What is the name, class, and spec of your primary DPS?
Everwrath, Destruction Warlock

What is your primary DPSing environment? (i.e. raids, PvP, 5 mans)
Raiding. I do a lot of 10 mans, a few 25 mans and I’ve had a couple of cracks at hard modes.

What is your favorite DPS spell/ability for your class and why?
Hmm, hard one. Could be the immolate/incinerate bread and butter for constant high damage. Could be Curse of Doom for the big numbers. Could be the Ritual of Doom, which brings my little friend out to play. I think however, it's most likely the functionality and utility of Demonic Teleport. Before any of you complain that it's not a DPS spell, consider this. If I'm back in position and casting spells while you're still running 35 yards behind me, who's doing the most DPS?

What DPS spell do you use least for your class and why?
Would have to say Curse of Tongues, as it is extremely situational. The only time a RL has asked me to apply it (specifically) is on the trash before Magtheridon - and that was a LONG time ago...

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your DPS class and why?
Before teleporting to instances, I'd say the ability to summon. After this, I would guess the biggest strength is survivability (at range) - being able to keep replenishing mana from life, and draining life from victims. Even more so for Affliction Locks. Having plenty of hit points and demonic armour makes tanking casters fun too.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your DPS class and why?
Threat generation. Nuff said? In a Tank and Spank battle with a good view of the target and very little movement, a warlock's threat generation for the SAME dps as a mage or hunter vastly outweighs the both of them. Couple this with the fact that we have one aggro reduction move on a long cooldown compared to two or three complete drops and misdirects for other classes, threat and the Warlock tend to go hand in hand. A little aside now... shard bags. They are useless. We should have a separate ammo slot.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best DPS assignment for you?
stay out of the fire and hurt things. Single target damage needs a good threat lead on the part of the tank, and AoE is done better by other classes. Realising this is what makes a good Warlock better. Keeping CoE up when there is no Boomkin or DeathKnight (in a 25 man raid??? Doubtful) loses DPS - in fact we have no unique in-battle buffs left. Wrath totems, Faerie fire, commanding or demoralising shouts, divine spirit etc. all replace what utility we had back in the day...

What DPS class do you enjoy DPSing with most and why?
I like ret-paladins, as they can take a few slaps if the tank loses threat. By the time order has been restored, I'm usually still on my feet.

What DPS class do you enjoy DPSing with least and why?
Hunters. Well, to be precise, the hunters who have very little pet control, or decide they can "handle things" and pull groups of trash while the tank is AFK or the healer is drinking...

What is your worst habit as a DPS?
After each pull, or boss, I tend to tap back to full mana, fully expecting to sit and drink when a large heal lands. Then the healer tells me off for tapping when I should be drinking. It's a habit I'm into because I tend to have more food than drink, especially small buff food that I'd never use for anything else.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while DPSing?
Tanks that move packs of mobs out of my AoE. My AoE uses a LOT of mana, and in turn does a LOT of damage. When I'm raining fire, please do your best to stand still and let it run it's course. If you're going to gather 2-3 packs or more, please indicate this, and let me know when to open up the gates of Hell.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other DPS?
Apart from threat, yes.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a DPS?
Recount and World of Logs. I like to know that in boss-fights, I have my buffs and trinkets active as much as possible, I avoid the avoidable damage as best I can, don't clip my dots and don't get bogged down with the detail.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your class?
Lock DPS is overpowered. Really, it isn't. It is simple to achieve moderate DPS, but to push it up to where combat rogues, enhancement shamen and overgeared mages are AND survive... that's another skill altogether.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new DPSers of your class to learn?
What used to be a "standard" rotation is now pretty much a priority list. Refresh the high DPS dots, cast nukes after a proc, and fill with whatever you have available.

What DPS class do you feel you understand least?
Shamen. Totems confuse me. When two shamen are raiding together they tend to have a good long discussion about which totem to use, all of which going over my head...

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in DPS?
Essential for any Warlock is a Dot Timer, Omen and Deadly Boss Mods. Everything else (like Necrosis shard management) is now pretty much eyecandy.

Spellpower over other stats or balanced stat allocation, and why?
There's a great "gemming guide" for locks online - kinda like a flowchart. For a start, until you're hitcapped, extra spellpower isn't worth the effort. Once you have 17% hit (even with 3% talented and a Drainy) then stack spellpower unless you need to activate a meta. And +Hit should come from gear really. Sockets are worth so much more with the nice red shinys in them!

Moving House

I've been offline for over a week now, and it's not as bad as I expected. I have a 3G dongle but made the mistake of logging out in Dalaran, and can't zone in before it disconnects. I'm sure the lag would have made it terrible, but I was planning to jump online, blow a titansteel cooldown and log off. That isn't happening.

Broadband SHOULD be at the new place by the 24th, so fingers crossed it is.

Tanking

Had a couple of interesting experiences tanking recently, and the difference between them pretty intense. Settled has got a fair bit of tanking gear (509 defence at the moment) but needs a better sword than a Nagrand quest reward... There isn't really a decent level 80 crafted 1 handed defence weapon for paladins, so running Utgarde (Keep or Pinnacle?) for the red sword is going to be a priority. However, I decided to go it solo through some Burning Crusade instances to get used to being a tank.

It's got me used to Judging Wisdom and keeping Divine Plea active to keep my mana topped off (5,000 mana isn't really a lot if there's no replenishment). I've practiced at turning mobs around, and keep my back to a wall to stop them getting behind me. I've practiced pulling groups away from patrols, and keeping things moving from one group to another.

Admittedly, they weren't done on Heroic difficulty, so I'm not blowing a trumpet or anything, but I think I did rather well to complete both Underbog and Slave Pens without any help whatsoever. To be fair, the bosses were easier than the trash once I got my rotation worked out, but I'm pulling with the single target taunt then throwing Avenger's Shield into the mix and using a Judgement, Hammer of the Righteous, Shield of Righteousness, Consecration and Holy Shield. Remembering to ensure Righteous Fury is on and keeping a Seal active is also something I need to concentrate on.

I'm sure when I'm def capped, it'll be a straightforward job tanking heroics, and gear up for raiding.

The other "tanking" experience was very different. Sticking Demon Armor on instead of Fel Armor and spamming high threat spells (Searing Pain) against Mimiron (phase 3) was fun. I got about 130,000 threat lead then started opening up with my "normal" rotation and kept a clear mile above the rest of the dps when the magnets brought it down. We tried a different approach last night, and got Phase 4 to 0% head, 0% body and 2% base. The closest we'd ever been to downing it. The base went to 0% as the head regenerated. Gutted. Thinking about extending the raid next week to have a clear blast at Mimiron and try to get through to the last couple of bosses.

Glory of the Achiever

Ulduar again last night. Great group, got through to Iron Council (via Kologarn) without a single death, even doing hardmode Flame Leviathan (1 tower up) for the Orbital Bombardment. Silly wipe on the Council, maybe a fusion punch wasn't dispelled quick enough, or maybe too many of us were standing on the rune of power when we got hit by chain lightning, but it was inevitable that we weren't going to make it. Ran to the door, gave Divine Intervention to our priest for quick resurrection.

Next attempt, with 2x council members down and the third well on his way to a splitting headache in the morning, I popped my Iron Boot Flask and yelled "But I'm on your side!"

We farmed Auriaya again (she's getting boringly easy with our group composition and DPS) and moved onto Hodir, but time was getting the better of us. People have to work in the morning, and as such, we called it a night.

4x of us (Paladin tank, 2x Warlocks and a healy priest) decided to do the Daily Heroic (Utgarde Keep) and Daily Normal in Heroic mode (Utgarde Pinacle) - and as we had plenty of DPS (I was putting out 7K during AoE phases of the Gauntlet) we decided to play around a bit and go for the achievements. We did ALL the Glory of the Hero achievements for the two instances and, for me, completed King's Bane, Lodi Dodi We Loves the Skadi, The Incredible Hulk and On The Rocks.

This inspired us to get another member sometime soon and go for the proto-drake.

My Remaining Achievements for Glory of the Hero

Nexus

* Split Personality
* Intense Cold
* Chaos Theory

Azol-Nerub

* Watch Him Die

Ahn'kahet

* The Party's Over
* Volazj's Quick Demise
* Respect Your Elders

Drak'Tharon Keep

* Consumption Junction
* Better Off Dred

Violet Hold

* A Void Dance

Gundrak

* What the Eck?
* Share The Love
* Less-rabi

Halls of Stone

* Good Grief
* Abuse the Ooze

Culling of Stratholme

* Zombiefest!

The Oculus

* Experienced Drake Rider
* Make It Count
* Ruby Void
* Emerald Void
* Amber Void

More Ulduar Ownage

Ulduar again. Getting better at being in the "right place at the right time" to start DPS when everyone else does, and spend less time running around chasing kited adds, avoiding things that kill you and legging it to get in range of bosses when heroism pops. I've even started noticing when things are going on aside from my target. Flaming cyclones approaching from behind - I moved. Feral defender respawns, called, target switched and dps started. People standing in void zones - yelled at. My aggro-dump is hardly needed these days, but when it is, it's never on cooldown... I might even try for a Naxx undying run!

Things looked good from the start, downing Flame Leviathan, Razorscale, XT and Ignis without breaking a sweat. We even saved a construct and slapped Shattered on our scoresheets. Moving swiftly on to the Antechamber, Kologarn went down without a fight and we farmed Auriaya as usual. She dropped an Elemental Focus Stone, which, since the introduction of BoP trading in groups, I begged to equip for my Epic achievement. Didn't matter really, since I won it.

We decided not to skip the Iron Council this week, and give it a single try - just to see how the group handled it. We've been running for a few weeks with the same people, they all know the tactics and put out good DPS, fair threat from the tanks and great healing. What could go wrong?

Well, everything could. But nothing did. I Choose You, Stormcaller Brundir! finally flashing on my screen along with The Antechamber of Ulduar . Happy news.

Normally we'd head for Hodir and call it a night, but as we were ahead of schedule we decided we had the right composition to take on Thorim. 4x of us (tank, healer and 2x locks) took corridor duty so I gained I'll Take You All On when we defeated him. First time was a wipe because someone didn't follow instructions. We weren't ALL stacked on the Collossus' heels so someone got Charged... This caused the colossus to spin round to face the tank and, before I could move, his Smash hit through my cloth for around 40,000 damage. Goodnight!

Undeterred. we nailed it second time around with relative ease. Managed to avoid all the lightning blasts and put out fairly good DPS.

250 Dungeon & Raid Emblems was a nice surprise - Didn't realise I'd got so many tokens, although still a little miffed that the statistics for the old TBC heroic badges didn't start until AFTER I'd bought pretty much everything the sunwell vendors sold. I reckon I spent over 600 badges prior to Wrath but my actual statistics don't reflect that.

After Ulduar, we had a quick blast through a couple of heroics. For the last 20-30 Violet Hold Heroic runs, Lavanthor has been hiding. He turned up, and I finally achieved Lockdown!

Other interesting runs included Trial of the Champion (Heroic, of course) that had the last "mini boss" required for the achievement (I think it was the Orc Warrior).

Alt-wise, Settled has reached Level 80 and is starting to gear up (Colosseum normal) for DPS and Tanking. I'm going to drop the healing spec and take a protection stance, as we're always missing tanks for runs. The fact that I have enough mats for a Titansteel Shield Wall and three nice defence plate pieces dropped in the Colosseum have NOTHING to do with it. I've gemmed the DPS gear as best I can with a mixture of strength, +hit, crit (on the meta) and a +10 stats and will be looking more into which instances I need to farm to get some more decent gear.

Toc (normal) has 8x tanking pieces including plate armor, rings, necklaces and trinkets; 9 suitable for DPS; and 4x suitable for healing. Getting hold of them is only a matter of time, and finding a group willing to farm it for a couple of hours - which my guild have kindly fulfilled. I can see (again) the process of winning loot, gemming it, enchanting it, and replacing it on the first couple of naxx runs - so I'm NOT going to be putting expensive stuff on gear I think I'll be replacing soon. Obviously, if iLevel 226 stuff drops that's only going to be bettered by ulduar 25 and toc 10/25 stuff, I'll go to town on it, but I'm not falling into the same traps I did with Everwrath. (Bought and enchanted a Titansteel spellblade at a cost of almost a thousand gold an hour before getting the Grieving Spellblade off Faerlina...)

More tying up of loose ends...

Wednesday was Raid night, and took on Ulduar. We decided to go for the achievement Flame Leviathan and zerged it without catapulting onto the turrets, gaining Shutout for those (like me) who didn't have it already.

Nerfed Gravity Bombs on XT-002 Deconstructor to add to the scrapbots achievement I got last week. Sadly, we had no engineer so the heap we left on the floor was wasted.

Everything went smoothly till Kologarn where we had a couple of issues, mainly with people zerging the wrong arm and rubble escaping, but regrouped, went quickly over the tactics and nailed him.

Finished the run with Hodir down, and, analysing the logs I kept toasty warm, starfired and in a stormcloud for between 30 and 40% of the fight, peaking at 20,000 DPS when all the buffs lined up and my trinkets and cloak procced together.

After Ulduar, finally got around to Heroic: Drak'Tharon Keep and completed Northrend Dungeon Hero.

Yesterday, Needing a couple of instances worth of Wyrmrest Accord rep, I joined some high dps and well geared tank/healer for a blast through some heroics. Gotta Go! was unexpected, but I'm not complaining!

To-do:

• Kill Malygos for the Champion of the Frozen Wastes title.
• Throw Eadric's hammer back at him for the Faceroller achievement.

High achiever

With a little time to spare I thought I'd tie up some loose ends and restock the pantry. Fished a few stacks of spellpower food, then finished off The Oracles rep, and got another egg.

Farming heroics for an evening got me enough badges to buy the Evoker's Charm necklace. Quite an upgrade on the old chain of latent energies. It also got me swapping tabards quite regularly as the achievements rolled in.

Knights of the Ebon Blade was unexpected, I must have been pretty close as I got it in the first instance. Not having another tabard handy, I just took it off, and before I got to the bank to swap it I had another two achievements - The Winds of the North (Alliance Vanguard) and 20 Exalted Reputations. The Daily Heroic was Old Stratholme, and as we had plenty of AoE DPS we went for the timed achievement, The Culling of Time - and got it. Lost the roll on the mount though... but will be doing it again soon.

To cull more time, we pugged OS10 then OS25, Defeating Sartharion the Onyx Guardian and the Twilight Drakes with only 20 players in the raid, and two of them were offline at the time! Less Is More (25 player) and Besting the Black Dragonflight (25 player) in the bag.

Killed the Black Knight again in Heroic Trial of the Crusader. Amazing roll on Boots of the Crackling Flame got me the Needy achievement. Still having no luck with Trial of the Champion 10 man... We've got to Icehowl but someone accidentally got charged, and of course we wiped pretty much instantly.

Finished off the night with a few daily quests in Icecrown, and spotted a rare elite. Northern Exposure and a satchel of goodies with 25 Gold in it.

Enter Ulduar & Call of the Crusade

My first footsteps into Ulduar were very tentative ones. Although I have known most of the people in my "new" guild for quite a while, I still feel the need to impress them with my playing skill, high DPS and knowledge of tactics.

Although it's useful to watch tankspot videos and read up on how-to: guides, nothing really prepares you in identifying buffs and debuffs, finding where you should be stood, when you should move and how to avoid upsetting 9/24 other players.

According to Ensidia Fails, a nice addon that barks out when avoidable debuffs or damage isn't avoided (I've got it set to inform me privately at the end of the fight) I didn't stand in the fire as many times as I'd expected. Also, according to World of Logs, I had the highest DPS in the party - rocking in at 3500 personal or 4041 if you count my imp's firebolts. I could squeeze more damage out if I used Curse of Agony, but I prefer to keep Curse of the Elements up on boss fights, as it both reduces the amount of threat I put out and it helps the casters by reducing resistances and buffing magic damage by 13%

Starting the siege with Flame Leviathan, I was given the job of demolisher passenger and asked to Take Out Those Turrets. To be honest, I think our DPS was enough to skip that phase, as the boss was at around 2% by the time I was finished with the second turret. It was nice to be up close and personal with such a massive boss though.

Moving swiftly on to XT-002 Deconstructor, this was a fun fight. Being bugged and throwing out dozens of adds, we wiped once before quickly regrouping and changing tactics. Nerf Scrapbots. Nuff said!

Razorscale, by comparison was a fairly easy fight. Analysing the fight I can see that although my DPS was again the highest, my "uptime" was pretty low. I spent too long repositioning myself to kill adds (running around aimlessly looking for things to kill). Now I know where I should be, my next attempt should be much better. That said, it was still a kill, and I am now sporting Binding of the Dragon Matriarch with a fresh buckle and a +23 spellpower gem.

Besting The Siege of Ulduar required dispatching Ignius the Furnace Master, and this was certainly my favourite fight. I excelled under Heroism bashing out a peak of 9300 DPS as Embrace of the Spider, Now is the time!, Empowered Imp, Backdraft, Pyroclasm and Elemental Oath all procced at the same time. Great healing got me through the Slag Pot and Hot Pocket flashed up as I ran back to the caster group to finish off Ignius.

Kologarn was also pretty straightforward, getting high DPS on the right arm. Must make a macro to quickly switch targets from arm to head and back and try to keep up DOTs on both for maximum damage output. Seems the ideal fight to have Curse of Doom and Immolate up on the head as much as possible while spamming immolate, conflagrate, incinerate and chaos bolts at the right arm. I love the way the corpse becomes a bridge into the next part of the instance, such a nice way to make bosses mandatory.

Auriaya, again, was surprisingly easy to defeat - concentrating on quickly downing the adds and staying out of void zones I was quick to grab Nurturing Touch - a nice upgrade over my old nerubian wand. Losing a small amount of +hit is good to get extra spirit and crit, along with a small amount of stamina, intellect, spellpower and all-out dps come wanding time...

Hodir took a couple of goes to nail. He ended up hitting me for 55,000 damage on the first try. Not really sure why he was hitting me, I think the DPS was suffering, and that was partly my fault. Although I'd watched the fight and knew about flash freezes and standing on snowpiles, I wasn't really concentrating on setting the friendly targets free and wasn't capitalising on the buff areas. My first fight where mobility is everything, I spent far too long running about avoiding the biting cold and not enough time killing the cause of it.

Our second try was pretty much textbook. Learning quickly from my mistakes I quickly freed the friendly adds and got myself hooked up with stormpower for 48% of the time and a toasty fire 34% of the time, meaning less running around and more boom, reaching a peak of 17,000DPS when all the buffs fell into place. Downed him and picked up Staying Buffed All Winter and I Have the Coolest Friends.

Not wishing to prolong the raid past our intended length, we finished there and half of us decided to go have a look at the new instance. Having a quick go in 5-man normal, we decided the fight was easy enough to push through the heroic, and downed that too. Picked up a replacement for my crafted ebonweave robe and a new ring, Embrace of Madness and Emerald Signet Ring now leaves me with just the trinket short of the epic achievement.

Wishing the 10-man was as easy. Wiped about 6 times learning the first 2x Northrend Beasts. We've got the first one on farm now, but the giant Jormungars are proving tricky. Will read up about them soon and adjust our tactics before we try again.

Outside the guild, I have picked up the 10-man achievements for Emalon and Archavon to go with my earlier 25 man progress, and finally got myself back into Sholazar to complete my Oracles rep grind. Picked up another egg, and will see what hatches next week.

When handing in my second daily quest I was surprised by an achievement popping up. My first thought was "but I calculated I'd need all three to get exalted" quickly followed by elation as I realised I'd just rolled over 10,000G from quests.

Been a while...

It has been a while since I last posted, but I've been rather busy both in Real Life and in-game.

A quick summary would include me levelling my paladin to 73, hunter to 74 and starting a deathknight - now sat in Hellfire Penninsula. He's going to be a skinner/miner until level 80, so I really need to go back to the starting areas and get their skills to 300 before I start levelling up.

As for Everwrath, he's also been busy - getting achievements such as For the Alliance; Heroic: Archavon the Stone Watcher; Heroic: Emalon Storm Watcher; and Molten Core.

Both Everwrath and Settled have now got Black War Bears, and surprisingly, settled in her level 72 healing spec only died once during the attempt, and that was on the way OUT of Ogrimmar.

Adding Molten Core to the "done" pile means all I have left to do on the Classic Raider achievement is C'Thun in The Temple of Ahn'Qiraj. I'm joining any achievement/rep run groups announced in Trade just to get the content done. Although we did AQ20 and 40 in the guild, there weren't enough of us to down the final boss. I think it needs more than 8 people to be honest... We gave it a good go though, getting all the way through The Temple of Ahn'Qiraj with only 2 wipes, and they were caused mainly by OOM healers as we learnt the Twin Emperors fight.

Recent additions on the loot front are: Shroud of Luminosity, Conqueror's Deathbringer Leggings and Furious Gladiator's Slippers of Salvation - very nice iLevel 226 PVP shoes, taking me to 9 pieces of "epic" loot for the desirable achievement.

Lastly, I've now switched Guilds. Although I hate to leave the , and will be keeping in touch with everyone through my alts, I feel Everwrath needs to be in 25 man content more and more. Ulduar beckons and I really need the higher level gear and achievements to get anywhere. It is for this reason, I've joined a few friends (ex CoS) in and will hopefully be raiding more often.

Wishlist for Naxxramas 25

• Waist: Cincture of Polarity; Belt of False Dignity
• Neck: Thunderstorm Amulet; Cosmic Lights
• Chest: Digested Silken Robe; Heigan's Putrid Vestments
• Offhand: Surplus Limb; Accursed Spine
• Ring: Lost Jewel
• Ring: Signet of Manifested Pain
• Trinket: Dying Curse
• Trinket: Extract of Necromantic Power
• Wand: Touch of Horror (holy)
• Back: Cape of the Unworthy Wizard

• Tier: Breastplate of the Lost Conqueror

Current Gear

Quick update on "current" gear...

Cowl of the Absolute
Chain of Latent Energies
Valorous Plagueheart Shoulderpads
Ebonweave Robe
Sash of Mortal Desire
Leggings of Lost Love
Saltarello Shoes
Wraps of the Astral Traveler
Gloves of Token Respect
Signet of the Malevolent
Ring of Holy Cleansing
Sundial of the Exiled
Embrace of the Spider
Dark Shroud of the Scourge
The Turning Tide
Watchful Eye
Gemmed Wand of the Nerubians

The fall of Naxxramas

Was asked last night to join a raid to Heroic Naxxramas with Offline and a few members of my guild, the Champions of Silvermoon. Thought it'd be good experience to raid with 24 other people and I might have a chance at some loot - and boy, was I right!

First up was Patchwerk and the Construct Quarter. I love Patch, it's just a case of tank-n-spank, no running around and a great chance to compare my DPS with the rest of the group. Compared to a fully geared mage I was pitiful, but still kept in the top 10 all through the raid. Will have to work on progression as I get into Ulduar and improve on my gear. We downed him in 3 mins 2 seconds, 2 seconds off the achievement.

Similar success on the rest of the wing and all of a sudden, Thaddius is on the floor and the construct quarter is cleared. No loot, but a close roll or two, however not many of the items were HUGE upgrades. Gluth dropped the Saltarello shoes which aren't a massive improvement over mine.

Next was the Military quarter - the only wing I still haven't had chance to complete on 10 man, but having been up to the trash before the four horsemen I was confident I could stay upright and provide solid DPS for the group. Which I did. Loads of plate dropped throughout the raid, and a fair bit ended up disenchanted, but nothing caught my eye. The next achievement flashed up as the horsemen were zerged one by one...

The Spider Wing got me my first epic loot of the night. Anub'Rekhan was kind enough to drop the Gemmed Wand of the Nerubians and a very nice pair of trousers. Compared to my Leggings of Lost Love they're nothing special for an already hit-capped warlock, but as we had loot rules of 1-item-per-boss all the casters were holding back for the trousers - so I stole the wand without much competition ;-)

We moved quickly on to Grand Widow Faerlina and added Heroic: Momma Said Knock You Out to the ever-growing list of achievements, shortly followed by the clearance achievement.

Lastly, we downed the Plague Quarter, doing the Safety Dance along the way. Can't remember what bosses dropped things I rolled on, as I was completely buzzing from the wand - but thanks Loatheb for the Tier 7.5!
Sapphiron's Demise came quickly after, as I experienced my first death of the night. Others had already been hugging the floor, so I didn't ruin an undying attempt - which would have been a terrible burden. I don't know WHY I died, as I was hugging the back of an ice block. Must have had a toe stuck out or something. Really disappointed as I'd done really well up to this point. That's when it went downhill.

Kel'Thuzad was interesting, starting slow and meaningful, downing the banshees quickly at long range - until someone pulled the lot. Anyway, we managed to gain control and AoE them all down quickly, spreading out for phase 3 and starting to chip away at the boss's health, I got tunnelvisioned on the threat meter and by the time I realised I was in a void zone it was too late. Wow locked up as I started to run away and I was dead before I could move. Still, my 3.5K DPS wasn't missed, as the achievements rolled in. Heroic: Kel'Thuzad's Defeat and Heroic: The Fall of Naxxramas flashed up on the screen and I waited to be resurrected.

One final bonus... a cracking roll on The Turning Tide gave me my final piece of loot. Haven't stopped smiling since! Now without any blue items, and 7 pieces of "epic" gear, I'm ready to tackle Ulduar. Need to get the +63 Spellpower enchant (27 dusts short) and get the shoulder enchant from Hodir now I'm exalted with them.

Level 68 flying in Northrend?

Just to confirm, Tome of Cold Weather Flight is actually a new heirloom item planned to go into patch 3.2. At level 80 players can buy this heirloom item from the Cold Weather Flying Trainer in Dalaran for 1,000 gold and send it to an alt of the same realm, faction and account. The tome can be used to learn Cold Weather Flying at level 68, consuming the tome in the process.

Well, this is a great big help... Hopefully all my alts will be in Northrend before patch 3.2, or at least high up in Outland and preparing to travel coldwards.

Settled, my ret-pally is a couple of bars off level 54 at the moment, and was ripping through mobs like a hot knife through butter. As the questlines reward better gear, I'll start replacing the old stuff, and should notice a vast improvement. Had a lucky drop last night, some Hydralick armour dropped off a swamp lord in Un Goro tar pits. This replaced the shining silver breastplate I made myself at level 24 :-) 30 levels from one piece of armour? yeah, I think it got it's use! Next, it's the level 37 helm and the level 41 boots...

Biting the bullet

Last night I saw an absolute-ly gorgeous epic hat on the AH. Well, to tell the truth, I've been seeing them for weeks now, but all listed at around 7.5-8K which is way too much money to spend on a hat that'll quite possible be replaced in Patch 3.2 with attainable Tier9 gear. That said, it was listed under 5K which I was about to blow on Treeleaf's epic flight and epic mount... whoops. Don't give a Warlock your gold! LOL

More choices...

Settled popped into Eastern Plaguelands yesterday and had a quick buzz around on the starter quests. Managed to do "Clearing the way" and the first cauldron, but bearing in mind that the mobs rapidly change from 50-52 to 55-56 and start coming in packs of at least 2, it's highly mana-inefficient to kill them, especially as it only adds a few xp to each grind. I'm going to head back to Tanaris tonight and potter between there, ungoro and silithus until I'm around 55-56. That should make the plaguelands a little more bearable.

I've also been looking at some gear upgrades for Treeleaf. As I'm getting great xp in Nexus and Utgarde Keep at the moment with an 80 priest and 3x 71-73s (was over 2,000 per elite last night) I'm going to try for the Prince's gauntlets and Anomalus' boots. Then I'll press on into Dragonblight and try for Wrynn's Leggings of Foresight. Nice upgrades. Ormorok's offhand fist weapon is also going to be a nice piece to pick up, with agility and hit rating - both of which I need to improve as much as possible.

Lastly, as I'm doing less on my own and more grouped at the moment I've researched a little into misdirection macros. The following is a nifty way to get some instant threat onto the tank, giving them a nice head start - and spend much less time having to feign death...

/cast [nomodifier, target=focus, nodead, exists, help] Misdirection
/cast [modifier:shift, target=pet, nodead, exists] Misdirection
/cast Misdirection

In a nutshell, when you /focus on your tank, click misdirect and the next three ranged attacks will go straight onto his threat table. That's without having to target him/her and then go back to your original target. The other benefits with the macro are: When SHIFT is held or no focus target exists, threat is transferred onto your pet; If you CTRL+Click or ALT+Click the button behaves like the standard spell, allowing you to quickly boost threat on an offtank who is struggling.

Fun levelling...

Had a LOT of fun levelling Settled last night, got to level 51 in about 3 hours, solo in Searing Gorge. Dropped a Flurry Axe which I may pass to Stólen if I ever level past 20. As he's my banker/auctioneer it's unlikely - but hey, a level 42 offhand that would see him to Outland is a nice investment. I guess it'll all depend on how much I want to level a rogue, and how much they sell for on the auction house. Some say it's a nice twink weapon for a combat rogue. If they're right, it might just get sold!

I still have to do Tanaris, Un Goro & Silithus; Blasted Lands, Both Plaguelands and Felwood - so that should be enough content (and quests) to get me to level 60. To be honest, I can't wait to get into Plaguelands and go crit-mad on the masses of undead. For now, I'll spend the weekend getting my rested xp up and go grind more leather on Treeleaf and get a few quests done. Once she's 74 there's some nice gear in the bank!

Dropping Tailoring...

...for Engineering.

Makes sense really, as I can no longer MAKE stuff better than badge gear and loot. I really don't see the point in hunting for recipes for stuff that people won't buy, and after level 72ish there's nothing crafted that's BoP or requires specialisation.

So, hunting around on the Internet, I came across a guide that suggests to get from 1-450 I need the following materials:

• 40 Rough Stone
  
• 100 Copper Bar (5 stacks)
  
• 50 Weak Flux
  
• 15 Coarse Stone
  
• 39 Linen Cloth
  
• 120 Bronze Bar (6 stacks)
  
• 5 Moss Agate
  
• 40 Heavy Stone
  
• 80 Wool Cloth
  
• 20 Medium Leather
  
• 4 Steel Bar
  
• 180 Solid Stone (9 stacks)
  
• 140 Mithril Bar (7 stacks)
  
• 12 Mageweave Cloth
  
• 40 Dense Stone
  
• 130 Thorium Bar (6 stacks +10)
  
• 20 Runecloth
  
• 95 Fel Iron Bar (5 stacks -5)
  
• 20 Mote of Earth
  
• 10 Mote of Fire
  
• 40 Adamantite Bar
  
• 30 Netherweave Cloth
  
• 284 Cobalt Bar (14 Stacks +4)
  
• 8 Frostweave Cloth
  
• 43 Crystallized Water
  
• 10 Crystallized Earth
  
• 26 Borean Leather
  
• 13 Eternal Shadow
  
• 479 Saronite Bar (24 Stacks -1)
  
• 25 Skinning Knife
  
• 25 Minning Pick
  
• 25 Blacksmithing Hammer

My miner has a lot of the low end bars and stones, so may be able to kickstart things. Cloth is very quick to grind, and I have a big stack of motes and eternals already. The only thing I'll struggle with is bars from thorium onwards. There's always the Auction House though... and a LOT of the stuff I make will either sell or disenchant so it shouldn't cost very much.

Think I might price up the mats tonight :-)

Sucky upgrades in Patch 3.2

Enchant Ring - Greater Spellpower now increases spell power by 23. (Up from 19)

That's 8 Spellpower from 2x rings, assuming you have Greater Spellpower on BOTH of them. Not a great bonus really from a profession that's been neglected for a LONG time.

Lightweave Embroidery now gives you a chance to increase your spell power by 295 (up from 250) for 15 sec.

An equivalent 11.25 extra Spellpower IF it procs once per minute, which is probably over the average...

so, while it isn't technically a nerf, it's certainly not that much of a buff! Maybe I should drop tailoring for engineering?

Coliseum Bosses - Interesting!

Fresh from the PTR a little datamining has revealed that the fight with Argent Confessor Paletress involves memories of previously defeated foes, including Hogger!

It's been a joke for a long time, substantiated by people hacking private servers and displaying clips on youtube about Heroic Hogger, but this time it looks like it's going to come to fruition.

The following "mini-bosses" are rumored to exist so far:

World of Warcraft

• Chromaggus
  
• Hakkar
  
• Herod
  
• Hogger
  
• Lucifron
  
• Onyxia
  
• Thunderaan
  
• Edwin VanCleef
  
• Vek'nilash
  
• Mutanus
  

The Burning Crusade

• Delrissa
  
• Entropius
  
• Gruul
  
• Illidan
  
• Malchezaar
  
• Kalithresh
  
• Archimonde
  
• Lady Vashj
  

Wrath of the Lich King

• Algalon
  
• Cyanigosa
  
• Eck
  
• Heigan
  
• Ignis
  
• Ingvar
  
• General Vezax
  

All of whom have got people in 2 mindsets:

1) wow, nice, a chance to best the things that caused me so much pain, and all at Level 80 and in endgame content with decent loot!

2) Blizzard sucks, we don't pay $150M/month for them to reuse old skins. Lets QQ on anyevery forum until our opinion is heard by the developers, who will put their plans on ice and create new content for us.

Personally, I'm a 1!

Universal Tier Tokens?

Looks like the Tier 9 vendors on the PTR are geared up for swapping a single tier token for a multitude of slots... Coliseum bosses will apparently all drop one of three tokens:

• Regalia of the Grand Protector: Warrior, Hunter, Shaman.
• Regalia of the Grand Vanquisher: Rogue, Death Knight, Mage, Druid.
• Regalia of the Grand Conqueror: Paladin, Priest, Warlock.

What this will mean to a LOT of people, especially as the bosses are rotated weekly, is they CAN miss a raid or two due to other commitments and not have to wait months for the shoulder piece to drop.

I'll be happier when I find out which bosses these drop from... if they drop off the 5, 10 and 25 man coliseum it'll be very quick to gear up, with a good bit of luck from the RNG getting 1x Protector per run, a guild's warrior MT could be fully tiered within 8 days! However, if they only drop in 25 Man Heroic and you are unlucky, you could be getting Tier10 from cereal packet tokens before you get your first /roll.

GM Tickets for wrongly looted items a thing of the past?

More additions to the patch notes...

Players will now be able to trade soulbound items with other raid or group members that were eligible for the loot. This system will work like the Item Buy Back system and allow 2 hours for players to trade an item after it has been looted. Players who choose to enchant or add gems to the item will get one last confirmation before losing the ability to trade the item.

While this isn't the only "frequently ticketed" problem, it shows that Blizzard are attempting to reduce the time taken to action tickets by eliminating the need for a lot of them in the first place.

Settled takes a trip to the trainers...

Well, yesterday was fun. Thrashed my way through Stranglethorn completing quests left, right and centre... Didn't have any trouble getting packs of 3-4 mobs and grinding through troll ears, tusks, crystals and hides. Finished off the quests I had and headed back to Stormwind, determined to ditch Blacksmithing and pick up Jewelcrafting. That's when it hit me...

There isn't really a very good reason for jewelcrafting. It's a money-sink. It'd take up all the ores that I mined (which I was planning on selling or engineering) for very little benefit. Inscription, on the other hand, is a great way to make money high-end. Everyone needs glyphs, and I already have a herbalist with a bank rammed full of herbs. So, the deciding factor was getting to outland or Exodar for the trainer - whereas Inscription trainers are pretty much everywhere.

The Shoulder enchants will reduce the need for me to grind a THIRD lot of hodir rep, and umm... it's new, it's going to be fun, it's just a matter of untraining BS and talking to that nice person over there!

Three letters packed with herbs were quickly requested and I started milling pigments for inks.

These macros helped a LOT, not having to click-click-click and hunt around in bags for herbs increased efficiency greatly!

Alabaster Pigments:

/cast Milling
/use Bloodthistle
/use Peacebloom
/use Silverleaf
/use Earthroot
/use Mageroyal

Dusky Pigments:

/cast Milling
/use Briarthorn
/use Swiftthistle
/use Bruiseweed
/use Stranglekelp

I had enough herbs to get to about 80-90 skillpoints and inscribed the Glyph of Hammer of Justice to increase the range of my judgements. As the Pack of Endless Pockets is only 8 Heavy Borean Leather, I'll get Treeleaf to make one soon and throw it in the bank to hold all my excess inks and pigments. 32 slots should take a while to fill up, unless I decide to level Rerolled up and go herbing regularly. She's only 22 so I'm not looking forward to it!

Having just dinged 46, and being in Stormwind, I thought it best to visit the Cathedral and have a look at what nice new spells and abilities I had waiting for me. That's when it hit me again...

Last time I played was before the talent changes, and my previous spec was a mixture of ret/holy with a couple of tanking talents to be able to grab a shield and keep a small group of adventurous explorers alive. I'd never been so deep into the ret tree, and had just done the last level without a huge heap of spell upgrades. Some of the new stuff was "requires level 12" so I'm pretty sure I should have had it a long time ago. Spent a good few gold on myself :-)

Getting back to levelling, I've decided to head up to the Hinterlands, and boy, have I noticed how much faster I rip through things with spells that aren't downranked!

Everwrath's on holiday

I can never say being a Warlock is boring, as it's one of the most versatile DPS classes - with the tools to perform most tasks efficiently. Grinding for rep is, however, pretty boring when you can 1-shot most pre-bc mobs, and gathering them with pets for AoE is dangerous, as the voidwalker tends to hit way too hard against level 40 furbolgs ;-)

As I've been ripping through lowbie areas like a deranged ret-pally, I've decided to take a break and level my ret-pally (and finally my hunter).

Treeleaf, the hunter is now level 70 and in Northrend, skilling up leatherworking and gathering materials for sale or use. Will be doing a few quests as well, but going to grind a lot of xp and leave the last 3-4 zones for cash generation (Average 13G/quest at lvl 80 soon mounts up!).

Settled, my paladin is level 45 (just dinged over) and in Stranglethorn at the moment. Loads of quests still available and plenty of rested XP so will most likely be going through the Dark Portal in a few days. She's a miner by trade, and will possibly drop blacksmithing for Jewelcrafting or perhaps even Inscription... Having Blacksmithing used to be great for the BoP weapons they created, but I'm struggling to find a reason to keep it post Wrath. According to Wowhead there's nothing above a level 78 blue that's BoP and blacksmith created, and an extra socket or two isn't that beneficial when you compare with engineering trinkets, ring enchants (which are being buffed in the next patch) and JC created items. Being Draenei and a miner I'm most likely to be going down the JC route...

Again, for pure cash generation I'm going to leave outland and northrend until the xp in the current zone isn't worthwhile, and get as much xp in instances and bc heroics as possible. If I can be level 74 before I hit Northrend I'll make thousands in quest rewards while finishing off all the quests.

Having three level 80's (including tank/healer) will be a lot more fun than just endlessly outputting damage - and should give me a much bigger endgame challenge.

p.s. made 4x frostweave bags from the mats in my bank for Settled and got 2x skill points even though the recipe is green. Very happy!

Icing the Frost Lord

Had a little trip into the Slave Pens last night to slay Ahune the Frost Lord. Did it 5 times (one summon for each character) but missed out on the Deathfrost enchant to a fellow guildie. Mental-note: make sure I'm the only enchanter in the next group!

Northrend Dungeonmaster

Not much to report over the last few days. Been pootling about with the fire festival on a few alts, getting a bit of free gold and XP, but Everwrath has pugged a few heroics and finished the Northrend Dungeonmaster achievement.

With that comes the recipe for the Wispcloak to add to the Deathchill cloak I got for completing the Loremaster of Northrend achievement the other day.

Now I just need Heroic: Drak'Tharon Keep and "Eck the Ferocious" from Heroic: Gundrak to add Northrend Dungeon Hero to my pile of ever growing achievements.

Loremaster Everwrath

Finally, after a couple of months running around getting cartloads of basilisk spleens, raptor toenails and troll snouts, taking parcels of piglet hair clippings, zombie feathers and fluffy wolf tails across four continents, killing the king of the gremlins, cultists and giant rhinos, I have been rewarded with the coveted title "Loremaster" and the flashy tabard.

Added to my explorer and seeker titles, I think this proves I've "been there and done that".

Badgers of Whatnots

Emblem System Changes

• Both the 10 and 25 player instances of the Crusaders' Coliseum drop a new Emblem of Triumph.
• Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism.
• The heroic dungeon daily quest will now reward 2 Emblems of Triumph and the normal daily dungeon quest will reward 1 Emblem of Triumph.
• The existing achievements to collect 1, 25, 50, etc. Emblems of Heroism, Valor, and Conquest have been converted to Feats of Strength since Heroism and Valor Emblems are no longer attainable.
• New achievements have been added to collect various amounts of any combination of emblems.

Warlock specific changes in 3.2

• Banish: Effect will now be canceled if Banish is recast on a banished target.
  
• Dreadsteed: Can now be learned at level 40.
  
• Felsteed: Can now be learned at level 20.
  
• Soulshatter cooldown reduced to 3 minutes, down from 5 minutes
  
• Affliction: Pandemic: Now also increases the critical damage bonus of Haunt by 100%.
  
• Demonology: Fel Domination cooldown reduced to 3 minutes, down from 15 minutes.
  
• Destruction: Empowered Imp: The warlock's critical hit chance is increased to 100%, up from 20% for the next spell cast after the Imp critically hits a target.
  
• Destruction: Fire and Brimstone: Reduced to 2/4/6/8/10% increased damage from Incinerate and Chaos Bolt on targets afflicted with Immolate, down from 3/6/9/12/15%.
  
• Glyph of Lifetap: Duration of the buff from this glyph increased to 40 seconds.
  
• All pets now receive 40% of their master's resilience and 100% of their master's spell penetration. In addition, if a player is at their appropriate spell hit chance or hit chance maximum, their pet will be at the maximum for spell hit chance, hit chance, and expertise. If they are below the maximum, their pet will be proportionately below those maximums.
  
• Replenishment: This buff now grants 1% of the target's maximum mana over 5 seconds instead of 0.25% per second. This applies to all 5 sources of Replenishment (Vampiric Touch, Judgements of the Wise, Hunting Party, Enduring Winter Frostbolts and Soul Leech).
  

A handful of achievements

Huge set of completions last night, and feeling rather good about myself. Turns out that Icecrown will actually be "the final goal" in my epic journey towards a coveted title.

I made Grizzly Hills my priority, and yesterday morning petitioned a GM for a little assistance finding my missing quests. I knew I'd handed in the journal, as it wouldn't drop. 2 hours of grinding the hunters around the lodge is pretty conclusive proof. I didn't remember the blind woman making me drink anything, and I knew I hadn't saved the girl as I got a "discovered xxx" on the cave she sits in. He confirmed I hadn't finished the questline but I had turned in the journal, and perhaps I should go see Petrov at the mine to the north to continue the journey. After burning some scourge and drinking some moth dust, Ruula awarded me with a bit of gold, a "go see Sasha now" and a Fo' Grizzle My Shizzle. I picked up a couple of PvP dailies while I was pootling around fishing for Naxxfood (Try the Salmon) and surprised myself with 200 Daily Quests Complete.

Moving quickly on, The Summit of Storm Peaks came easily as I assumed that I'd done all the major hubs and that at least one questline would start from a drop. There's a few items that start quests in Storm Peaks that drop off mobs, and one that has a random spawn. As luck would have it, the first mob I killed dropped the first (thanks Wowhead for Item Filtering on searches), and a quick scout around the spawn points (thanks Cartographer Quest Database) I found the item at the second one I visited.

While waiting for Naxx to start, five of us had a quick blast around the Halls of Lightning - as it was the Daily Double. Quite succesfully managed to defeat General Bjarngrim in the Halls of Lightning on Heroic Difficulty while he has a Temporary Electrical Charge for the "Lightning Struck" meta-achievement, taking me a little closer to Glory of the Hero.

The guild Naxxramas run saw me Loot 100 Emblems of Heroism. and I also managed to acquire Heigan's dancing shoes after a successful left-right-left around the dancefloor of death. We cleared 2 wings (spider and plague) and got to gluth in the construct quarter but it was getting rather late and everyone was getting tired, so we called it rather than facing needless repair bills. We'll finish off on Monday.

Loremaster x3

With a feeling of great satisfaction, I finally finished Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms and Loremaster of Kalimdor last night. The final stretch (last 5 quests) was completed with a little help from the cartographer addon, which I've avoided using until now to give myself some sense of achievement. With it installed, and the database of quest givers I ended up running around Azshara visiting the "out of the way" questgivers that I probably hadn't been to.

To celebrate, I decided to do a Heroic and, as luck would have it, the guild were planning a foray into The Oculus. As I hadn't done that one yet I jumped at the chance. Picked up the quest (follow-on from The Nexus) and zoned in. As it happened, sharing the quest with the rest of the group, no-one had done it - so it was a very profitable run for everyone. 2 Warlock soulstones, a shaman healer and a pally tank gave us all the wipe protection we needed, and I'm happy to say we managed it without having too much trouble. Added Oculus and Heroic Oculus to the pile of achievements.

Now on what I class as the Last Leg of Loremaster, I need:

• Grizzly hills - 3 quests
• Storm Peaks - 2 quests
• Icecrown - 23 quests

That is all :-)

Won't get much done tonight, as it's Guild Naxxramas night - so hopefully I'll be getting epics instead!

More patch news

With the news pouring out of Blizzard's "blue posters" about the forthcoming content patch, It is clear to me that we're going to need a bigger boat! The current limit of 25 Daily quests per day (albeit raised from 10 when Quel'Danas was introduced) is going to be a pain. As I've been doing my Loremaster questing, I haven't really had time to do daily quests with all factions - but as you add up the cooking, fishing, oracles, hodir, instances, TBC Dailys (Skyguard & Ogri-la) that I SHOULD be doing, it soon fills up and I can't complete some of them!

With the release of the Secrets of Ulduar, the Argent Tournament opened its doors to heroes from all over Azeroth and saw champions arise from the ranks to take on the challenges before them to prove their worth. In the next upcoming content patch, Call of the Crusade, the Argent Tournament will be expanding its influence and players will be able to experience all-new dailies, rewards, and areas of interest.

Two New Quest Hubs

• A new Cult of the Damned camp now sits overlooking the Tournament grounds and spying on the activity below.
• Located on an island north of Icecrown, the former tuskarr village known as Hrothgar's Landing is a mist-shrouded staging point for Sea Vrykul raids upon the ships of the Silver Covenant and the Sunreavers in the waters between the island and Icecrown.

New Dailies and Rewards

• A new line of quests and rewards for players who have become exalted with either the Silver Covenant or the Sunreavers.
  
• Earn seals by participating in three additional random dailies and earn brand-new rewards.
• A new line of dailies and rewards for players who have earned the title of Crusader with two random seal-awarding dailies.

The Black Knight Returns

• Just when you thought you had seen the last of the Black Knight, he makes his astonishing return to Tournament. Wait, didn’t you kill him?

New Tabards:

• Alliance characters will be able to earn the Silver Covenant tabard
• Horde characters will be able to earn the Sunreaver tabard .
• Argent Crusade Tabard - Ports you directly to the Tournament grounds.

New Mounts:

• Alliance will be able to purchase the new Quel'dorei Steed and Silver Covenant Hippogryph.
• Horde will be able to purchase the new Sunreaver Hawkstrider and Sunreaver Dragonhawk.
• A new Argent Crusade paladin-only charger.

New Pet:

• A brand-new pet, the Shimmering Wyrmling, will be available to characters of both factions who distinguish themselves.

New Heirlooms:

• A chest piece heirlooms will provide a 10% experience bonus that stacks with the shoulder bonus.

Upgraded Squire:

• As any good squire should, this upgraded squire now has a mount.
• He can be called forth every eight hours for three minutes of duty.
• The upgrade cost is 150 Champion Seals.
• Your squire will also offer one of three services: bank, mail, or vendor access.

I wonder if the squire can go hand in a couple of quests for me?

So close I can smell it!

Last night was a mixed bag... to say the least!

Started off quite well, finding a couple of quest chains I hadn't finished off in Darkshire while handing in all my completed quests. Must have skipped over them as a level twentysomething to move onto bigger and better things - or maybe because I died too much... so, that knocked another 6 or 7 quests off my Eastern Kingdoms total.

Decided to bite the bullet and go hand in cloth in Ironforge and Stormwind, as the initial hand in of 60 wool, silk, mageweave and runecloth all count. Don't waste individual stacks of runecloth though unless you're grinding rep - but I'd guess if you were as close to Loremaster as I am, your alliance rep would have been exalted for quite a while.

Sadly, I'd already handed them in with the gnomes - probably to get some easy XP. Had a VERY quick blast into Uldaman for the last leg of the Hammertoe quest and cursed when (again!) it didn't count. Almost abandoned the "Return to Ironforge" quest he gave me out of sheer frustration, but glad I didn't. Not only did I get a point for it, but he also gives you a "talk to the bloke next to me" which counted, followed by a "go back to the bloke next to me for your reward" which also counted.

Next was a trip to the Blasted Lands to hand in a medallion. This led to the location of Sharpbeak (Don't eat Sharpbeak) and another couple of points for saving him.

Then, the guild called and requested a little DPS for Heroic Violet Hold. How could I refuse? Afterall it's only 20 minutes or so, free shards and badges... well, with a bugged portal we had to 4-man it, with an offtank managing to control continually spawning dragonflights. We ALSO got (in my opinion) the hardest boss, which almost wiped us. The healer ended up killing it with dots, but almost died himself! After ressing everyone and rebuffing, we then had 2 portals open (one of them bugged, remember) and about 15 seconds before the next spawned.

Pulling two groups and heavy AoE, we controlled the situation and managed to sit and drink quickly before the next boss appeared... Not having done him before I didn't know that taking out a guard would enrage him - darn nearly wiped us, but the GM shouted me to switch DPS back to the boss only and we took him out without issue.

Finally, we got back to the portals and noted that there were now 3 open and had to again get control of the place. Looking back, it was fun - but we sensed a heavy repair bill and having to do it all again looming ever so close. Long story short, we wiped. Not without a fight I might add. So we decided we'd go back in and have one more crack at it, and if any portals bugged we'd just make our own Dalaran portal and leg it.

What we saw when we instanced back in was quite a shock:

• Portal spawning dragonflight [check]
• Guards fighting dragonflight [check]
• Woman that starts the event [not check]
• Bugged portal still spawning mobs [check]
• Cyanigosa stood in the middle of the room looking menacing [What the heck?]

Turned out the bugged portal which caused our wipe also held the instance open, so with none of us in the guards reset, but with the event started, it spawned the boss "as usual".

So, after much debate we pulled her, expecting a pretty much instant wipe. She trotted over and took a beating - I think the guards even helped! So we looted and legged it.

I legged it all the way to Un Goro Crater... filled a few vials with slime then fell foul to the server reset - leaving me "close enough to smell it" - Eastern Kingdoms 699/700 with 1x quest (completed)!

What's confirmed in 3.2... so far!

Patch 3.2 will be another MAJOR content injection, and sadly nothing has been said about technical matters such as increasing the amount of instances accessible at once or reducing the lag in populated areas (think Dalaran at 19:30hrs on Wednesdays). What has been announced SO FAR is as follows:

General

• The mount system will be changed to allow training of mount skills at lower levels. This applies to class-specific travel abilities as well.
  
• A new zeppelin between Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff will be added.
  
• Portals to the Stair of Destiny in Hellfire Peninsula will be added to Orgrimmar and Stormwind City.
  
• Players will receive the flight path from the Stair of Destiny to Shattrath City automatically.
  
• More changes to the Argent Tournament will be made, and new rewards added.
  

Raids & Dungeons

• A new instance, called Crusaders' Coliseum is added for 5, 10 and 25-player groups and raids. This is an instance similar to the Ring of Blood.
  
• Ironbound / Rusted Proto-Drakes will be removed from the Ulduar achievements. New rewards will be added with an Argent Coliseum achievement.
  

PvP

• Arena Season 7 will begin after the release of 3.2, with new rewards.
  
• Isle of Conquest, a new battleground similar to Alterac Valley and Arathi Basin, will be added.
  

Professions: Jewelcrafting

• Dragon's Eye gems will no longer be considered "Prismatic"
• Qualifying jewelcrafters who have cut Dragon's Eye gems will be compensated with Dalaran Jewelcrafter Tokens.
• The design recipes for cutting epic gems will be made available for purchase with Dalaran Jewelcrafter’s Tokens.
• Obtain raw epic gems via Prospecting Titanium Ore.
• Obtain raw epic gems via Alchemy transmutations.
• Obtain raw epic gems via spending Honor.
• Obtain raw epic gems via spending Emblems of Heroism.

Professions: Alchemy

• The Mixology benefits from Northrend elixirs and flasks have been increased
• Added a new pattern for Flask of the North, usable by players with a high alchemy skill. The recipe is purchased from the honor potion vendor. The Flask of the North increases your spell power, attack power, or Strength for 1 hour, and is usable in arenas. It is not consumed when used.
• Endless Healing Potion and Endless Mana Potion no longer usable in arenas. Amount of health and mana has been increased, and the cooldown reduced. They are still usable everywhere else.

Professions: Enchanting

• Values on Northrend ring enchants increased

Professions: Engineering

• Increased benefits from Hyperspeed Accelerators, Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket, and Reticulated Armor Webbing glove modifications

Professions: Herbalism

• Increased healing from Lifeblood (Rank 6)
• Lifeblood now scales slightly with maximum health
• Lifeblood no longer affected by global cooldown

Professions: Inscription

• Master's Inscriptions increased

Professions: Jewelcrafting

• Dragon's Eye gems stat bonuses increased

Professions: Leatherworking

• Fur Lining values increased

Professions: Mining

• Toughness (Rank 6) provides more Stamina

Professions: Skinning

• Master of Anatomy (Rank 6) provides more critical strike rating

Professions: Tailoring

• Embroideries improved

Classes: Druid

• New art for bear and cat forms will be added.
  

Classes: Paladin

• Changes will be made to improved Holy gameplay in terms of healing.
• Exorcism will be changed.

Classes: Shaman

• Base health will be increased to be similar to other classes.

The tipsters are putting their money on "sooner rather than later" for a general release, but as yet there's nothing on the PTR so it's almost certainly not going to be this Wednesday ;-)

People are also speculating that the new "ring of blood" type instance MAY include some of our old favourites, scaled up and levelled accordingly. Think of Mr Smite and Edwin VanCleef with his bunch of rogue bodyguards at level 83... For years people have been joking about Heroic Hogger raids... Maybe the devs have been listening, and just lacking a place to introduce it?

More pootling and some BOOM!

Had a first look at Azjol-Nerub last night, taking a stroll through the Heroic instance with some guild mates. Got to the last boss without serious incident, though my sacrificial shield took a beating when I dragged a big bug off the tank and took a 13,500hp slap. Luckily it was on its last couple of thousand health so a rapid deathcoil finished it off and got me out of danger.

After a couple of wipes on Anub'arak we got the hang of the fight and downed him without too much trouble. The important thing is to concentrate on getting the poison-spitters down quickly, and not spend too long AoEing the non-elites, who don't really cause too much trouble. I found myself having to interrupt casts a lot when the rumbling underfoot started, as I wasn't getting far enough away from the tail spikes. Unlike a void zone (etc.) you can't simply sidestep after a tick or two of damage - you have to get right out of the area by at least 4 yards and fast!

So, chalk up "Defeat the Azjol-Nerub bosses on Heroic Difficulty" and the normal achievement too. Only need The Old Kingdom and The Occulus now for Northrend Dungeonmaster. Add to these, Heroic Drak'Tharon Keep and Gundrak and I'll have Northrend Dungeon Hero too!

Questwise, I finished a few more major chains off including forging the UBRS key (yes, I know it's no-longer an attunement, but it's another thing I can say I've done) and went back into Uldaman to re-create the necklace. Disappointed that the latter did not count towards Loremaster, but I'm happily sat at 665/700 Eastern Kingdom and 675/700 Kalimdor.

For Northrend, I've got to find 3 more quests in the Grizzly Hills, 2 more in Storm Peaks, and a whopping 23 more to find in Icecrown. Struggling slightly to get back into the Northrend content, especially grinding rep, but will most likely finish it off in a few days.

Tonight, is Oracles night... My egg will have hatched and I'll pick up the daily quests while I'm getting another. This will get me the "200 daily quests" achievement (I'll pick up fishing daily before I go in case it's the Ghostfish) then I might seriously consider another round of Hodir rep. Slaying a dragon with just a spear is SO satisfying!

Slow progress

Had a little downtime over the weekend and finished off a few more quests. Currently sitting at 656/700 Eastern Kingdom and 675/700 Kalimdor but was highly disappointed that a couple of the quests that took a fair bit of time didn't count towards the Loremaster achievement. However, 69 quests to go and a few of those are done and ready to hand in when I pass the zone they belong to.

What does nark me slightly is that now I'm getting to the end of the line with a lot of hubs, the quests are for raid instances. While I'll *probably* get round to them when the guild next decides to have a break from Naxxramus and go do some old-school raiding, it's not getting me very far. That said, however, some of the raid quests I've been given have been soloable and completed when not in a raid group - so that's fine by me. Doubt if I could manage Blackwing Lair on my own though, due to the sheer number of adds and the fact that I'm a clothie.

Had another venture into Scholomance to kill Vectus (putting down Dawn's Gambit in the viewing room) but completely missed the opportunity to pick up the other quest that the SAME quest giver had for me, to kill the whelplings. Might have to pop back in for that, but it CERTAINLY won't be a full clear. I really do hate the place, especially the ones that are immune to spells.

Furnished off the Uldum questline (the platinum disks from Uldaman) which was a big boost to the numbers - especially as the end of the quest has a few "go talk to " stages, and talking to the image was at least 2 quests.

Slightly narked that the tactical / combat / logistical quests in Silithus don't count towards Loremaster either. There's at least 12 combat tasks, which, while being repetitive grinds is STILL 12 quests completed - and I'm told that the followup quests from handing in the badges to get Battlegear don't count either - so I'm not wasting any more time in that hellhole! If I'm still a couple of quests short, I might go back for the Abyssal Dukes grind, as I'm told that they DO count.

Speaking of grinding, another thing I've been getting on with is the repetitive slaughtering of Magram Clan centaurs JUST to "change sides" and pick up 3-4 quests for the other lot. saw a few people while running around taking on 1-2 at a time, so I grouped them for a few minutes and passed on loot so they got both reputation and centaur ears for their questing. I figured it'd be nicer to them than constantly leaving dead bodies in their path.

Lastly, I've been informally challenged to "Go solo onyxia" so I'll try my best to find out if I've done Victory for the Alliance yet and see where on the questline I might be at. Have a feeling I've already done it though - so maybe a few more quests towards the achievement can be handed in on the way...

Making my bank alt look good...

Stólen is modelling a white tuxedo shirt, black tuxedo pants and dress shoes along with a diamond tipped cane.


He's a Level 20 Dwarf Rogue with mining and engineering as professions, so should be fairly fun to level once I get bored with my warlock...


He's my primary auction character and bank alt and loves to sprint from the AH to the mailbox and bank!

Classic Dungeonmaster [CHECK]

As you might have seen in my list of unfinished business, I am now able to rip the leg off a gnomish mechanostrider and use it to pat myself firmly on the back for a job well done.

Loremaster-wise, I'm now at

• 622/700 - Eastern Kingdoms
• 659/700 - Kalimdor

and still have a few (complete) quests to hand in.

Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to get Eastern Kingdoms almost finished!

50 Mount Achievement

I think I'm going to save a shedload of cash and wait for this to happen:

In the next major content patch, we intend to adjust mount requirements to further improve the leveling experience in World of Warcraft. In addition, cast times for summoning all mounts will be reduced to 1.5 seconds, down from 3 seconds. The following is a breakdown of the upcoming cost and level requirement changes we are making for each riding skill.

Apprentice Riding (Skill 75)

• 60% land mount speed
• Requires level 20
• Cost: 4 gold
• Mount cost: 1 gold
• Mail will be sent to players at level 20 guiding them to the riding trainer

Journeyman Riding (Skill 150)

• 100% land mount speed
• Requires level 40
• Cost: 50 gold
• Mount cost: 10 gold
• Mail will be sent to players at level 40 guiding them back to the riding trainer

Expert Riding (Skill 225)

• 150% flying mount speed; 60% land mount speed
• Requires level 60
• Cost: 600 gold (faction discounts now apply)
• Mount Cost: 50 gold
• Can now be learned in Honor Hold (Alliance) or Thrallmar (Horde)

Artisan Riding (Skill 300)

• 280% flying mount speed; 100% land mount speed
• Requires level 70
• Cost: 5,000 gold (faction discounts now apply)
• Mount Cost: 100 gold

If my maths is right (and it's not USUALLY too far out) this should mean you can purchase 30 (thirty) ground-mounts for 165G, assuming all 5 factions have 3x slow and 3x fast mounts each.

ADDITIONAL:
More has been edited into the original post...

Movement Speed Training By Class

• Druid
  
  • Travel Form: Requires level 16
  • Flight Form: Requires level 60 (150% flight speed)
  • Swift Flight Form: Requires level 70
• Hunter
• Aspect of the Cheetah: Requires level 16
• Shaman
  
  • Ghost Wolf: Requires level 16
• Paladin
  
  • Warhorse: Requires level 20
  • Charger: Requires level 40
• Warlock
  
  • Felsteed: Requires level 20
  • Dreadsteed: Requires level 40

Don't get me wrong, as I think I'll benefit from it, and so will my alts, but will they be removing the quest element of Dreadsteed? No good putting the ritual in a level 60 instance if you want level 40 players to be able to obtain it...

If this is the case, obtaining the steed will no longer be a status symbol for Locks - but if not, there'll be a lot of 40's paying to be boosted through Dire Maul by a warlock with the ritual items! PROFIT?

Messin' with the Horde

Had a quick run through Sethekk Halls in Heroic mode with a couple of guildie druids, one lvl80 and one lvl70 to get his swift flight form. Found the majority of the run quite easy except for the chain lightning totems, and not having a healer... Me and the big bear pretty much soloed the bosses and, being higher level and having less aggro radius managed to skip a couple of the bigger pulls. 2-man heroics are going to be a good source of income, as I earned about 50G in disenchanted materials, not counting the greys and gold picked up en-route.

As we weren't in Naxx last night, I decided to go finish off some of my questing and achievement hunting.

Soulstoned and flagged for PvP I took a little trip into Orgrimmar to find Ragefire Chasm and dispatch Taragaman the Hungerer.

Riding through the city, picking up a tail of Level 75 (elite) guards, Hunters Marks and Random potshots from lowbies, I found the instance entrance and thought I was home free.

Level 80 Rogue...

Stuns, Blinds, Dirty Tricks, kicks, gouges and eviscerates came flying at me out of nowhere. So I fought back with an instant Death Coil, instant backlash incinerate and prepared to fear him as the guards caught up with me and shield-bashed me. He (the Rogue) came and sat next to me, laughing. Of course, I had the last laugh as I popped my soulstone and stepped into the instance.

15 minutes later, the instance was cleared and I got my achievement.

Adding insult to injury, I also popped back out of the instance door (Hearthing would have been too easy) and messed with the guards a little more, this time gaining enough ground on them to go fishing. DING!

Getting the oldschool raids finished

One thing that REALLY narks me is that a LOT of the content I'm classed as "not yet achieving" is stuff that I did over and over again a couple of years ago while gearing up. I had pretty much ALL the Sunwell badge vendor gear from running 3-4 heroics per day and getting exalted with the faction.

This is a list of the instances I'm missing for the achievements:

Classic Dungeonmaster

• Ragefire Chasm
  
• Blackfathom Deeps
  

Classic Raider

• Blackwing Lair
  
• Molten Core
  
• Temple of Ahn'Qiraj
  

Outland Dungeonmaster

• The Blood Furnace
  
• The Slave Pens
  

The Outland Hero

• Heroic: Hellfire Ramparts
  
• Heroic: The Blood Furnace
  
• Heroic: The Slave Pens
  
• Heroic: Underbog
  
• Heroic: Mana-Tombs
  
• Heroic: The Escape From Durnholde
  
• Heroic: Sethekk Halls
  
• Heroic: Opening of the Dark Portal
  
• Heroic: The Mechanar
  
• Heroic: The Botanica
  
• Heroic: Magister's Terrace
  
• Heroic: Auchenai Crypts
  

Outland Raider

• Zul'Aman
  
• Serpentshrine Cavern
  
• The Battle for Mount Hyjal
  
• Tempest Keep
  
• The Black Temple
  
• Sunwell Plateau

With a few exceptions, namely the 25/40 man content, which while ventured into had never been fully completed, everything is going to seem like deja-vu. Talking to a GM was no good at all. Even while waving Quagmirran's Eye at him, which only drops off the final boss of Slave Pens in Heroic mode, he could only suggest "It shouldn't take you long to do them again, and it's easy gold!"

I guess I'll just have to go in with empty bags and farm as much as I can :-)

As happy as an immolated bunny...

Everwrath HATES Maraudon.

That is all.

Quest complete...

Until I get the coveted Loremaster title, I shall now be known as Everwrath the Seeker.

This adds to my list of titles which also include:

Ambassador Everwrath
Everwrath, Champion of the Naaru
Everwrath the Explorer
Everwrath Jenkins

Quite happy to find a couple of more smaller quest hubs that hadn't been finished. I gave up on Feathermoon Stronghold back at level 55ish when it was sending me to Dire Maul. At the time, no-one liked the place (hated was more the word) and finding a group to go in there was troublesome and usually involved bribing guildies with toast and cake. Now at 80, I can happily wander around on my own, killing anything that comes close enough to aggro me. Sneaked in, killed everything, hearthed out. 10 minutes work to do a couple of quests that would have taken upward of 2 hours 25 levels ago.

Would have been nice to have found them before I did the achievement runs last week though...

Adding item to my must-have list: Cowl of the Absolute.

Questing like mad!

Spent a bit of time over the weekend working on the Loremaster achievements, finding low level quests all over the place that I'd obviously skipped for one reason or another. Two or three of them ended up being pretty long chains with at least one "talk to the bloke next to me" stage. I like these.

Most of them, however, were "go visit someone on the other continent, grind something obscure with slow-respawn and low drop rates" which took a considerable time. all I can say is "Thank Ghod for 100% mount and having every flight-point" - It would have been a killer doing this at level 23!

Currently sat at 2973 of 3000 quests complete for the "seeker" title. As for the pre-BC areas, I'm now at 607/700 for the Eastern Kingdoms and 623/700 in Kalimdor.

A few people were asking me while gaining Timbermaw rep (now revered) how I was running at full pelt through masses of mobs and they all seem to follow me then die a couple of seconds later. I use the following macro:

/script ClearTarget()
/script TargetNearestEnemy()
/cast Corruption

Need to remember to put VW on passive or it 1-hits the mob before corruption kicks in and I get no loot and no kill.

Everwrath, King of the Gordok Ogres

Last night I did indeed finish the King of Dire Maul with a tribute run. I also used the opportunity to obtain several bits and pieces for the various low level quests I'm finishing off - but still have a LONG way to go for the loremaster - maybe 250 quests or so in Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor.

I had a swift run through Razorfen Downs, ganking Amnennar the Coldbringer for the dungeon achievement, then realised there was a quest to kill him when I checked wowhead later. Bring the Light given by Archbishop Bendictus in Stormwind Cathedral has never flagged up on my minimap, but maybe I'll go talk to him before I head back out there and get him again on my way to Razorfen Kraul. There seems to be a few other quests in the area, but probably mostly for the horde.

More later :-P

Dire consequences

Had a pootle around Dire Maul last night. Haven't been in there before except to do the Warlock Dreadsteed of Xoroth quest, and even then it was a stealthy in-out at level 60 with Jim on his level 70 lock banging the gongs

Managed to fall into the conservatory pretty early on, cleared around the place and pootled about some more looking for the way back to the instance door... finally finding pusillin and chasing him along to his "final resting place" where I looted the Crescent Key, giving me easy access to the other wings.

It also gave me The Keymaster which disappointingly doesn't come with a title. To say you need to do several dungeons, gain several reputations and complete several long(ish) quest chains to get this achievement, I think it should be rewarded with a vanity title.

So, cleared 2x wings killing Alzzin the Wildshaper (East) and Immol'thar (West) then went back to the AH with bags full of felcloth, herbs, books, librams and shards. Should be about 4-500G if they all sell.

The other reason for going back in was to get satyr blood for my Ritual of Doom. Being able to summon a doomguard (without killing a party member) is now not left to chance. It's guaranteed!

Maybe I'll pop into Dire Maul North tonight for a quick tribute run and sack King Gordok for the achievement.

Nerf 3.1.3

Chaos Bolt: This spell no longer ignores damage reduction effects of the target.

That sucks, but reading more into it, it still pierces absorption and resistances as clarified by Ghostcrawler:

Cheat Death is an absorption. So Chaos Bolt can still pierce it.

Cloak of Shadows is a resist. So Chaos Bolt can still pierce it.

There are four basic categories of spell resistance here:

• Immunities -- things like Divine Shield. Chaos Bolt will not affect these.
• Damage reductions -- things like Barkskin. Chaos Bolt affects these currently, but not in 3.1.3.
• Absorptions -- things like Power Word: Shield. Chaos Bolt will continue to affect these.
• Resistances -- things like Cloak of Shadows. Chaos Bolt will continue to affect these.

So, not as bad as it originally sounded...

PvP Part I

Decided to give PvP another go, but very tired of getting 1-hit by pretty much any class out there, and hating rogues with their various methods of stunning me, so I ditched my entire wardrobe of lvl 70 Tier4 pvp gear and crafted myself a full set of frostsavage battlegear.

On top of that, I decided to buy some eternal shadow cheaply on the AH and made myself a Cloak of Crimson Snow taking my resilience rating (without enchants) to 379.

Not only did it clear up a load of bank space taken up by cloth, dust and eternals, but it also gave me 8 skill points in tailoring - up to 440 now!

Taking my new garb into the battlegrounds must have scared the bejassus out of the horde (yeah right) but I managed to grab the following achievements:

• Damage Control
  
• Strand of the Ancients Victory
  
• Arathi Basin Victory
  
• Eye of the Storm Victory
• The Grim Reaper
• Know Thy Enemy
• That Takes Class