A successful WC run ends here: where Naralex's Disciple either (a) turns Naralex into a Murloc or (b) draws a Murloc out of Naralex's dreams. Never really got that one.*

Wailing Caverns is designed to be a low level Horde instance (15-25). In the big picture view it’s the second instance that Horde players visit, after hacking and slashing their way through Ragefire Chasm. Wailing Caverns is technically tucked under some rocks in The Barrens but thanks to the Dungeon Finder it’s just one button away.

Because it’s a Horde instance I’d only run it a couple times at level 80 on various characters in order to earn the achievement. And each time I’d gotten hopelessly lost.

Now, at level 17, my baby new Warlock – pitifully decked out in common white and grey items with no resources over on Argent Dawn – has had her first Wailing Caverns (WC) experience. Surely this time, with four others and a nominated Dungeon Guide, I’d be okay and wouldn’t get lost?

Not a chance.

The Map

Wailing Caverns Map. Bosses and paths marked.

To download the image go to: http://www.hotsdots.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/WailingCavernsMap.jpg

The bosses are:

1. Lady Anaconda
   She can be found in any one of the three locations marked. Once you’ve killed her you can jump down into the river – don’t keep clearing the upper floor.
2. Kresh Optional.
   Kresh is a turtle that patrols along the river in this central cavern. He’s neutral, but attackable and drops rare items.
3. Lord Cobrahn
4. Lord Pythas
5. Skum Optional.
   He’s optional but he’s like right there on the way. Might as well kill him and break up the long trip to Lord Serpentis!
6. Lord Serpentis
   Once you’ve killed Lord Serpentis, or the last Lord, you’ll see that the Tauren Disciple of Naralex who was hanging out back at the start of the instance will yell out to you. This means that you’ve unlocked the event to complete the instance – good work!
7. Verdan the Everliving
8. Matanus the Devourer Escort/Event
   You need to talk to the Disciple of Naralex at the very start of the instance and he’ll escort you to the final event and summon Matanus (a giant murloc). The best way to do that, in my opinion, is to get everyone in your group to use the Dungeon Finder icon and Teleport Out of the Instance. And then Teleport to the Instance. This should bring your group back to the start and the Disciple of Naralex. If you’re not using the Dungeon Finder, you can jump down the hole in the group behind Verdan and track your way west through the river back to the start.
   

The Run

Slowly, yet painfully, we cleared the main cavern upper floor. This is the easy bit and netted us 1 boss kill and our first blue item. At this point things seemed shakey. Nobody knew where to go. Not our Dungeon Guide, either.

I had a vague recollection that we had to follow the river … so my group followed me as I headed east. Almost half an hour later we were still slowing making our way through the winding path without sight of a boss. I noticed a few things:

1. The Druids in Wailing Caverns like to heal themselves. And nobody in our group seemed to be armed with a silence or interupt at such low levels. Actually, we did have a Rogue, and I think that Rogue had some form of stun (Gouge maybe?) so maybe there was something we could have done about it. Mostly we just ignored it and wore them down again.

2. Nobody really has AoE before level 20. I’ve discovered that there’s nothing more frustrating than coming across a group of 5-8 non-elite vipers hissing at your ankles when you can’t really wipe them out with one spell. For me it was a case of dot, tab, dot, tab etc. Actually our Warrior tank’s Thunderclap seemed the best ability at hand: two or three of those would get them.

I was also witness to my first loot drama. An uncommon piece of Mail dropped which the Warrior tank Needed on. The Rogue took issue with this and started a fight with the Mage in the group because they ought to be using Plate. After a few seconds we were able to unravel the actual accusation: that tanks should only roll Need on Plate armor.

Considering that I haven’t actually played either a Warrior or a Hunter I tried to sound knowledgeable “I don’t think Warriors can wear Plate armor until level 40″ and “I think it’s the same for Hunters and Shamans and Mail armor”.

This seemed to settle to argument. It was also a handy reminder that not everyone knows everything at low levels. In fact, it’s quite a refreshing change from the know-it-all Barthilas/Bloodlust mentality that I’ve become accustomed to!

Unfortunately we wiped before we could reach the second “Lord” boss… defeated by trash and the effort to retrace our steps to our bodies. We gave up. I was relieved – I’m pretty confident that we were going around in circles.

I swapped over to my level 80 Rogue, did a bit of research and headed over to the Barrens to work on this guide. Now that I have a map I’m looking forward to my second Wailing Caverns run. And next time I’ll be taking the lead!

* BTW I thought it was both cool and amusing that a level 20 Elite had his own die hard followers already. What is he? The leader of a leveling guild?

Does gear have any meaning with Cataclysm on the horizon?

I think gear is only good for one thing: getting you to the next boss kill.

Which is a bit problematic right now. There isn’t really any new boss kills on the horizon at this moment in time. So far my mish mash set is serving me well and its gotten me nearly all the way through the heroic modes in Icecrown Citadel. In fact the 30% bonus from Strength of Wrynn is probably contributing a hell of a lot more to my damage output than any gear upgrade could.

Should I even bother trying to finish out my Best in Slot set? If I end up finishing my gear set at the end of Icecrown Citadel… has it all just been a waste of time?

After Icecrown Citadel we can look forward to the next World of Warcraft expansion: Cataclysm AKA five extra levels and a gear reset. Perhaps I need to look at my gear from another perspective: it’s going to form my 80 -> 85 leveling set. And maybe, if I’m lucky, it might help me step into the level 85 heroics… and raids?

If Cataclysm follows the Wrath of the Lich King model I will be raiding Tier 11 wearing my Tier 10 gear. That could really be sweet and give me a step up into the early raid zones in the new expansion.

But that’s a big “if”.

In the Burning Crusade Blizzard introduced a hard gear reset. Level 60 raiders walking into Hellfire Peninsula handed over their beloved, hard won epics for Outlands greens with better stats. How that must have hurt. Even now, most players race straight to Hellfire once they reach level 58 instead of waiting until level 60. The experience gains from quests is just better and the gear (from easy quests) is too good to pass up.

Furthermore, it’s almost a necessity. You need that clown set (you know what I’m talking about) to survive against the beasts in Hellfire Peninsula and Zangamarsh. Those hellboars are mean. And they’re everywhere.

Things at the start of Wrath of the Lich King were a little less devastating to level 70 raiders. You could expect to vendor you entry level Karazhan epics by about level 75: half way through the Wrath of the Lich King leveling process. And the very, very best level 70 epics could hold their own against the level 80 entry level epics, as long as you didn’t care too much about being low on Stamina.

I’m fairly confident that the server first level 80 Naxxramas kills were completed by raiders still wearing their Sunwell raiding gear. So there was definitely some gear overlap there. And it must have made life a bit easier for the most successful raiders of the Burning Crusade to get a step up into Wrath of the Lich King raiding content the moment they hit level 80.

Most importantly, it didn’t trivialize the rewards they had earned from killing the toughest bosses in Outlands and the Isle of Quel’Danas.

I expect that the early zones in Cataclysm will be designed to bring new players leveling straight through (imagine Storm Peaks at level 78 and then straight into a level 80-81 zone built for Cataclysm) up to speed. There’s a giant item level gap between level 78-80 quest rewards – around ilevel 187 – and the highest raid gear currently available – about ilevel 277.

I think that Blizzard will want level 85 entry raids to require more than ilevel 277 gear. They say that they intend for players to spend time working through the level 85 dungeons on normal mode. I presume this is for gear, otherwise, why would you bother? And then working through the same dungeons on heroic mode for yet more gear. And then, only then, walking into a raid.

In Wrath of the Lich King the most geared players from the previous expansion could ignore all the dungeon content and step right into raiding. I think Blizzard will try and push everyone, absolutely everyone, to spend time with the dungeon content first. Thus extending the life of both the dungeon and raid content before we see “this is too easy, this is boring” posts on the forums.

I’m not sure what the average level 80 player is wearing in terms of item level but I’d guess it’s about ilevel245-251. My Shaman, Xata, is on 4949 GearScore (deemed “FAIL” – how is this even possible while wearing the Tabard of the Scarlet Crusade?!) which, if I’m reading the site correctly, is 316 points below the average. That means that your average GearScore is 5265.  I’m not sure if that’s the average on my server, or on all US servers or for all level 80s or what.

Xata is wearing mostly ilevel 200-232 with the rare 264 Emblem item thrown in. I’ve raided with her now and then but most of her gear was acquired through the use of the Dungeon Finder. That’s the standard game experience these days right?

I also don’t expect Blizzard to play favourites with the minority of players wearing 277+ gear. So I think it’s fair to say that someone in 277 gear isn’t going to be able to side step the Cataclysm heroics entirely. Dungeons, perhaps, but not the heroics.

This is what I’m guessing we’ll see for Cataclysm:

• Zone 81 greens: ilvl227
• Zone 81 blues: ilvl232
• Zone 85 blues: ilvl277
• Dungeon 85 blues: ilvl277
• Heroic Dungeon 85 blues: ilvl285
• Heroic Dungeon 85 epics: ilvl300
• Level 85 crafted epics and epic reputation rewards: ilvl300

This will mean that most players will drop their raid gear at some point before they reach level 85 – not unlike what happened in Wrath of the Lich King.

I believe that the items available from Cataclysm level 85 heroics will be better than anything available in Wrath of the Lich King. Er, that’s assuming Blizzard don’t get their gear itemisation totally wrong.

Whether or not this forces even the most hardcore, realm-first chasers to complete heroics for loot before stepping foot in a Cataclysm raid will most likely come down to the difficulty of the first raid. If it’s easy, why waste a week grinding heroics? Take in your mediocre gear from Icecrown Citadel and fight for those speed kills!

Lathere tells me that they’ve already announced that entry level epics will be item level 350. That’s what I get for avoiding all the Cataclysm spoiler news! I still enjoyed speculating

Achievement Earned: Insane in the Membrane

I was going to make this into a video. Maybe I will at sometime in the future. Or when I figure out how to do the speed-up effect in iMovie. Some abbreviations:

• LBRS = Lower Blackrock Spire
• BRD = Blackrock Depths
• DM = Dire Maul
• Libram = Libram of Focus, Libram of Rapidity or Libram of Protection
• Diamond = Pristine Black Diamond
• Deck = Darkmoon Faire epic deck of cards

Color-coded so you can see which items/activities are for which reputations.

• Ravenholdt is orange
• Shendralar is yellow
• Steamwheedle Cartel is blue
• Activities which boost Shendralar and Steamwheedle Cartel at the same time are green
• Darkmoon Faire is purple
• Bloodsail Buccaneers is red

Queue times are fun times!

One of the things that brings me back to my Mage time and time again is the prospect of revisiting the Burning Crusade dungeons. The Dungeon Finder has other ideas: it wants me to queue for a Random Wrath Dungeon. I don’t want to do that. So my wait times in queue have been really, really long.

Last Saturday evening I waited over three hours in a queue for The Botanica. I’ve started to get a bit creative about using that time.

There’s really only one rule: don’t, whatever you do, join a party with a friend (or sell a Mage port, or take a Mage port) or log out or otherwise quit the game. You can enter combat (and still accept a dungeon invitation, I believe). You can die (but you won’t be auto-teleported to your dungeon whilst in spirit form).

1. Gather herbs or mine

Let’s start with a productive use of your time. I’m pretty confident that it’s impossible to reach 450 Herbalism and 450 Mining just by gathering nodes found in dungeons. So while I’m in queue I tend to gather herbs. To that end, I tend to have my hearthstone or live in an Inn near a convenient source of herbs. When I was short on Mountain Silversage I lived out in Silithus and trekked around Silithus and Un’goro in search of that particular herb.

This only really works if you need to collect a herb that grows around creatures in your level range, or lower. As much as I’d like to start gathering Adder’s Tongue there’s just no way I’d survive out in Shalozar Basin at level 70.

So gathering while you’re in queue is a good way to catch up on your gathering profession.

Alternatively, once you’ve caught up and your most desirable herbs at out of your level reach, you could go and herb the most profitable herb available to you. For example, I could go back and herb Mountain Silversage and probably sell it, buy Adder’s Tongue and make a tidy profit.

2. Play the Auction House

In hindsight there’s really no reason why I couldn’t have made Caesandra one of my working bank alts. Or, for that matter, perhaps I should gift my Level 1 Warlock a few Bind on Account items, speed level to level 15, and then return to Ironforge and spend my time browsing the Auction House in queue. I could even wear my banker’s suit right until I’m inside the instance and just swap them over using Equipment Manager.

You’d probably need to be a bit careful about how you manage your inventory. I like to know that every item found in my bank alt’s possession is to be listed on the Auction House. With all the junk, and potentially useful-at-some-later-stage, items you pick up in dungeons things might get a bit confusing.

3. Level your Professions (even the weird ones)

I only have 1 gathering profession so time in queue is also often spent sorting out Alchemy, and less frequently, First Aid. I should go a step further and also pick up Fishing and Cooking. Actually, Fishing would be an ideal method to while away the time – especially if you park your character in Dalaran.

You can fish all the way from level 1 to level 450 without leaving the city!

4. Travel and Collect Flight Paths

One of the most obvious disadvantages of leveling through dungeons and not by questing is that you won’t pick up Flight Paths as you travel the world. However, collecting level-appropriate Flight Paths is an excellent way to spend time in queue. It’s even better if you can combine that with a gathering skill.

The lengthy run from Stormwind to Menethil Harbour is well known to all Alliance players and something I would consider to be a necessary evil in the 20-30 level bracket range. How about the run from Darkshire to Booty Bay? A deadly, also necessary, chore (and that was before they put in that new flight path in the north west corner of Stranglethorn Vale).

Now I look at the gathering of Flight Paths as a trivia game: what flight paths exist in zones of my level? what’s the most efficient way to reach them by foot? what’s the safest way to reach them by foot?

It’s a bit tricky to predict how important, or irrelevant, Flight Paths will be in Cataclysm. On one hand we’re returning to Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor but on the other hand we’ll be able to use flying mounts. Hmmm… it’s a mystery.

5. Try and Sneak into Dalaran

I must admit that once I reached level 68 I was a bit impatient to get to Dalaran and make it my home. Surely once I’d reached Northrend I could run up and use that stupid triangle transportation device in Crystalsong Forest? As it turns out… no (see fail picture above).

WowWiki is full of interesting suggestions on how to get to Dalaran. I think, if you’re playing the game as intended, you quest in the lower half of Northrend until you reach about level 74 and then a bunch of NPCs (depending on where you are) offer you a flight to Dalaran. If you’re impatient and don’t want to wait until level 74 you’re going to need to try something else.

Since I was already several hours into my Botanica queue at the time I thought I would attempt the Death In Crystalsong Forest Method. The idea being: once you release your spirit in Crystalsong Forest you can fly up to the city on your spirit form griffin. Log out, and then log back in, and you should be in Dalaran, alive.

Unfortunately I missed a critical step: once you’re in Dalaran as a ghost you have to run down to the doors of Violet Hold and talk to the Spirit Guide and resurrect with Resurrection Sickness. I’m not sure why you have to log out at all actually.

I didn’t talk to the Spirit Guide. But I did log out. So I returned to Caesandra still dead, in Dalaran, and now back to the end of the Dungeon Finder queue. I jumped out a sewer pipe (still ignorant of the Resurrection Sickness step) in order to get back to my body.

6. Write Tickets to Blizzard

You could go argue on the World of Warcraft forums, but since the whole Real ID thing was announced, I’m boycotting the official forums. Actually in general I try not to waste my time and I don’t believe any useful feedback could survive the trolling on the official forums so I tend to keep my complains as posts on this here blog. Or as “Report a Problem” tickets.

Fortunately, you can write tickets and talk to GMs while you’re in queue! Unfortunately you can only write one ticket at a time.

My long waits for Botanica, coupled with my terrible, terrible match-ups with players who give up at the first hint of trouble, were the cause of several tickets to Blizzard. I haven’t really gotten much out of the GMs who were tasked with replying to me except:

If other players choose to leave it’s their right to do so.

Of course it’s their right. More of the time it’s a healer or tank that quits (mid-1st-boss pull and leave party is a common occurrence) and the entire party disbands. Which means you can’t requeue under the promise that “you are at the front of the queue”. Instead a tank/healer drops the group, 3 others follow and suddenly you’re at the back of yet another hour+ queue. I think I deserve some time of priority when I queue the next time. Surely when you have a perfect record – well except for that one time in BRD – for staying in parties until they fall apart or you’re left alone you shouldn’t have to wait yet another hour for the next group.

And then:

The Dungeon Finder wait times are a result of the number of players available to do those instances.

And this is where I take real exception. It’s not that only 5 people in three hours are willing to run The Botanica. I don’t believe that. The problem is that the Dungeon Finder makes it very easy to choose, in fact it’s the default option, the Random Dungeon. This would be fine except that this option is entirely replaced (at level 68 as far as I can tell) by Random Wrath of the Lich King Dungeon. At level 68 you cannot choose Random Burning Crusade Dungeon.

Why are players in the level 68-72 player range not given both choices? Instead we end up overdosing on Utgarde Keep and half of the Burning Crusade dungeon content isn’t experienced at all.

Eventually you’re grouped with a bunch of level 68 players trying to clear Magister’s Terrace (not easy) as part of their Outlands Dungeonmaster achievement. It’s not just DPS waiting a long time in these queues either. Tanks and Healers often have to wait 30 minutes to an hour. There’s just not enough players because they’re cut off once Utgarde Keep is unlocked.

7. Watch TV (Online)

The trick to watching TV while you wait for your queue is to boost the sound volume in World of Warcraft high enough that you will hear the Call-to-Arms/Alert sound effect when your queue pops up over the sound of your TV show. Then you need to make sure that, about once every 10 minutes, you tab back into World of Warcraft and jump around so that you don’t automatically log out from inactivity.

8. Catch up on Your Reading

Of course there are a whole bunch of other things you can do online to occupy your time. I like to catch up on the blogs that I read (all listed on our blogroll of course!). And check my email.

So, are you in a queue right now as you read this?

You’re not? Well, why not?!

What's this? I can't remember the last time I saw one...

If you are a regular reader you may have noticed that my achievements have recently been updated and show that I have been raiding again.

I lasted on casual for a total of 14 weeks, and now that I can stay awake past 9pm and have more energy (sadly 18 weeks and still throwing up daily, what is the go with that?) I decided to try finishing out the expansion.

This may also have something to do with the fact that my other half is completely enmeshed into Starcraft II leaving me twiddling my thumbs in the evenings.

One thing hasn’t changed in Vitare since I left (and came back). We still can’t find a single Warlock to join our guild.

I thought considering wow.com linked to my Applying to Raiding Guilds post this morning, that this could be the perfect time for a shameless recruitment message because there is something I am seriously missing since being back on the raiding scene this last week, and that’s summoning stones.  To quote the Australian tourism industry’s completely fail Lara Bingle campaign… Warlocks, where the bloody hell are you?

One of our raiders last night theorised that they had decided to reverse engineer their ritual of summoning to instead banish them to a better place away from pestering raiders whispering for summons.

So if you are an Oceanic player, or someone that is looking for a GMT +10 Timezoned guild that please have a look at Vitare!

<Vitare> is an Alliance raiding guild on Barthilas (Oceanic PVP):

Australian Daylight Savings Time (ADST)/Server Time (+10GMT)
Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday
7.00pm – 10.30pm

And we’re looking for Warlocks that:

• Have a stable internet connection and don’t disconnect
• Can attend each of the four raid nights on time
• Do wicked (like really good 10k + with ICC Buff) DPS
• React quickly (to fire or whatever the bad stuff may be)
• Have Icecrown Gear (Preferably with a majority of ilvl 264 pieces) and is keen to do wipe work on hard modes

Experience with the Icecrown Citadel hard modes isn’t essential. We often recruit raiders who come from very successful 25 man raiding guilds when they want to bring the challenge back into their raiding. Experience and skill at playing your class is essential.

Vitare’s 25 Man Progression:
11/12 ICC HM, 4/5 ToGC, 5/5 ToC, Ruby Sanctum NM

Vitare’s 10 Man Progression:
11/12 ICC HM, 5/5 ToGC, Ruby Sanctum NM. A Tribute to Insanity, A Tribute to Dedicated Insanity (Server 1st)

PS: We’re also looking for a Holy Paladin and Holy/Discipline Priest for any Oceanic healers out there interested in finding a new home as well.

Who said you have to start with Bloodsail Buccaneers?

There’s one complicated, you could say contradictory, requirement to earning Insane in the Membrane: You must reach Exalted with the Steamwheedle Cartel (the Goblins who hang out in Booty Bay, Ratchet, Everlook and Gadgetzan) but you must also reach Honored with Bloodsail Buccaneers.

The goblins at Booty Bay are the sworn enemies of the Bloodsail Buccaneers. Killing members of the Bloodsail Buccaneers will increase reputation with the Steamwheedle… but get you no closer to completing Insane in the Membrane as you wreck your Bloodsail Buccaneers rep.

Most of the guides suggest the following plan of attack: gaining Bloodsail reputation (which you can only do by killing) and then repairing your (now Hated) Steamwheedle reputation all the way back to where you initially were, and then on to Exalted through a repeatable quest that doesn’t harm your Bloodsail rep. The quest forces you to run Dire Maul: North over and over again – hoping that you’ll be able to find a key and Free Knot! once every run for 350 reputation (385 for Humans).

Then there’s a second school of thought: The achievement never states that you must gain both Exalted Steamwheedle Cartel and Honored Bloodsail Buccaneers at the same point in time.

From WowWiki:

No clear consensus has yet been reached on whether or not you must be simultaneously exalted with the Steamwheedle Cartel and honored with the Bloodsail Buccaneers. Responses from Blizzard Representatives have been mixed.

Players can grind to exalted with Steamwheedle Cartel before attempting Bloodsail Buccaneers, if they wish. However, it does not appear guaranteed the achievement will be earned this way.

Unfortunately I found more proof that you did need to meet all the criteria simultaneously than proof to the contrary.

From Saate.net:

You find three GM responses here, here and here that say you don’t need them at the same time. There’s also a blue post here saying the same thing… [But]… Kambiae of the Spirestone Server recorded this video on live in which despite having had all the reps at different times no achievement was awarded.

Curiosity got the better of me. Or, more likely, I just didn’t want to damage four reputations at the start of the Insane in the Membrane grind. Or spend the start of the grind in a world PVP hot spot.

And regardless of whether you need the reputations simultaneously or not, I would post my finding here on the blog. So here goes:

1. I reached Exalted Ravenholdt first
2. Then ran Dire Maul: North, completing Free Knot!, until I reached Exalted Booty Bay and kept running Dire Maul: North until I also had Exalted Ratchet, Exalted Everlook and Exalted Gadgetzan
3. Bought the last few items (Librams, Diamonds) and farmed the easy stuff (Blood of Heroes, Skin of Shadow, Frayed Abomination Stitching) to hand in and complete Exalted Shendralar
4. Spent one evening with a friend in Booty Bay until we both became Admirals AKA reached Honoured with the Bloodsail Buccaneers. By now I was well and truly Hated by all the goblins.
5. Cried about the herb market
6. Handed in my last deck to reach Exalted Darkmoon Faire

And was awarded the achievement Insane in the Membrane even though I am currently Hated by four of the required factions. That’s right: Hated Booty Bay, Ratchet, Everlook and Gadgetzan. You can Armory me if you don’t believe me.

If I had gambled and lost, I would be back in Dire Maul: North now. With hundreds of extra Dire Maul clears still to complete searching for that stupid key in order to Free Knot!

I ran Dire Maul: North about 50 times to get my worst Steamwheedle faction up from Revered to Exalted. And each run took me about 20-30 minutes. Going from Hated to Exalted would be a bitch. Can you imagine how much time I’ve saved?

Achievements are funny things. Originally I just figured that I would check the status of the Achievement when I lost Exalted with the first Steamwheedle faction. If it remained green and checked off – I was going to be okay. After all, I reasoned, that’s how people used to fake the Epic and Superior achievements with just 1 excellent trinket and ring. You could move it into the second ring/trinket slot and keep the first ring slot still checked off as complete.

This would be possible except that Insane in the Membrane is a Feat of Strength. You can’t browse to it and track your progress using the Achievement panel.

I had another bad moment when I did lose Exalted Steamwheedle. Reaching Exalted Steamwheedle and Shendralar during those Dire Maul runs had pushed me all the way up to 39/40 Exalted Reputations: just one away from Cassandri the Exalted. If the Exalted and the Insane achievements behaved in the same fashion – and indeed they are worded the same – the Exalted wouldn’t require me to earn 40 Exalted reputations simultaneously either.

Unfortunately it turns out that The Exalted achievement does require you to have 40 Exalted reputations simultaneously. Earning Honored Bloodsail Buccaneers and losing Exalted Booty Bay, Exalted Ratchet, Exalted Everlook and Exalted Gadgetzan dropped me back to 36/40 on that progress bar.

This seemed like a bad omen for my Insane in the Membrane plan.

Thank god these two achievements don’t work in the same way.

I may not be welcome in Booty Bay anymore. I may be way off The Exalted. But it’s all worth it if I never have to solo run Dire Maul again.

One run of Botanica (and a couple extra levels) and I could be a Master of Potions.

Leveling isn’t really my thing. Alts aren’t really my thing. So it’s no surprise that leveling a new alt takes me, well, a really really long time.

Lathere stopped playing when Pixii (Lathere’s Warlock) and my Mage were just coming into the Burning Crusade dungeons around level 60. Like Pugging Pally – Pixii and Caesandra don’t quest. We do instances and that’s it!

I was quite happy to leave Caesandra sitting around level 60. At level 55 I had set her hearth to Cenarion Hold in Silithus. That’s where I go to farm Essence of Air and traveling there is the most annoying part. Then it occurred to me that Caesandra had maxed out her Herbalism skill (300) and picking Mountain Silversage while I farmed Essence of Air wasn’t earning me points. I traveled to Outlands, flew to Honor Hold, and visited both the Herbalism and Alchemy trainers. A few vials later and I had reached 300 Alchemy too.

Great! Now I was well and truly ready for Outlands. To celebrate I did a lap – on my level 60 flying mount – around Hellfire Peninsula. And stopped to pick some Felweed. And some Dreaming Glory…

But no. I wasn’t going to level Caesandra without Pixii. And flying around herbing and not sitting in the Dungeon Finder queue seemed counterproductive. So I stopped herbing.

Well I tried to stop. Unfortunately I seem to consume huge quantities of Felweed (the most available and generally least expensive Outland herb) in my quest for Insane in the Membrane and Exalted Darkmoon Faire. So when the Auction House was all out… I would log onto Caesandra for just a little while and gather some herbs.

And soon enough I rejoined the Dungeon Finder queue just to break up my herbing spree.

Now I’m level 66.

And I’m well and truly ready to become either an Elixir/Flask, Potion or Transmutation Alchemist. Unfortunately I can’t do that until I’m level 68. But I’m motivated.

I have already gathered all the Outlands herbs that I need to get to 450 Alchemy and I’m about to start herbing Goldclover on another character to make sure Caesandra can breeze through the early stages of Northrend Alchemy as soon as she is ready for it.

Alchemy is the carrot-on-a-stick that is dragging me all the way through the levels. Not the promise of reaching level 80. Not the quests. Not even the dungeons. Certainly not the gear. But the profession… yes.

Caesandra is my first Alchemist. And I use Flasks and Potions as much as any serious raider (read: a lot).

I’ve been mentally debating the pros and cons of each Alchemy specialisation for days. I’m not really planning on using Alchemy as a money-making enterprise, more for the convenience of not having to go to someone else. And I think the most inconvenient product for me to get hold of these days is Potion of Wild Magic.

I don’t think there are many Potion Specialists on Barthilas. So I think that’s what I want to be.

However, as I understand it Potion of Wild Magic isn’t trainer taught – it’s discovered. The best way to get hold of this recipe is to create stuff as an Alchemist. I don’t want to make lots of useless trainer taught Potions. And I don’t want to make lots of useful Flask of the Frost Wryms … but without the possibility of proc’ing extra Flasks.

Instead I think I’m going to do something a bit more like this:

1. Do the quest to become a Flask Alchemist
2. Level to 450
3. Create lots of trainer-taught Flask of the Frost Wrym
4. Discover Potion of Wild Magic (and Potion of Speed?)
5. Pay the gold penalty to swap to a Potion Alchemist
6. Create lots of Potion of Wild Magic and enjoy the procs!

There’s one last problem to factor in:

The three different level 68 specialisations each have their own quest to complete. Most Alchemy guides suggest you complete the Transmutation quest and then pay to change specialisations because the Transmutation quest is deemed the easiest. You need to farm Primals in Outlands, but all in all, it’s easily solo-able.

The Flask/Elixir Specialisation quest requires you to run The Black Morass. The quest requires:

• [Essence of Infinity] ×10 from Rift Lords/Keepers in The Black Morass (Caverns of Time)
• [Elixir of Major Defense] ×5
• [Elixir of Mastery] ×5
• [Elixir of Major Agility] ×5

Black Morass is a level 70 dungeon. This is a problem because the Dungeon Finder prefers to drop players on the cusp of a new expansion in the new expansion instances instead of the “end game” dungeons. So at level 58 I never found myself in Stratholme (Classic), and instead was pushed into Hellfire Ramparts (Burning Crusade).

I expect that at level 68 I will not be placed in Shadow Labyrinth, Tempest Keep: Botanica, Mechanar or Arcatraz, or Shattered Halls or The Black Morass (all end-game level 70 Burning Crusade dungeons). I expect that I will be running The Nexus and Utgarde Keep.

Completing Black Morass is also a problem because you need to unlock that dungeon before you can queue for it in the Dungeon Finder. You need to have completed the Escape from Durnholde Keep instances first (level 65-68). And in order to unlock that you need to have traveled to the Caverns of Time in Tanaris and do an escort quest.

I’m currently the perfect level for Escape from Durnholde Keep. And I’ve gone to Caverns of Time to unlock it. But the Dungeon Finder still sends me to Auchenai Crypts (slightly too easy) and Setthek Halls (slightly too hard). In every one of my groups I ask and remind players to go and unlock the Caverns of Time instances. So far, people are acknowledging the reminders, but nobody has actually done the quest except me.

Becoming a Flask/Elixir Alchemist might not be easy, even with the Dungeon Finder. And I believe you need to complete The Black Morass at couple times depending on how lucky you get with drops.

Becoming a Master of Potions requires you to also run a dungeon: Tempest Keep’s Botanica. This quest requires:

• [Botanist's Field Guide] from High Botanist Freywinn in The Botanica, Tempest Keep
• [Super Healing Potion] ×5
• [Super Mana Potion] ×5
• [Major Dreamless Sleep Potion] ×5

WoWWiki suggests that you complete the Potion Master quest over the Transmutations quest as the easiest option.

It may be worth considering taking Potion mastery, as you will generally make all the needed quest items in the course of leveling Alchemy, and then switching to Transmutation or Elixir.

And it looks as though [Botanist's Field Guide] has a 100% chance to drop if you’re on the quest. So you need only do this dungeon once.

Using the Dungeon Finder this might be the easiest of the three Alchemy quests to complete. It’s likely that I’ll be making [Super Healing Potion] and [Super Mana Potion] anyway as I level Alchemy. And I’ll have probably picked up quite a few just by killing mobs.

Botanica doesn’t need to be unlocked. And as long as I’m willing to wait a bit longer I should be able to choose a Specific Dungeon instead of the Random Dungeon.

However I feel that Potion specialisation is the least exciting specialisation to have while leveling from 375 to 450. That still leaves me wondering if I should temporarily switch to Transmutation or Flask/Elixir specialisation when I reach 450 Alchemy and am waiting to discover Potion of Wild Magic…

It might cost me 300g (to unlearn Master of Potions, and then relearn it later) but at least I will be keen to use my profession.

Or I could farm the materials for Master of Transmutation and keep that until I discover Potion of Wild Magic… I did always hope to recraft my Frozen Shadoweave set… and I hear that Master of Transmutation is the most profitable at level 80.

Still undecided! What should I do?

There's so much wrong with Trade Chat it's hard to know where to start.

Trade Chat has deteriorated over the last several months.

At peak hour it’s so full of six-liner PuG advertisements that it’s near impossible to read guild chat: the green text flies past so fast. And the more crowded the channel gets, the more players repeat their own macros over and over again just to try and get some exposure and screen time.

Of all the chat channels, [Trade] is the only one that is broadcast to all the major cities. If you’re standing in Dalaran, and decide to put together a 10 man group for Icecrown Citadel, what’s the best way to advertise and find additional group members?

The answer is not the Raid Finder. It’s Trade chat.

[General] Will only broadcast to other players in Dalaran. The raid members you’re looking for might be visiting the Auction House in Ironforge or Stormwind. Or they might be on bank alts, or other characters in those other cities.

[LookingForGroup] Is a strange one. Theoretically this is where you should advertise your open PuG raid spots. It’s also the channel that players should join when they’re looking for a PuG to join. In the past you would join the Looking For Group tool and automatically gain access to this chat channel. Now, almost nobody does – and I don’t know anyone who uses the Raid Finder. You’re also not going to reach potential players who are logged onto their alts.

[Trade] Will broadcast across all of your faction’s major cities. Surely this channel was designed to allow sellers and buyers to find each other and exchange goods. This is the channel that you could use to find a Mage to teleport you (you could also use General), or where you could find a Tailor, Scribe, Enchanter etc.

[Guild Recruitment] There is actually an additional channel that exists solely for guild leaders and players to find each other. Unfortunately, the only time most players see this channel is when they are not part of a guild at all (the game puts you in there automatically). The reality is that most players don’t leave their guild until they have secured a position in a new guild.

It’s really no surprise that [Trade] is actually used for:

1. PuG leaders seeking additional raid members
2. Guild recruitment
3. Legitimate trade opportunities (professions, want-to-trade, want-to-buy)
4. Conversation

If [General] were changed so that (if you are standing in a major city) it broadcasts to all major cities I think half of the messages currently posted in [Trade] would instead find their way into [General].

But in the meantime we need to deal with [Trade] chat. And the spam. Oh… the spam! Here are some ideas:

1. Turn it off

Consider, for each of your characters, whether you really need to see Trade chat. Are you totally happy in your current guild? When was the last time you joined a PuG raid? Do you respond to players who are seeking someone with your crafting professions? Do you really read the WTT or WTB messages? Or do you ignore them?

Why don’t you turn it off and see if you miss it.

To hide Trade chat right click on your Settings tab above your Chat panel, navigate into your Global Chat Channels and uncheck Trade.

2. Tone it down

For Cassandri, I really don’t need to see anything posted in Trade chat. Curiosity leads me to watch the trade related messages: I like to see what the going rate is for Frostweave Cloth and which players are trying to buy up the same items that I’m trying to buy up – Snowfall Ink, Eternal Life, herbs etc.

You can trick your eyes into treating Trade chat with less attention. Change the colour to something difficult to read, or difficult to see. I like to go with a mid, dull grey and this tends to turn Trade chat into something that blends somewhat with the tiles in Dalaran and Stormwind. The great thing about this method is that linked [achievements] and [items] will still colour up properly and jump out at you but the rest of it will fade away. Less reading and more meaningful information ftw!

3. Don’t yell at me

One of the things that I’ve noticed standing around Dalaran (particularly the crafting section near the Horde bank) is that the Horde on Barthilas also use /yell to spam their macros. I have no idea what they’re advertising, but it’s seeing the same three red lines of Orcish nonsense gets really annoying really fast.

So I switched off the setting which displays Yells in my chat window. Finally! Peace and quiet. You can do the same: right click on the General tab, go to settings, and uncheck the Yell box.

4. Police it

Ok, now we’re getting into more serious coping methods. These are the ones that really will only ever work if many many players on the server take the same route.

Report Spam.

Everytime you see a gold seller, right click their name and Report Spam. Do it many times if you like. Encourage other players in your guild to report them. Gold selling and buying is the reason why players are still getting their accounts hacked, so do your bit to make their life difficult! And never, ever, ever buy gold.

Gold Sellers in Trade chat? Report them.

If a player decides that they just need a little bit of attention and posts the same stupid sentence more than 3 times in a row, Report Spam.

Repeat one line offenders? Report them.

If a player has a LFW or LF macro and repeats it multiple times – even when they are the last person to have posted in Trade chat! – Report Spam.

5. Get Personal

Unfortunately, not matter how many times you Report Spam, Blizzard are slow to catch up and ban the worst spam offenders. The next thing to do is to identify the players who contribute to Trade chat that personally offend or annoy you.

Part of Trade chat is pure chat. Conversational, it probably has absolutely nothing to do with the game at all. There are at least 2 players on Barthilas Alliance who routinely spam the same stupid joke once every few minutes. How they have nothing better to do than stand in a city seeking attention, I don’t know.

Racist, sexist or downright ignorant trolls in Trade chat? Ignore them.

Put these individuals on Ignore! Now!

Anyone who posts offensive, sexists or racist remarks quickly joins my Ignore list.

One player constantly wasting space in Trade chat? Ignore them.

It makes Trade chat much more bearable.

6. Don’t Let Them Win

Now you should be left with a Trade chat that doesn’t make you angry, but still one that is full of 6 line guild recruitment and PuG messages – often typed up in UPPERCASE of course.

You can use the Report Spam for the worst offenders:

1. the PuG Raid Leaders who repeat their advertisement too often
2. the PuG Raid Leaders and Guild Recruiters who consume additional lines or repeat characters to border their message
3. the PuG Raid Leaders and Guild Recruiters who have messages 5 or 6 lines long
4. the PuG Raid Leaders who post their message all in CAPS (uppercase).

PuG Raid Leaders wasting lines and space? Report them.

If you’re not interested in PuGs at all, add the most annoying Raid Leaders to your Ignore List and be spared their terrible advertisements for ever after.

And if you do PuG, you can simply refuse to join PuGs who spam Trade chat. Why don’t you apply a bit of social pressure and whisper the Raid Leaders spamming Trade chat in order to tell them why you didn’t respond to their ad? Perhaps once they realise that they receive a greater response when they post concise and meaningful advertisements they’ll change their ways.

***

We must stay vigilant.

Report Spam whenever you have a free moment or are scanning the Auction House.

Don’t join PuGs that spam or abuse Trade chat.

/Ignore the players that fill Trade chat with useless, meaningless comments and questions day after day.

Enjoy your new, meaningful, Trade chat.

See those skeletons all over the ground? Yeah.

I just finished watching the latest episode of Big Crits. They’re so happy that they’re now 8/12 Heroic ICC.

Ha. Ha ha ha ha.

Well the first eight or nine Heroic modes in (25 man) Icecrown Citadel go down pretty easy. I’m sure the Big Crits guild will get Lady Deathwhisper next without too much trouble. But then they’re probably going to hit their heads against the wall also known as: Heroic Professor Putricide.

Having suffered about 2-3 months of wiping on Heroic Putricide we earned our first Heroic kill just this week. Compare that to the time it took us to get the nine heroic modes before that: less than 1 month. The ICC buff was at 15% when we killed Lady Deathwhisper and it was 25% on our first Heroic Professor Putricide kill.

I’m not sure that I’m qualified to offer tips and tricks for other Shadow Priests out there attempting this fight. But surely I’ve devoted such a large amount of game time to dying on this fight and I can share some hard-earned wisdom. 

Stuff for Shadow Priests

Dispersion and Unbound Plague

Unlike the regular version of the Professor Putricide encounter, in which you should use the Tear Gas mass stun as a chance to Disperse and regain your mana during the phase transition, in Heroic mode you should save Dispersion for:

(a) an opportunity when you can’t really DPS anyway but need mana. This includes when you are the target of the red Gas Cloud (when you are the target of Gaseous Bloat) and will be running/kiting the cloud around the room, or, if you get hit and smacked with the Malleable Goo debuff.

But ideally you should use Dispersion for:

(b) extending the time you can hold Unbound Plague. Everyone in your raid should download and run the mod called Plagued. It does a simple little announce countdown that helps you monitor when the ticks of Unbound Plague are going to get too painful and you need to pass it off. Most guides/guilds recommend that you hold it for 10 seconds, 10 ticks. The Plagued mod counts down from 10 to 1 to notify the players around you. When the timer reaches 2 or 1 seconds to go, use Dispersion. Dispersion will numb the pain for the next 6 seconds. Just make sure you pass it off to someone else before Dispersion wears off because that 16th tick really, really hurts.

Your Shadowfiend and the Green Ooze

Talented, your Shadowfiend will be down on a 3 minute cooldown. And you should summon him twice – during the Phase 1->2 transition and the Phase 2->3 transition. Get him to attack the Green Ooze and he will help absorb the knockback damage. I like to wait until the first knockback before summoning my fiend, it’s usually players running to the second or third knockback point that having an extra friendly around to spread the damage really makes a difference.

Just be careful of this one little thing: if you’re currently using a macro (it’s often tied to Mind Flay) to get your fiend to use its Shadowcrawl ability, and you have the Gas Variable (thus, are attacking the Gas Cloud and not the Green Ooze) you need to make sure you don’t accidentally command your fiend to switch and appear right on the Gas Variable. Might be worth ditching the macro for this fight – after all, it’s not so much about the damage your pet deals, it’s about the damage it can absorb.

Professor Putricide: he’s right behind you!

Just because there’s a Gas Cloud or Green Ooze hanging around it doesn’t mean that you should let Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain drop off Professor Putricide. On a good attempt I can keep my DoT uptime fairly high, but on an unlucky attempt Professor Putricide will often be out of my range, or my Variable target will need all the DPS we can get (when you have a bunch of healers and tanks all with the Gas Variable you’re going to really need to focus fire if you’re one of the few DPS with the Gas Variable).

In Heroic mode Professor Putricide tends to spend a lot of his time hanging around his table – and he always heads there while you’re busy with the transition phases. Now, it could be different depending on what positioning strategy you’re using, but for me Professor Putricide was inevitably behind me when it was time to refresh my DoTs. This is quite annoying because I tend to rely on enemy nameplates to keep my targets in view/range and tab targetting to select them. And there are many occasions during the fight in which I can’t see the Professor’s nameplate.

Vampiric Touch, Shadow Word: Pain and Devouring Plague can all be cast with your back to Professor Putricide. Rely on a Focus frame or your DoT monitoring addon of choice instead of nameplates. And you can go a step further and create a macro for targetting Professor Putricide when he’s behind you:

/tar Professor Putricide

Simple! Actually because I’m so hesitant to spin my view around between my Variable target and the Professor I tend to let Shadow Word: Pain expire and just reapply it when it suits me (usually when I’m flying through the air from a knockback!) instead of trying to face the Professor to refresh SW:P with Mind Flay. This isn’t great for mana conservation, or for extending a boosted Shadow Word: Pain indefinitely, but it’s better than nothing.

2/2 Improved Vampiric Embrace and Divine Hymn

I love Vampiric Embrace so I always talent into 2/2 Improved Vampiric Embrace. The first time we got the Professor into the final phase I was the last to die – a steady stream of damage will keep you alive long after the damage aura has killed your teammates.

As we started refining our Phase 3 approach I got put on a Divine Hymn rotation (the other Shadow Priest in the guild would chant her hymn around the 12-15% mark and then I would follow her, and then our healing Priests would follow me). I really disliked this approach – reciting my Divine Hymn was usually the closest I came to death. In our kill neither of us Shadow Priests used Divine Hymn, although I think maybe one of our Holy Priests may have used hers.

There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be the last DPS standing, too!

Improving your DPS

Absolutely the most effective way I was able to improve my DPS during this encounter was to keep all my DoTs running on both the Professor and whatever Gas Cloud/Green Ooze was up (or my Variable target during transition).

From there it’s a case of minimizing your movement. You need to be very careful not to get caught out by Malleable Goo and I would recommend being overly cautious while you’re wiping/practicing – move even when you’re fairly sure that you’re in the clear. You cannot afford to be hit. However, once you’re fairly confident that you aren’t being hit, try not to move unless you actually need to.

Unfortunately the stuff that will mess up your damage are all pretty important:

• being a good, thoughtful, Unbound Plague carrier
• intentionally stacking to absorb Green Ooze damage
• kiting the Gas Cloud if you are targetted
• moving away from the Gas Cloud before it retargets
• moving away from path of Malleable Goo

I would also argue that, as ranged DPS, getting the Gas Cloud variable is a pretty big DPS loss. In our strategy we had our ranged DPS continue to stack and absorb the Green Ooze damage even when they couldn’t DPS the Green Ooze themselves because they were debuffed with the Gas Variable. This mean that, if the Gas Cloud was kited out of our range, we couldn’t really DPS the Gas Cloud. As a Shadow Priest, you can still contribute by keeping your DoTs on the Professor.

By the way, a more experienced player told me that you should be aiming for 9k DPS from each of your raiders. On a lucky attempt (Green Ooze Variable, not targetted personally by the Gas Cloud, only carried the Plague once or twice) I could reach over 10k DPS. I saw a bit of a DPS drop once we hit Phase 3. On your average attempt I was still hovering around 9k DPS. If I got hit by Malleable Goo? 8k.

And every single attempt I had my ass kicked by our Hunters.

General Stuff for Ranged DPS and Healers

Zoom In

I think a lot of players, especially us ranged DPS, like to zoom their camera out to maximum distance so that we can see everything. In Professor Putricide having your camera a maximum distance can make it harder, not easier.

Ideally, you want your camera zoomed in close enough so that you can read the character names of the players standing nearby, but far enough away that you can judge which three directions Professor Putricide has thrown his three Malleable Goo.

I can’t stress how important it is to be able to see who’s standing nearby. We have 3 – yes, three! – Moonkin in our raids at the moment and 2 Hunters with that trinket that turns them into an ugly looking Gnoll. Our 2 Mages are fairly easy to identify because one is a Human and one is a Gnome. I’m also not the only Shadow Priest in the group.

We used vent to coordinate the spread of Unbound Plague. And the responsibility lay with the person currently handing Plague: when they were ready, they would run to pass it to the next carrier. But within the first few seconds of catching the Plague they had to call out on Vent who they intended to pass it to. And if your name was called, you would do your best to make catching the Plague safe – moving away from the rest of the raid (if you were a bit close to others) and then staying completely still while you identified who was trying to pass it to you.

Communication: Be Clear

When I would hear:”I’m passing the Plague to Cass”, my thought process immediately switched from juggling cast bars, DoTs and targets to:

Who said that? then Where are they standing?

Where am I standing? Do I still have an infected debuff from the last time I took the Plague? If so, can I afford to take it again? Are there people standing too close to me? Am I in the green ooze knockback area? Am I close to the Gas Cloud spawn point?

Professor Putricide casts Malleable Goo!

Oh crap. Is there a goo coming towards me? Of course there is. How can I avoid it and still be close to the plague carrier? Should I take the plague early?

It’s pretty easy to see how dealing with the Plague can take your mind off dealing damage. Now imagine that the person called out “I’m passing the plague to Cass” and I get half way through that distracting thought process only to realise that they’re actually standing 20 yards away and the other Shadow Priest in the guild is right next to them… they just got the name/person wrong.

Or, when you get the Plague and are unable to easily see if the Moonkin standing next to you is actually Player A, B or C. If you call out “I’m passing the Plague to… er that Moonkin nearby… wait! don’t move away” you distract three of your damage dealers all at the same time.

Pivoting for Malleable Goo

One of our newer healers was really struggling to avoid Malleable Goo and he was very upfront about it. It wasn’t that he didn’t see the timers or wasn’t trying to look and move out of the direction of the goo. He was. He was just having problems accurately determining the path of the goo flying through the air.

After a couple hours he pinpointed the problem: his camera was zoomed out so far that the ceilings and walls of the laboratory kept interfering, forcing him to pivot his camera view (when Malleable Goo was cast) to strange angles to see the room.

Try it – zoom in for Professor Putricide!

5 Hours Learning Curve.... 4 Hours Play Time!

Hots & Dots had its 1 Year Blogiversay on the 5th June 2010 so this post is a tad overdue, but I only managed to snaffle the above photo from Kiki’s Facebook yesterday. Cass and I celebrated this auspicious date in what I thought was a very appropriate manner; the 2 of us plus 4 other guildies met up in our hometown Brisbane and played the official World of Warcraft board game!

Now if you thought that playing WoW would help with playing the board game, think again. All the moves were from Vanilla WoW so some were now completely defunct (eg Starshards for Priests) and the rule book was massive. Even though we had Brute, one of the best people I’ve ever met at taking in written instructions/strategies and relaying this information in a simplified manner for people such as myself, it still took us a couple hours to really get the hang of what we were doing. Add into this an hour for actually setting up the board (lets not talk about the water glass fiasco), a cookie bake off and much chatting you can probably imagine how long it took us to finish a game!

After completing the set up, Brute mulled over the instructions, while the rest of us decided in the interest of fairness we would have a completely blind character pick and typically only one of us got a class that we actually had ever played at max level for.

For The Alliance

Lath, Healer Extraordinaire: Gnome Rogue, Melee DPS

Cass, Caster DPS, Master of DoTs: Dwarf Paladin, Tank/Melee DPS Hybrid

Brute, Tanking Bad Ass: Night Elf Priest, Healer/Caster DPS Hybrid

For The Horde

Cacophany, WotLK Mighty Warrior Tank: Troll Mage, Caster DPS

Nysander, Queen of the Bubbles: Tauren Druid, Caster DPS/Healer Hybrid

Kikikins, Circle of Healing Princess: Undead Warlock, Caster DPS

Now considering Cacophany had played a Mage in his Molten Core days and Nysander has a level 80 Restoration Druid at least they seemed to have some small line up with their chosen characters unlike us Alliance folk who were completely out of sync with our personal choices!

Let The Games Begin!

So unfortunately our Alliance team did not get off to the best start. This may have had something to do with a certain Gnome Rogue (me) not really understanding the combat system and choosing not to train Level 1 Stealth. Once I pestered the group to go back to town to learn my stealth ability and sell items, things got much better, because then my dice rolls actually did damage.

As we went around the board completing quests and picking up loot we got the hang of the game. Brute and Cass were determined to beat the Horde, regardless of whether we had the best gear or were at max level. Therefore team Alliance engaged the end boss before poor little me even got to hit max level – Level 5. With a level 5 tank, level 5 healer and level 4 dps we were ready to battle Nefarion. The battle was drawn out and close but in the end we won. The entire fight took about 15 minutes.

The Cookie Off

Cass, Nysander and Kikikins decided to have a cookie bake off and we nibbled on delicious ginger nut, chocolate chip and wagon wheel cookies throughout the day. Who was the winner? Well I don’t think we actually made a final decision on that one. I guess for me being completely queasy with morning sickness at the time, the ginger nuts were the default winner. Unfortunately I couldn’t sample the beautiful looking choc chip or wagon wheels because chocolate and me have been a real no no for the last 10 weeks!

Back to the Blog

Over the year Hots & Dots received 495,281 Page Views and 236,895 Visits. A very special thank you to Mike Schramm who gave us a massive hand only a couple of months after our launch by linking to one of our posts on www.wow.com. For a blog that was getting only 10 – 20 visits a day previously, coming into work and seeing a massive 13,459 hits shoot through overnight on Google Analytics was pretty exciting and overwhelming.

Top 5 Posts

Clearly show that Resto Druids like to research their gear – Go Trees!

1. Patch 3.2 Resto Druid Gear Guide: For the Casual/10 Man Raider
2. Patch 3.3 Resto Druid Gear for the Casual/10 Man Raider
3. The Evolution of My UI
4. Patch 3.3 Resto Druid Gear Guide For the 25 Man Raider
5. Patch 3.2 Resto Druid Gear Guide: For the 25 Man Raider

Top Google Key Words

More diligent trees – shadow priests where are you all hiding?

1. hots and dots
2. resto druid gear
3. resto druid gear guide
4. resto druid gear 3.3
5. resto druid bis

Thank You

To all the readers, commenters and fellow bloggers who have welcomed us into the community, thank you the last year has been a blast. We hope that the next 12 months will bring us as much lively input, debate and commentary as the last year has.

Lath & Cass xoxoxox

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