The Order of the Serpent

Nimwillyn's Yule Dinner

2009-12-21T11:46:00.000-05:00

Every tabletop roleplaying campaign has its share of amusing stories and anecdotes. Below is one such story, from the MERP game that spawned many of the members of Heren Lokion. It may serve to bring a smile to certain folks' faces when they remember these days of yore.

Gather about the fire, my friends, and let a tale of mirth drive away the night cold on this grand Vule eve. The tale I tell is true, for I was witness to these events. Nimwillyn, you may find this story of particular interest, for it involves your namesake from ages past.

This tale begins on a Yule Eve much like this one, only long ago and in much less civilized places. My band of adventurers was journeying eastward through the Trollshaws, seeking for the dread fortress of Cameth Brin, which is now known as Garth Agarwen. It was many leagues yet til the city, so we made camp and settled for the night.

Among our company was Hugh of Dunland, Avacar, ranger of Arthedain, my friend and companion Morde, and the burglar Nimwillyn of the Shire. Although the Shire had only recently been settled when we came together in fellowship, Yule traditions were ancient even then and Nimwillyn, aware of the date, had determined to feast that night.

None of the rest of us were in any mood to humor him. The Trollshaws were a savage place even then, and none wished to leave the comfort of the fire. Nimwillyn was insistant and when none strove to go with him, he set off alone into the darkness.

I presumed he would grow bored and return after fetching a coney or some other small animal. Comfort loving hobbits are not generally known for their prowess on the hunt, so I doubted he could down a deer or a boar. But as the darkness of the night deepened, Nimwillyn did not return, so I set out myself to fetch him.

Although hobbit feet are light and easily hidden, I was able to track him without much toil. But I grew leery as I saw another set of tracks amidst his, those of a great sabre-tooth. Surely, Nimwillyn was not so foolish to be tracking such a beast.

Well, let it never be said that one can underestimate the folly of a hobbit. I continued further on, now with some haste, fearing that I might find the beast devouring our burglar. After some minutes of rushing through the trees, I came upon Nimwillyn.

"Hush," he warned me. "It's close."

My eyes grew wide at this one's stupidity, but before I could speak a word a great black beast erupted from the nearby brush. Nimwillyn, who a second before was so proud to have tracked this thing, now nearly wet himself with fear. He dropped his blade and staggered back a step, but the beast was on him.

Quick as lightning, I drew and loosed, feathering the beast just forward of its shoulders. But a single arrow was not enough to fell it, even one so expertly aimed. It turned toward me. Sulring flashed into my hand as it pounced, and sank deep into the sabre-tooth's breast.

Now mortally wounded, the great cat staggered off and collapsed in a heap a few yards away. Nimwillyn was still struck dumb with fear. I moved over to ensure it was dead and then turned to scold the idiotic hobbit.

But Nimwillyn had come to his senses, or so I thought. He looked at the beast now with delight. "How wondrous!" he exclaimed. "Imagine our feast tonight."

By this point, I had given up trying to comprehend the mind of Nimwillyn. This night was some months after another expedition into the woods for blueberries, so he could dye himself and his clothing purple in order to infiltrate a bandit lair. I decided to simply go along, becoming a partner in this madness. With an exasperated breath, I quickly cut some branches for a makeshift sled and we dragged the beast back to camp.

Nimwillyn took great delight in preparing the meat, but no amount of Hobbit cookery could make that monster any less tough and mealy. But Nimwillyn got his Yule dinner, and the only cost was his wits and a pair of soiled trousers.

I have not had a Yule since that day over 15 centuries ago when I haven't thought of Nimwillyn and his Yule feast. Let us hope our evening this day is less eventful but equally joyous.

And let us hope the same to you. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Heren Lokion.

The Account of Cainam Sselkcer

2009-11-06T15:31:00.003-05:00

Dear Master Salmar,

I apologize it has taken me so many months to write you. I hope that this letter finds you well and that your burns have continued to heal. Regrettably, I have not been able to deliver the letter you bade I bring to Isengard and request that they take me on as an apprentice. Alas I fear that all is not well with Saruman the White. I remember you telling me of the majesty that was Isenguard and the lush grounds surrounding the majestic tower of Orthanc. I arrived to find the grounds decimated. The trees have been ripped from the ground by scores of goblins who in turn have built barrows deep into the surrounding earth. My heart sank to see such beauty torn asunder.

I dared not approach the tower but observed the region from the hills outside the perimeter of the grounds. The goblins continued their scourging of the countryside. They have begun construction of a dam and their need for wood has driven them to Fangorn Forest. The boldness they must have to bring an axe to those trees. I do not know what these creatures have planned, but I fear any plan that could be wrought from such wanton destruction.

After several nights of watching something caught my eye. In the middle of a moonlight night a giant eagle descended from the sky and approached the tower. Initially I thought it was going to land on top of Orthanc itself, but instead it merely flew along side it and I saw what I believed to be a man leap from the top of the tower onto the back of the eagle to be spirited away into the western sky.

I have deduced that if anyone knows what is going on inside that tower it is whoever it was that I saw fly off on that eagle. I have thus traveled west to Breeland. Here I have found my self in the service of some of the dunedain rangers as they seek to conceal the movement of a small band of hobbits. I dare not speak of what they carry, but believe me when I say that with these hobbits travels the fate of all the free peoples of middle earth. I can only hope that the small part I played has aided in their quest.

I now find myself tracking a band of adventurers known as Heren Lokion. Their actions have cost the enemy dearly and they have supposedly been essential to the success of the hobbits and their growing fellowship. I hope to catch up with them some place in the Misty Mountains and offer my services to aid their endeavor.

Please pass along my well wishes to your wife and let my family know I am well. I have enclosed a small sum of money to assist you with the repairs to the library as well as a few tomes to help restock the shelves. I have also included a salve that I was promised would aid in the regrowth of your eyebrows. I will continue to send you these letters as well as any other interesting tomes and tidbits I encounter as time and safety permits. Thank you for all that you have taught me, and please keep a watchful eye out for my family and our village.

Humbly Yours,

Cainam Sselkcer

Learning to Take in the Big Picture

2009-10-29T11:50:00.002-04:00

(Alternate Title: Little Green Bars: They're not just for the healer anymore.)

After spending the last two and half years of my time in WoW raiding, most of which was on progression content in one of the top raiding guilds on my server, I've learned to be extremely focused on my task and trusting my team-mates to do the same. Raid content in WoW, particularly in the Sunwell, was so tightly tuned that there was no room for generalists. You had a job, and you did that job, and while you were aware of the other aspects of the encounter you simply didn't have time to worry about what was going on outside of your assigned role. I played a warlock primarily and in Burning Crusade that meant I killed things because we were overpowered and we were the best at it. In particular I was specced destruction and so I put up my curse and then spammed shadowbolt until my target died. I was vaguely aware of the tank's health because I had a target of target unit frame and kept an eye on it to make sure it was not me, but beyond that I wasn't concerned with the status of everyone else. Minimizing the delay between casts and not standing in the fire were the priorities.

Transitioning back to small group play in a completely different game requires a much different degree of situational awareness. Fewer comrades means gaps in specialist coverage. Flexibility is rewarded to a much greater degree. The loss of a party member goes from "Druid, BR!" to "Crap, here comes the wipe." The presence of fellowship manuevers in LotRO take this to an extreme however. A properly executed FM means your DPS is just as responsible for healing and power regeneration as your healers. It means that your minstrel and tank are just as responsible for killing mobs as your DPS. The options available to you from an FM are incredible and they are very easily capable of turning a wipe into an heroic victory. A botched one can also turn a close battle into a rout and a trip back to the defeat circle. The number of different maneuvers available guarantee there is one for any occasion.

And therein lies the problem. Which one do you pick when there is only a seven second window to select the target of the FM, choose your color, and make sure you press that button in right order with the other five people in your fellowship? A hunter sees a mob that needs to die, so he picks damage. A tank sees that his morale bar is low so he picks healing. A healer is running low on power so he picks power regen. Suddenly an opportunity to make a pivotal shift in the battle decays into an ineffective jumble of random colors. How do we learn to see the whole battle when we've been trained to focus, focus, focus? In my opinion this is what is separating us from being a collection of good individual players to being a well-oiled machine that mows down the minions of Sauron.

The WoW to LotRO transition: A Look Back

2009-10-28T11:11:00.003-04:00

Over the summer, the Order of the Serpent World of Warcraft (WoW) Guild transitioned to Lord of the Rings (LotRO, usually pronounced Low Tro) and became the Heren Lokion Kinship.

This post is a message to my old bear-mentor Karthis aka Andrew, author of Of Teeth and Claws gaming blog. I promised him, and his readership a comparative review.

Most MMO reviews that I've read only take into account the experience of the individual. How was solo play? How easy was it to "find" groups? How easy was it to find a guild to Raid with?

Frankly, if this was all about me, I may not have fallen in love with LotRO the way I have. I'm a member of a group of 8 long-time friends committed to playing together. We have our own private vent server, this blog & a "Kin" page on guildlaunch. We picked LotRO because of a collective love affair for Tolkien's works. All of us have played Lord of the Rings as a table-top RPG at one time or another. Some of us are even playing characters straight out of that history.

While we don't "role play" over vent with one another, our RPG roots seep into all aspects of our activities. We've created elaborate backstories for several of our characters. Kin members have written "in-character" posts on our blog. This is something that never really happened for us on WoW. Sure, WoW has a solidly developed Lore, but it simply can't hold a candle to LotRO.

The Lore of the game, our history with Tolkien (I've read the books 5 or 6 times and re-watched the movies in "extended edition marathons" over the holidays) and the great decisions of the game designers have created this amazing sense of foreboding - unless you play in the Shire* - which has colored our kin's entire experience thus far.

*Hobbits (and other players) who choose to do their starting levels in the Shire are rewarded with a completely different feel than any other MMO encounter I've ever had. The entire zone seems to be about helping bake pies, smoking the perfect weed, and dealing with gossip.

Of course, fostering the imagination can't be the only reason to play.

At a fundamental level LotRO is no different than WoW (and perhaps any other MMO.) LotRO still depends on the "holy trinity" for instances & elite quests. LotRO is still about leveling to unlock new abilities, become more powerful & open up more content. There's lots of "fed-ex" quests and return "but I was just there!" quests. LotRO is also a subscription service, something Andrew has been arguing against for a while.

note: LotRO subscriptions can run as cheap as $10/month if you take a multi-month plan. Having multi-month subscriptions often entitles players to free digital downloads of expansions. We're getting the Merkwood expansion for free. You can also choose a "life-time" plan, but it's $200.

Virtues: Unlike WoW, "Deed" farming is valuable. Complete a certain number of quests, use an ability enough or kill a certain number of a particular mob and you will unlock an equipable "virtue." These abilities are essentially LotRO's answer to Talent Trees. I love it. Players can just play the game and unlock the deed that unlock naturally from playing OR they can take the time to research deeds they want and fight for them. If a Champion never develops his defensive talents, he'll always just be a dps and never be able to be a tank.

Professions: More than WoW ever did, LotRO rewards teamwork on professions. A group of players can plan to have a set number of players designated for each profession & then have others be gatherers. There's no such thing as a "bind on pickup" crafted item. There are no bonuses for having a specific profession. A solo player can thrive on his or her own. But, the design encourages team-work. I have no crafting profession, instead I gather extra mats. I help mine materials for my wife's jewelcrafter, she in turn crafts gear for everyone in the Kin.

Following the Story: There are tons of quests in each zone. You can't really be a "completest" in LotRO. Many quests help show you a vision of life in Middle Earth. Most quests connect directly to the growing evil surrounding the players. LotRO has this massive interlocking chain of quests called "Books." Each book intertwines with the the Fellowship of the Ring. The players become "supporting cast" in the grand story. Stories involve helping to cover the tracks of the ringbearer or killing agents of the enemy that are too close to the ring. Our Kin is just completing Book 5 and there are a lot more books ahead of us.

Value of a Diverse Cast: Just like WoW, every class brings something different to the table, but LotRO really rewards diversity even in low level instances. Bring too many hunters & champions (raw dps classes) and you won't win. You need support classes that can crowd control, back-up heal, do creative support. This isn't just in Raids or in select boss fights. This is a fundamental aspect of all the fellowship quests I've seen thus far.

Fellowship Maneuver: The Fellowship Maneuver is a triggered event that encourages teamwork. When grouping (any size) there's a chance that a maneuver will be triggered. Each player gets a pop-up to select one of 4 colors. Fellowships (groups) that choose good color combinations are rewarded with anything from straight damage to the mob, to fellowship heal over time & instant power regen. The more in sync a fellowship is and the larger the combo, the more powerful the maneuver. Pugs suck at maneuvers. Our group loves the challenge. Some classes (remember my comment about diversity) can trigger fellowships. We have won fights because fellowship maneuvers were triggered. We have also lost fights because of failed maneuvers.

Death: Instead of "health" players have moral. Being "defeated" means you've run out of moral and must retreat. A player who dies out in the world can choose to revive in place once an hour, but beyond that defeat is painful and has consequences. The results can be devastating for a fellowship. A lot of activities take place is densely populated open elite zones OR public instances. If your fellowship wipes, a hour of work can go down the drain. Defeat also creates dread. Dread greatly reduces a player effectiveness. Many bosses cause even more dread. Too much dread saps a player to the point where they can do nothing but simply run away and cower. Jewelcrafters can create hope tokens which counter-act dread. The best choice is to avoid wipes by playing smart.

Note: I know Andrew is a fan of the undying style game. It's possible to play in LotRO as well. The game rewards players for avoiding death by cool new titles every 5 levels. But beware bad connectivity! I had an alt moving along quite nicely, she died to a DC. Sigh!

Housing & Banking: A Love/Hate Relationship: Players start with a lot of bag space. We get access to a modest sized bank really early. This seems really great until you realize that bag space is fixed, your bank is small, extra bank bags are smaller & exorbitantly priced. The solution? Get a house. You & your Kin can get houses. Your house is located in a homestead in the human, elf, hobbit or dwarf zones. Houses are cool places to display trophies. They also have trunks.

I LOVE this feature because my house reflects my main's taste and attitude (role-playing opportunity) and our Kinship house is a great place for us to display the trophies from our successful instance runs. I can "pop in" to a friend's house to drop of crafting mats or see their personal trophies.

I absolutely HATE this feature because my house, the Kin House, my friends' houses & my bank are scattered about. The trunk space is small and finite. Actually, the bank/bags/mail/auction system is by far my biggest - and only real - complaint about the game. It's clunky to the point where I realize that Blizzard has a really well-designed system in place. (I take back every bad thing I've ever said about Blizzard's mail/bank/auction system.)

Some Concluding Thoughts: There's a lot more to say about this game. I am really enjoying it. There's so much to talk about, I've failed to get into the individual classes I've tried. It's good for solo-play, but great for groups. If you are a small group of 6+ looking for a new home, I recommend you play LotRO. You will be rewarded with tons of fellowship quests, opportunity for collaborative work, and a game rich in story.

At this time, the wife and I are avoiding the "life-time" membership. It pays for itself in under 2 years, but with the variety of new games on the horizon we wonder if our group will look elsewhere in a year. After the holidays when we've paid for the Christmas, we'll reconsider it.

A Report from the North

2009-10-25T15:48:00.003-04:00

Lord Denethor,

I hope this missive finds you well and our city safe from the Enemy. It has been over a month since my arrival in Rivendell with Captain Boromir. Many other mighty lords and captains have come here lately too and they have held a great council to discuss the war that all can see coming now. I do not know what was said, but clearly a decision of great importance was made as your son has decided to lend his aid to a mission of much secrecy. Mithrandir is involved in this, as is a Ranger of the North who bears a mighty heirloom. The Enemy is watching this place closely and they dare not set out until the area can be cleansed of his agents. The Nine were abroad here and though they were defeated when they attempted to enter Rivendell, at least one is still at large and organizing the remnants of Angmar to great evil. Already I have seen first hand evidence of this in the North Downs where a great force of orcs and trolls was gathering in the fallen capital of Arnor. With foul sorcery they have even called up evil spirits in the bodies of fallen soldiers to do the work of the Enemy. With the aid of several companions and the blessing of Captain Boromir we entered Fornost and slew the Orc chieftain Zanthrug who lead them, but I fear he was just the beginning. Rumors abound that a great evil has arisen in Angmar again and if it is not stopped it will sweep away what little defense there is in the North and come at Gondor. I feel it is my duty to aid the people of this land in the defense of their homes else our own land will have no safe borders. I would have gladly accompanied Captain Boromir but he has assured me that what hope exists in the success of his quest relies on secrecy and a small company.

I will send reports as I am able but with the treachery of Saruman and the closure of the High Pass through the winter I fear they will be long in reaching you.

Ever your humble servant,

Anatariel

Nimbwillyn's Guide to Farming

2009-10-24T02:55:00.002-04:00

Farming can be one of the most expensive professions to advance. If you're a farmer, you're most likely churning out ingredients for a cook. These quickly become food which you and your kin devour. Simply put, money goes in, no money comes out. Other professions generally have to make large numbers junk items that if made wisely vend at or above production costs. They gather resources in the wilderness, where experience and loot can be gained from the foes that must be defeated to reach said resources. Farmers do their best work in Hobbiton, where cups of tea must be defeated to overcome drowsiness. Other professions can "make all" on a large stack of mats and step away to do other things. A farmer tries to make all on a "stack" of fields and finds he can harvest three before the rest despawn.
But it's not all bad. You and your kin need new weapons and armor every few levels, often more if you like to hold out for shard gear. You and your kin need food every few minutes (often more if you've been holding out too long for that shard armor). And while a cook might be able to gather resources in the field, it's frustrating and time consuming to do so. Cooks need farmers. So, what can you do to make farming a little less painful.
Rotate your crops. Or rather rotate yourself as you plant fields. If you face one direction while planting, each field spawns right atop the previous. When you try to harvest, you're starting from the newest and must wait for the harvested field to despawn before moving on to the next. As I said before, you'll only going to get 3 (maybe 4 with really good tools) before the older ones despawn. By rotating as you plant, you leave a side of the older fields sticking out where it can be clicked on and harvested in the order it was planted and without having to wait for harvested fields to despawn (which seems to take slightly longer than the time to harvest a field). I can easily plant and harvest four fields at a time (with some margin for error if I screw up). I suspect as many as six fields might be possible, but I find four to be easiest. Just make a 90 degree turn after each field completes. I rotate clockwise, by doing this and keeping my inventory closed, I have my mouse in position to click the first field as soon as I've finish planting the fourth. If you enjoy generating positive torque, I'd select the "close while crafting" box or you'll have trouble clicking that first field without moving.
Take time to sell the roses. Or any other flower. Flowers vend nicely, the flowers from one fair crop will generally pay for the field you planted to get it. They also have a chance to proc the crit spice of their tier and/or components for scholar dyes. If you're not actively supplying a cook, flowers are a great way to grind out farming skill.
Buy seed. When you start out farming, collecting the seed from poor crops is great for saving money and generating skill. But the saving erodes quickly, seed costs 4c each regardless of type, poor crops vend for 1c times the tier of the crop, factor in the wear on your tools and seed is cheaper to buy if you don't mind passing up the skill--if I had a do-over I might not buy seed recipes past t3.
Fertilize it. Once you've mastered a tier, don't ever plant a field without making sure your using fertilizer--double check that box is ticked before you start planting. Well-tended fields yield far more fair crops than poor and will be more likely to proc special items like spices and dyes.

3 High Road in Bronsworth

2009-10-14T16:24:00.001-04:00

A letter home...

Dearest Mother,

As father advised, I purchased a little home in the Bree Homesteads. It is not the farm, but it is home. My service to the army and dedication to our people more than covers my costs. My new assignment for Captain Anatariel goes well. We have traveled near and far defending the lands from dark forces. Forgive me if I am not permitted to share more.

Before you ask, I do not think my meager dwelling will be enough to sway the heart of the beautiful elf-maid, Calendriel. In the many months since I saved her from the spiders, we have become friends and comrades. She has repaid me ten-fold. Yet, I do not she will even think of me the way I do her. Perhaps it is as Aunt Gertie says, "All love is unrequited." I have little doubt she will eventually join her people in their journey across the sea.

Oh yes, the rumors are true. I have seen them on their pilgrimage. The elves are leaving. It saddens me that I joined this company, filled mostly with elves, only to know that they will be leaving us when our task is done.

Perhaps that's the reason I bought this home. Life must go on when the elves leave. I must go on. I must have hope that I will survive this struggle and that there is a future for us all. Thus, the home. A place I may find a fine round women to share with and children of my own to raise.

I know that father thought me foolish for running off after my elf-maid. But that fool's errand has lead me to a purpose.

Please forgive the sad tone of this letter. I assure you things are well. My new friend, Nimbwillyn brings me cheer and food. I thought so little of hobbits when I first left home. But, the little fellow has shown me that their love of food and comfort is really a zest for life and peace. He works just as hard as any of us. I have invited him to join me on my next visit home so you two may share some recipes. Just hide the silver before we arrive.

Enclosed, you will find a little money to help make up for my absence at harvest time. Use it to heir an extra hand.

With Love,

Relan

What’s holding you back? Hunter's and their Stances

2009-10-13T13:18:00.000-04:00

So I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about the various hunter stances. There are a number of Hunter’s in Heren Lokion and we all seem to have a different approach. So I thought I’d share a few thoughts on my stance selection.

Stances are all about what is holding you back or limiting your DPS. So to answer what stance to choose I ask myself “What is limiting my DPS in this fight?”

Strength Stance: If there’s nothing holding you back, then let loose with everything you got. Strength stance is the best DPS especially if you get a few traits in the bow master line. But remember there are a lot of things that can hold you back. Threat and power are the obvious issues here with threat being the half ton gorilla. So the times to use strength stance are when you are soloing, or playing like you are soloing. What I mean by playing like you are soloing is when you are ina group fighting normal mobs of equal or lower level. Things that the party is just going to mow down. In this situation, might as well use Strength stance, the mob isn’t going to live long enough to get to you anyway.

Precision Stance: It’s a good middle of the road stance. It does not have the threat magnifier of strength stance but still offers some benefit in the form of reduced miss chance and increased crit chance on quick shot. This is the stance I’ll typically use against higher level mobs where misses are more common place.

Endurance Stance: This is the bread and butter stance for grouping vs bosses and many elite mobs. In longer fights the typical limiting factor is going to be threat. You can’t do more damage than the tank and dish out hate. Endurance gives you an extra 10% (20% traited) damage that you can do before the mob comes to eat you. It also has the added benefit of costing you less power, which gives you more staying power. It’s not as sexy as Strength or Precision stance, but over the long haul, assuming you are in a situation where your Tank is not doing THAT much more threat than you can dish out, it’s going to end up putting the most hurt on the mob.

So to sum up… in simplified terms…

Strength: Burst Damage
Precision: Middle of the Road
Endurance: Sustained Damage

Into Garth Agarwen

2009-10-08T15:44:00.004-04:00

Authors notes: The first thing to keep in mind is that these will be written in-character. Seeing as I consider my LOTRO Ellote to be one and the same as my MERP Ellote, this will mean several things. For one, she will on occasion make references to prior adventures, companions, or to her dilemma with Elrond. Secondly, Ellote is a storyteller and bard out to enhance her own fame first and foremost. From one who has claimed descent from nearly every elven hero in the Silmarrilion, you can expect a bit of embellishment on her part in these tales, and always done to make Ellote look better.

My Lord Elrond,

I trust this missive finds you well. You requested of me, as you no doubt recall, that I provide a detailed account of my journeys in Middle Earth in these last days. I am no fool and am fully aware of your lack of faith in me. However, as other accounts will no doubt confirm, you will find nothing but truth in this letter.

Two days prior, with my companions from the Heren Lokeon, we stole into the ruins of Garth Agarwen. We of long memory remember that this place had another name once, and thus this was not the first time I had ventured within these walls. But this letter is not about past glories, but rather present events. So I will dwell no longer on such things.

My companions were named such. Anatariel, a captain of Gondor, Shyiel the bard, Relan the warrior, Calendriel, and the hobbit Nimwillyn. These last two bear particular interest to me, for I hold many fond memories of other companions long ago who bore these names. But I am straying into the distant past again.

But perhaps that is not so great a fault, for what once was does indeed have bearing on what is now, as you shall see. It was no accident that we came to this place, sent here by Radagast on an errand of some urgency. For Ivar, the Blood-lord, servant of the Witch-king had found a terrible power sleeping within these ruins, one once worshipped by cultists in Rhudaur long ago. He had found Naruhel, the Red Maid, and corrupted her to serve the Dark Lord.

So we ventured within to stop this abomination from being unleashed upon the free peoples. But we were dogged at every step. As I said many a year had passed since I last set foot here and my knowledge of this place escaped me. So many years had passed that I could no longer find my way. Shyiel, however, brought knowledge of this place from more recent days and unerringly guided us through the maze of ruins that this once great Mannish city had become.

The maze was not the only difficulty. This place was well guarded by Dunnish tribesmen, cultists and worshippers of the Red Maid. We fought through patrol after patrol, seeking Ivar and his charge.

But navigating the maze and overcoming its guardians was as yet not enough to steal into the ruins’ darker portions. A series of gates, with wood too strong to batter down and locks too complex for Nimwillyn to pick, denied us further progress. Their keys, therefore, must be found.

We divided rightly that these keys were held by Ivar’s lieutenants among the Hillmen. The first of these, one named Temair, proved little challenge. But Ivar’s strongest allies were not all among the living. We challenged and overcame two others, Edan and Eslyd, to gain entry to Ivar’s own lair.

But the Blood-lord was not alone. Mighty as he was, he strove against us with horrid undead. Twice we assailed his lair and twice we were driven back in retreat. Frustrated and wounded, we decided upon a new strategy.

Our third foray into Ivar’s lair began. Relan changed the Blood-lord while Anatariel focused on his allies. The rest of us, myself included, fought down two banner-bearing wights at the fringes of the lair. These minions made use of some foul magic that sapped our strength. Once defeated, Ivar and his minions no longer held so great an advantage. But he remained a mighty foe, nigh impervious to the strength of our arms. Yet in the end, we prevailed and struck him down.

But although loosed from her leash, the Red Maid was no less dangerous. Taking the keys to her chamber from Ivar’s stinking corpse, we ventured yet further into his accursed lair. Like Ivar, the Red Maid sent forth her bodyguards to thwart us. After besting hordes of undead, we came upon her accursed pool.

It became clear to us that the Witch-King’s evil ran deep within her. After boasting of our demise, she summoned forth demonic spirits from the very waters. Once we defeated these foul minions, she turned to her cultists. Although outnumbered, we drove these off as well. Frustrated by our apparent unwillingness to die by her slaves’ hands, she came forth herself at last.

Her power was mighty, using the very water of her lair against us. Her water magic could throw us about or pin us in place as she wished. Relan and Anatariel would charge in, naked steel in hand, only to be thrown back. Shyiel kept our spirits up with her songs of valour, but often could not move. But neither spell was of effect against Calendriel’s runes or my bow. As we battered down her defenses, I saw my opening and loosed. The shaft struck the Maid and cast her down into darkness at last.

Our quest successful, we returned to Radagast to claim the rewards of our success. Our next endeavors will take us north, to another fallen city. I will keep you abreast of our successes there in my next correspondence.

My name will be vindicated, Lord Elrond.

Your humble servant,

Ellote

A little less Extreme

2009-09-24T15:54:00.004-04:00

So, as I've been mucking my way through the lower levels in LOTR it's occurred to me that one of the things I like about LOTRO is that it's a little less "extreme."

Now I don't mean that the game is any less intense or anything like that, rather that the classes, as I've found them are not so specialized that they cannot do anything else.

For example, the Hunter in LOTR is very similar to the mage in WoW. It’s a ranged nuking class. However, if you get into melee with the mage, lets face it, the mage is done for. All he can really do is try to perform some maneuver or ability that will put you at range again. If they can't, more than likely, they are toast.

But In LOTR the Hunter can fight in melee. Sure it may not be the most effective and there's a loss in DPS. But the bottom line is that the hunter carries melee weapons and knows how to use them. As a player I find it satisfying to not have to run like a little girl from anything and everything and to have a few abilities to finish off my opponent should he get into melee with me.

I've also found that this is true with Wardens. They are melee fighters and sure they may not have the best ranged attack in the world, but it's there and it's strong enough to down a mob of equal level.

I find it to be a nice compromise. No one will ever mistake my hunter for a melee fighter, but when my back’s against the wall, it's nice to have options.

Here follows the tale of Ellote Wyrmsbane.

2009-09-13T13:11:00.000-04:00

In the middle years of the Third Age, there came forth from Imladris, Ellote the bard and her companion Morde, the rune caster. They sought adventure in the kingdoms of Men, now under threat from the realm of Angmar in the north. In Bree, they found kindred souls in Nimwillyn of the Shire, Hugh of Dunland, and Avacar of Gondor. From there, they ventured forth into the Great Barrow, defeating its dark lord. From his lair, Ellote claimed the sword Sulring, which she bore for many days. But also in that lair, Morde laid his hands upon a book of ancient magic, and it began to consume him. For the Rings of Power are not the only artifacts of evil in the world.

After gaining a new companion, a shield-maiden of the Eotheod, Ellote journeyed ever northward. They came to Cammeth Brin the capital of Rhudaur, now under thrall of Angmar. There was her first battle against the Nine and their minions. As they entered the palace, seeking to rescue the captives therein, the power of the book took hold of Morde and he felled many foes. Ellote herself struck down the king of Rhudaur, servant and slave of Angmar that he was.

From Rhudaur, they ventured further north, to Gundabad, for they had learned that Angmar's assault upon Arthedain was imminent. They entered the fortress by secret ways, through the lair of a great dragon. Greed however took hold of Hugh and the swiped a mere trifle of the dragon's horde in its absence. That act would come to haunt the companions in time to come.

Within the fortress, they found the battering ram, Grond, and sought to destroy it. But it was guarded by many foes, not the least of which was Angmar himself, the dread Witch King. As Ellote succumbed to his evil power, Morde unleashed the full power of the book, summoning forth a daemon of the outer world as he did so. In the chaos of the battle between the two minions of darkness, the companions escaped.

No longer was the evil of the book concealed and as they fled, the companions made an oath to seek the book's destruction. In the archives of Fornost, it was learned that only the fiery breath of a dragon could destroy the book. So once more, the companions set out to find a dragon's lair. The closest known lair was on the southern border of Angmar, the home of the dragon Corligon the Red.

Within the lair, the companions faced down the wyrm. Morde cast himself into the dragon's maw, breaking both his body and the evil power of the book. This act sorely wounded the dragon, but just as victory seemed certain, another dragon joined the fray. For the dragon of Gundabad had sensed his stolen treasure was near and had come to reclaim what was his.

Then Ellote took up her bow, and the shield-maiden her spear. Avacar charged forth, as Ellote loosed. Her shot was true, piercing Corligon's brain through his eye and casting down the great wyrm. Its body struck down Avacar as it fell. But the Eotheod's spear was also true and the dragon of Gundabad fell also. The surviving companions fled to the south to nurse their hurts of both body and soul.

So ended Ellote's first Fellowship and from thereafter, Ellote became known as the Wyrmsbane, for she and her companions had slain not one, but two of the great beasts at once. Yet despite this great glory, her heart was heavy, for her companions had died or deserted her. She gave birth to her firstborn son soon thereafter, Saemonades, whose father could be none other than Morde. But even this act brought her no joy. She departed Imladris for lands of the south, hoping to sooth her troubled heart with more adventure, perhaps seeking her death at the hands of the servants of the Enemy.

She came to the city of Men on the borders of Mordor, Minas Ithil, and there sought solace. To buy room and board, she played music and soon her renown with a lute brought her to the attention of the queen of the city. She performed before the royal court and there joined with a new group of companions: Tu-Amarthanon of the Southrons and Nonamae of Minas Ithil. A dwarf there was also. Together these were conscripted by the queen to seek out servants of the Enemy within the city. After uncovering and destroying a nest of them within the city, Ellote journeyed forth into the land of Mordor to find the rest.

Their journey was beset with ill luck from the start. Tu-Amarthanon fell before a band of orcs and Nonamae fled into the night. Only Ellote and the dwarf remained to be taken in thrall. The orcs took from Ellote her mighty blade Sulring and the bow that had laid low the dragon and threw her into a vile dungeon to rot.

But when the orcs came to torture her, she and her remaining companion won free against many foes. For in her torment, Ellote became fell and terrible and none could stand before her. They escaped from Mordor and then parted ways. Ellote went north to Lorien.

But few have ever escaped from the dungeons of the Enemy and Ellote's own people believed her story not. Forsaken by her own, Ellote ventured to Mirkwood, where she was espied by the Necromancer of Dol Guldur. For he had a task and found the elven bard, now abandoned and alone, much to his needs.

Servants of the Necromancer brought Ellote to Dol Guldur and there he offered to restore her former glory, if only she would serve him in a single task. Far to the south, he said, was a group of elves, the Court of Ardor, who had found a means to cast down the Sun and Moon from the sky. Such an act would throw the world into chaos and loose the bindings that held Morgoth, the Great Enemy, in the outer darkness. Fearing this doom, Ellote heartily agreed, knowing not the true identity of the Necromancer.

The Necromancer then opened his armory to Ellote, allowing her the pick of his stores. She chose from among them the infamous sword of Maeglin, Anguirel, and an elven bow taken from a fallen Galadhrim. So armed, she journeyed far to the south and passed out of all memory and knowledge for a time.

After nearly a century, she returned, appearing in Imladris before Elrond with a fantastic tale of how she and numerous companions had cast down the Court of Ardor and prevented the return of the Black Enemy, Morgoth. But to Elrond, it was an idle tale, full of falsehood, for he could not see beyond the truth that Ellote had taken refuge with the Necromancer of Dol Guldur. Seeing her as in league with enemies of the Free Peoples, he declared her life forfeit and would have had her slain had not the words of Saemonades, her son, persuaded Elrond otherwise.

Thus, it became Elrond's judgment that she remain confined in Imladris. The accursed sword of Maeglin and her bow were taken from her and placed in Elrond's armories, tokens to be held there until Elrond judged her faithful once more.

Although vexed by her confinement, Ellote made the best of things, marrying and giving birth to a daughter. She herself commissioned a group of adventurers to retrieve her lost sword, Sulring, when rumor of it coming north again reached her ears. Although the companions were successful in this quest, Elrond again saw fit to take the blade from her and extend further his distrust of her.

For a thousand years, this continued. The Kingdoms of Men rose and fell in the north. Angmar was cast down and left in ruin. Great events and tales, but Ellote entered not into them, for she remained a prisoner in Imladris. But when the Ring of Power was discovered in the lands of the Shire late in the age, Ellote petitioned Elrond to be given the chance once more to be proven faithful, and in this, Elrond relented., but with a single condition. Her weapons of old would remain in Imladris and that only when she had proven worthy of them could she take up Sulring and Anguriel once more. Ellote then headed for Bree to continue her quest. What be her doom from henceforth remains to be written.

The Tale of Tarqwin

2009-09-10T16:10:00.006-04:00

As told by Shelwin Kelnarn

It’s one thing when you’re the runt of the litter. It’s something else when all of your kind are thought of that way. Tarqwin was the second eldest of 5 siblings, 3 sons and 2 daughters. His family moved out to Archet after thier farm in Buckland was taken by fire. Archet had lush green pastures waiting to be tilled and the hands of skilled hobbit farmers were a welcome addition to the area.

However, growing up in Archet was not easy for a young hobbit. The human children were bigger and matured faster than Tarqwin. While not small for his own kind, he was always the smallest of the boys playing whatever the game of the day was. He was not skilled with the wooden swords the fought with, nor could he run as fast or jump as high as the other boys. But all in all he liked the humans. They had a zest for life that could not be denied and while his father kept on telling him that a hobbit’s place was in the home, as he watched his friends leave Archet in search of new opportunity, there was a small part of him that longed to see what was out there.

It wasn’t until his early teens that he discovered the bow and it proved to be a great equalizer for him. With a bow in his hand his small stature didn’t seem to matter so much anymore. He took to archery very quickly and soon surpassed the other boys in the village with he skill. He spent a great amount of time hanging out at the hunting lodge and would go out into the wilds with any hunter who would take him. Gradually he learned the ways of the forest. Soon, he was able to help support the family with the game he could bring down and the suppleis he could forage from the forest.

Then, things began to get darker. The wolves in the area become bolder and began to venture into their lands killing the livestock. The local ruins became the base of operations for a small band of thieves who harassed the farmers in the countryside. When the local constable came to advise people to move into town for their own protection, Tarqwin’s family boarded up thier farm and took refuge within the town walls. When Tarqwin encountered the black rider on the road that evening, he knew that things would never be the same again for him or for Archet. Days later, the town of Archet was burned to the ground. Tarqwin’s father tried to help save the town, but eventually succumbed to the smoke and flames.

Tarqwin’s mother’s family back in the Shire heard of his family’s strife and offered to take her and the rest of the family in. But Tarqwin could not bring himself to go with them. His mother urged me to come with them, to the safety of the Shire and away from all the evil that these men seemed to attract. However, while he did long to settle down in the Shire, he knew that this was not his path. He had seen the dark rider and he believed that if something was not done that this darkness would spread even to the farthest, more serene reaches of the Shire. If that darkness was to be stopped, then it would take the actions of many of the free people to see it through and some how he knew that his place was to be out there confronting it.

He still thinks of his mother and his family often. He hopes that they are well and enjoying life. But mostly he hopes that they never come know the horrors and evils that he will be facing in the months and years ahead.

(Well maybe a little roleplaying is OK)

Sigh...Letting Go of WoW Blogs & Podcasts

2009-09-10T10:29:00.003-04:00

Funny thing about giving up World of Warcraft...

It's life-altering.

I "forgot" to cancel my subscription last month. Part of me kept thinking I would hop back on and play. But, then I saw that I hadn't logged on since early July and I realized that my wife & I had wasted a combined $90 for July, August and September. It got easier to hit the cancel button after that.

My RSS feed contains a lot of WoW blog. It's hard to let go. But it's time to say goodbye to them too. Here is a list of the blogs & podcasts I will miss the most. (Yes, there are more. Yes, I'm pathetic.)

Goodbye Daily Druid, druid-news aggrigate extreme. I even appeared in your listings once or twice. I haven't glanced at the feed in months, so it's not a hard break for me.

Goodbye Flyv. You were a guild-mate and a teacher when I started to learn to feral tank. You've also moved on from WoW. But, your direction and my interests have drifted apart. It's time for me to accept that and move on.

For months, I really hoped Phaelia would return and provide us with more Resto4Life. Now, I'm glad you didn't. You helped make my wife an amazingly awesome tree and amused her endlessly. She had so much fun reading your blog that I started reading it and eventually tried to learn to Boomkin & Tree when the dual-spec option happened.

Goodbye Pike, reluctant leader of the hunter community. Most hunter-blogs flare bright for a while then burn out. Yet, Aspect of the Hare goes strong. Elitist Jerks may have taught me how to raid, you taught me how to enjoy it. After I swapped to full-time feral druid to off-tank for my little 10-man guild, I kept reading your blog. Now, sadly, we have no place in each other's lives. I may miss you most of all.

Goodbye Kalon and your blog ThinkTank. Think tank is the ultimate tanking (mostly feral) blog around. Yours may be the hardest break. How is it that 2 months have gone by since I last played Rhus, yet I'm still reading your theory craft? Why do I care about the Feral loot-tables in the Coliseum? Why would I care if I should keep T8 cat gear or not? (Especially since I slowed and then stopped my progression before getting any T8 gear for my cat.) Your blog is like catnip rolled in honey. What feral off-tank (current or retired) can resist you?

Goodbye Randydelux & Scott. Last week when I caught myself loading your latest podcast on my iPod before a hike, I knew it was time to stop. There are no LotRO podcasts that can even hold a candle to the Instance. I've seriously considered listening to your show just for the fun of it. It's not going to happen. ExtraLife will continue to be part of my day and I'll be trying ExtraLifeRadio.

I continue to follow and support Andrew over at Of Teeth and Claws in his game-blogging endeavors. I'm glad that he's branched out from WoW to write about all things gaming. I think his latest crusade against subscription MMO's is thought-provoking. I have a lot to say about subscription MMO's and why they work, but that's a different post.

Goodbye World of Warcraft, I've canceled my subscription, deleted all the theory-craft sites from my bookmarks and now, I'm not even going to read blogs about you.

Concerning Roleplaying Hobbits

2009-09-09T14:35:00.006-04:00

So I haven't posted about LOTR:O yet. To be honest, it was mostly becasue my initial experience with the game was less than positive and I didn't want to rain on everyone else's parade. Everyone seemed to be having so much fun and I didn't want to bother folks with the fact that I wasn't. Besdies I was sure I'd finde my niche and start enjoying the game sooner or later.

Well, I've found that niche, or rather I found that I was in a niche that did not fit well with me. Since switchingto Tarqwin I've had a new zeal for the game and have been putting in far too many hours. But that has led me to think about how I got down the road with Shelwin to begin with and what I think it comes down to is this...

Roleplaying =/= MMO

I had a great time when I played Shelwin in a table top Roleplaying game. He was a lot of fun to play. But as I think back on the game, it was the roleplaying moments that I liked. In the game Shelwin did the last 4 points of damage to a dragon and killed it. In the roleplaying game it was magnificent fun. Everyone talking about the hobbit bard who slayed the dragon. We still laugh about it. But in an MMO that 4 points of damage would just be 4 points of damage. It's just bad DPS.

All the things I like about Shelwin were roleplaying things. Like his obsession with food. I could translate it into the game, but it wasn't the same. When grinding on Goblins does one really care that your title is Master Journeyman cook or that I can play desperado on my harp? The roleplaying aspects that I enjoyed tabletop, quite frankly, were pretty boring in the MMO. Ultimately the roleplaying aspects I tried o port into the game did not make up for the lack luster MMO experience. I just never liked the feel of minstrel, combined with the slower questing of the shire, and my system crashes it made for a slow painful experience.

Tarqwin however is a better MMO character for me. I've always liked the ranged dps role and he dishes out pain. His crafting professions I find useful and much easier to manage. I'm also hoping they may end up profitable.

So in the end, the lesson for me is don't try to make a game into something it's not. MMOs can be a lot of fun but while they are similar to roleplaying games, they are not. Approaching the game with the right attitude and expectations go a long way to enjoying the game a lot more fully in the long run.

Relan goes to the shire

2009-09-09T12:50:00.001-04:00

Relan journeys to the Shire. He's told that agents of the enemy are beginning to spread even into the quiet world of the hobbits. His enemies are goblins & brigands. He is to defeat as many as possible for the glory of Bree & to protect the hobbit and their bountiful farms. So, he travels to Michael Devling with stern determination. The hobbits all eye him with suspicion whenever he mentions trouble. Trouble doesn't happen in the Shire. Perhaps the occasional wolf problem. But trouble?

So, he sets off looking for his glory. Sure enough, there are no enemies. The tranquility is utterly lost on him. He sees endless green fields and only thinks that perhaps the enemy will be over that hill or the next. He begins to wander aimlessly. Nothing. This place of green hills and pipeweed fields, of low ceilings and small doors grates at him.

Before he was sent here, he was on important missions in the old forest & the Barrow Downs. Certainly, it was filled with horrors that would haunt him for the rest of his life, but there was also exhilaration and adventure. Certainly, his duty was there. Wasn't it?

Perhaps over this next hill...

The Meanings of Words

2009-08-31T08:36:00.002-04:00

I decided to fool around a bit with the Notary in LOTRO this morning, giving my toons some surnames that grant character. I've always enjoyed playing around with the rich language that Tolkien created for Lord of the Rings. Most of my toons have some meaning in their names that describes their background or character.

Heren Lokion - As we've said elsewhere on this blog, this is our "translation" of Ordo Serpentis from Latin into Quenya (high elven). "Heren" means Order, as in "Heren Istarion," the Order of Wizards. Interestingly, it's close in spelling to "heru," which means lord, and another translation of "heren" is success, fortune, mastery over. Lokion, I think we misspelled. It should be Lokeon, which is simply the word for snakes made possessive, i.e. "of the snakes." So, Heren Lokeon is "Order of the Snakes" or "Mastery over the Snakes."

Ellote - My main's first name translates to "Star flower" from Quenya.

Avouz - This was a name created via a random letter generator. Avouz was originally a character from D&D Dark Sun realm, so there was no languages to draw upon. However, treating this as an actual Tolkien word produces some interesting results. "Ava" means outside and is used to describe the Void, i.e. Avakuma. "u" is a negative, i.e. "not" or "against." The letter Z does not appear in Quenya that I can tell. Avouz is an Avari prince in LOTRO, so one could argue that his name is from a language that evolved from Quenya and it translates to "Against the Void" or "Not outside."

Saemonades - Taken from the Greek name Simonides. This one is a bit trickier than Avouz was to plug into a Tolkien language. "Si" means now. There is nothing for "mon" although "men" means region. "Ada" is man in Sindarin, i.e. "Adan" or "Edain" in the plural. "Man of the now region?" Or perhaps "Man of this time." Still an odd name for an elf, but no worse than its original Greek meaning "snub-nosed one." His surname is easier, "Mordeion," son of Morde. Morde was the elven spellcaster played by another friend of ours in our very first MERP campaign back in college.

We don't know a whole lot more about Tolkien's languages for the Rohir, Dwarves, and other races, although it is obvious he did do some work in these areas. Still, I'm not sure I want to try to figure out what Stofnar or Maeoden mean in English. I did my own little language game for Nord, claiming that "korath" means child and "nord" means north in Haradric, so he is "child of the north."

Interesting observation....

2009-08-29T14:55:00.003-04:00

As I've been diving into the Lord of the Rings game, I've also been rereading the trilogy and rewatching the Peter Jackson movies from a few years back. I've just gotten to the part in the movies where Grima and Saruman have identified Aragorn's ring as the "Ring of Barahir."

Being ever curious, I decided to snoop around and find out a bit more of this heirloom, which according to the story is a mark of Aragorn's kingship.

According to the summary on Wikipedia (which is affirmed by my MERP sourcebooks), the ring has a lengthy history as an artifact of Arnor, the north kingdom of the Dunadain after the fall of Numenor.

I find that interesting, because the shards of Narsil are also regarded as an heirloom of the north kingdom.

Is it just me, or do the two most important marks of Aragorn's kingship, the Ring of Barahir and the Sword-that-was-broken, both point to him as the Heir of Arnor, not Gondor? Granted, the north kingdom is long destroyed by the events in the Lord of the Rings and also Aragorn's reign at the end of that book extends over the lands of the north kingdom. But it seems odd to people make such a fuss over these two items when they belong to the north, not to Gondor.

(Also, Elrond grants Aragorn the Scepter of Annuminas as a gift upon receiving the crown, yet another artifact of the kingdom of the north.)

Bilbo's Trolls

2009-08-29T10:03:00.001-04:00

See, I told you they're out there :)

Too much of a good thing...

2009-08-28T12:06:00.003-04:00

One of these days, I'm going to learn. But then again, after almost 37 years of life, my pattern of extremes is pretty hard wired.

I swapped from WoW to LOTRO and wholeheartedly embraced this game. I rolled a full cadre of 7 toons, deleted a few, then rolled some more. I've leveled four crafting professions to expert and a fifth to artisan. I have 5 toons over level 20 and a sixth closing fast.

And I am burned out on LOTRO.

Too much, too soon, too quickly. I rushed in and now I'm suffering for it.

You'd think I'd know better. This is the same road that led to much of my disillusionment with World of Warcraft. Solo play is fun to a point, but the fresh stuff is the stuff you can't get to without a group. Logging on every day out of habit more than desire to grind out another daily quest. Now it's logging on every day for a little while to grind out a quest I already did on 3 other toons just a few days earlier. Gets old fast. Different game. Same dilemma.

We should be starting our group activity soon, renewing our old WoW raiding schedule to do some instances, Great Barrow at the start. I told the rest of Heren Lokion that I'm taking a weekend break, and I may hold off logging in again until the actual start date. Not sure.

Either way, I need to find something else to do for a while, before I ruin a great game.

I think I'm eating my words...

2009-08-26T21:52:00.002-04:00

Over the last few posts, I've been grumbling about WoW and its failed direction and my lack of interest in ever going back as a result.

Then, due to Blizzcon, all the preview and teaser material for the Cataclysm has been released.

I may have changed my mind. This isn't an expansion. It's World of Warcraft II for all intents and purposes. The game looks like a total reset, with the world literally being transformed from what it was. I have no idea how they're pulling that off. Are all the 1-60 quests and zones going to be completely revamped or is this going to be the ultimate use of the new phasing tech where the world will change after some level 80 quest line?

Flying mounts in the old world. Cool.
Goblins as a playable race. cool.
Heroic versions of old world dungeons. cool.
Human hunters. Cool.
Deathwing as the main villain. VERY cool.

Of course, this won't be released for another eighteen months probably, so there's still plenty of time for LOTRO goodness in the meantime.

Too little, too late, Blizzard

2009-08-16T10:11:00.003-04:00

Caught this on a random visit to one of my old World of Warcraft stomping grounds. This is from the patch notes for WoW 3.2.2.

The Brood Mother Returns

After years of lurking in her lair battling the many brave adventurers who travelled from afar to challenge her, Onyxia returns to commemorate World of Warcraft’s five-year anniversary.

Onyxia has been scaled to offer new challenges to level 80 players and is now available for testing in 10- and 25- player modes.
Adjustments have been made to the encounter to keep it fit for modern raiding, but the fundamental experience of fighting the Brood Mother will remain, as will the horror of the Deep Breaths!
Some classic items Onyxia offered level 60 players will have their stats adjusted appropriately for level 80 players.
Brood of Onyxia, a very rare 310%-speed mount modeled after Onyxia herself will be available for the luckiest of challengers.

Now they catch on that there's value in older content. Too bad they didn't figure this out ages ago before we all got bored and left. Of course, their idea of "adjustments made to keep it fit for modern raiding" might include Ony crapping epics and then fleeing in fear when she sees a typical raiding party. That would certainly fit Blizz's faceroll-to-victory design paradigm.

The Pet-peeve List

2009-08-12T08:52:00.003-04:00

Ok, I'm loving LOTRO, but there are some things about this game that drive me nuts. Things WoW, in truth, got right. So I'm putting together my Pet-Peeve List of things in LOTRO that I wish were more like WoW.

1) GIANT TOOL TIPS! My God, you mouse over a spell or ability and half your screen disappears as the interface tells you all the intricate details of what that ability does. You can't see the mob you were about to cast that spell on, since its behind the tool tip. Can't see yourself because you're behind the tooltip. And what's worse? You can't turn them off. You can make them mobile, in that they appear where your mouse pointer is, but so far, I've not found an off option or anything else that might make them smaller.

2) Color coding. I've figured most of this out, but it's still not a great way to do things. Grey = trivial. Green = weaker than you. blue/white = around your level. Orange = slightly above you. Red = a lot above you. Purple = death if you challenge me. But then, your kinsman are also blue. Summoned mobs also work off the same pattern when you see them running around. Never mind the whole silver ring icon for quests vs. the grey ring icon, the difference of which is substantial, but you can't tell until you're on top of the quest giver.

3) Buying and Selling. I hate that you cannot sell direct from your bags. Invariably, after a visit to a vendor, I've left some dealer trash behind that I somehow missed while scrolling through the list.

4) The Mail System. The last one is the biggest doozy of them all. No mechanism to send multiple items. No auto-delete of item mails after the item has been retrieved. No fill-in-the-blank name from your friends or kinship list. That one really gets me. I have a hard enough time with my own toon names. So I hope Shelwyn and Gwennyn enjoy the stuff I sent them (as opposed to Shelwin and Gwenynn, who they were meant for.)

Sometimes, when a game is this good, these missteps are all the more jarring. That's a bit how I feel here. Ok, Turbine, fix these things and your game will be about perfect.

One month out

2009-08-07T18:23:00.002-04:00

As I got ready to leave on business Tuesday morning, it occurred to me that my WoW account was expiring that day. It had been roughly a month since I'd started LOTRO and now the hammer was falling on WoW. Did I miss it? Will I want to go back? Is LOTRO going to be as fun? All those questions ran through my mind.

Truth is, though, I don't miss WoW. Not in the slightest. Presently, I am having as much fun in LOTRO as I was in WoW, perhaps more at the moment because of the newness of the experience. I've got three toons now to level 20+ and a couple more catching up fast. I've discovered which classes I love (champion, hunter, warden) and which I don't (minstrel). I'm loving the crafting system, which is far more complicated and involved than WoW's but also more useful.

Will I ever want to go back? I can't say. Maybe if the next WoW expansion (Maelstrom, I believe) is really cool, but maybe not. It'll likely be more of the same dumbed down content that killed Lich King for me: Show up, fail, and still get epics.

I've heard rumor from a long time LOTRO-playing friend that LOTRO is not the place to go for challenge, so once I hit end game I may feel differently about some of this than I do now. But for the time being, I'm enjoying the ride. WoW will still be there and there's always the new stuff coming down the pike.

Do I regret playing WoW for almost four years of my life? Not in the slightest. I had some great times in game: Beating tough bosses, getting cool titles, causing a few wipes (with the requisite laughs). It was a good game for its time, but I think the truth of the matter is that I've outgrown it now.

So farewell to the World of Warcraft. Middle-Earth and perhaps worlds beyond await.

For the gay fashion designer in all of us...

2009-08-04T06:58:00.002-04:00

Ok, I'll admit I've gotten spoiled in one way by WoW. I've enjoyed seeing my max level characters walking around in set armor with these superb bad ass looking weapons. Having to shift gears to playing lowbies in a new game, even one as pretty as LOTRO, has been a bit jarring.

Thankfully, the outfit system that you unlock at level 20 helps immensely. I do appreciate that once you unlock it on a single toon, it is then unlocked for all your toons on that server. When Korathnord hit 20 a few days ago, I eagerly jumped in to give my characters that special look.

However, there were still two problems. One, I was dissatisfied with the selection of cosmetic "outfits" available at the four capitals (Michel Delving, Thorin's Hall, Bree, and Celondim). I found some of what I wanted, but not others. Two, this was exacerbated by seeing other toons run about in the world with some very cool looking gear.

So I went searching and found a website that has pictures of all the different outfits and crafted armor: Darzil's LOTRO Crafting Guide

It's been a boon. Only thing is, most of what I want seems to be Lossoth gear. The site doesn't give level ranges on the gear, but I'm guessing it's going to be a while before I get any toons up to the frozen north to pick the stuff up.

Either way, check the site out and let that inner fashion designer burst forth...

Give me fish now, and keep nasty runekeepers, er chips!

2009-07-30T07:25:00.006-04:00

Games based on Tolkien's works always have to involve some additions to the lore, otherwise you may as well just read the book. Sometimes these additions are good, sometimes not so good. For the most part Turbine has handled its additions in a way that make them very credible extensions to the story. Here's an example. At this point in the game, the hobbits have all reached Rivendell, and Frodo has accepted the quest of the One Ring. From the Council of Elrond we know that Gollum has escaped captivity in Mirkwood and seemingly did so with the aid of servants of the Enemy. What's this have to do with you? Well, while wandering the Trollshaws in search of adventure you hear rumors of creature that has been raiding fishing nets and even tried to steal a baby from a house. So, with the help of a local hunter, you set a trap for the creature and wait. What follows is an entertaining chase with a challenging encounter at the end of it. A fun quest line, with a nice solo quest at the end, and the reward of interacting with Gollum.

Not all of Turbine's additions are great from a lore standpoint though. Runekeepers? Really, what were you thinking? They're a good class from a purely game mechanics point of view, and adding a second healing class was definitely helpful, but seriously, this isn't very faithful to Tolkien. Gandalf started a fire to keep from freezing to death and said that he just painted a bullseye on himself for anyone to see, and Runekeepers are throwing lightning bolts around like there's no tomorrow. How hasn't the Enemy found all of them and either recruited them or put them down? Granted, several of the classes in the game have some rather overt displays of power, but RKs are nothing but overt displays of power.

I hear Amon Sul is lovely this time of year.

2009-07-27T07:38:00.002-04:00

I'm going to post some screenshots here every once in a while. In WoW the only screenshots I ever took were from boss kills. Middle-earth is much more photogenic. I have pics of me in front of Bag End (stupid Lobelia wouldn't move out of the way though) and the Prancing Pony. Here's one I took of Weathertop. I had just finished doing a fellowship quest with some pugs when I noticed there was an awesome view of Weathertop over my shoulder. There's some light rain, but the sun is peeking out through the clouds.

I'm glad everyone has decided to make the transition and join me in Middle-earth. I started playing back in January after Edge cleared all initial WotLK launch raid content within a few weeks of launch. I tried talking people into following me then, but not everyone was as burned out on WoW as me at that point. I was beginning to think inertia might keep things that way indefinitely, but wow was I surprised how fast the change came. Everyone seems to be enjoying things so far. Nord and LRNs are posting here again, so I'll take that as a good sign. My only concern is that some may be enjoying the change but when the newness wears off then it could go back to same old, same old. Hopefully that won't be the case though; Turbine has been doing a good job of actually adding new small group content with each patch and even (gasp!) revamping low level zones for a smoother leveling experience.

Spoiled by MERP

2009-07-22T18:15:00.002-04:00

I've mentioned way back when this blog began that I tend to be a gamer who likes to have a little roleplaying sprinkled in with his hack-and-slash. Most of my WoW characters had their origins in D&D characters I played back in college or grad school.

As we make the switch to LOTRO, my stable of classic characters goes back even farther, all the way back to junior high when I bought my very first table-top roleplaying game: Middle Earth Role Play (i.e. MERP).

MERP was a watered down version of Iron Crown Enterprise's other flagship game title, Rolemaster. RM is less-than-affectionately known as "Chartmaster." It is among the most complex table top systems out there. However, with that complexity also comes flexibility. You could literally play just about anything in RM or in MERP.

As such, I'm finding a lot of my old toons just don't work in LOTRO.

For instance, Mechnar and Maeoden were two Rohirrim brothers. Half-brothers really. One (Maeoden) was your stereotypical blonde blue eyed horseman, what you'd expect from MERP. The other was a half-orc, the result of Maeoden's mother spending some time as prisoner of Saruman's orcs. I can do Maeoden easily enough (he's my captain in LOTRO), but not Mechnar.

That might be a bad example, seeing as you'd probably never have orcish toons in LOTRO of any kind. But there are others. I've got a Black Numenorean sea captain in my stable of toons, an Easterling, and probably a Haradrim if I look hard enough. None of these nations or homelands are as yet represented in LOTRO. They might be, once the map expands to include territory east of the River Anduin or south of Lorien. But given these "peoples" were typically allied with Sauron, I'm not holding my breath.

All MMOs (and most computer roleplayers in general) lack the flexibility for folks to make toons with this level of originality. But I miss it.

Day One - Still tired from the move...

2009-07-21T10:41:00.004-04:00

Well, our group has all successfully gotten onto LotRO, even our friend in Thailand. The downloader kept crapping out on him, but he's got it now. Now the fun begins.

The game is visually stunning and uniquly different looking from WoW. We're all enjoying the immersion into Middle-Earth. The sense that events of the Lord of the Rings are unfolding just outside of our vision is great. They did that well. When you play a Hobbit, the tutorial zone has you evading Ring Wraiths at the same time that Frodo is. Win!

The similarities to WoW (and other MMOs) in the UI, quests, and game mechanics are widespread and obvious. The worry here is that it'll feel too much like WoW. It doesn't. The similarities have freed me to enjoy the game while not being too confused about the basic mechanics. I understand basic things like organizing bags, following my map, and drop quests.

Basic fight mechanics are similar: Push buttons in sequence based on your attack options. Combat in LotRO feels, thus far, less hurried. That's a welcome change that I hope remains. WoW combat sometimes felt frantic as I waited to time the GCD & latency to maximize my dps.

Everyone has had a chance to make a few characters & complete the starting zone at least once. We've begun to talk about what roles/characters we plan to use on group activity nights. Just like other MMOs, instances require the trinity of tank, dps, healer. Classes like the Captain also appear to fill "support" roles in groups/fellowships.

I'll probably be our tank. I'm looking hard at the Warder & Guardian. I'll probably end up with 2 or 3 active toons for a while. One for the group, one for just me & the wife and one for pure solo. We'll see. I could never maintain that many active toons in WoW. Expect me to lower that to 1 or 2 after a few months.

More to come...

Heren Lokion

2009-07-20T07:45:00.003-04:00

And so it begins...

Over the weekend, most of us were able to get onto Lord of the Rings Online & start doing starting zone quests. Soon, we formed our Kinship (that's LotRO talk for Guild.) The name chosen? Heren Lokion. According to people smarter than me (Amaeva & Nord) it's the Order of the Serpent. Althought, they also say it's more like people who pwn snakes (or dragons.) Fitting.

First impressions? That's all I really have. LotRO is both uniquely different & exactly the same as WoW. Longtime WoW players will recognize the basic UI framework and the general mechanics of the game. The initial combat pacing feels "slower" than WoW, but not in a bad way.

So, am I back into blogging about gaming? We'll see. The real topic I'm interested in is the state of our guild/kinship. The group has been playing WoW together for nearly 4 years & gaming together for over a decade (for some it's nearly 2 decades.) The dynamic of group gaming & how LotRO works for us will be my main focus. But, I'll also post about the game itself.

I'll try to get the others to post a bit about their experiences.

How I put the nail in the WoW coffin...

2009-07-17T15:11:00.003-04:00

Since Wrath came out, my friends - like many WoW players - have expressed various degrees of disappointment with the difficulty level. We're not "hard core" players, nor are we purely casual. We want to log in and have a variety of experiences. As time marched on, all of us broke with 25-man raiding. We started spending more and more time just doing casual stuff together and less and less time Raiding with our guilds. Quests, instances, achievements & 10-mans were the name of the game and that game was losing it's fun.

Early this summer, we decided to switch to our horde toons in an effort to breath new life into our experience. We had abandoned the toons way back when Burning Crusade happened. Equipped with our under-geared level 60's & a pair of Death Knights, we began to run old instances. It was fun, but much easier than we remembered.

Then the beginning of the end.

Upon reaching 70, our Prot Pally, Destro-Warlock and I (on a hybrid Disc leveling priest) blew through Utgarde Keep. This was in crappy outland dungeon blues & greens. The next night, the 3 of us went over to Nexus. It was much more of a challenge for us, but we also defeated that instance. Heck, it felt like an actual accomplishment. We had fun! It felt like a Burning Crusade instance. We also felt sad. In order to achieve this effect, we had to be undermanned, undergeared and play toons that none of us had touched for 2 years.

Now in the 70-72 range, our group picked the lock to Kara. We obliterated it with 6 players. Again, undermanned, undergeared and on unfamiliar toons. Fun, but...sigh!

Finally, the nail in the coffin.

After doing Kara for a few weeks (and trying some bosses in AZ), we returned to Northrend and went after instances with mobs 3-5 levels higher than us. Azjol-Nerub...pathetic. Next came Drak'Tharon Keep. At one point, I - the healer - got so bored that I ran past the tank and used SW:P to aggro 4 packs of mobs back to our tank. Nobody died!

The idea that my level 72 Discipline Priest could intentionally aggro 4 packs of elite level 75-76 mobs to our under-level party and obliterate them was too much for us. What did we have to look forward to? Our Alliance toons had 10-man Ulduar (which was still mostly challenging.) Our Horde would quickly catch up. There was nothing else. Achievement grinding is all well and good, but where's the excitement? 5-man heroics...heroic, my ass!

I wrote a survey for the group asking various questions about our various needs from our online experience & how folks felt about WoW. The answers were all the same. We played MMO's to play together. We want to have fun, but we also want to be challenged. WoW was no longer doing that. The game had degraded into two types of encounters: Mindnumbingly easy or super-impossible hardmode. One friend put it best...

That the game now only seems to have two degrees of difficulty: "Bring your A game or don't come (and you'd better not have more than 400ms latency)" and "Go ahead and face roll your keyboard, we don't care, you win, have this completely useless item."

Why would we continue to play under those conditions? None of us needed the so-called hardcore gamer experience, but none of us want to face roll the keyboard either. We took the results of our little survey, did some research and plan to adopt Lord of the Rings Online as our new MMO home for now. We should all complete our transition by September.

Some of my friends have been with Warcraft since the original beta. My wife and I have been playing for nearly 4 years. There are been weeks & months where we did nothing else but sleep, work, wow. I understand making WoW accessible. I liked the concept. They went too damned far.

Sartharion Down

2009-06-02T11:02:00.002-04:00

We had our third full clear of Naxx this weekend, and after killing Kel'Thuzad everyone still had enough energy to go visit Obsidian Sanctum for the first time as a group. We had nine in the raid at that point, and as it was the first time on Sartharion for several people, we opted to kill all of the drakes before engaging Sarth. Killed him on the first pull even with one of our two healers disconnecting halfway through the fight. Next week we'll try it with Shadron up, and hopefully get some attempts in on Malygos too. I know we're geared enough to start Ulduar 10 now, but I think the practice from EoE and OS hard modes will be a good way to improve coordination and boost confidence.

We've got old friends running with us from Entropy Dawn, so we've got 8 now, which is enough for all the T7 instances (in fact we cleared half of Naxx with only 8 this week), but we're going to need to pick up 2 more for OS hard modes and Ulduar. Hopefully we can pick up some regulars, but at least if we have to pug it will only be for DPS.

Better Late Than Never

2009-05-13T09:03:00.002-04:00

Ordo Serp, with some help from a couple pugs and friendly QSS folks, had our first full clear of Naxx this weekend. Not exactly a cutting edge achievement, but still one I'm pretty proud to be a part of considering that 30% of the raid had never seen anything beyond Arachnid Quarter and the beginning of Plague Quarter before this weekend. We managed to get Patch down with plenty of time left before enrage (not quick enough for the achievement but still good for a first kill), Four Horseman went down on the first try, and we even brought down Kel'thuzad on the first pull, despite our add tank dying three times during the fight and having to get the adds tanked by the MT and a cat turned bear. I think all four of our druids used their battle rez during the fight, and for the last 30% there were only 5 or 6 of us alive.

Filling out the group turned out to be much easier than I had expected. Rhus and Girarde were able to call upon some people in QSS, and I put us in LFM for Naxx. Before I even had a chance to look at who all was available I was getting tells from people. Only one bad apple in the bunch, and he seemed like a nice guy, just had no clue how to play (definitely was an eBay toon). The experience has given me hope that we will be able to do this weekly, and maybe even build up a few relationships in the process. It would be nice to get a consistent group of 10-12 people so that not only can we clear Naxx, but also try to move beyond into Eye of Eternity and Obsidian Sanctum. In my perfect world we'll be like a little miniguild that will conquer all the 10 man content as it becomes available.

As anxious as I am to get into Ulduar I think our next big goal should be Sarth 3D. I think the shared title we'll get will really give a sense of accomplishment, and it would be nice to get each of us a cool mount.

Jousting 101: Valiant

2009-04-20T09:47:00.005-04:00

Nord should unlock the champion level quests today for the Argent Tournament. I've learned a few things about jousting in the game over the past few days, a few pearls of wisdom that might prove helpful to others.

At the valiant level, there are two quests that require mounted combat: The Grand Melee and At the Enemy's Gates. They work a little bit differently, so I'll do each in turn.

The Grand Melee

If you've worked your way through aspirant, you already know the basic abilities. But like most of these vehicle quests, don't presume you'll use all of them. Your best strategy in the Melee is to focus on only three abilities: Defend, Shield-breaker and Strike.

Before you even talk to an opponent to challenge them, bring defend up to 3.

When the fight begins, to hell with chivalry, you get a few brief seconds while your opponent rides away from you. Hit them with a shield-breaker and then ride after them. DON'T CHARGE. It's not worth it, especially given how you keep riding past them after the hit. You want to keep to point-blank range as much as possible.

While in point-blank range, spam Strike. Eventually, they'll try to move away to set up a charge. Shield-breaker and close the gap quickly and then repeat spamming Strike. Refresh defend periodically so that it's timer doesn't run down. The fight won't be over quick, but you will take them down.

Situational awareness is important. There can be 5 or 6 other jousts going on at the same time and that makes this quest live up to its name of "Grand Melee." But that can also lead to confusion. On more than one occasion, I've lost my opponent in the fray, which often gives them the leeway to get away from me and charge me to death. Try not to let that happen.

Enemy Gates

This one can seem intimidating at first, since each of the lieutenants has a retinue of about 5 footmen. But it's not as hard as it looks. There are also the commanders, which look a bit like lieutenants but are larger and have a full 3 stack of defend on them. You take them down in the champion version of this quest, but avoid them for now.

The Scouts are designed to a be nuisance and little more. Their lightning attack does very little damage, but it does remove a level of Defend with each hit. Tag them with a shield-breaker twice and down they come, but refresh Defend once you're done.

As for the others, find a lieutenant and charge them. Charge appears to have an area effect attack of some sort, because often times I find I ride down and kill the footmen while attacking the lieutenant. Be careful to reign in your charge once you overshoot. It's very easy to aggro additional mobs if you don't. Spam strike while in melee range, keep defend up, and you'll drop these guys quickly. Same goes for any footmen who survived your initial charge.

Watch out for fast repop. With anyone and everyone trying to do these quests, it's very easy to be rushing towards a lieutenant group in the back row only to have groups repop on top of you. Fighting 2 or more lieutenants plus 10 or so footmen is bad. If they dismount you, pray you're playing a class with an aggro dump, because you will not solo them normally. For me on a warrior, all I can do is stand there and let them kill me.

Edit: Champion Level Battle Before the Citadel

Basically the same quest as Enemy Gates, only upgraded for Champion level. Now you get no credit for the footmen, but have to kill 5 lieutenants and a commander. If you're working through valiant for another faction, this quest overlaps with it.

Commanders fight like the valiants back at the tourney camp and are defeated the same way. However, note that every time the champion pulls away to charge you, odds are good following him is going to aggro more mobs. Footmen are a minor nuisance, just ride over them. Shield-breaker scouts fast, since they'll make you very vulnerable to the commander's attacks. I suggest fleeing if you pull a lieutenant.

Now that a lot of folks have hit champion, the whole zone is a serious clusterfuck. It ain't much fun to try to kill 5 lieutenants when 10 to 20 other people are competing for them. Same for the commander. Lots of kill stealing. Repop is super-fast, which can get you in over your head real fast. Nord died twice today trying to complete this quest because of that.

FYI, I've not done the "challenge the champions" quest at the camp yet. I've not decided if I want to try it yet. Considering the chaos that this whole event is degenerating into, I doubt I want to. I'm torn. Claymore of the Prophet is seriously sexy.

The Return of Horde night

2009-04-08T12:37:00.003-04:00

Way back in the misty long forgotten past, before the threat of Arthas and Illidan, Ordo sought new adventures amidst the Horde. Those days have now returned.

In the months leading up the release of TBC, we spent as much time, if not more, leveling Horde toons on Malfurion server. It was a lot of fun. It was a nice distraction from the doldrums of the Classic endgame. It gave us an opportunity to play a few toons outside our usual comfort zone.

With pretty much all of us in Ordo now out of the hardcore raiding scene in Wrath, we've been itching to find things to do to keep things fresh. At present, our usual core of Rhus, Jaemia, Stofnar, Sofia, and the rest have reached a point where Heroics no longer satisfy and it's been difficult keeping consistent with our Naxx-10 plans on Saturdays (People traveling, visits by in-laws, work commitments, etc. In a larger guild, these sorts of things don't have any real impact. With only seven of us, they pretty much mean no group activity for a few weeks.)

As such, a few Ordo folks bounced over to Malfurion to dust off the old Hordies a few weeks ago and then invited the rest of us to join in. Last night was our first real group run with our Horde toons in probably two years. Most of our Horde are still hovering around level 60, so we tackled the Hellfire Ramparts. It was tricky. I think most of us had forgotten how difficult that instance can be at level, but we managed with only a few wipes.

Looks like this is going to be a regular thing and I certainly enjoyed myself. Farimaer might be a bit rusty, but he acquitted himself well and I had fun playing him again. Look forward to next Tuesday.

Confronting Agent Smith

2009-03-25T15:40:00.004-04:00

"So, Mr Cainam. It seems that you've been living two lives. In one of them you are a pigtailed gnome mage. You sign up for raids, bring full consumables and rain arcane death down upon the denizens of such places as Naxxaramas and the Obsidian Sanctuary. The other life is lived in heroic instances where you go about as a paladin tank and have defeated every instance inside of Northrend. One of these lives has a future, Mr. Cainam, and one of them does not."

I'm not sure when it happened, but at one point I stopped thinking of my Paladin, Girarde, as an alt. In the grand sense, I suppose he still is but in many ways I think of myself as really having two mains, and not a main and an alt. And having two mains does tend to complicate things, both in good and bad ways.

The Good: Sofea and Girarde are as different as night and day. Truly at the opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of play style. Sofea is about killing you quickly, kiting away and buying time. Girarde is about engaging at point blank range, drawing strength from his opponents attacks and outlasting his enemy. With WoW no longer possessing the level of challenge that it once did, having to master two play styles has kept the game much fresher for me than it other wise would.

Having a Tank has also made it much easier to find "work." I see many more calls ut there for a Tank than DPS. I've enjoyed being the tank for my small group of friends (and letting our regular Tank relax a bit) and I've also enjoyed tanking for various groups of guildies. It's meant a lot more group play for me and a lot less soling, which I'm not as big a fan of.

The Not as Good: If you were to put Sofea and Girarde together, man they'd really have a nice set of achievements. Together, they are a champion of the frozen wastes... but separately Sofea doesn't have the heroics and Girarde doesn't have the Raids. When world events and holidays come up, I have to choose who gets the achievement, as it's unlikely I'll be able (or have the desire) to grind two toons through it. So in that sense, they both kind of feel incomplete.

The biggest pain is having to grind out the same things. First it was for both of them to get to level 80 and do all that content twice. Then it was running the same dailies over and over on different toons so that they could get the same rep. So there has been some redundancy to deal with.

I also wonder if I'm being fair to my Guild. I mean there are not many upgrades available outside of raids for Sofea, but I really haven't pursued them at all. Most of my gear has come from raiding. Is that fair to my fellow raiders? I consider myself to be "low man" on the loot council totem pole, and rightfully so. I contribute to Raids, I'm not our Top DPSer (what mage is?) but I tend to perform in the middle of the meters. Could I be higher? Could I be bringing more? Maybe.

Girarde's issue is that he is starting to outgrow the role. The upgrades in heroics are becoming fewer and farther between. The heroic instances themselves are getting easiser. Yes there are still achievements to go after. (Curse you Less-Rabi) But Girarde is ready to start tanking raids himself. I've done some Naxx 10 with him, and most recently some VoA. I'm ready for more with him, but I don't think there are many more opportunities for him. The alt-runs we've been doing have been great, but as our little group totals out at 7 people, it's hard to count on it for a reliable source of raiding. And QSS, while a great guild, does not seem to be in the market for another Tankadin. Even if it was, then what would be come of Sofea.

All in all I'm happy with how things are working out. It's a balancing act and at times, I have to stop and remind myself that you can't have everything. Girarde will never be a Loremaster, Sofea is not going to have an excess of shards for her enchanting. It's all part of the trade off.
But when all is said and done I know that I must be enjoying myself because I've not gone out and leveled another toon...

Yet.

Seeker

2009-03-17T23:46:00.003-04:00

When I posted the screenshot of Stofnar hitting level 80, I got told by a LOTRO-playing friend that I was "pathetic."

I think I've trumped that.

My comment to QSS guild chat is appropriate. I have no proven that I have no life.

Theorycrafting Paladin

2009-03-17T13:32:00.002-04:00

I'm generally not a big number cruncher when it comes to figuring out how to optimize my toons. That may be part of the reason I tend to play second-fiddle a lot to players like Typhia. But Ordo has recently broken into Naxx. We've begun 10-man raiding (with a bit of help from QSS alts.) And with that, I feel a need to evaluate how my main, Stofnar, is doing.

Sometimes, I think I show too much of my arms warrior origins in that I tend to prioritize gear/gems/enchants by stacking crit and strength over all others. Time to rethink that in large part because a ret pally has two primary options for DPS seals: Seal of Command & Seal of the Martyr. What I read says SoC is the better choice UNLESS you have a haste value of 13% or greater.

Well, Stof's been lugging around a shiny Meteorite whetstone, which when it procs amps his haste value by (coincidentally) 13%. Now, scuttlebutt has the internal cooldown on the whetstone at around 35-40 seconds. Unless we're speed pulling, that's means probably about one proc per fight. Stof's normal haste is about 1.25%, but I've got gem slots currently dedicated to crit that I could swap. I can also do the +haste cloak enchant easily enough. Persuading my friendly shaman to drop windfury totem (+16% haste) is another option. (I *heart* Ionya.)

Here's the counterpoint. The glyph for SoC is really good (+20% proc) and the glyph for SoM (increased mana via spiritual attunement) is not. So I'm not sure exactly how much DPS I might gain by a switch. I'm also relying on an item proc here to spike my haste rating to the right level. RNG is going to be a big factor.

Stuff to think about. I'll probably experiment a bit and see what's what. Comments are welcome.

House Steiner of Lorderon?

2009-03-09T11:02:00.005-04:00

Ordo hit old Stratholme last night and while we were heading to Mal'Ganis, I noticed this emblem on the banners lining the streets.

That looked awfully familiar to this old BattleTech fan. Looks a lot like the emblem for House Steiner.

So, is one of Blizzard's artists a BTech fan? Who knows?

Will Patch 3.1 Totally Rock Out Mirror of Truth?

2009-03-04T10:33:00.006-05:00

I've been actively scanning the Druid blogs - made easier by the Daily Druid - for a comment about this, but haven't seen one. So, I'm posting about it myself in hopes that one of the titans will see it and pontificate more.

So, I finally grabbing a Mirror of Truth. It's an awesome trinket, but will patch 3.1 make it even better?

When 3.1 hits, Druids are going to get Savage Defense. Suddenly, Critical Strikes & Attack Power are going to be just as useful to Bears as Cats. Mirror's huge crit boost alone makes it an attractive trinket for ferals. If the chance boost to AP works in conjunction with SD's damage shield it's even better. I'm wondering if anyone has tested this. Will it work? How often will it proc? Is this boost enough to replace a straight mitigating trinket?

The real winners in this patch could be feral off-tanks. An off-tank is even more likely to want 1 set of gear for as many encounters as possible. This trinket could become a must-have.

Girarde's Inscription Emporium

2009-03-02T12:30:00.002-05:00

So last week I discovered a new Blog “The Greedy Goblin.” It’s well written and while I do not tend to agree with the author on a number of points, (specifically surrounding guilds and PUGs.) I have been very interested in his approach to making money on the Auction House. As such he inspired me to go into “Business” for myself and open up my own little Inscription shop.

Gevlon’s philosophy basically revolves around the idea of thinking of the Auction House like a business. When you think of it in that light it becomes easier to create a business plan and start making profits. (Can you hear the Ferengi in me?) You can begin to analyze things like raw materials, labor (will you craft this for me?) and then personal time investment. Thinking like this, (and well from the advice in his blog) I have begun my own little Inscription business for myself.

Why Inscription? Well a couple of reasons.

1.) Low start up cost: The inventory itself is relatively low cost, meaning low risk. I didn’t have to sink hundreds of gold to make one piece that if it doesn’t sell ruins my business. I instead get to produce a number of smaller items. If any individual item does not sell, I’m not out a terribly large amount of money.

2.) Reasonable Demand. Everybody needs glyphs. All classes, all races. While you don’t necessarily need a lot of glyphs everyone needs one from time to time. With Blizzard constantly changing the mechanics that demand increases.

3.) Flexible Raw materials: First off, inscription is very flexible in the types of herbs it can use. All Northrend herbs mill into the same pigments (Although higher level herbs may give more pigments or more rare pigments, I’ve not researched this yet) So I can load up on materials on the cheapest herbs I can find in the AH. Goldclover is expensive? Buy a stack of tiger lily. Also for inscription herbs become pigments which become inks, which become glyphs. If the herbs are especially expensive, I can perhaps still find a deal on the pigments or the inks. In this way it becomes easier to keep my costs down.

4.) Profit Margin: Most my glyphs sell for at least double the cost of my raw materials. Many sell for four or five times my initial cost.

So last Tuesday I took my 20 best glyphs, made 3 of each and put them on the AH. I’ve been keeping track my costs, my profits and what sells in a small excel spreadsheet. Every 2 days when my auctions end I “restock” and produce additional glyphs for the ones that sold out the previous auction.

The initial results are promising. I’ve been able to sell about 20 glyphs every auction period (2 days) or so. After my second set of auctions I had already recouped my initial investment. As of last night I was over 400 gold in the black with over 50 glyphs still up for sale. The additional perk is that I have been able to use my left over supplies to make scrolls and glyphs for friends. I’ve also been getting enough Icy pigment from my millings that I’ve been able to keep up my Inscription research. So while I’m not the goblin businessman that Gevlon proliferates. I am turning a nice little profit for myself and should keep myself from ever having to grind gold again. After all as Rule of Acquisition # 41 States: Profit is its own reward.

What is best in life?

2009-02-23T20:32:00.002-05:00

....To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women.

Nord hit level 80 tonight, my third toon to do so. I felt a Conan quote was appropriate, given Nord was originally based on the Cimmerian.

Dust off that Alt-Hunter

2009-02-20T10:13:00.005-05:00

I've been playing Wrath for a while & have been level 80 for some time. It's time to work on an alt. It's time to dust off my beloved hunter.

If you're like me & haven't been playing your hunter for a while, you may be surprised. Hunter looks the same but the differences will jump out at you. The game may be easier, but suddenly you can't seem to play & eat your sammich at the same time. Fear not. Make some tweaks and you'll be back to your Pew Pew Munch Munch days soon enough.

Mana Management

The big "issue" in Wrath is the major change to mana regen & the way the Aspects work. You absolutely want to cycle between your Aspect of the Hawk (or Dragonhawk) & Aspect of the Viper quickly. You'll find yourself swapping a lot. You may also find yourself forgetting to swap.

Find an addon to flashed a notice to turn off Aspect of the Viper when you've hit 100% mana. ViperNotify does this in a very minimalistic way. Combine it with a very basic 1-button cast sequence macro like this...

/castsequence Aspect of the Hawk, Aspect of the Viper

Again, you'll need to make changes when you hit a high enough level to get fancy aspects.

Target & Pet Management

There are other changes to game-play as they relate to pets. A pet of Aggressive or Defensive will attack your target the moment you cast AutoAttack. This is both great & frustrating all at the same time. When soloing you still want to send your pet in before you attack. You also want to "stay on target" when your pet engages multiple mobs. The same is true when in a group. Fast switching to the tank or main assist target is very important. Combining these functions with Hunter's Mark (due to Mark being on the GCD) is a great idea. I use 2 macros to achieve this.

The "Pet Attack Button" is a simple point and shoot part of your cast sequence. You want to mark the target & you want your pet to engage first.

/petattack
/cast Hunter's Mark
/petfollow [target=pettarget,exists]

The "Switch Targets" macro requires you to set a Focus target in group. I'm a big fan of setting a focus targets. It serves a dual purpose of keeping you on target & allowing for rapid use of Misdirect. If you aren't in a group, then this switch target button will allow you to follow your pet onto it's next target.

#showtooltip Hunter's Mark
/assist [target=focus,exists]; [target=pet, exists]
/cast Hunter's Mark

Combine this with a basic Misdirection Macro & life is easy. You'll note that I do not have the non-focus element to your standard misdirect sequence on this macro. It's a personal preference.

#showtooltip Misdirection
/cast [target=focus, exists] Misdirection; [target=pet, exists] Misdirection

Now Pew Pew

The other development in Wrath is the increased complexity in shot selection. Gone are the days of simply spamming Steady Shot.

If you are using the Glyph of Steady Shot, then you want to have Serpent Sting as part of your rotation. But finding room for it & Kill Shot (and getting Kill Shot off in time) is tricky. This macro will always allow you to cast Serpent Sting, but it will always keep Kill Shot the visible button. If your bar mod changes color when an ability is ready, then you'll always know when to cast Kill Shot.

#showtooltip Kill Shot
/cast Kill Shot
/cast Serpent Sting
/script UIErrorsFrame: Clear()

Even though we no longer have to weave Steady Shot, we still want to use that old standby macro. I've simplified it based on the current mechanics.

#showtooltip Steady Shot
/cast [exists, target=pettarget] Kill Command
/cast Steady Shot
/script UIErrorsFrame: Clear()

Here's another macro I've been toying with. It's not perfect, but it does the trick. It takes advantage of things not on the GCD and combines them with Aimed Shot (something you want to cast more.) The two trinkets will not go off at once. Replace these with your own, obviously. And remove BW if you aren't spec'ed Beastmaster. (Hopefully this means you're 80 & switched Survival.)

#showtooltip Aimed Shot
/cast Bestial Wrath
/use Bloodlust Brooch
/use Empty Mug of Direbrew
/cast Aimed Shot

There's a lot more to all this of course. Mostly, it's about finding your way through the mine-field of shot selection. Remember an unused cooldown is a lost opportunity. Aspect management is just as important as shot selection. Survival hunters may be the hot new game in town, but it's still mostly about skill.

You are hunters. All mobs fear you!

Cat Swipe & Idol of the Wastes

2009-02-06T12:47:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, I got into a discussion with a couple of the other ferals in my guild about the Idol of the Wastes trinket & Cat Swipe. The trinket states "Your Shred and Swipe abilities have a chance to grant 61 strength for 10 sec." But does it work?

I tested it for 20 minutes. I closely monitored my combat log, which I recorded, and my buffs for the "Snap and Snarl" effect.

- Bear Swipe gave me an almost 100% up-time for an effect called "Snap and Snarl." It would go off with my first swipe even on a single target. When the effect ran out, a new Bear Swipe would immediately refresh the effect.

- Prowling up to a mob, pouncing & shredding also resulted in "Snap and Snarl." I only did this a few times, but the results were consistent.

- Cat Swipe resulted in no "Snap and Snarl" buffs. I pulled several mobs using nothing but Cat Swipe & auto attack. My trinket "Crusader's Glory" effect went off several times, but at no point did the Idol work.

Obviously, this was not a scientific test, but the results are fairly conclusive. I'm curious what Blizzard thinks. The issue now is that this trinket does not make a good solo-cat item unless you've taken ranks in both Shredding Attacks & Brutal Impact. It does still make a good group DPS trinket. Still, I would like it to work with both types of Swipe attacks. I wouldn't even mind them removing the proc from Shred to make this happen.

Druid Trends: A hybrid ill-wind?

2009-02-06T00:04:00.003-05:00

I read a lot of druid blogs. It's partly because I play one. It's partly because I'm married to one. It's partly my friendships with Flyv & Karthis. From these relationships & my copious amounts of free-time, I've drawn some observations about the state of Druids and mainly ferals.

There is currently an excessive amount of QQ about "hybrids," specifically druids. There's the post on Tobold's blog about Hybrid Envy that set off an interesting back & forth with Karthis. Or read the comments section below today's WoW insider post about Druid Changes in 3.1. These are not isolated events. I think they represent a potential ill-wind for druids.

First the arguments against druids & their flaws as I currently see them.

There are so many druids right now. They are clearly broken!

This is the same argument that has been made against hunters for years. I also play a hunter. Hunters are not - except for early 3.0 Hunters with Volley & Gorilla pets - broken. Hunters are simply easy to pick up & great in solo PvE environment. They make awesome alts. Hunters have just as many flaws & stereotypes as any other classes.

The reason why druids are so plentiful is their broad-ranging appeal. More than any other class, druid can be tailored to the play-style and interests of the individual player. The perfect example is my house, where my wife & I both play druids. We are night & day in our approach to the game.

Yes, if you put 4 druids in a room and ask them their "role" you will get about 5 answers: trees, boomkins, bears, cats & off-tank. Yes, I think there's a distinction to be made in relation to a bear, cat or off-tank. It's all about skills, preferences & talent specs.

Druids can do too much! Nerf them!

I can't play a tree. I'm an even worse boomkin. My "hybrid" flexibility comes into play when I'm able to battle-res someone, or hot myself up. But a feral's ability to do these things are extremely limited. I don't have int on my gear. My mana-pool is insanely small. I need that mana to shape shift. I'm not wasting it on being your back-up healer.

Feral Druids are too good! Nerf them!

Actually, Feral druids might actually agree with this assessment to a certain extent. That's not a concession, however. No, feral druids just don't want to all be pigeon-holed back into the "off-tank" role all over again. Some of us want to be main tanks or pure DPS. The fact remains that the lines are blurred a little right now. That doesn't mean there should be a nerf but rather a refinement.

Druids and Hybrids are so versatile why bring anything else on a raid? Nerf all Hybrids!

This is one of the stupidest arguments I've heard yet. First off, what kind of bazaaro-world guild are these people running in that they have 25 raid-worthy druids, shaman & paladins? Secondly, how fucking boring would that be? On a lark? Sure! Every night? WTF!

I treat hybrids as a "value-added" element to a raid or 5-man. There are also trade-offs. If I've got a dps'er who's dropping back to heal, then I'm missing their dps. If I've got a healer tanking, I'm fucked! Show me a raid leader who honestly fills more than 2 to 3 slots based on "hybrid flexibility" and I'll show you a moron. Raid leaders will take the best players in the slots they need. Nerf'ing a hybrid because it's not fair for other classes is tantamount to calling for hybrids to be dropped from raiding.

All this brings me back to my other observations. See what you think.

- Blizzard has been deliberately moving Bears to more talent-dependent specs by removing armor bonuses and "forcing" us to have specific talents to compensate. A druid without these key talents can't gear their way out of a problem.

- Blizzard has been deliberately moving all ferals to more rogue-like gear. This makes feral gear drops easier, but has reduced the number of unique options available to us. Gear itemization & enchantment decisions will further move ferals into DPS vs Mitigation.

- Blizzard has made statements about increasing cat dps. Cat swipe was added to bring druids in line with other classes. The next step will probably be a boost to a cat-specific talent. This will further widen (not shrink) the divide between cats & bears.

- Blizzard wants to lower mana regeneration (specifically for healing classes.) The interesting side-effect will be on all hybrids. In Pre-Wrath, a lot of druid gear had broad stats. Ferals didn't want int & spirit but we got them. That's gone. A reduction in mana-regen on an already mana-starved hybrid makes them less versatile.

- Dual Specs are coming. This will be great for transitioning between solo pve/pvp and group/raid environments. The restrictions will be big. It won't be something that raids can exploit. Why is this important?

Put it all together. To balance out a druid imbalance (real or perceived) Blizzard will make our "limited" hybrid effectiveness even more so. The difference between a tanking druid & a Feral DPS druid could become more like the difference between a Protection & Fury Warrior. Only unlike the two warriors, these druids would be using the same talent tree & be dressed in the same gear. Yet one would be a marginal tank & the other a marginal DPS. It's completely opposite what Blizzard claimed they wanted from Wrath, but it's becoming more and more likely.

Is any of this a bad thing? I'm not sure. I'm a 5-man tank. If I got back into raiding full-time, I would probably want to be an off-tank. If the wind really is blowing in the direction I'm seeing, then it wouldn't change the way I do things. In some ways it would be a "fair & just" response to the QQ'ing out there.

How the Other Bear Lives

2009-02-05T12:05:00.002-05:00

I've been meaning to post more about my gaming setup for a while now. Yesterday's post by Karthis about his desk, pushed me over the edge. Before I get started, I want to note that I'm about to break a golden rule of blogging. This is going to be a long one...

As many of my readers/friends know, I have some rather debilitating physical problems. I used to have a rather traditional computer desk. It was not ergonomic. It was not particularly comfortable. Sitting at my computer should be a haven from the stress and strain of my life, instead it was adding to it. So last year, I went on a mission to design a personal space that was extremely comfortable but afforable.

If you've ever priced ergonomic chairs & specialty desks, you know that they can end up costing more than computers. I couldn't afford that. Still, it was clear that I needed a really good chair. I finally found this one at Office Max. It's not "cheap" but it was also much more afforable than your traditional ergonomic chair. It has adjustable everything. Unfortunately, I can't link the chair to you. It's no longer available. The next model up is the Space Air Grid Executive Chair for $200 more than I paid. Still, I can't emphasize enough the importance of a good chair.

My keyboard tray cost more than the whole desk. This isn't because the tray was particularly expensive. It's because the desk is a yard-sale find. I got it for $30 & the guy even tossed it in his truck and drove it over for me. The side-table is a combination of an old printer stand & an old piano bench. The legs broke, so I slapped on some 1x1's from the scrap pile in the garage. So, instead of spending hundreds of dollars on a fancy desk, I spent less than a hundred on a DIY. Is it pretty? No. BUT, it's extremely functional.

For months, I researched keyboard setup that would - in conjunction with the fancy chair - minimize strain on my hands & arms. The solution was a Logitech Trackman Wheel Mouse and an Ideazon Merc Keyboard.

The trackball took some adjustment, but was the right choice to maximize my comfort. Trackballs are not for everyone. If you prefer to click your spells with the mouse, you will hate using a trackball. You should look for a comfortable gaming mouse. If, however, you are a keybinder, an ergonomic trackball can make a huge difference in your comfort. In some situations, you may find you can respond FASTER than a standard mouse user. You will spend weeks, even months, adjusting to the trackball. Stay with it!

I could write an entirely separate post about the Merc keyboard. It was - after the chair - the hardest part of the research. There is no such thing as an ergonomic gaming keyboard. I could have gone with an ergonomic keyboard, but they aren't great for games like WoW because they further increase the distance between the keys. I considered a number of pure gaming keyboards, but those would keep my hands in the same uncomfortable typing position. Then I came across a variety of gaming pads like the Wolf Claw. I considered a combination of a side-pad & an ergonomic keyboard. I actually did a lot of field testing by going to a number of retail stores and trying the keyboards.

I finally settled on the Merc because it was affordable (less than $40), comfortable and fit on my keyboard tray. I still type in the standard QWERTY keyboard position, but with arm & handrests. The gaming pad space allows me to move my hand from the standard position & is extremely functional. The tray allows me to adjust the angle of my keyboard & slide it right up to the armrests of my chair. There are times when I will just sit at my desk, with my arms on the keyboard pad & watch a movie. It's just that comfortable.

I customized the Merc keypad in conjuction with Bartender4. The keybinding options are limitless & completely legal under the game's EUA as long as you don't do any keyboard keystroke macros. To get used to the unique keypad setup, I actually adjusted my bars on screen with bartender to mimic the shape of the keypad. The adjustment period was a matter of days. After months, it's just awesome. All my toons use the same basic layout now.

Finally, it's obvious that I'm using two boxes. I'm not a "dual-box" player. When I upgraded my system last year, I simply kept the old one. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just not as fast as the newer Quad Cores. The old system is, however, plenty fast to run Hulu or Pandora while I'm soloing. I can look up quest information, check email, or catch up on Google messenger. I use the Logitech Cordless Desktop MX3000 for the second box. I highly recommend it if you are ever in the market for a wireless setup. It's inexpensive & has been extremely reliable for over 2 years. Wireless is not great for gaming, but it's awesome in other situations.

Why not use a KVM switch to free up more space? Using two allows me to do a lot of stuff simultaneously. This comes from my days in IT & playing a hunter for 3 years. Autoshot...type email...loot mob...check weather...laugh at stupid mage...eat sammich. Besides, there's still plenty of deskspace for paperwork, & gadgets. I use the sideboard from the old piano bench for snacks & drinks.

Anyway, that's my world. I'm here most of my time. If you have any questions about my setup, the keyboards I've researched or stuff on my desk, just let me know.

Korathnord the Spear-slayer

2009-02-05T08:49:00.002-05:00

My work on leveling my third toon to 80 continues. After finishing up the Loremaster of the Eastern Kingdoms achievement, I took Nord back to Northrend and finished out Grizzly Hills and started Zul'Drak. That got him to level 78.

But in the process, I decided to try something new. Much like Cainam is doing with Sofea, I decided to respec Nord to one of the less talked-about less-glamourous specs for warrior: Arms.

Back in the day, that was the core of Nord's playstyle. I tore through MC, BWL, ZG, and AQ carrying either a big 2-H sword or (my preference) a nasty polearm. Spears and polearms were the weapon no one else seemed to want, so Nord always got first pick of anyone that dropped. TBC changed all that, driving fury spec to the top of the DPS warrior pile and the introduction of Titan Grip in Wrath continued that.

So a few observations:

1) Arms is fun but complicated. It relies a lot on ability procs. Fury warriors waiting on Bloodsurge to proc have already had some experience with this, but you spend a lot of time as Arms waiting to see when Sudden Death and Taste for Blood to proc. As such, there's not really a "cast sequence" for Arms warriors. You have to play it by ear pretty much every fight. As such, DPS can be somewhat inconsistent. There are some fights where I'm not even cracking 1k, others where I hit 2.5k depending on what triggers and what doesn't. (Note this is at level 78, well before I get any heroic or raid gear.)

2) Mortal Strike is no longer Arms' bread-and-butter ability. I keep it around and use it, but the bulk of your DPS comes from Rend (which allows Taste for Blood to proc), Execute (from Sudden Death), and Overpower (triggered by dodges and Taste for Blood). Seems odd to talk about Rend, the oft maligned warrior bleed as potent but a lot of the recent patches have really buffed this ability.

3) And speaking of previously maligned abilities, I find Slam is a good rage dump. With talents, it's a quick half-second cast time that doesn't interfere with your normal swing timer.

4) You play arms in Battle Stance, which opens up Overpower (necessary) and Charge. Thanks to Bloodrage no longer putting you in combat, rage generation at the start of a fight is pretty easy. I find that rage is almost never a problem in Arms. Titan Grip, with using two slow 2-handed weapons for attacks, often kept me rage starved despite its potent DPS.

5) Bladestorm is fun. It is, by far, the nastiest AOE for warriors. Although its 90 second cooldown makes it much less versatile that Whirlwind, it hits a lot harder and lasts a lot longer. Ninety seconds isn't all that long either. I find I can use it about once every two pulls.

6) Glyphs. I added the Glyph of Overpower into my book, since it allows Overpower to proc off of parries from time to time. Glyph of Execution makes Sudden Death pretty potent, despite the recent nerf to that ability.

5) Weapons. Nord picked up the Tuskar rep spear last night to finally put a polearm in his hand again, but his best bet if he wants to keep using spears is to get the blue spear off the beholder boss in heroic Violet Hold. It's the only pre-raid spear that is strength based and not agility.

Seeking Loremaster

2009-02-02T17:57:00.002-05:00

I'm not normally one who cares much about the achievement system in WoW. It's a nice feature, but more often than not when I gain one it was unexpected. "Oh, wow, cool." is usually the first thought that crosses my mind when an achievement procs.

Which is pretty much exactly what happened to me about a week or so ago while leveling Nord. I hit the 2000 quest achievement, which of course "unlocks" the next step up which is 3000 quests. That achievement carries with it a title, "Seeker," and I got to thinking that would be a nice title to give my oldest and longest played toon.

So I start looking under the "Quest" tab on the Achievement window and I get another surprise. I'm only about 95 quests from "Loremaster of the Eastern Kingdoms."

So Nord has been catching up on a lot of old lowbie quests in the Eastern Kingdoms. And I've discovered a number of things.

1) I'm stumbling over quite a few of what might be called "secret quests." Take Sweet Amber for instance. It's a level 44 quest in Westfall. Who is ever in Westfall at level 44? If you're not, you'd miss this chain entirely, so I imagine not many have ever done this chain. Got another one in Stormwind to take a poem to Shattrath. Given the content of the poem, I get the feeling that one is memorial to somebody.

2) If you're looking to gain rep with Classic WoW factions, this seems to be the way to go. With a lot of the changes made both recently and a while back to mob rep and quest rep, you can rapidly gain reputation this way. Nord is almost exalted now with both IF and SW.

3) I still hate one of the patterns of Classic WoW questing, which I call "Let's go 'round the world for this quest." This quest is a good example. You pick it up in Stormwind. It takes you to Stonetalon in Kalimdor. You turn it in back in Stormwind. Thankfully, this sort of quest is from a bygone age. Now, if you pick up a quest in say Dragonblight, odds are good you complete it there.

4) My final observation is the sense of surprise I have in discovering just what quests Nord managed to skip while leveling. Being an altaholic, there are not many quests in these lowbie zones that I've missed, but apparently some of them got done on my alts but never on Nord. Slaughtering the once uber-deadly Defias Pillagers and getting quest credit for it was kind of fun on a level 75. :-)

More Arcane Stuff...

2009-01-30T14:55:00.002-05:00

So... now that the new fix is in and I'm done sending hate mail to developers... lets talk Arcane... again. Arcane is still one of (if not the) top DPS specs for mage, so lets take a look at it. Last time I spoke about mana regen, lets look at soem other things...

Specs: The primary build is typically some variant of 57/3/11. It's a powerful single target spec. 2/3 in ice shards actually gives it acceptable AoE (And devastating aoE if you can blow some coll downs wih it) The biggest drawback is that it does not bring Improved Scorch or Winter's chill to the Raid. This means that this is the spec for the "second" mage, as your first mage has to bring this buff. THere is a 51/20/0 Arcane spec that can be used, but you will be giving up a numbe of key DPS boosting talents to get improved scorch. Scorch also does not fit into Arcane's rotations very well. So only use this if you have to.

Rotation: Arcane is still a dynamic play style, in fact with the "fix" it is now more of a dynamic style than it was before. For most players you think about what spells do you want to cast. For arcane, the question is more about what spells don't I want to be casting.

Arcane missles, for the most part, is a loser spell. Even talented, it is a loser in terms of DPS and DPM. The only time you want to cast Arcane Missiles is when Missile Barrage procs. Period. End of story. It does however do a lot of damage for one spell. So it's a good candidate for the Arcane Blast debuff.

Arcane Barrage: This is a good spell. It has better DPS than Arcane Blast (no stacks) or Arcane missles but still not as good as AM with Missle Barrage. So with no other buffs, this is your best spell.

Arcane Blast: For he most part, you want to minimize the number of times you have to cast AB unstacked. AB does more DPS as it gets stacked, but of course, at the cost of Mana. It is completely unsustainable fully stacked.

So... What does this mean? Well ideally, you start with Abar, the you'd cast AB until you got a MBarr proc then cast AM. The problem is that is is VERY mana intensive. For a slight loss in DPS, but a huge gain in Mana, go Abar, ABx3. If you get a MBar proc, cast AM. If not Cast Abarr and start over again. This will cost a couple % in DPS but is about 2/3 the mana cost.

So we pick the second one right becasue it's more efficent... right? HA! You forget! This is Arcane baby and we are not locked into just using one cycle! Base the cycle you use on the fight you are in. Got exta mana? Hold out for that MBarr proc and use the first "Burn" cycle. Runnig strapped for mana? Go back to the more efficent version. Still strapped for mana? Reduce ABx3 to ABx2. In this way Arcaen can adjust itself to fit the fight that it's in.

Guess Who's Back And Not Happy...

2009-01-30T10:58:00.003-05:00

I got home again a few days ago from being out of town for over a week. (After being out of town for 2 weeks for Christmas holidays.) It's nice because I've needed a break from WoW. Except now I'm pissed off at myself & Blizzard.

Those M#%^$##$ckers!!!

I failed to plan ahead with my need for 1 more skill point (339 LWing) before getting to 440 & starting to make decent epic gear. The patch 3.0.8 changed the most cost effective patterns to include Frozen Orbs. So, not only do they require Arctic Fur (Which they secretly lowered the drop rate on) but now I need Frozen Orbs to make them. It's not even been a 50% success rate for me. I spent countless hours farming for Arctic Fur before I gave up and spent over 600 gold getting from 435 to 439.

Breath...

OK, I'm better now.

I don't mind this being hard. I mind that the drop rate on the item that's in EVERY pattern we use has been reduced to the point where farming is nightmarish & AH prices are outrageous.

Breath...

OK, seriously, I'm OK now.

Fucking Blizzard Developers.

Note: As I was completing this post I went ahead and bought - Sigh - more mats in the AH and got to 440. Now I have to farm/buy the mats to get my patterns, but at least I'm there.

Oh Joy. I've been.. "fixed"

2009-01-27T10:11:00.002-05:00

Maybe this is a fix in the same way you fix a dog, I'm not sure how the dog feels about it though.

So... Arcane has been hotfixed. And of course with any hotfix like this, come the inevitable, what did the fix break?

The Fix: Well the primary change is that it's no longer possible to cast ABarr at the end of an Arcane Missiles and have ABar gain the AB Buff. Now to be fair this is a fix. You were effectively getting 2 charges out of Arcane Blast when 1 was clearly all that was intended.

The upshot of this is that it's a dps loss for Arcane. Not a huge loss, but a loss none the less. It also measn that the rotation is not as clear as it one was and theorycrafters will needto figure it out.

Another Fix(?): Well it looks like the bordering on broken glyph is getting nerfed. While the Arcane Blast Glyph still says it's 5%, the peopel testing it are showing a 3% increase. Sigh, I knew it was too good to last.

A Clear Bug: Arcane Missles is not gaining any benefit from the Arcane Blast Glyph. It is only seeing the 15/30/45 buff, not the 18/36/54 that ABar and AB see.

My real problem here is with Blizzard. First off, why wasn't this fixed sooner? I've seen people talking about this bug for quite soem time on the PTR. Isn't that the purpose of the PTR? To fix things there? Why do they let it go live, let us react to the change, and then les then a week later change it all up again? So one week of being live is Greater than the month of being on the PTR? Then why even use the PTR? It's not like they are managing to together a patch that doesn't crash everytime wintergrasp is taken.

Second, why are we receiving zero communication about this? Not a single blue post about the changes. Nothing about what is intended or what is a bug. There was no communication before hand to tell us that that a fix was coming and now nothing to tell us that it's here. This is lousy communication. And it also makes me worry about Deep Frost which could lose it's extra FoF charge if a similar "fix" is put in for it. (And it's the same bug, why shouldn't it get the same fix?)

Bottom line is that I am not a happy mage here. I was just starting to settle into a new spec. I had spent quite a bit of gold respecing and reglyphing, and now I feel like I'm back to the drawing board again.

So to Blizzard, I have one request. MAKE UP YOUR MINDS!!!!

Thinking like an Arcane Mage

2009-01-23T15:52:00.003-05:00

So I've decided that I've been out of the arcane biz too long. With the recent patch, arcane got much love much of it in the form of a really uber new glyph and some of it in the form of a nice exploitable bug. (the bug vs feature issue is a whole other post) Seeing as I really haven't enjoied the "You must be Frostfire" way that mages have been so far in WotLK, this seemed like a perfect opportunity to try out the ole Arcane spec again.

The spec is what I remember Arcane being in the past. Dynamic and flexible. Insane DPS at completely unsustainable DPM. However, I kind of noticed today that I (and many others) had really approached this spec like it's another fire spec. Find the right rotation and work it to death. (In this case it was AB->AB->AB->AM->ABar) I tried it and was surprised that I wasn't having mana issues. I mean not even close to having mana issues. So I dropped my glyph of Mage armor and switched to Glyph of Molten Armor. No mana issues so why not get 5% more Crit? Makes Sense? Right?

Well maybe to a Fire mage, but to an Arcane mage, that is just the wrong way of thinking. If you have more mana, cast a more mana intensive cycle. Mage armor (Glyphed)_gives me between 400-500 additional MP5. Molten armor (Glyphed) is 5% crit or 230 crit rating. Form a gear standpoint, 450 MP5 is worth TONS more than 230 crit rating. And with Arcane, you can take advantage of that extra mana and convert it into damage.

To be honest I'm kind of embarrassed at myself. I should have been thinking like this all along. I'm really looking forward to exploring Arcane in more depth in the next few weeks. It's nice to come home again, even if it does mean I have to actually think.

I'm trying to show off here...

2009-01-23T08:53:00.003-05:00

And sometimes they just don't make it easy.

Of course, part of it is my own fault. I didn't hit the screen capture button as it happened. And now, with the servers down installing the arena fix, I can't log on to take a new screen shot boasting of my accomplishment.

So you guys get a screen shot of the Armory.

My second 80. Woohoo!!

Nord is next to level.

Then after that, I suspect I'll be focusing on my shaman. As much as I joined in with the rest of you all making fun of the "sex-changes" a few posts back, odds are good Mhera will not remain female for much longer. I want Farimaer (my Horde troll on Malfurion) back and if I can't change his race, faction, and server then Mhera will just have to take his place.

Patch day

2009-01-20T12:57:00.005-05:00

3.0.8 went live today.

I know a lot of folks looking forward to the changes (and even some of the nerfs).

Log on and get it.

EDIT: It's patch day alright. Servers came back up on schedule but Wintergrasp is causing Northrend server crashes like crazy. (Seeing as that's where I am with Avouz at the moment, I know this is the cause.)

First battle, Horde won and immediately after the server crashed. Came back on and the battle had reset. This time, Alliance won and once again, the server crashed on victory. Sure enough, came back up with the battle reset again.

Fun, although nice way to get honor via exploit.

EDIT: Oh, this is rich. I ported out of Wintergrasp after two battles, but while I'm smelting ore in Dalaran, I'm still getting honor from tower destruction and such. LOL.

Trivia

2009-01-13T09:15:00.006-05:00

Being an old school geek, I've been playing fantasy games both on the computer and on the tabletop for well over two-thirds of my 36 years. So I get a kick out of folks in WoW who name their toons for obscure things in old fantasy games or novels or whatever.

So here's a bit of trivia for you old schoolers like me. Here's a screenshot of a toon on Garona that Nord stumbled onto last night in Dalaran.

1) Do you know what his name references?

2) If you do, do you remember what you had to do to create this effect?

EDIT: You folks disappoint me. :-(

I spoke to my friend John on the phone the other day and he knew the answers immediately.

1) The Wizardry series. Tiltowait was the uber damage spell from that game.

2) Each spell in Wizardry had a four letter code that you had to type in to cast it. Tiltowait's code was NUKE

Heroic virgin no more

2009-01-13T09:03:00.003-05:00

Ok, maybe the title is a little TMI, but anyhow. Stofnar hit his first Wrath heroic instance on Sunday evening. Five of us were on and ready to go for the first time since the end of the Christmas holiday (Actually, I think we had all seven of us available, but that's beside the point.) We hit Halls of Lightning, which was the daily, on heroic.

One of us made an observation part way through the run that I think sums up nicely what Wrath is about. He said that Blizzard doesn't really care much about levelers anymore: It's all about endgame. For those of us running mains and alts through Wrath's zones wondering when it was going to get difficult, I now have your answer.

Granted, HoL was not super-difficult, not in the ways heroic Arc or Shadow Lab were in TBC. We had a bit of trouble on the dual-wielding whirlwinding runcasters (Stofnar died on every pull or close to it.) Our kill of the second boss, Volkhan, was a bit sloppy, but we got it done. Then there's Lokan...

To put it mildly, Lokan kicked our ass.

We pulled him probably a dozen times, each time working on getting our coordination down on the movements of that fight. We debated strategies after each failed pull, weighed options. Felt despair that this boss was unbeatable. For me, it felt like Classic WoW way back in Molten Core trying to beat Luci or Magmadar for the first time. It was HARD and yet very satisfying even through we never managed to beat him.

I want another piece of Lokan and I'm pleased that heroics are finally producing a challenge for us. Looking forward to the next one.

ROFLMAO

2009-01-06T08:41:00.002-05:00

Yeah, WoW has made me so much more productive.

LOL

There has got to be a better solution than this...

2009-01-02T23:18:00.002-05:00

GARONA is full.
Position in queue: 338
Estimated wait time: Sometime next year.

Blizz really needs to get their crap together in regards to fixing the raid lag problem. Reducing the max population down so that there's queues every night is NOT the answer.

Brainstorming

2008-12-28T10:10:00.003-05:00

A few days away from the game can be a dangerous thing; Leaving me to my thoughts about the game and as a result, I can come up with all kinds of crazy ideas. Here are a few of the assorted ideas I've come up with during this holiday break....

- New zone/instance ideas - People are going to laugh when I tell them the origin of this first idea, but what the heck? I had WoW dream the other night where Avouz was trying to battle his way up a mountain. Occurred to me that might make for an interesting outdoor zone, one whose geography was not based on the horizontal, but the vertical. We've already seen this in instances (Kara, UK, DTK, etc) but not outdoors. With flying mounts and phasing, the idea could have a lot of potential.

A great mountain, held against by the forces of light by whatever villain you want to put in it. Quests would allow your faction to advance up the mountain, unlocking new quest hubs and even flight points. Those with flying mounts could do bombing runs on caves higher up to help the advance. Eventually, you'd have to face off with the boss at the very top.

Obviously, it would need fleshed out a bit, but I still think it's an intriguing concept.

I've also been thinking about a truly underwater instance. BFD was cool, but only small portions of it are actually underwater. I'm thinking one where only a very small portion of it is above, probably as little rest spots to allow casters to eat/drink. Put Naga or Murlocs as the villain. You'd have to find a way to give parties water-breathing for it to work (outside of having specific classes to cast those spells, which Blizz now wants to avoid.)

- Legacy items - One of the coolest ideas Blizz has implemented in Wrath are the legacy items, items that are bound-to-account and scale with level. It occurs to me that this might be the way to go to reward those players who have gone the distance in the past to get one of those rare and near impossible items in Classic Wow.

I'm talking Thunderfury, Quel'Serrar, Chromie's quests for armor, the lvl 60 hunter bow, Anathema/Benediction, and others . Remember all those? Obtaining any one of these items put you in the elite. They were not easy to get, even if you got the necessary drops. There was either a huge and difficult quest chain that followed after, or you were forced to farm incredibly rare items like Elementium, Blood of Heroes, or Abomination stitching, or both.

The release of TBC made all these items nearly obsolete, which I'm sure was frustrating for folks who actually put forth the effort to obtain them. The solution: make them scalable like the new legacy items. Given that the legacy items are roughly equal to a blue of their level, it's not likely they'll trump epic drops from the later Wrath dungeons, but you'd still get to see the fruits of your efforts for a time. Might even give folks a reason to go back and do those quests again, keeping some of the old content still valid.

What do folks think? Is Nord off his rocker or are these actually some pretty good ideas? Comments/criticism welcome.

Merry Christmas...

2008-12-23T16:16:00.002-05:00

..Happy Holidays, Festive Feast of Winter Veil, all that from us of Ordo Serpentis to all of you.

Searching for Pawn Scales

2008-12-18T15:06:00.003-05:00

Recently, I was introduced to an awesome mod called Pawn. Pawn makes gear selection easier by giving you a quantifiable item value right on your tooltip. Each character can have multiple pawn values so that you can judge an item across roles from PvP to PvE, from Tank to DPS, etc. Thus, it allows a player to determine a need roll or a quest reward based on a straight value comparison instead of having to take time to weigh each stat separately. That's great when an unexpected item drops.

Here's what it can't do. It can't simply be loaded and run. Values must be customized to get real use out of the mod. Values must also be tracked and updated when game mechanics are changed in patches. Thus, it's not for the truly casual player. It's also not for the truly hardcore player because calculator spreadsheets like Rawr still (based on my reading) provide better itemization. It also doesn't take into account the "intangibles" of an item like survivability stats for a DPSer. Finally it can't calculate the value of flavor text, use activation or set bonuses. You still have to consider these things for yourself.

That sounds like a lot of things it can't do. Trust me, it's still awesome. If your math (or someone elses math) is valid then it will protect you from the "oh that looks cool" need roll that everyone hates. It will also keep you from piecing together the wrong gear, crafting downgrades or buying junk on the Auction House. (We've all done it.)

Now, there are two ways to put together Pawn values. Option one is to do your own math and then manually enter each stat. That's great if you're a mathematician or a stat-junky. I've actually been accused of being both, but I'm too lazy. Enter option two: Find someone else to do the work for you. The great thing about option 2 is that people are nice enough to put the values in an easy cut-n-paste format. Here's some that I've found.

Hunter DPS direct from the Hunter DPS Spreadsheet v80 on Elitist Jerks.

( Pawn: v1: "Hunter": ArmorPenetration=0.323, RedSocket=9.204, CritRating=0.373, Intellect=0.937, MetaSocket=12.08, Agility=0.575, HasteRating=0.258, BlueSocket=4.045, YellowSocket=8.648, Rap=0.369, HitRating=0.506, Ap=0.369, Mp5=0.432 )

Feral Druid values compiled by Flyv.

( Pawn: v1: "Cat (Toskk)": ArmorPenetration=1.0161, RedSocket=37.312, FeralAp=1, ColorlessSocket=37.312, Strength=2.332, MetaSocket=103.21, HasteRating=0.7236, Agility=1.6992, ExpertiseRating=1.0362, BlueSocket=18.66, YellowSocket=26.92, CritRating=0.83, HitRating=1.0334, Ap=1 )

( Pawn: v1: "Bear (Toskk)": RedSocket=113.7, ExpertiseRating=1.306, DodgeRating=2.685, ColorlessSocket=172.4, MetaSocket=329, Agility=3.429, Health=0.411, BlueSocket=172.4, YellowSocket=101.3, DefenseRating=1.885, Armor=1.066, Stamina=7.185 )

Now keep in mind that Flyv & the folks over at Elitist Jerks will all say that gear ranking is an ongoing process. These numbers may not always be the best ones. Theorycraft changes. Patches get released.

I plan to keep searching for good sources for not just my characters but toons played by all my friends and post them here.

Now that the newness has worn off

2008-12-18T11:48:00.003-05:00

In which I rant about everything I don't like about Wrath of the Lich King.

I'm concerned that Wrath is quickly losing it's new-car smell. It's such a shiny, creative place with all those poop quests but where are we? Looking for more poop quests? Lovely!

Getting my druid to 80 was not hard. Heck, the only real challenge has been finding enough time to play with all the holiday & end of the year madness.

I've pushed through to 435 leatherworking and replaced most of her gear already (the value of only having T4-equivalent gear.) I'm so over-geared for some of the stuff we're doing that I'm tempted to stop skilling to 440 because I just don't need those sweet looking epics.

I've done enough quests in Borean Tundra, the Dragonblight, Howling Fjord, & Grizzly Hills to earn each zone's questing achievements. That's half the continent done. Sure, there's a ton of content to go. I've been alternating between Sholazar Basin & Zul'Drak while searching for prime leather-grinding spots. I've been to all the regular instances. The only real challenge has been the last boss in the Oculus. It's a complete gimmick fight using the dragon instead of our own abilities. Our group just wasn't getting the hang of it. More on this later...

There's been some cool stuff along the way like the quest chains in Dragonblight and the Culling of Stratholme instance. Beyond that, it's in danger of becoming monotony.

What's worse is the reports from my friends. Typhia's guild, Edge is "farm clearing" Naxx. QSS is doing very well there as well. Some fellow Bears are reporting being bored and unchallenged by what they are seeing. In other words, the hardcore players are not being challenged. The middle-ground players (like myself) aren't being challenged. Worse yet, it's making us all sloppy players. Why learn to do things the right way when you can just muscle through everything?

The other day, I had a long discussion with Cainam where he pointed out that the place feels like it's a "gamma" release. He's right on the money. Ferals are still being heavily adjusted. DPS warriors are way too powerful with titan grip. Hunters are so OP that I've not been playing mine. I think hunters are in for a rude awakening when the 3.0.8 nerf gets pushed. Content is fun and colorful, but easy. Instead of balancing the game, they rushed it out the door for the holidays. Sure it's "fun." Sure it works. Sure they can fix it on the fly. It's one of the beauties of the ever-changing content of MMO's. But is this really the game they wanted?

Then there's vehicles...

I haven't tried pvp vehicles yet. I'm hoping that I enjoy that more than my other vehicle experiences. Sure, it's different and adds a new dimension to the game. But, really? I worked 80 levels and countless hours to learn my "craft" and now, I'm forced to abandon it to finish a quest or a boss fight? Who here didn't hate Gorefiend? It's the fight where one person can wipe the raid because they simply can't get the hang of a gimmick. I'm not talking about fight intricacy. Shade of Aran was a proper "idiot check." I don't mind facing off against a hard boss or a difficult process. I don't mind the concept of everyone having to pull their own weight. I don't mind wiping. I do mind when the game tosses out a player's effort to learn their class and their role. Places like Oculus are cool looking and add flavor to the game, but bleh, I don't like it.

I'm not saying that vehicles are hard to use. No, once you figure them out & adjusted your UI properly, they are rather easy. But, vehicles tend to be mindless process having little to do with actual skill. I either succeed on a vehicle with ease or I fail on a vehicle without having a clue why. How's that fun?

I get that there's some Heroic content that should be inviting and challenging. I get that there's more content to come. I love what they've done with the look & feel of the game. I even like the changes to tank threat-gen. I like the new swipe! I mostly like AE pulls. I don't like everything being an AE pull. I don't like getting to a boss, just to have it roll over and die. I don't want things to suddenly get harder. I wanted things to progressively get more challenging. When I was level 72 and slept through Ahn'kahet as the tank, there's a problem with the game.

Blizz swung the pendulum to the hard end when they released Burning Crusade and now it's swung to the easy end. Find me a happy middle and soon.

At this point, I'm almost looking forward to the 2 weeks away from home for Christmas vacation. It should make me miss the game and come back with a renewed desire to grind my professions.

Not to be outdone...

2008-12-16T20:31:00.002-05:00

What They Don't Teach you in Mage School

2008-12-16T16:39:00.003-05:00

So as I look at the toons in Ordo Serp I notice that there are a number of people with Mages as alts in the Ranks. So I figured I'd put together a little list of tips that folks may or may not have thought of.

1.) Have a Sheep Macro. I use a focus macro to set my target as the focus and then sheep it. This is a macro that can be found pretty easily just do a google search. In a group it's important to be able to keep something sheeped and not have it be a large effect on your DPS. This macro helps tons.

2.) Have a counterspell macro, or 2. The basic counterspell macro is simply:

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast counterspell

Typically when you need to counterspell you need it now and when you finish casting your current spell it will be too late. You can also build a focus macro like the sheep macro, although it's only situationally useful.

3.) Know your Nukes. Mages have a number of spells that could be classified as nukes. However, for each build there are usually only one or two that are truly effective. Know what spells you are casting and when. Whenever you cast a spell you should know why you are casting that particular spell. Have a reason. (Even if the reason is wrong it is still a reason and now you can learn from it.) If you don't have a reason to cast a spell that is different from your primary nuke, you should proably still be casting your primary nuke.

4.) Know your Gear. For the most part, Spell Damage is greater than anything else. If given the choice between spelldamage and something else, usually, you take the spell damage. Hit is Key vs bosses. It only take a little hit to hit a level 82, it takes a lot more to hit a level 83. Haste is a good DPS increase, but it also increases the rate you burn through mana. Crit is an increase in DPS with no increase in MPS. However, Crit does not scale very well, even in the crit heavy builds, like Frostfire. It's still worth aquiring, but don't sacrifice too much to get it.

5.) Know your builds. THere are 5 Builds that seem to work pretty well right now. (Well or will as of 3.0.8)
Deep Arcane w/frost: 53/0/18 (or similar) Should be viable come patch 3.0.8. Very Mobile spec. Good damage. Has +6% hit. Complex rotation and mana management. Does not bring the 10% crit forthe party/raid. Primary Nuke: AB - > ABAR

Deep Arcane w/fire: 53/18/0 (or similar) Very similar to the Arc/Frost build. POM Pyro is satisfying, but not worth basing a build around. Has improved scorch to bring the 10% crit buff. The loss of persoanl DPS makes this a hard pill to swallow, but if no one else can bright the 10% crit may still be worth it. Primary Nuke: AB - > ABAR

Deep Fire: 18/53/0 Not the king of DPS it once was but very powerful. At the end of the day it's still a fireball spam build. Primary Nuke: Fireball

FrostFire: 0/53/18: Currently the spec to beat. Big Crits, Simple playstyle. Long range. No Focus magic. Primary Nuke: Frostfire Bolt

Deep Frost: 18/0/53: Simpler playstyle with Frostbolt spam. Water elemental. Can work in some survivability talents without cripling damage. Primary Nuke: Frostbolt

Find a style that works for you and run with it. Your playstyle and how well you play the spec will matter much more than which spec you choose. Once you choose a build look up how they value certain stats and gear appropriately. (For example Arcane benefits from Int more than other builds while Frostfire gains more benefit from crit than the other builds.)

OK so that's enough to get you started. I can post more if folks are interested.

Deciding #3

2008-12-16T11:19:00.003-05:00

(Congratulations to LRNs and to all the Ordo folks who've hit 80 in the past few days.)

In the build-up to the release of any expansion, we players always make plans. Oh, I'm going to level toons A,B, and C in that order, and then work on a few other things. Most of the time, like battle plans in contact with the enemy, these ideas get thrown out the window once the expansion actually hits.

I am so there right now.

Admittedly, I did stick to some of my guns. I did keep to Stofnar as my "main" and he's now just a smidge short of level 80. My #2 was originally going to be my hunter, but then I rolled a DK and Avouz is now in Dalaran at level 74.

So, who becomes my #3?

The question hinges a lot on which 51-point talent I think is the coolest, least likely to be nerfed, and fits best my vision of the character. Here's the debate.

Hunter - Beast Mastery - Odds are good, Ellote's going to be seeing some revamp soon. I like the exotic pets, but the novelty has worn off for me. I'm actually eyeballing the Imperial Eagles in Grizzly Hills and thinking they might be a cool new pet once I get to 73-74. Will I keep a BM spec, even though the eagles aren't exotic, or go Marksman? Not sure yet.

Warrior - Titan Grip - The most broken ability in the game right now. Blizz clearly has no sense of how to balance this ability. Each 2-hander in the game is designed to be double a 1-hander in terms of DPS and stats, so each warrior with TG is getting the equivalent of 4 weapons worth of stats and damage. Nord is only going halfway with TG at the moment, keeping a Mt. Hyjal dagger in his off-hand for rage generation. But once I get a good second 2-hander, watch out.

Mage - Arcane Barrage - Jhera was often a frustrating character to play, since it seems mage has way too many options. Most other classes tend to spam a limited number of abilities. Mages have nearly a dozen spells to choose from to form that list and it can be overwhelming trying to figure out what combination works best. Arcane barrage changed all that for arcane mages. I spam barrage and missiles, repeat until mob is dead. Fire off a POM-arcane blast when clearcasting comes up. It's so simple now.

Warlock - Haunt - Khera's proving to be just as powerful as before. Haunt, curse of agony, siphon life, corruption, drain life or shadowbolt until mob dead. Haunt is nice in that it does good initial damage, a decent dot, and then a heal when it expires, all of which enhance the dot-o-matic nature of affliction locks. I've heard talk that the felhunter is the new affliction pet, but I find keeping to the old imp-as-mana-battery strategy still works fine.

So things are up in the air. One of the things I hope to do once Stof is 80 is start collecting badges to get some of the legacy shoulders for these toons. +10% XP will accelerate leveling all of them, but what order I go in is still up in the air. There are times I envy LRNs and those folks who only have 1 or 2 major toons. I'm an altaholic and I've got six toons level 70 or higher. This is a problem of my own making.

One Down, One To Go...

2008-12-15T01:01:00.000-05:00

Blizzard Announces Paid Sex Changes

2008-12-12T12:11:00.003-05:00

There has been a lot of interesting stuff to post about recently. There's the feral druid gear/tanking debate. It's a hot-button topic right now as exemplified by Kalon's recent blog post. There's the upcoming Hunter nerf. That one has me torn. I love my OP Hunter, but damn I'm OP.

Then there's the issue of the evil quests of late. Nord's recent post here is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The other day, the wife and I were killing what looked like American Bald Eagles for their eyeballs. Then we were cutting down all the remaining trees in a Harpy zone. Anyone else wonder if the reason for Harpy harpy-ness is the way we treat them?

Oh and let's not forget the growing feeling by a lot of long-time WoW players that the game is becoming a bit too easy (unless Blizz doesn't want you to kill a specific mob, then it becomes uber-powerful no matter what level you are...stupid Ruined Stone Giants!) Let's face it: Has anyone really been truly challenged? Remember when you first got to Ramparts in HFP? Remember Karazhan? Northrend is cool and different, but challenging? Grab yourself a good tank, a decent healer and AoE instances 2-3 levels higher than you. Seriously, who hasn't?

But today's topic is about none of that. Instead, I want to talk about paid sex changes. Oh, I'm sorry. I mean "character re-customizations." How insensative of me. OK, I'm a gaming snob. I get all snotty about people with stupid names like Imaboomkin. Real name! Search the armory if you don't believe me. Heck, QSS is filled with names like that. Some are good players, and even great people, but completely lame names. I hate it. Maybe I should move to a Role Playing server. But I digress...

So, now you can get a quicky "recustomization" for only $15. And why not? Beroth & Rhus have switched roles (main vs alt.) Maybe Beroth should get a quick snip. And Rhus spends 99% of her time in cat or bear form. So would it really matter if she was male or female? Blizz makes no gender distinctions for shapeshifting. Heck the only real "wood" in the game is resto-druids.

I put perhaps too much emotion into the idea of identity into characters. My image of people I know, in game, is shaped largely by their mains. Karthis is a bear. Poortyr is a hunter. Their personalities are often reflected in their toons and the way they play them. Sure, a lot of my friends and guildies often play toons that do not share their gender. This leads to hilarious moments when you see a "sexy" female rogue and then hear a baritone voice for the first time over Vent. Intentionally or not, it shapes a reality just as much as the quests.

This isn't a social commentary on gender identity, but instead a question about the nature of identity in the MMO world. Is a person's character completely irrelevant? Is the game just a game? And if so, why not let me change everything? Screw it. I don't want to play a male night-elf hunter anymore. Instead, let me pay to be a female forsaken priest. Aside from the issues of faction and ease of leveling, why not? If the game is "balanced," *snicker* then it makes no difference.

And yes, I know the answer to that question. Gender is cosmetic in WoW. Everything else has real "rules" issues including factions, purchased skills, etc. So, is the cosmetic part of the game important? Even on a pure PvP or PvE server, isn't the game an RPG? And if so, do these "character re-customizations" mean something?

This isn't to knock folks who simply rolled up the wrong character and have been suffering with a crappy name and the wrong look for 2 or 3 years. It's about what drives us to the game. Doesn't our character shape the experience? If you don't like your character's gender, doesn't that have the potential of shaping your game-play? Sure, you may just abandon your toon. But who hasn't abandoned toons? Heck, I've leveled more toons to 30 and gone "meh" than I have toons over 70.

Remember when I said this wasn't a social commentary? Yeah, I lied. Art can reflect and inform life. Remember the scourge plague and the debate that caused? WoW is, in many ways, one massive social experiment. Questions of fairness, equity, morality, and even sexuality are all playing out in front of us. The game is just a game. And yet, opening ourselves up to the game within the game, makes things a lot more interesting.

The one really interesting take-away here is the possibility that the game reflects a growing understanding that race, gender & gender identity can also become less important in the game of life. Wouldn't that be a great take-away?

Still, I hope that this doesn't lead to a generation of gamer-parents who come up with crappy baby names.

"Have you seen the pictures of their new baby 'Imaphilliesphan'?" Ugly kid, but man...what a name!

Role-playing Torture

2008-12-09T09:45:00.004-05:00

Ordo Serpentis plays on a non-role-playing server, Garona. Most of us however have a background in actual tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons and I, for one, will often put together a brief background that defines who my toons are.

For instance, Korathnord is an orphaned barbarian who was raised by high elves after the Scourge destroyed his people. This influences a few of my decisions in game. He chose Scryer as his Outland faction because of the blood elves, for example. He also now sports a "blood elf" hairstyle thanks to the new barber shop. But that's about as in-depth as this "role-playing" gets.

Enter Northrend and some of the new quests. Some folks have been commented on the sheer number of "poop" quests in Northrend. I've noticed an almost disturbing number of torture quests.

"Here, hit this guy with this pain wand until he talks."

"Here, feed this stuff to the prisoner downstairs."

"Here, stand by and watch as I torment this undead with holy pain."

"Ok, worgen, talk or I shoot your wife."

I'm not quite sure what to think about this. In real life, I have some pretty strong opinions against torture. I know this is a game, but I find these quests unsettling. I've sort of resolved my ambivalence by asking myself, "Would my character mind this sort of thing?"

It's bringing the role-playing aspect of my toons back up. Some would, as I understand them. Some would not. Stofnar, my new main, is a paladin and I still think of paladins as "holy warriors of virtue" from D&D. He would oppose this sort of thing. Nord wouldn't care. He's a barbarian after all.

Most people probably don't think about this, but it does add a disturbing aspect to the storyline. It points out something folks who are big into lore have known for a long time. Just because the Alliance is made up of the "good" races and the Horde the "evil" ones, it doesn't mean that the Alliance is all virtue and light and the Horde all evil and darkness. The Alliance can be quite villainous and the Horde very noble.

And now Stofnar has some soul-searching to do.

Restored!

2008-12-06T12:08:00.002-05:00

In response to my recent email to customer service, Blizzard has returned the remaining gold, over 3k of it, to my account. I'll good to go.

So, it pays to speak up. I still advocate dealing with customer service in a polite manner and letting them do their job. Just make yourself heard and make sure they know your frustration.

Tis the season to be hacked...

2008-12-05T09:14:00.003-05:00

Fortunately, I think I caught this one before I ended up like LRNs. Unfortunately, I think this one may have had some very ugly side effects.

Ok, now to confess my idiotic noob moment. I'm far too trusting and clicked on a message from an old high school classmate in Facebook, thinking it would be some cool nostalgic stuff from the old days. Nope, it was a loader for Infostealer.gamepass, a MMO password stealer. Dumb I know.

But I caught my mistake and immediately began running Norton to wipe the thing out. But here's my problem, a full system scan on Norton takes about 2-3 hours and it was 11pm when I caught the bug. So I let Norton run and went to bed, figuring I'd finish dealing with it in the morning.

Woke up this morning to a non-functioning computer.

I've changed my password to my WoW account and Armory seems to indicate that my account has not yet been breeched (I still have my stuff according to it.) I did all this on my wife's computer, since mine is dead...dead..dead.

The thing I can't figure out is how a password stealing keylogger could blow up my CPU. There's no mention on any internet articles about it having such a malicious side effect. It's just a password stealer. I suppose it could be that my computer was just ready to give up the ghost anyway, but that seems pretty unlikely also since it's less than 2 years old.

So Nord is out of action on WoW for the foreseeable future. No clue when I'll get my computer fixed or replaced.

Update: Good news. Turns it out, odds are good it wasn't the virus that fubar'd my machine. It was the virus checker itself, which scanned my active RAM and apparently stumbled onto a defective or loose memory chip while doing so. That's what caused the crash and the subsequent headaches.

I've reconfigured my hardware, shuffled the chips around, and everything seems to be working again. Virus has been eliminated and I'm running further scans to make sure it's gone for good (FYI, it was Koobface, not infostealer.)

Should be back up and running shortly. Sorry for the false alarm, but this was likely to be an issue in-game eventually anyway.

Restoration Conclusion

2008-12-04T12:39:00.004-05:00

After 13 days of waiting, with minimal contact from Blizzard, I received 1850 gold today and an email saying that they were done. I'm still missing over 2,000 gold.

Note: My horde toons were also wiped clean, but I let that one go since I never play any of them.

In response, I sent them some "feedback."

To Whom It May Concern:

Thank you for your efforts in restoring most of my account possessions. After an excessive amount of time (13 days) I finally received the following email regarding the conclusion of my account restoration. I am still missing over well over 2,000 gold from my other characters. Am I to conclude from this message that I will not be receiving it?

We are both victims of a crime. Since, it's obvious to me on the front-end that I'm still missing gold, how difficult (after 13 days of looking) could it be for you to not see that it was taken during the hack?

I was taking all reasonable steps to secure my account. Cyber criminals are constantly taking advantage of new and creative exploits to steal from us. On the day of the hack, my system was free of viruses & trojans. My software was completely up-to-date. I don't share my password. I don't play other places. My only obvious failure was not changing my password for several weeks.

But, clearly the password rules put in place are not secure enough. So, since the hack, I've taken additional steps to buy an authenticator keychain.

And that's the bottom line here. Your loyal customers are being robbed but the nice little "Terms of Service" lay the blame on us, the victims. I understand the need for these legal protections. At the end of the day, however, you are a company selling a product to your consumer.

Customer care should be a higher priority than 13 days of minimal contact, "partial" restorations and hiding behind legal documents. I don't need to have "everything" returned. I don't need daily updates. But, more of both would have been better.

I am not oblivious to the chaos you are facing with the expansion. I am not insensitive to the impact of hackers on your business. I simply question the level of customer service I have received in this matter.

That done, I'm moving on. I have to. In the end, it doesn't matter. I got my gear back so I can play. I have friends who covered me for gold over the last 13 days. Those same friends will give me more if I run out (and not even ask for it back.) Heck, I will make more gold.

Friendship, Distance & Political Protests

2008-12-02T00:48:00.005-05:00

I'm about to write in several paragraphs what I could easily write in one. Verbosity may or may not be my problem...shall we discuss?

OrdoSerp is more than a blog or a little alt-guild. It's a group of friends trying to remain close. Unfortunately, one of our friends is having a major disruption to his expansion excitement and it's like nothing you've encountered.

The amazing thing about the internet & MMORPG's is the way they shrink our world. Twelve years ago, Cal and I met Nord when he stumbled upon us playing Magic the Gathering in a common area at grad school.

Note: Cal swears that the ink on Magic cards have addictive properties. Also, Blue decks were Nord's kryptonite.

Over the years, we integrated into Nord's geek social group. It's that social group that serves as the backbone of the OrdoSerp guild. The years and countless miles have not been able to weaken the friendships we've made. In many ways, World of Warcraft has been one of the major reasons. Perhaps it's because WoW enables us to keep from going outside and meeting new people...

...which are two things that are very difficult for computer geeks and D&D nerds....But I digress...

Reminiscing and self-deprecating aside, WoW is important to us. Left to our own devices most of the individuals in our group might have long-abandoned Warcraft for other activities. As it stands, we struggle with real life time commitments, differences in play-style & leveling speed. Some of us are raiders, some are not (and none for the same raiding guild.) Needless to say, Wrath was highly anticipated not just because it represents new challenges & new content, but also because it's the closest thing we have to a "level-set" without rolling yet another group of alts.

Alas, none of us were prepared for the impact of political unrest in a foreign country.

Our dps warrior, Mardigilian lives in Thailand. For those of you who've been leveling all your toons non-stop and/or simply never look at international news, there are major political protests in Thailand right now which have shut down the airports.

Now, why does this matter? Well, Mard's dad pre-ordered and then express shipped Wrath (at great expense) here in the states so that our friend could play WoW with us ASAP. His game, for all we know, could be sitting at the airport waiting to be delivered to his home.

Now obviously the inconvenience of waiting for a video game is nowhere near as important as the thousands of travelers stuck, the protesters who were killed, or the political upheaval. But, it's also a lot worse than my 2-day lockout due to my account being hacked. In fact, it probably trumps all of our OMG, I can't get Wrath immediately stories due to store glitches, lines, hardware issues, & install problems combined.

Of course, hindsight being what it is, Mard could have gotten the game through other "slower" means except for the large quantities of money already poured into getting the game "quickly."

So, next time when see someone has leveled faster than you or gotten to see new content before you, think of Mard who's still doing dailies in Outland waiting for political stability so he can get his game.

As I prepare to post this, events in Thailand are rapidly improving. With any luck, Mard will have the game in time to celebrate the King's Birthday.

Something for the Gamer Who Has Everything

2008-12-01T13:44:00.002-05:00

I saw a story about this on my favorite environmentalist blog, Treehugger. I thought this would make the ultimate WoW player desk and had to share it.

Anyway, the company website PCE is good for a laugh. Part of me thinks it's an elaborate hoax and part of me wants one.

More Secure Than My Bank Account

2008-11-29T23:03:00.003-05:00

Two Blizzard Authenticators arrived in my mailbox today. I got the PTouch out and labeled them so we could tell them apart. Then, I set them up on our systems in seconds. The process was easy. The extra step of getting the random secure number and entering it is fairly painless. The price included shipping and was reasonable @ $6.50 each. Of course, now I'm more nervous about misplacing them than getting my account hacked. For now, we're keeping them at the bases of our respective monitors. I was thinking about getting some retractable keychains like people get for keycards at work. Heck, we probably have some lying around.

When Bears Fly

2008-11-24T22:39:00.004-05:00

Frantically Flying Flvy

Now, with Kung Fu Action!

I couldn't resist. Gratz on 77...you bastard!

Flawless victory. Fatality.

2008-11-24T12:46:00.002-05:00

You knew someone was going to do it eventually....

Scorpion's "Get over here" for Death Knights using Death Grip

(This is the sort of thing I get to do for the next week while I'm in WoW withdrawal, look up goofy little add-ons and read blog posts about the game.)

I'm Back

2008-11-24T12:40:00.003-05:00

Account is back up and running. I think I've gotten all my gear. I'm still missing my gold, all 5k worth of it, but Typhia is covering me until it is. I've taken this time to follow Blizzard's request that I clear my UI settings & mods. I'm doing it not because I think account settings & addons caused my issues. Instead, when faced with the opportunity for a clean slate and a chance to wipe bad settings, I might as well take it. Unfortunately, I'm a pack-rat. So, the mountains of items that I now have to sort through is insane.

There's only one real problem now.

My inlaws are in-route for Thanksgiving visit, eta 2 hours. I really love my inlaws, but I really want to organize my stuff and get back to leveling. Sigh!

Waiting

2008-11-23T18:13:00.002-05:00

Well, I'm still locked out. I've received an email stating that most of my items have been restored with a long list of said items. I've received an email with a temporary password. The password page tells me that my account is still locked out but the time stamp is for several hours ago.

I've watched all of my Netflix films, my team has played football (although I wouldn't call that "playing") and even done some Christmas shopping. I've got nothing else. The book I've been reading isn't very good. I've caught up on my Heroes viewing.

The time away from the game itself isn't so bad except that it's the 2nd weekend since the expansion and the last weekend before things get nuts for the holidays. Rhus is sitting 1/2-way to 74 & Beroth is 1/2-way to 72.

Then, there's the wife. She's been cleaning all day and is looking forward to a nice evening leveling her druid or mage. So basically, I need to find something to do away from the computers or spend my time watching her play without me.

The good news is that the security software on her system was not compromised and she didn't get hacked too. It's small comfort, but I'll take it.

Sigh!

2008-11-22T14:56:00.000-05:00

Hacked

2008-11-22T08:43:00.007-05:00

Well, it finally happened. My WoW account has been hacked. I verified from my wife's bank alt, that OrdoSerp's bank has been totally cleaned out. It had over 2k gold, stacks upon stacks of healing & mana potions, & a ton of Burning Crusade crafting items that didn't get sold durning the expansion run-up. OrdoSerp kept the gold access confined to just my account to protect us from random hacks like this. Heck, I was on my account less than 6 hours ago checking my Auctions before bed. I run full system scans weekly, keep up active scans, worked in IT for several years and am, to say the least, very careful with all my information.

My account has a 24 hour ban on it while they investigate, so, I won't be playing or seeing the damage anytime soon.

Update #1

I've just finish a complete system scan (virus/spyware) on all 3 computers...nothing. I ran scans using other programs...nothing. I've been skimming the forums looking for examples of issues...nothing.

I changed my wife's password info on her computer just in case.

I surf using Firefox w/ NoScript running. I suppose I could have turned off security on a website, but my security software scans should have caught anything. I don't use my WoW password for anything else. And I don't log on to any computers other than ours. I, unfortunately, haven't changed that password in over a month, but usually I do. The only change I made this week was downloading some quest addons. But those shouldn't have gotten my account hacked. Besides, addons should not cause a hacked account, only their source.

I use a Merc keyboard running the ZBoard engine & I use WoWMatrix. But there are no reports of issues with either of these.

There's nothing remotely suspicious running on my task manager either.

Everything here is behind a router/firewall and I keep Windows Firewall on. Yes, Windows Firewall isn't the most secure software firewall out there, but it should be "fine" being run in conjunction with a hardware firewall.

I am at a complete and utter loss here.

I just have to wait and see what Blizzard says. Not that they will tell me anything.

Update #2

My account was hacked at approximately 3AM EST. I assume everything is gone.

After several hours of extensive system scans, a conversation between my wife & and in-game GM, several searches through the forums, and a lot of bad words, I have found nothing...

Absolutely nothing except one tiny "low threat" cookie that seems to be getting past my NoScripts filter currently.

Could something have gotten past FireFox, NoScripts, CA Security Center, Window Defender and remain completely undetected after extensive searches? Yes. Could it have happened weeks ago and since been removed? Yes.

The thing that is really upsetting me is not the part about being hacked, having my virtual stuff stolen or even my account being temporarily banned. It's the not finding anything on my system or any evidence of something on my system. I would much prefer I find something and chock it up to bad luck.

Instead, I've got that nagging feeling like I've missed something. And if "they" hacked my blizzard account, should I worry about my other online accounts like email, iTunes, Amazon, ... , bank accounts? Which, again, I rigorously secure, just like my WoW account.

I've purchased a pair of the authenticator tags for us. They should arrive in the next week or so.

Update #3

They have reset my password, but my account suspension looks like it's going to remain in effect until tomorrow afternoon. No WoW for me. Not that I would want to WoW if all my epics are gone.

Update #4

This is the last "update" I'll add to this thread. I've reinstalled my "stronger" software firewall and have been looking things over. My conclusion? There's nothing here. A few weeks ago, I logged onto the game on the "entertainment" PC connected to our TV. I detected a Trojan on that machine last week. That's when it must have happened and the goldspammers only got around to using my password last night.

Professional Frustration

2008-11-21T09:46:00.002-05:00

Now that I've been working heavily on leveling up a death knight, I've also been trying to figure out what professions to give to him. With my large stable of alts, he's going to overlap with someone else no matter what, so I figured I'd go with something that Avouz could benefit from himself: Enchanting.

Enchanting is easy, if a bit tedious, to level. You buy up a slew of mats and just hit your bracers, gloves, and whatever else over and over again to level your skill. The problem is you eventually run out of mats, namely around 250 skill or so.

This is because no one runs the old Classic endgame dungeons anymore. They skip to Outland immediately at level 58, which means stocks of enchanting mats like Eternal essences and illusion dust are pretty scarce. When they do show up in the AH, the prices are outrageously high.

So, my only recourse to grind Avouz those last 25 points or so is to send Stofnar into Scholo and Strath and have him farm those places for green drops. At level 73, he should have no trouble, but it's annoying. Only enchanting really has this problem. Low 50 folks can mine thorium and skin rugged leather and all those sorts of mats, but GEEs and illusion dust only come from those occasional lvl 55+ green drops that aren't from Outland.

Grrr.

Learn to DPS n00b!

2008-11-20T00:18:00.005-05:00

Rhus, my "little bear," is a small-group tank. I've raided enough on her to know I like it and would like to find a part-time (as my health permits) off-tank role in a raiding guild, preferably QSS but I'm keeping my options open. My only concern is dps. The role in a 25-man I'd like is one somewhere in that #3-4 tank/dps slot. Except I am so accustomed to solo-cat/group-bear that I've spent next to no time dps'ing. I need practice.

Enter Typhia, the Death Knight tank. Typhia is power-leveling for his guild, Edge.

This should be a win-win situation for me. OrdoSerp now has two mains who tank as their preferred role. Having Typhia around for group activities or for 10-mans when we get to them, means I have no pressure. For a while, I was the best tanking choice for OrdoSerp. Sometimes, however, that meant I was the only tank available for our group. Now, I can tank, off-tank, dps, even off-heal. Tonight, we blasted through Azjol-Nerub & Ahn'kahet. Typhia tanked and I dps'ed. We've done the opposite in both places with great success.

Now, let me emphasize that I know tanking. It's instinct. I rarely even look at my abilities/spells. I just click the right key in rhythm with the global cooldown. If I knew then what I know now, my first toon would have been one that could tank instead of my beloved hunter.

Furthermore, Bear tanks dish out a lot of damage right now. I'm out damaging other party members on AoE pulls. I also know my group. I react to their presence instinctively. I know that Stofnar, the Retadin, is durable, boosts my damage and can take take orders like "Protect the healer" or "Heal me" with great responsiveness. I know that Sofea, the Frostmage, will inevitably pull the #5 mob in an AE pull off of me. I know it so well, I can usually plan for it. I know that in "wave" fights, Calendriel's dots are always on someone, making it a safe bet that I should move toward her when mobs spawn.

Unfortunately, none of this is true when I switch to cat and take a dps role. Getting behind a single target and staying there is surprisingly disorienting right now. There's absolutely no time to get into anything like a rhythm. By the time I get a few shreds in and pop a finishing move, not only is my target dead, everything else is dead. The AoE took care of that. My damage & dps is dismally low in these fights. The truth? I feel like I'm spending more time trying to find the ass-end of a mob than I am fighting. That's just frustrating.

Boss fights or complex pulls with extra adds, it does get more interesting. On those pulls, things happen. I could end up cycling through a real attack rotation on a "stable-positioned" boss. I could end up switching to bear to help the DK pick up some mobs, even steal them from him while the healer tops him off. I could pop up to remove poison, back-up heal, or become the shit the party looks bad "tranquility!" The healer's in trouble. No problem. The healer's dead. No problem. My weak trash damage become forgotten thanks to pure utility.

Clearly, there's life for single-target cat to raid and put up good numbers. What I lack is experience in this role. I will get it. The question is about my real place in raiding. Is that what I really want? Do I really want to be the "extra" Off-tank because my class is so naturally good at it? Or do I need to be true to myself and say No! I'm a main-tank or #1 off-tank kind of guy. I'm the kind of guy who focuses on bear talents and bear responsibilities.

I will need real, honest opportunities to slay dragons. I need to pounce and shred them. To build combo points using max-dps rotations. I need to do this in such a way that I am making the most out of my situation in the new world of AoE instancing. Because there's no such thing as a sheep pull anymore.

The easy answer tonight would have been for me to bring Beroth. He would easily put up 1.2-1.4k dps on trash pulls instead of my weak 6-700 dps). But Beroth is like an old shoe. I know everything there is to know about the toon. I don't plan on raiding with him. There's no lesson learned. Rhus is the best choice.

The Triumphant Return...

2008-11-16T07:35:00.002-05:00

Everyone goes into a new expansion with certain expectations. Oh, I'm going to focus on this character and this character, work up my professions, play in these zones, etc.

In many ways, I've not deviated from my intended path all that much. Stofnar is now officially my main toon. He's hit Uthgardt Keep and the Nexus. He's just a smidge short of level 71. I'm getting compliments about how my DPS is competitive in a way it never was when I was playing Nord.

It's a nice payoff. Stofnar was one of the very first toons I rolled and he's been a labor of love ever since. Emphasis on "labor." Prior to the 3.0.2 patch, paladins were a chore to play. I kept at him out of stubbornness more than anything.

But the one toon that's been missing from my retinue all this time is my usual namesake, Avouz. WoW is probably the first game in ages where my central character has not been someone based off of my iconic D&D toon from back in the day.

It's not that I haven't tried. I rolled an Avouz around the same time as Stofnar and Nord, a night elf rogue. Got him to the early 40s, but hated rogue. Deleted him. Rolled him again as a warrior. Got him into the 20s before I realized he was just not going to be different enough from Nord to be interesting. Deleted him again. Horde night on Malfurion gave me another incarnation, this time as a blood elf paladin. Here, I ran into a lot of the same trouble as I had with Stofnar and eventually we abandoned our toons on Malf to focus on Garona.

Enter the death knight. I wasn't sure this was going to work, since the roleplayer in me wasn't sure that Avouz would work as an undead monster turned good again. But I rolled him anyway.

Wow. Not only is the death knight starting zone some of the best storytelling WoW has offered yet, but the class is a lot of fun to play. I'm still trying to figure out what to do next, since I hardly use half my abilities. I don't need to. I feel way overpowered and I'm just kicking ass wherever I go. Having a blast doing it.

So, odds are good my #2 toon in Wrath is going to be Avouz. Typhia's pretty keen that we stick to our guns in terms of leveling our mains all at once, rather than split our group time between all our alts. He's got a good point, so Stofnar will be my group toon. But my solo toon, the toon I play when everyone else is either offline or otherwise occupied, is going to be Avouz for a while.

Forces of evil, beware. He's back.

Oh, yeah, they did....

2008-11-13T19:20:00.004-05:00

My wonderful friends in Ordo "arranged" for a copy of Wrath to show up at my house today. Of course, my wife got it first and now I have to make nice with her in order to play. But hey, that's a bonus too. Awesome new game and time with the wife.

Of course, not quite sure where to begin in-game. I had all these plans to occupy my next two weeks in Outland.

Nice problem to have. Thanks guys.

It has begun!

2008-11-13T11:09:00.002-05:00

(No apologies to Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat)

Well, Wrath went live at midnight and already the signs can be seen. I logged on this morning to post and check auctions with my bank alt. Stormwind was as empty as I've ever seen it.

A few Wrath items are already appearing on the AH at highly inflated prices. (20g for a single lesser cosmic essence?)

Haven't seen a death knight yet, but I'm guessing they're all still working their way through the starting zone for that class.

I don't envy those trying to level in Borean Tundra right now. I'm sure those Northrend zones are insane right now. Maybe there's a silver lining to not getting the expansion at launch after all.

Still Down

2008-11-12T11:15:00.003-05:00

Before the first expansion there were times when server maintenance ran a long time. But now, with the servers still down at 11:15 AM EST on Wednesday, I can't remember when the servers have been down for this long. The expansion will be available to purchase/pickup in less than 13 hours!

Good luck Blizzard. Hope the servers are up soon. I hope your tech people get some sleep soon.

Tough Choices

2008-11-12T10:22:00.002-05:00

So far the hardest decision to make regarding switching mains from warlock to death knight has been what race to pick. In fact with less than 24 hours to go I still haven't settled on anything. My first instinct was to go with Draenei since I think they are visually the most polished race Blizzard has put out so far. Normally that would be sufficient for me since the racial abilities really only make a difference at the cutting edge of PvE/PvP play. But now, 2 days before Wrath releases, the leadership of my raiding guild has decided we should be a top 100 guild. Our server first Kil'Jaeden kill (it makes me cry that it had to come after the Great Nerf of '08) got us a U.S. ranking of 172, and a world rank of 403. So we will definitely need to step things up if we want to get into the top 100 U.S. This makes me think my racial bonuses could be a little more important than just icing on the cake. So, the big question is now, what is my raiding role with a death knight? I'd like to be one of the guild's MTs (and the night elf racial is going to be huge for tanking), but there are 4 others in the guild that are interested in MT roles (one of each tanking class) and all of them have experience from the entirety of BC as MTs (though the other death knight's experience is as a feral druid tank). Realistically this means I will probably be at best an OT for trash, and will mainly be doing melee dps. I'm fine with that, but the night elf racials don't really do anything to help with dps, whereas humans and draenei have good dps racials. But then what happens if we lose a tank and they decide to recruit outside the guild since I didn't roll a night elf and will be at a disadvantage tanking? Sigh.

First instincts are probably the best to go with, and Draenei chicks are really hot.

Building for Wrath

2008-11-11T22:32:00.003-05:00

I've been doing a lot of research tonight (damn broken servers) on tweaking Rhus' build. I've changed my talents a few times since the patch so I could play with stuff like Infected Wounds (meh) and Berserk (love it) but it's not streamlined and it's time for me to choose my path from 70 to 80.

The insane number of options is killing me. I've reviewed various recommendations from all the best feral bloggers including Kalon, Karthis & Flyv.

Leveling Specs - Flyv
Core Bear Talents - Kalon

Unfortunately, as much as there's synergy & consensus, there's uncertainty & choices. I wish I could squeeze 85 levels worth of talents into 80 levels worth of Rhus.

Tomorrow, OrdoSerp is going to try and clear Kara & part of ZA with 6-7 players as fast as we can as a last BC hurrah. For it, I may load up on bear talents before my "final" expansion respec. But after that?

It's clear to me that I want to try and eventually get all of Kalon's "core" talents by level 80. It's also clear that I want to shift my focus to include more cat/dps talents both for leveling & for a potential life as a feral dps/#4 raid tank role.

Here's how I'm leaning.

0/50/11 - PvE Leveling Build

This build includes Shredding Attacks, Predatory Instincts & Omen of Clarity. The next steps, I think, are to take Rend & Tear (5/5), Berserk (1), Protector of the Pack (3/3) & Natural Reaction (1/3).

Do I miss much as a level 80 tank not having 3/3 Natural Reaction? And if so, what could I possibly give up? One option would be Shredding Attacks, but wouldn't that significantly nerf my dps? Isn't the ability to dps my "in" when applying to for a role as an end-game raider?

Since level 80 is at least a month away (maybe more with holiday family obligations) I'm sticking with this plan until then. I suspect that someone will have theory-crafted the hell out of this by the time I'm raiding. I'll make the necessary adjustments then. Until then, I think I have a plan.

With only one more day to the expansion, I feel like I need a "24" countdown clock running somewhere.

Wrath @ Midnight

2008-11-11T15:54:00.002-05:00

My local GameStop, where I pre-ordered copies of Wrath for the wife and me, is doing a midnight release party.

What do I do? What do I do?

Bear Goes to Tempest Keep

2008-11-11T12:54:00.003-05:00

For personal reasons, I stepped away from raiding this summer. I also stepped away from my hunter at the same time. I focused on my Feral Druid and helped OrdoSerp get into Heroics & 10-mans without having to pug dps or beg someone to jump on their tanking alt. It's been great. I missed the excitement of raiding but not the stress. Soon though, I started to wonder how I would do tanking in a real raid. Could I handle it? Would I enjoy it? Would it be less stressful than dps'ing?

Last night as I sat down to watch a DvD, Cainam called me up and begged me to bring Rhus to Tempest Keep with QSS. Cainam has been trying to get his mage, Sofea, in on a Kael'thas kill in TK for months. With only a few days to go before the expansion, this was, perhaps, his last legitimate chance.

The problem with "best friends" is that sometimes you have to get up off the couch with your freshly popped popcorn & just-queued DvD and actually do something for them.

And so, there I was in TK on Vent with people I haven't spoken to for months off-tanking mobs in my Bear's first 25-man raid.

I had several things working for me. First, the entire raid consisted of seasoned raiders who knew the instance. Second, most of them were on their mains with T5 & T6 equivalent gear. Third, I was the 2nd off-tank with very low pressure. Fourth, I know TK from my time on Beroth. And finally, the place has been majorly nerfed.

So, how'd I do?

I discovered early on, with the help of Flyv (on his alt-hunter) quietly whispering advice to me, that my Glyph of Maul needed to be destroyed. I inadvertently broke a sheep when I fired off some Mauls on my tank target. Oops! No harm, no foul. Or should I say Fowl. It was Sofea's penguin "sheep" I broke.

I was not standing close enough to the edge of my first platform assignment for Al'ar and only lived thanks to a ton of health and a smart healer who called out in Vent for me to reposition myself. But, I did well tanking Al'ar during the ground phase and even held threat against the T6-geared Pally off-tank.

We then went and killed Void Reaver. I learned there that there was no way that I could keep up in a threat race with two T6-geared veteran raiding tanks for threat and could have just cat-dps'ed for the fight.

As we downed VR, it suddenly hit me that I had only the vaguest clue about my job on Kael'thas would be. Hell, when I stopped raiding, Beroth had only seen 3 phases of the fight. What do I do? What do I do???

Whisper-spam Flyv, "WHAT DO I DO?!?"

Thankfully, Flyv is an amazingly standup guy and I had nothing to worry about. I did my job almost flawlessly. (I'm as shocked as you are.) It took 3 pulls to get him due to some dps errors. That was fine for me, because with each pull I learned more stuff about the role of a feral druid in raiding. I shifted form throughout the phases, tossing battle res's, doing cat dps & dealing with my tanking assignments.

After we downed Kael we went on to put a smackdown on Solarian. I got no gear (I was out-rolled on the VR shoulders by 3 points) and I didn't care. A friend, also on an alt, lamented that they didn't get any gear. All I could think was "OMG, I can raid-tank! OMG, I finally got to kill Kael'thas!"

It was a very good night.

What to do while everyone else is in Northrend leveling...

2008-11-10T08:37:00.004-05:00

Real life financial realities being what they are, odds are good I'm not going to be able to purchase Wrath when it releases this Thursday. In fact, I'm likely not to see it until my birthday at the end of this month.

So while all the other members of Ordo dash off to Northrend to begin the war against the Scourge, I'm stuck with Outland and Quel'Danis. Thankfully, being a "alt-aholic" as LRNs points out gives me a few options.

Raid the AH for Northrend greens. These should be upgrades for a lot of my toons. Granted Nord with his T4/T5 level epics isn't going to find much, if anything. But Stofnar (my new paladin main) still has a few green items, as do my warlock and my hunter.
Level a few lowbie alts. I've got a low-40s druid and a mid-20s shaman waiting in the wings. I could put a few levels on them in the meantime.
Level my hunter's pets. The new feature that dings pets automatically to 65 is a great help, but a level 65 pet vs. a level 70 mob is still pretty weak. Ellote's a beast master and has picked up two new exotic pets, a silithid and a core hound. Lots of work to get them to 70 and ready for Northrend.
Grind rep. Stofnar is an alchemist by profession and he could really use those fancy alchemist stones that are available at exalted SSO.
Achievements. Got a few lowbie dungeons that I don't have credit for on my various alts. Some of these can be soloed by toons at 70.

So, while all of you are enjoying your new content, I'm playing catch up on alts back in the "old" world. Remember that....

The Return to Karazhan

2008-11-07T08:45:00.003-05:00

I've been playing this game almost since launch (I came in right after the Maraudon patch, for those who remember those days.) In the course of that time, I've been a part of four different raiding guilds. I've also had to deal with pretty much every possible problem that comes along as a part of said guilds.

I've had to deal with pissy guild leaders, prima donna officers, attention whores, lackluster performance, overzealous raiders, and the often inevitable implosion/disintigration of the guild. A lot of this comes about because of the annonimity of the Internet, where people can be jerks in ways they wouldn't face-to-face.

But we put up with it, because we want raid content. We wanted to kill Ragnaros. We wanted to farm Nefarian. We wanted phat lootz, like Ashkandi and Tier pieces and whatever else.

TBC changed the dynamic somewhat by lowering the maximum raid size from 40 to 25. Fewer people to get pissy about raiding, the more stable guilds would be. Less dead weight, etc. Well, things didn't really change all that much, so now in Wrath, you're going to be able to raid with as few as 10 in every raid instance.

We've been putting this concept to the test in Ordo by hitting TBC 10-man content with our little guild. We don't have 10. We have 8, and one of them is still leveling to 70. Technically, we're tearing through Kara and ZA with only 7.

And we're kicking serious ass. Our first run last week cleared Kara of all bosses save Netherspite (and he is so not worth it.) We also took out 3 of the initial bosses in ZA. Last night, we repeated our success, clearing Kara through Shade with only a single wipe due to a botched Curator pull.

On average, we're not overgeared with Tier 6 equipment. We have some folks with that stuff, but we also have virgin 70s with instance blues and AH greens. One of our real advantages is years of raid experience. We know these fights. We know how to beat them. And the potency given to every class in the 3.0.2 patch doesn't hurt.

We're hoping to carry this over into Wrath. Can we take Naxx with only 7 or 8? Who knows? But I'm eager to try.

Keyboard Layout

2008-11-04T15:02:00.003-05:00

I'm planning a more detailed post about ergonomics for gamers, but I'm really excited about this and wanted to post this for my friends. My Merc keyboard arrived yesterday. I was able to spend just enough time before the server maintenance to unbox it and try the WoW pre-made keyboard layout. I immediately hated that layout. The layout was clearly for easy access to various windows like bags, character screen & spellbook. That's completely pointless. So after some tweaking, some reading and some tests, I figured out a good configuration for me.

In conjunction to the Bartender4 mod, I'm maximizing my access to the most needed spells and abilities. I'm also planning on mimicing some of the button postions with on-screen layout. Visually, I want 1-6 & 7-11 to match the positions over the directional keys. The layout matches (almost exactly) the layout I prefer on your basic QWERTY keyboard, only button postions are easier to reach.

When the game comes back online, I'll take some screenshots for Rhus & Beroth to show you what I mean.

Switching Mains

2008-11-03T10:51:00.002-05:00

One of the frequent questions players have to face is what to do when you discover you like one of your alts better than your main.

I've been playing Korathnord since Day One. He was the very first toon I rolled in WoW. That, in of itself, is a bit unusual. But the time has come for me to consider switching to someone else.

This has been building for sometime. When TBC came out, Nord was an arms DPS/off-tank warrior. He did okay in that form, but after the first round of druid nerfs it became clear that Ordo needed Nord as a full tank. Then the problems became apparent. I just wasn't very good at tanking. I got better with practice, but was never comfortable playing that role.

Then came endgame and the desire of several Ordo folks to move their mains into raiding guilds (for most of us, it was Que Sera Sera). I became the odd-man out. Most raiding guilds don't need tanks and don't want DPS warriors, and, unsurprisingly, QSS didn't really need either. I specced fury and held my own for a time, but as the raiding content got more complex and difficult, I got left behind for rogues a lot. I spent a lot of time on the guild wait-list for raids. Eventually, I gave up and requested that I become what QSS calls "F&F," friends and family who are members of the guild, but not raiders.

And Nord went into the dustbin for a time as I leveled alt after alt. I got my mage to 70, then my hunter, then my warlock, and now just last week, my paladin, Stofnar.

So I have a broad list to choose from, and somewhat interestingly enough, it is the last of these that is most likely to become my new main: the paladin.

Part of that is, of course, the fact that post 3.0 patch, retribution paladins are way overpowered. It's fun slaughtering my way through hordes of mobs even as badly undergeared as I am. But even with nerf after nerf, I'm finding my enthusiasm holding fast.

Here's a big part of the reason. Before, both with Ordo and with QSS, I was locked in as melee DPS. Stofnar is not so limited. Even as ret, I can spot heal. I can tank. I can DPS. I can fill multiple roles and be useful. I've got versatility I lacked with Nord.

This is particularly handy in small guild gaming like we do here in Ordo. When you've got an eight person guild, and when it's anyone's guess who is going to be online on a given night, it's real handy to be able to fill any role.

That doesn't just apply to five-man content either. LRNs has been lauding our efforts in Kara and ZA this past week. Stofnar was along for much of the Kara run and it did help that I could swap to healing or tank gear depending on the pull.

In Wrath, I intend to level all my toons to 80 eventually, even Nord. But odds are good Stofnar will be my first to do so and will be my main toon for most 5-man and raiding content in the future.

Old Friends

2008-11-02T23:02:00.000-05:00

One of the true marks of a long-time Beastmaster is his or her attachment to their pets. Before patch 3.0.2, many of us worked really hard to pick out and tame just that special someone to call our "best friend." Now with the new power of "exotic pet," these beauties are getting dumped into the Stable or even *gasp* dismissed. Here's to you Aslan and all the pets we loved before. Perhaps someday, (after they nerf hunter again) I will try out the new Marksman or Survival trees. Until then, rest oh king.

Virgin Raider

2008-11-02T22:24:00.000-05:00

Mardigilian has never raided. He's never been in a raiding guild. He's one of our few "mains" who is actually a member of Ordo Serpentis. Last week seven of us went to Karazhan to kill Attumen the Huntsman & try the temporary event boss. Thanks to the recent changes we were able to stay and do a full clear with just 7. Amazingly, only 2 of our party were in T5 or better gear. Most of the party still had a mix of Kara-level gear or PvP gear on. This screen shot is for him.

Grats on your first "Raid!"

Managing the Guild Within the Guild

2008-11-02T22:12:00.000-05:00

Another "relevant" re-post from Beroth the Hunter

How did you get into World of Warcraft? Did you do it by yourself? Did you do it to meet people?

If you're like me, you did it with a group of friends. Two or three of us started, but then the rest of us joined in. We live hours apart. WoW brings us back together. I've nearly quit the game dozens of times, but my friends keep me playing.

Even now after joining an end-game raiding guild, my friends figure prominently on my game-play decisions. Which raids will I sign up for? Which days will I reserve for them? When will I go do RL stuff and when will I log on simply to hang out and chat with them? The good news is that most of them are in the same guild with me. For the most part, the guild schedule is "our" schedule.

The drive to progress in end-game raiding can be all-consuming. When I'm not raiding, I'm often doing quests or farming materials with one goal in mind: Prepare for Raiding! I need to pay for potions, repair, new gear, and contribute to the guild bank. There are weeks when all my game-play is consumed by the raid or the raid-prep. Where do my friends fit in when this happens? Do I play to raid or do I play to do stuff with my friends?

If you're like me and the answer is a resounding BOTH, you've got your work cut out for you! Here's some of the stuff we do to maintain the balance. Some of it might seem *Duh* obvious. Sometimes it's the no-brainer stuff that's easiest to overlook, but makes all the difference

The Guild Within the Guild
aka The Alt-Guild

The Friends Channel
Everyone has these channels. It's the conversation within the conversation. In our case, it's a lifeline. Even when all of us happen to be in the same guild or party channel, we inevitably hold our group conversations here. Now that we've spread to more than one guild, we still maintain our channel. It's essential. It keeps us all in contact. When one of us needs something, we come to this channel first before going to the guild.

The Alt-Guild
Even while our mains bounce from raiding guild to raiding guild, our Alt Guild remains constant. All our bank toons & non-raiding characters are members of our Alt Guild. It provides us a haven from the "responsibilities" of being in a larger guild.

Alt Night
Along with the Alt Guild is Alt Night. For a long while it was "Horde Night," but we finally abandoned that to remain on the same server and in the same channels. Right now, alt night is just getting fired back up for the new year for a group of toons we have in the 30's. This year's "project" is called OPERATION ALT-SQUAD!

Alt-Guild Issues

Numbers
Our biggest issue is numbers. Our guild w/in the guild is about 8 people. Guilds & groups in WoW work best in multiples of 5. If I had a dollar for every time we had 6 of us logged in and someone had to be excluded, I'd be rich. The best way to deal with this is to find ways of being inclusive. Here are some things we've tried with mixed results:

Instead of running an instance, split into groups of 3 and quest.
Split into the groups and then ask members of our various raiding guilds to join us. Just don't ask me to LFG! I hate pugs (even when 1/2 of it is friends.)
Never let the same person sit out two nights in a row.

Schedules
The second is schedules. Two of us are in different guilds with very different schedules. Frankly, it's not gone well, but it has solved our first issue. Right now, schedules have created a situation where about 5 of us are online together regularly. That's been fun for us, but unfortunate for our other friends.

Staying Focused
Because we have two different foci,* it's really easy for us to drop one for the other. I do our Alt Night scheduling. There are weeks when I really need to farm something up for Beroth OR the raiding guild needs Beroth for a run that I didn't sign up for. It's so easy to go do those raid-related things and forget Alt Night. The same thing happens for the rest of our group.

Moving Forward w/ Operation Alt Squad
Over the weeks ahead, I plan to share stuff about Alt-Night and our progression. Our first hurdle is adjusting to the new "old" game. With the last patch, Blizzard changed a lot of level requirements. We're re-learning the levels of instances, mobs & general progressions.

Our goal this time around is to enjoy stuff we might have missed the other times we leveled toons. We're hoping to eventually hit some "old" end-game instances that we never really got to enjoy for various reasons.

The first hurdle is that our group is not as level-tight as we'd like. Our Tank, a feral druid named Rhus (me) is level 36, but our Priest is only 31. This was fine when we hit the Scarlet Monastery Graveyard on Monday, but I'm not sure how far we should go without shrinking that gap.

*RANT! Foci is the plural of Focus. Stupid blogger doesn't know that. It wants me to use focuses. I acknowledge that somewhere along the line general stupidity won over and made it focuses acceptable. I don't have to like it, but I accept it. Still, for the spell check to not recognize foci...Arrrgghhh!!

Now, I can go back and point out the numerous grammatical corners I regularly cut in this and other blogs. I think it's part of the nature of blogging. Sometimes, I purposefully cheat to maintain a conversational tone. I admit to an insufficient level of editing. I often catch really ugly mistakes days or weeks later. That's all part of blogging.

All that said, it still bothers me that the English language is becoming such a wasteland of inarticulate, dumb-speak.

Life of a Bank Alt / Guild Master

2008-11-02T22:04:00.000-05:00

Today, we delve into the life and times of Narah, my bank-alt. This is a repost from the old blog, but ironically Narah is also OrdoSerp's current Guild Master. It's just easier that way. Mains swap from guild to guild, but level 10 bank alts never go away.

Hi I'm Narah the "failed" experiment. I hit level 10 and like a cold slap in the face, LRNs stopped playing me. I'm not sure why he stopped. I've got hot cans and a great rack! Is he the only heterosexual male who actually prefers male toons? Seriously, that's so lame. What's wrong with him?

Anyway, after months of living in cyber-limbo worrying that I would be deleted and replaced by some skeevy gnome or a hairy dwarf, poof! I'm back! At first, I'm so like "Where are we going?" But then I was sorry I asked because guess where I ended up? Ironforge! Instead of being replaced by a hairy dwarf, I'm shopping with them?!? Actually, I think I'm developing a thing for short men, rawr!

OK, where was I...Ironforge, right!

So, you may ask, why Ironforge? I know I did!...loudly, often and until I got tired and looked for a Starbucks...

Turns out that instead of a life of adventure, I've been turned into a supply-whore. Actually, not as bad as it sounds. Seriously! On one hand, I'll never see the world. On the other hand, I'll never have to pick up spider ichor! BLEH!

Also, I'm a professional shopper! Wahoo! Now, I know what you're thinking because I thought it too! Neiman Marcus here I come! Baby needs a new pair of shoes...I mean, Beroth totally needs an extreme makeover! Yeah, not so much. Turns out I spend most of my day talking with Auctioneer Lympkin. After work, we like to grab some banana bread from Myra and then see if we can get men buy us drinks at the Stonefire Tavern. Watch out for the Dwarven Stout, it'll put hair on your chest! Really, you don't want to get your boobs waxed it's...painful!

Wow, talk about diarrhea of the mouth! I'm soooooo sorry. I'm supposed to be giving you suggestions about living as a bank alt/personal shopper!

The reason I didn't get booted off to cyber-oblivion is that having a bank alt is a serious must for raiders. Note: It's not that he doesn't like my curves; he just doesn't want to play a priest. Go fig! I'm so easy..wait, I mean, I make things so easy! I'm not one of those sluts...I mean night-elves! Woah! Gotta focus...

Think of it this way, I'm like having an extra bag at every mailbox. I also allow you to run your utility addons like Auctioneer. The value of doing your Auctions here with me, instead of out on your main is that I protect your raider from dreaded addon bloating! There's nothing worse than starting a Tidewalker pull and feeling bloated! Or so I'm told. I'm not going near him unless someone gives him a couple bottles of Beano!

A bank-alt is also great for the dreaded "stock-pile." After a while, even the minimalist end-gamer acquires too much crap. The obsessed player might have 3 or more every-day toons. Someone's got to keep them organized and focused. That's where I come in. Not only am I a personal shopper, I'm an office manager! I keep this ship afloat. See, you thought I was just a bubble-head, but I'm more like "Legally Blond" only with short red hair and no way I'm wearing that much pink!

So, here are my survival tips for surviving the mean streets.

- First off, a girl can never have too many bags. Make sure that sugar-daddy of yours sets you up right!

- Don't let him undress you as make you dance all day for coin. It might sound fun at first, but it's really degrading. Let those night-elf witches do the dancing! You're here to shop! I got myself a nice White Traditional Hanbok from Lisbeth's place in Stormwind. It turns heads without saying "Look at me, I'm a slut!"

- Learn to report spammers and slap that ignore button hard! Seriously, those bastards should be sent to the third ring of hell or Molten Core. I can do it faster than you can say, "Amex or Visa?"

- Start your day off right. Fire up Auctioneer do a scan. It goes something like this, "Yo Lym! What's hot today!" Then you buy low and sell high! Those shirts on Wallstreet got nothing on us girls in the trenches of Ironlag!

- Always shop in the most accessible places like Ironforge or Undercity. Seriously, too much running around and you can get big calves. There's a reason why Darnassus and Thunder Bluff are empty. They are like really bad Outlet Malls....too far away and with bad prices.

- Unless you want to go all Carry, turn off General Chat. Seriously, it'll rot your brain. Heck, I'd turn off Trade for all the morons there, but you never know when a sweet deal will crop up. Just try not to pay attention to the dorks that yell all the time. They are Trolls. The first time you yell back you end up in a shouting match and they win. The second someone yells more than 4 or 5 times in a row, give em the ignore-slap! Speaking of a full ignore box, I just delete the spammer names after a while to free space. No reason to grab another addon. Addon management is too much like work as it is.

Wow, have I wasted this much time? Goodness, I've got to go see what the prices are like for Heavy Knothide Leather. If I don't sell this stuff soon, Beroth will let Relan* start shopping. That moron might know how to wield a sword, but that doesn't mean he's ready for the auction house!

Seeyabye!

*Relan is my "abandoned" warrior. I gave him a tux & a big-ass samuari sword. Now, he carries excess Leatherworking mats for me.

Reposts

2008-11-02T22:02:00.001-05:00

I will be dropping a series of "greatest hits" re-posts from Beroth the Hunter to get this party started.

It's a Brand New Day

2008-11-02T21:27:00.000-05:00

First posts on a new blog are always really exciting for the author and usually extremely mundane. Not wanting to buck that trend, I present the introduction post to "OrdoSerp."

OrdoSerp is a blog about the life and times of a small band of World of Warcraft players. The Ordo Serpentis is an Alt guild on the Garona server. This blog is the successor to the hunter blog, Beroth the Hunter. Beroth was my main toon & raider for a long while. Now, with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion less that 2 weeks away, I am moving to shift full time to my feral Druid, Rhus.

This blog will be a home to screen shots, experiences, personal stories, and tips from the various members of OrdoSerp as we move from Outland to Northrend.