WoW

Patch 3.3 goodness

Tried out the Random Heroics tonight, very impressed. Lucky with groups, ok. But I’m so glad you can keep your cross-server group and just go on and on and on.
Didn’t really count my Emblems, but I think it’s been 7 Frost and about 40 Triumph for my Shammy:

  • Razorscale, Weekly Raid
  • ToC 10
  • “Daily” Heroic
  • Countless random heroics

Oh and we even managed to do Watch Him Die, Hadronox Denied and Zombiefest! in one group, quite awesome.

Patch 3.3 goodness Read More »

Patch 3.3 woes

This “disenchant” feature could have been ace.
Instead it’s bringing stupdity up to the next level.
I’m not talking about the first boss, where only our disenchanter greeded and got the Abyss Crystal. As he’s from another server, I’m not sure we could have rolled and traded it then.
I’m also not talking about the second boss, where I still didn’t get it and passed. The other 4 all chose “Disenchant” and one randomly got the Crystal – fine.
No, I’m talking about the next boss, where 4 people chose “Disenchant” and our tank druid wanted to “Need” the cloth belt, as it was a clear upgrade for his healing set. But no, he could not click “Need”. We don’t know if it’s because he wears leather, because he joined as Tank in the LFG tool, why we couldn’t change “Need before Greed” to “Group Loot” or why the hell this can happen that some upgrade is automatically sharded…

Patch 3.3 woes Read More »

…what?

Resubscribed to second accounts for a month, so I had a little task for my 61 Blood Elf Paladin to do – the epic Charger quest line (no, cheating at the trainer is not allowed).
So I was at the part with the material costs, and there was no Pristine Black Diamond on the Horde AH, so this happened:

  • Account A, toon aa, buys a Pristine Black Diamond on the Alliance AH in SW.
  • Account A, toon aa trades to Account B, toon ab.
  • Account B, toon ab flies to Booty and puts it on the Neutral AH.
  • Account A, toon hc uses Engineering to get to Gadgetzan.
  • Account A, toon hc buys the Diamond, sends it to Account A, toon hd.
  • Account A, toon hd puts it into Guild Bank hX.
  • Account C, toon he takes it out of Guild Bank hX, sends a mail to Account C, toon hf.
  • Account C, toon hf can turn in the quest. Voila, trade complete.

Lost me somewhere in between? I nearly did…

…what? Read More »

Cooking, the cheap way

A little experiment on my Level 70 DK on a remote server, cooking during Pilgrim’s Bounty:
Cooking level when starting: 0
Cooking level when finished: 353
Money spent at trainer: 95c + 4s 75c + 95s + 2g 27s 50c + 9g 50s = ~13g
Money spent for materials: ~2g
Recipes known: 9
Experience earned: 5*6250 from dailies and I think 5*9500: ~80k
Time spent: 1h-1.5h

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Mhm, Nightfall

Yesterday was a strange day.
Came home from work, totally smashed, went to bed. The guild did ToGC10 and banged their heads against the faction champions (hey, what else? I bet Twin Valkyr will be easier).
At some point they had a Priest disconnect and not coming back, so they decided to go for S3D 10man. Luckily for me I had just woken up and got to power up my computer and WoW (thanks to the girlfriend in said raid) and so off we went to TOS.
After a few 20% wipes with unlucky Flame Waves and then summoning an Alchemist alt and handing out some Speed Potions, we nailed it.
On the one hand we’re happy, on the other hand it really feels cheated now, with much better gear (well, not for all of us, some are still knee-deep in Naxx gear). I think we really should have tried it more often half a year ago.
Anyway, one hour well spent, some 30g repairs each, 9x new “of the Nightfall” and one mount.
This was the lineup:

  • 1 DK tank who had already done it
  • 1 Holy Pally – healing
  • 2 Arcane Mages
  • 1 Blood DK
  • 1 Retri Pally kiting the first drake
  • 1 Elemental Shammy
  • 1 Destro Warlock
  • 1 Enhancement Shammy
  • 1 Assassination Rogue – yours truly

Mhm, Nightfall Read More »

Macrolicious

I’m not a keen macro user. It’s not that I find em useless, or pretty hard to make. Well, some parts *are* a bit weird. Not MediaWiki-(that’s the software that runs Wikipedia and the awesome WowWiki as well)-weird (the template language they use is so obscure that I find Assembler or C to be easy, readable and less error-prone, but I digress), but still weird. No, I just don’t need em so much. Either I’ve flat out refused to use them (like the spammy tank macro that wildly mashes buttons) or haven’t seen the need to macro any of my fixed rotations.
But I still have a few macros, read after the break.

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The big Addon roundup

I certainly mentioned I’m an achievement freak, but that’s only an obsession of the last year. I’ve been an addon freak for much longer.
I’ve been putting up a “Recommended AddOns” post on my guild forums nearly every year, so let’s stick to that tradition.
I’ve chosen to file them into one of these categories this time:
  • Absolutely essential
  • Very useful
  • FuBar and LDB
  • Nice to have
  • Installed, but subject to change
  • New Addons

Read more after the break.

The big Addon roundup Read More »

Achievements

I admit it, I’m an achievement addict. My main is closing in to 7k and my 2 main alts are at 4500 and 3900, that’s a lot when I look at mains of some folks I know.
But everytime it comes to PvP achievements, I’m getting angry. My main is a Lieutenant General, rank 11 in the old PvP system. I’m not going to rant about missing rank 12 because of being offline for 1 week when moving, I know it was too time consuming. No, the problem is with the achievement system itself. According to my PvP achievements I hardly did anything. You know, I’m exalted with Frostwolf, Warsong Outriders and the Defilers, yet I only won 2-3 games each. Not 100. Well, I did, but no one can see it and I don’t get my points. Win AB 2000:1990? Of  course I did, I still have screenshots of that. Assaulted all 5 bases? Sure as hell I did.
Let’s have a quick look:

  • 100 AV wins – 20
  • 50 GY taken – 10
  • 50 towers defended – 10
  • Loot the picture – 10

And that’s only AV. So that’s probably 200 achievement points I will never ever get, because I’ve got my rep maxed, WG is better honor when I need it and I want to play some other class in pvp for a change as well. Meh.

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Other Games

I’ve been reading so much about other games lately, and still I’m not so very mich interested. Maybe it’s just that I hate change. WoW and me, we’ve been good pals for over 4 years now and it’s all comfortably the same.
Fallen Earth sounded interesting, Borderlands sounded fun, I levelled a Dwarf Paladin in DDO to level 4, I still haven’t researched anything about Dragon Age: Origins. I was very interested in Aion, but since their Open Beta wasn’t open at all and I had no key, I won’t give them any money. Ever.
The only thing I actually tested and enjoyed was Torchlight. Haven’t hit level 20 on my Destroyer (Normal Difficulty) but haven’t died either and it’s fun.
Then again I hit 80 on my Alliance Rogue yesterday, ran a few Heroics with guildies and nothing today. I normally say I hate levelling, but then it wasn’t that bad in retrospect. My 6th char (Mage) is 77, and is soon at maxlevel as well, although only levelling a few hours every second weekend.

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Shaman: Introduction

Hi, I’m a Shaman!

My latest level 80 character is a female Orc Shaman I levelled as Enhancement and switched to Elemental/Restoration at some point close to 80. The most notable trait is probably the (for me uncommon) low Achievement point score of 1995 (and that’s after some time at 80 and inevitable stuff) and a “Bloodsail Admiral” title I’ve not worked much for thanks to a certain Druid that let me tag along 🙂
Spreadsheets
As much as I appreciate people making Spreadsheets I could slap ’em every time I see a new one.
Seperation of logic and presentation.
It’s like when a doctor sees you touching a wound with dirty fingers, it’s like a construction worker sees you running on rusty nails in sandals. It makes us programmers cry. STOP IT.
I know it’s harder to create a website or write a module for Rawr – but it’s better. People don’t have to adjust their spec, gear, enchants, gems every time you update your spreadsheet. No, just enter the name and server and click “import”.
Still all the great minds of theorycrafting seem to prefer crappy Excel spreadsheets. Bonus points if it doesn’t work in OpenOffice. More bonus points if you start to drop T7 quality stuff because they have better gear now. You may as well not release it at all then, thank you.
On the other hand we have the people who make websites but get the formulas wrong. Seriously, start cooperating…

Shaman: Introduction Read More »