Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Getting My Lock ready to Raid at 80 part 2



Well continuing my previous post Getting My Lock ready to Raid at 80 an lets cover some of the other pieces of gear and weaponry.

Just a quick note.  You may have items from BC that you got from heroics/dungeons/pvp.  Those items may be superior to these if they have lots of sockets and you can gem them right.  So always compare and shot around.  And don't vendor gear until you are certain that it is inferior to something else.


Blinded by Light Video



I saw this on wowhead.com, great video.  Want to make you play a rogue :).


The Craft of War: BLIND from percula on Vimeo.


Monday, December 29, 2008

Getting My Lock ready to Raid at 80 part 1



Well I've hit level 80 over Christmas.  It was a great achievement.  Now I can begin raiding and doing heroics.  Some of my favorite things to do in WoW, especially with my guild.

First and the most important thing though is gear.  The guild may be ready to do Nax, but I may not be. My philosophy on gear is:


  • Get things that are not too valuable, since they will be replaced. Don't overspend on gear that may be replaced on the first drop in that heroic/first raid run.

  • Get gemmed and enchanted, but once again don't go overboard, you will replace things.  Go for the cheaper versions for starting gear.

  • Get as close to your Hit Cap as possible - with three points into talents into destro and affliction hit talents you need 365 Hit to be hitcapped.  Who cares how much spell power you have if your Dots are not landing where they supposed to and your shadowbolts are flying off to the side.

  • Balance your gear.  I don't believe glass cannon locks.  You're mana should be OK to cast a few things, your stamina should give you enough points to life tap occasionally and also to survive a tough fight or pull where healer may be overtaxed.  A lock is not a mage, and thus should not be bust damage then dead (no offense to our mage counterparts I hope).



Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Power of a Goal



I've always read in many books that setting goals will drive you to achieve better and faster.  Here is an interesting true story on having a burning goal. -

This happened in wintergrasp.  My first time there.  I'm runnig around exploring when I notice saronite nodes here and there.  Mind you this is the first time i mined saronite.  Even then my mining was in the upper 430's from mining the cobalt.  So i am just running around and my mining is at 442.  Suddenly I run into a Titanium node.   My thoughts - OH MY GOD! I run up to mine it only to find out that I'm too low, need 450 mining.  I panic, then I decide to quickly run around and mine the saronite nodes, I only need 8.

So I'm running around, and getting the saronite.  There is tons of it in that zone.  And guess what, I fin anouther node of Titanium.  OH MY GOD.  So I pray pray noone ( especially some alliance toon) will find it before I get to 450.

Well to make the longs torry short, I did not get the titanium nodes :(.  I got to 450 and right at that moment anouther horde player got to them.  I walked away from there with 450 mning though, and 3 stacks of saronite.


Almost 80



Well my warlock is almost 80.  Can't wait to get there.  Not because I want to rush to 80 but simply most of my guild mates are at 80 and are constantly running heroics and beginning to raid.  I really enjoy running instances with my guild and thus feel left out.  So I will focus on doing quests and focusing on leveling that last level ASAP.  Then i can slow down and continue doing quests to get more lore and help my reputations.

I really enjoy questing in Northrend.  The quests are beautifully tied into the lore that you get to explore.  Plus the mechanics of operating machines, guns, flying dragons etc are really cool.  My next toon to get into Northrend will start off in the other entry level zone so I can do all the quests there.

As far as my other two favorite alts, my AOE mage and paladin, I also want to get back to play them.  I think my goal is to get my mage to 50 so that I can level my enchanting for DE purposes.  Then I will work on the paladin.  I do want to havea  healer class in end game.  However, I did get tired oh my druid, who is now 49.  Druid healer was my original goal, but I think i might go with a paladin instead.  I love AOE grinding and questing.  It's just too much fun to pass up.


Monday, December 15, 2008

AOE and your Alts Part 2



This is a follow up post to my previous entry regarding AOE and your Alts.  I've been AOE grinding with my frost mage and my protection paladin, and all I have to say is that AOE grinding is better then ever.  The Frost Mage is a lot of fun with the fact that Blizard now crits.  With correct talent (here is the talent build I am using), and the glyph that allows for extra damage to the MOB before they break out of frost nova, that blizzard will crit quite a few times.  In fact looking at some videos from the past of a mage a bout my level (mid 40s) grinding with AOE and Blizzard I can say that my blizzard does double if not triple damage now, thus killing the MOBs on the second wave.

Paladins are even in a better situation.  It is easier to manage seals and judgements, and do additional DPS.  Plus the change to Blessing of Sanctuary to move it from DPS to mana regenaration is great, I no longer run out of mana while I'm AOE grindnign and can use more DPS abilities that relie on mana.  Here is my build for paladin.


Tuesday, December 9, 2008

AOE and your alts



The conventional wisdom with all the recent patches is that it's much more productive to quest then to grind.  Even when it comes to AOE grinds, it's still better to just do the quest.  Perhaps that is true.  But what if you have an alt who you just use to DE things.  He's level 44 and you don't feel like doing quests which you've already done recently with two other alts.
Well if he's a mage, why not AOE grind.  I've tried this with my mage when I was in my level 20's.  At that point I did not like it at all.  In fact I hated the whole frost things.  Now at 44 and with tons and tons of rested XP, why not AOE a bit now and then and get to level 50, while I keep leveling my main through the Northrend, and take my time there to enjoy the quests.

So I've specked my mage frost AOE, and some initial AOEing proved to be quite fun.  It's soooo nice to have the ice barrier.  Before it, it was always a very close call when I did AOE.  Now it's much more practical and safer.  I will tweak the spec tonight, and will do some more murlock killing.

At the same time, it gives me an idea to about my other alts.  My paladin can also gain a few levels this way.  In fact he was my first AOE successful experiement, I leveled him and did most of the questing using a proteciton spec.  My biggest question is can I do the same with my druid.  I've read some posts, and it may be possible to grind him as AOE.  I should try feral, and balance perhaps to see which is more viable.