The cooldown has been increased to 2 min, from 1 min.

Please do it, please please please... /beg

Your Sap and Distract abilities no longer require targets to be out of combat.
Sap now has a 15 sec cooldown.

Cheap Shot, Kidney Shot, mace stun, Gouge, Blind, AND Sap? Gtfo.

Preparation once again resets the cooldowns of all your Rogue abilities.
Premeditation and Preparation talents have swapped locations.

Fake. It never reseted the cooldowns of all rogue abilities. And if it did reset the cooldown on Adrenaline Rush, there's no point since you can't have both AR and Preparation with this change.

Ghost Wolf now frees the Shaman from movement impairing effects when cast, renders the Shaman immune to polymorph effects and can no longer be dispelled.

There's so many possibilities with this I won't even try to think about it.

Windfury Weapon now only grants 1 extra attack and the bonus attack power granted has been reduced by approximately 19%, but the chance to proc has been increased. Overall shamans should see more consistent dps.
Windfury Totem: The attack power bonus has been reduced by approximately 46%, but the chance to proc has been slightly increased. Overall the totem should see a slight decrease in effectiveness.

No need to nerf it in my opinion.

Pets will now receive a percentage of their master's resilience and an additional percentage of their master's stamina.

It shouldn't be a percentage of resilience, rather a full benefit. As for stamina, more health is also always welcome, and probably necesarry.


> 2.4 Patch notes

Cancel your current form and switch to caster:

/cancelform

You should make a macro for each form, so you can 'powershift' easily from one form to another with this:

#showtooltip
/cancelform
/cast Cat Form

It will switch from any form to caster without exposing yourself in caster form. Simply change Cat Form to whatever form you wish.



Cast Innervate on yourself:

/cast [target=player] Innervate

Buff your target with Thorns & Mark of the Wild

/castsequence reset=target Thorns, Mark of the Wild

Cast Nature's Swiftness and Healing Touch

/stopcasting
/cancelform
/cast Nature's Swiftness
/cast Healing Touch

Barskin & Hurricane (or Tranquility)

/stopmacro [channeling:Hurricane]
/castsequence reset=30/combat Barkskin, Hurricane

Equip healing weapon and idol when in caster form, and feral weapon or idol when in Bear

#showtooltip Dire Bear Form
/equip [stance:1/3] Gavel of Pure Light
/equip [stance:1/3] Vengeful Gladiator's Idol of Tenacity
/cast [nostance] Dire Bear Form
/cancelform
/equip [nostance] Earthwarden
/equip [nostance] Idol of the Wild

Or use this cool macro to switch different weapons for cat/bear (PvE):

/equip [stance:1] Terestian's Stranglestaff; [stance:3] Earthwarden
/cast [stance:1] Cat Form; [stance:3] Dire Bear Form

Use potion and healthstone while tanking

/cancelform
/use Master Healthstone
/use Super Healing Potion
/use Major Combat Healing Potion
/use Fel Blossom
/cast Dire Bear Form

Switch to Cat and cast Prowl

#show Prowl
/cancelform [nostance:3]
/cast [nostance] Cat Form; [stance:3,nostealth] Prowl

Charge an enemy and Growl. You can replace Growl with Bash, Mangle...

/cast Feral Charge
/stopcasting
/cast Growl

Cure poison & Remove Curse

/cast Cure Poison
/cast Remove Curse

Announce Rebirth in party chat (%t will say the name of your target). Change /p to /ra for raid chat or whatever:

/cancelform
/p Rebirth on %t
/cast Rebirth

You damn Night Elves can use this in arenas to drink:

/use Star's Tears
/cast Shadowmeld

So that's it, I don't remember ever using any other macros, but if you have some feel free to comment below.

If you want more macros you don't need, check out one or more of the following links:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=48565126&sid=1&pageNo=1
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=54889606&sid=1
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=74337875&sid=1
http://druid.wikispaces.com/Macro's+and+Addons
http://www.wowwiki.com/Useful_macros/Druid

> Useful druid macros

Although this post is labeled as jokes, these guys are serious.

This new medicine apparently improves your gaming performance - if there is any truth in what the German based producer Tomarni GmbH have to say.

Tomarni have said that the FpsBrain medicine enhances your reactions, increases your perception and stops your hands from shaking – and all this starts to take affect in around 60 minutes.

I can certainly see the use for it - sometimes my hands start to shake so much after loosing arena matches I'd strangle my cat or something. Good thing I don't have one.

I prefer the good ol' coffee, but if you're into this sort of drugs, you can get 60 capsules for 19.99€ on fpsbrain.com.

I read the post over at PvP Source yesterday, about Vindicator's Dragonhide Bracers being better than Vindicator Leather Bracers, and it just so happens I bought my Vengeful Gladiator's Felweave Cowl yesterday also and noticed a similar thing.

So here's the problem.

Normally, destro items (Felweave, with crit chance) have less spell damage than Dreadweave, but that's not the case with this piece, so you might want to think twice before you buy your Season 3 head. 5 more spell damage and 1% crit over some pointless stats? Yes please.

By the way, who the heck designed this?


> Felweave or Dreadweave

PvP Source released a cool new toy today, called Arena Matrix.

It's pretty low on info right now but it should soon be full of great tips and guides on how to beat your opponents easier.
Arena Matrix has (or will have) info about 1v1 duels, but also arena setups: 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5.

It will be interesting to see how this tool develops further.
If you're a warlock you don't need anything other than the good old faceroll, but you still might want to check it out, or even submit your own strategy.

> PvP Matrix

Megan's having her first (blog) birthday, so go visit it and congratulate. Tell her I sent you ok?

Here's a short list of posts I especially liked in the past year:

• Arena: Top 10 things I hate

#3 is lol, now my blog's description for the time being.

• The Art of (PVE) Seduction

Not much to say, the title is pretty self-explanatory.

• Nerf 51/51/51 Locks even more

And I thought I was the only one who thinks Ming sucks.

• 10 Tips for EoTS

I probably told the first tip (#10) a hundred times to players in EoTS - dude it's not a freakin' WSG!

• PvP Outs

You died, you suck, here's why.

• 2v2 Lock Specs

Turns out SL/SL is still the king.

• Guarding the Mage in 5v5

Icelance spammers ftw!

• PvP Tunnel Vision Part 1 & Part 2

You know what's a really embarassing moment in WoW? When you're dueling outside Orgrimmar, loose, and then that level 9 boar which you AoE'd kills you. That's gonna happen to you if you don't read these two posts.

> Out of mana

We can all agree the afk reporting feature in 2.2 patch didn't help much - in the first few days after the patch hit everyone was eager to report people and it did help a bit. If nothing else, I felt like I could finally do something about the afkers except live with it. You can't spend half of the time checking the map and see who's inactive and who is not, and even if you did report them, they just got in combat to remove the debuff and kept on afking. There's been a lot of requests and suggestions on how to further improve it (such as kicking players out of battlegrounds), but up until now Blizzard probably didn't know what to do.
Finally, it seems they got tired themselves and announced the following:

In our continued efforts to support fair gameplay in World of Warcraft and to provide a positive experience for players, we are currently taking steps to ensure fair and enjoyable competition in the Battlegrounds. Starting immediately, we will be issuing warnings and penalties, including suspensions and the removal of Honor points and recently acquired Honor rewards, for non-participation in Battleground games.

So, issuing warnings and penalties eh? That doesn't sound so bad now - it's certainly more than I expected. I guess it will be again very forgiving, your account won't be suspended for doing it a few times, but those who constantly abuse the system will sooner or later be caught.

It's nothing special really, but I've figured this out awhile back. If I'm too lazy to do battlegrounds, I just don't do it no matter how much I need the honor. Or if I'm too lazy to fight, I just defend. Standing still on farm in Arathi Basin doesn't take much effort, and killing some random hunter or rogue from time to time who tries to take the node ain't that difficult.
That way, I can watch TV but still contribute in the game.

I'm glad Blizzard finally did something serious about this issue. I doubt this will really end the leeching in battlegrounds, but it sure will help.
But I wouldn't mind if inactive players got kicked from the BG as well. *hint*

> Thou shall be banned

I'll start with warlocks this time, so you don't flame me immediately.

Do you know who invented warlocks? Someone who couldn't win a single duel with any other class.

My lock is so imba he doesn't even need mana - my pet uses Dark Pact on me.

Now this one's old but who cares.

Admiral Proudmoore landed on Kalimdor with a large force. He was then startled by a voice that called out to him from some nearby bushes.

"Hey Human! One warlock. Two humans!"

Realising this voice belonged to one of the foul orcs, and confident in the superiority of his own race, the Admiral took the orc's challenge. Calling out for two of his best soldiers, he pointed to the bushes.

"You two. Go in there and slay that warlock!"

Obediently the two soldiers rushed into the bushes and out of sight. Then the sound of a loud but all too brief battle erupted. Followed by the death cries of two humans... Then silence...

"Hey human!" the voice grunted again. "1 warlock. 10 humans!"

Growling, the Admiral again took the orcs challenge, and gathered 10 very eager volunteers, all impatient to avenge their two fallen comrades.

"Go in there and destroy that beast!"

Again the men charged into the bushes out of sight. The sounds of battle again erupted, and lasted a little longer this time. But just the same as before it ended with the deathcries of the human soldiers.
Then again there was silence.

"Hey human! 1 warlock! 50 HUMANS!!!"

Furious, the Admiral decided to take no more chances and called upon his 15th battallion, a hundred of his finest troops, and again pointed into the bushes. "CHAAAARRRRRRGGGEEE!!!" he roared at the top of his lungs.

Charging in the army vanished into the dense bushes. Knights on horseback, sorceresses and priests, footmen, even dwarven riflemen and mortar teams made up this mighty force.

The sounds of a massive battle came from within the bushes, the earth shook, trees fell and large parts of the landscape exploded. There were gunshots, clashing of blades, fleshy thuds, and a veritable chorus of death cries. But soon, once again, there was silence.

Then without warning, one of his men came limping out of the bushes, with a frantic look on his face. He was bleeding profusely, an arm had been chopped off, and he looked ready to die. But before passing out, he cried out to the Admiral.

"Sir, sir! Its a trick!! There's 2 of them!!"

Why didn't the undead cross the road with the chicken?

...he didn't have the guts.

What do you call an elf on drugs?

A High Elf.

The druid says to the warrior, "what classes do we need". The warrior says, "about 10 mages, 5 priests, 4 druids, 8 warriors, 3 warlocks and 6 rogues." The druid replies, "Ok I'll go get a shaman".

A dwarf goes into a bar in Stormwind and orders four beers. He starts drinking them, one sip each at a time, and after about a half hour he's finished all four, pays, and leaves.

The next day he returns, doing the same thing. The bartender looks at him funny, but pours the four drinks and serves them. He drinks them the same way, until he finishes all four, pays, and leaves again.

The third day, when the dwarf returns, the barkeep can't take it anymore. "If you drink the beers one at a time, they'll all be cold and won't get flat at the end. Why do you want all four at the same time?"

The dwarf explains: I have a brother in Ironforge, one in Booty Bay, and one who lives on Theramore Isle. We can't get together as much as we want, so at the same time each day we all go to a bar and order a round. We drink 'em all and pretend we're all at a bar together".

The barkeeper nods and serves four beers. Nobody else disturbs the dwarf while he finishes off the four beers.

The next day the dwarf comes into the bar, but only orders three beers. Silence falls. Nobody at the bar can look the poor dwarf in the eye. Finally, the barkeeper walks over to try to console him. "I'm so sorry for your loss. Do you want to talk about it? Tell us what happened to your fourth brother".

The dwarf looks confused for a moment, then bursts out laughing.

"It's not what you think!!! I just quit drinking today!"

You got any jokes of your own? Post a comment or mail me and I'll be sure to post it next time!

> WoW humor: Part 1

Wow I didn't know about these buggers!
You can read the entire story on Wowinsider, but here's what it's all about.

Lhara and Professor Thaddeus Paleo are selling gems, motes, herbs, potions and leather for pretty low prices. It's on limited supply like Khorium Power Cores, but these are on a much faster respawn - if Wowhead comments are right, 20ish minute respawn could easily yield about 1000 gold per day, assuming you stand there camping for 5-6 hours.

You can check the official calendar to see when Darkmoon Faire is coming. They are scheduled to appear in Mulgore January 8 - January 14, so be sure to check them out. Good luck!

> Making gold: Darkmoon Faire

Here's a couple of excellent images from The Bronze Kettle.
Don't forget to check out some previous works, especially these stickers and this wonderful wallpaper.

I'm lovin' the warlock!

> Goodies from The Bronze Kettle

Unlike the previous trick with using Windows Media Player, this one worked for me. I was surprised to see my latency dropping from 120-150 to about 50, so read on to find out how.

For this you will need to dig a bit deeper into the registry of your PC, but don't get scared, it's much easier than you may think.


First, go to Start > Run, and type regedit.

A window should pop up.
Find: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\

At this point you can click on Favorites > Add to favorites in the menu and add it so you can quickly browse to it in the future.

Now you need to find your network interface. There are probably more than one listed, so check each one. The one where your IP address is listed is what you're looking for. If you can't find it, just select the one with the most values in the right pane.
Now, right click on the right pane and select New > DWORD value. Name it TcpAckFrequency. Right click on this entry, select Modify, and in Value Data field type "1" (no quotes).

Click OK and go to next step.

Now find: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSMQ\Parameters

And again, right click somewhere on the right pane, choose New > DWORD value. Name it TCPNoDelay, right click the entry, select Modify and set a value of 1 again.
Click OK and close the Registry Editor.

You're done. Restart your PC and go check your latency!

Disclaimer: don't blame me if you mess up something! Follow the steps and everything should go smooth with no harm done. If you have any problems, you're welcome to post a comment and I'll try to help. Thanks to elitistjerks for this.
This worked for me like a charm on Windows Xp. If you're using Vista, I got no idea if it works or not.

Be sure to tell me if this worked for you!

> Increasing WoW performance II: Latency