Where the greener is grass

Wow.com did an article recently that talked about when your alt become your main.  I find myself in this boat.  My deathknight is pretty well geared, and has around 5600 achievement points.

However, I've been playing my warrior a LOT more than my deathknight recently.  And I've been wondering if I really just enjoy the warrior class more, or is it more enjoyable because it's new to me? 

Each class has it's advantages and disadvantages.  Such as the Sindgragosa fight we're working on in ICC (8% grrrrr).  The DK is at an obvious advantage here because of anti magic shell, ice bound fortitude, vampiric blood, blood tap... there's just so many tools to keep myself up and fighting, where as the warrior has a shield wall, last stand, and enraged regeneration which are nice abilites, but not excatcly great for this fight.  There are fights though, that it's the otherway around.

I am enjoying the charge / intercept / intervene skills versus the pull method of the deathgrip.  And I enjoy the DPS offspec of the warrior a lot more than I do the DK.  There's just something enjoyable about the brutality of the warrior, either my target dies, or I do, either way I can and will put up one hell of a fight.  I get those moments on the DK too, but it feels some what artificial.  Like I expect to win most fights, and with the warrior I really have to work at it.

And I also must admit, my 2v2 arena team as resto shaman / unholy death knight really suffers against teams with a healing limiting mechanic (mortal strike or poisons).  This may get fixed with one of the new spells coming in the expansion for DKs, though.

So while we're in the current expansion, I'm still raiding and keeping my main as my death knight.  I just don't know about the expansion yet.  We've gotten plenty of info on DK changes, but a lot of it seems to be RNGish... but it's too early to tell.

I suppose if the changes to the DK mechanics make the playstyle feel more warrior-like, and less rogue-like I'd be happier.  If the current systems of using an ability every GCD slowed down a little bit to allow for the proc-type abilites it would bring some variation and thought to the rotation, which would be nice.

So I'm looking at either going with the pretty same as always warrior (with a small change to the rage system), or the DK who's getting mostly a complete mechanic overhual, talent tree overhaul, and more than likely months of rebalancing while they fine tune (aka nerf the shit out of) the changes they did.

How about everyone else?  Are any of the class mechanic changes making you leery about your current main?  How many of you are changing main characters in the coming expansion?

I Now Know Where the Wailing Comes From

Last Friday I pulled out Tomakan and dialed up Wailing Caverns.  I knew I wanted to take care of it before it disappeared from my radar, and I didn’t feel like trooping through The Barrens to get to the entrance when I was a much higher level.

I’ve been in Wailing Caverns exactly twice; like most Old World instances, I get lost pretty darned easily in it.*  I know what we have to do, but I don’t know where all the bosses are.

That’s what the tank is for, right?

Well, as soon as we got going, the tank admitted he wasn’t sure where everything was, but he was determined to wander around to find everything.  I had time to kill and I wanted the achievement, so I was fine with that.

We managed to find the first boss and downed him just in time to discover that our Gnome Warlock was rolling Need on all items.  “What are you doing?” the priest asked.  “You can’t use that axe at all.”

“I have a friend who will pay good gold,” he replied.

“You noob,” the tank said.  “You can’t trade a ‘Bind on Pickup’ item.”

On the next item that dropped, the Lock rolled Need again.  The Priest protested, and the Lock replied with a weak “but I could use that!”

“Okay,” the tank said, “everybody rolls Need from now on, then it’s the same as Greed.”

The Lock didn’t like that, and began to forge ahead of the group.

Shortly afterward, the tank had to drop and he was replaced by another tank, this one a Gnome Warrior.  He ported in, and immediately ran to the next trash mob and pulled.  At the same time, another mob swarmed over the Lock and the Hunter.

“Holy crap!” cried the Priest.

I’d have said something, but I was kind of busy spamming heals all over the place.  I was literally running back and forth between two sets of mobs trying to keep everyone upright.  I’m still not sure how I managed that one.

That finished, the Priest and Lock were out of mana.  The tank, oblivious to it all, bounded forward to the next trash mob.  “Wait!” I shouted.

Too late.  The tank had already pulled.

I ended up having to do a bit of DPS to cover for the lack of caster support, but the mob eventually went down.

“Yes?” the tank asked.

“The casters need to drink.”

“Oh,” he said, bounding around the entire area.

“What the hell happened back there?” I whispered to the Priest.

“The idiot Lock pulled at the same time as the tank,” she whispered back.  “He needs to stop doing that.”

“If he does that again he’s gone.”

Sure enough, the Lock ran ahead of the group and pulled the next trash.  “Dammit!” the tank cried.

I began mashing the “Vote to Kick” option, but the Lock was moving so quickly there wasn’t enough time between the next couple of mobs for us to officially hold a vote.  When it finally stuck, the Lock immediately dropped group.

A huge sigh of relief went up from the group when a well behaved Gnome Mage ported in and we continued our run.

There was one final misstep where we had to double back and get one final boss, but compared to the first twenty minutes, the last half an hour was a walk in the park.

When I was relating the tale to Souldat, who was on with his Warrior at the time, he replied, “A lot of people seem to think they can act exactly the same way as if they’re an 80 running an instance.”

I couldn’t agree more.


*Shadowfang Keep, by contrast, is a straight shot.  After having gone through there for the first time as a Draenei on Sunday, I wonder why on earth the Alliance would even want these Worgen in the first place.  Maybe the Horde could trade the Goblins for the Worgen.

Supply, Demand, and the Auction House

DISCLAIMER:  If you're looking for a detailed discussion on how to make gold using the AH, this isn't it.  There are plenty of great blogs that describe how to work the AH, and I recommend perusing a lot of them.

The other day, when a guildie and I were steamrolling our way through Arcatraz --gotta love Druid tanks-- talk turned to Greed vs. Disenchant.  "Have you seen what Dream Shards are going for these days?" I asked.

"Yeah," he replied.  "I pretty much stopped DCing blues, because I get more money from vendoring them than selling the shards."

After a short pause, I realized he was right.  A quick scan of the BC blues I was acquiring in Arcatraz revealed that I would be selling them for more than I'd get for a Dream Shard from the AH.  This morning, I paid close attention to the blues that I got from the Northrend 5-man instances, and I discovered I'd be getting around twice what a Dream Shard was going for.

I also spent some time farming for Saronite and Titanium to replenish my metal and gem stocks, and I discovered that Titansteel is going for 75G on the AH, half of the price it was two months ago.

How did prices get this depressed?

Yes, the simple answer is supply and demand, but I wonder about the underlying causes.  Is it that the gold farmers are trying to manipulate the price by flooding the market?  Is it that enough people are grinding for Frost Emblems alone that there's an excess of disenchanting materials?  Or that enough people per server are in ICC and don't need Titanium or Titansteel crafted items?

I suspect that there's a bit of everything --yes, even the supposed pre-expansion blues-- to blame for the current state of the market.  When ICC has been out long enough that even altaholics are able to get a good T9 set from Emblems alone for all of their toons, then the need for Titanium and Titansteel are depressed.  Add to that the availability of Primordial Saronite, and you've got the current state of the metals.  When Cataclysm comes out, this will be replayed again:  after all, have you seen the prices for Eternium and Khorium these days?  I can sell Mithril for higher prices than what Eternium is going for.

The gem prices in general drive me nuts.  The basic Epic gems are running only about 15G less than their JC'ed counterparts, and some days they can actually sell for higher.  Sure, it's 15G, but you have to ask yourself if your time is better spent doing an extra daily or two to get the same amount of profit.  Considering how little the Epics drop when you prospect Titanium, I guess the Alchemists are the ones making a mint on the market by crafting the Epic gems.  But right now, regular Jade and other low end gems are looking better than Dream Shards.  Nobody seems to be farming those gems, yet there's still enough of a need that I can beat the Dream Shard price easily on some of these low end gems.

What about your server?  Are you seeing the same trends?

Waaaay too Short and Sweet

I was on this morning to get my daily PuG run in, and only a few minutes after throwing my name into the hat I was able to port in.

The Old Kingdom was the destination.

The port finished, and...  I died.

What?

"Well, that was a fine how-do-you-do," I said in party chat.

The healer, warlock and I began running back.  "Are you guys coming?" the tank asked.  "We're up to the Prince."

We got back to the area before the Blood Prince and surveyed all of the trash mobs walking around.  "We can't," I said.

"How come?"

"There's Geists in the way."

"Wait a second," the healer said.  "How did you get there?"

"We were sneaky."

"But you can't get to Taladram without taking care of the orbs first.  The barrier is still in place."

I should probably have dropped group then, but I decided to stick around.  Silly me.

The warlock summoned his void walker, and it kind of weakly tanked us through most of the trash on the main floor.  After the third set of mobs, the tank tried going back to us and died.  We waited about halfway up the ramp to the first orb while the tank ran back.  At least there were four of us now.  While we were in this holding pattern, I watched the last pack of Geists roaming around.  They hadn't made it to us yet, but I was still uneasy.  I could probably take the pack of them by myself, but I preferred having a bona-fide tank around.

The tank arrived, ran up the ramp to the trash awaiting us, and before I could finish switching to Frost Aura he began pulling them back down the ramp.

"Huh?" said the warlock.

I began to type something, but abandoned that as the tank pulled the trash down the ramp and was met partway up by the Geists.

Oh.  Crap.

At least I could say that I lasted the longest.  The healer was caught from behind and died almost instantly, the lock close behind him.  I tried taking out the Frostbringers, reasoning that they'd kill the tank and me quickest, but I couldn't pour the DPS on fast enough.

Before I could even release, the healer and lock dropped group.  I waited until I got back into the instance before doing the same.

For all I know, the tank and the mysterious other DPS are still there, hoping that someone ridiculously overpowered will come along and save them.  Who was it that said "you can't heal stupid?"  Well, this scenario definitely qualified as stupid.

Choosing the type of engineer to be

So, I'm leveling engineering on my warrior, and I was curious about the differences between the two types: goblin and gnome.

I happened upon an awesome post on the official forums and I wanted to share it with you all:

Courtesy of Mcnostril, of the guild Raging Hordeon on the Illidan server

"Pffft.

Everyone knows the doo-dads gnomes make are far inferior to things that go KA-BOOM.

In a real life adventure, would you like a pocket knife that includes an hammer, wrench, and skinning blade... or a mini nuke?

The Death Star was goblin engineering at its finest.

Gnomes built the Frodo's Shire.

Death Star attacks with world shattering boom
Shire retaliates with a well made wind chime
Death Star adds 200% pewpew
Shire thinks a firm scolding is in place
Death Star lures you with waffles
Shire can only offer weak pancakes

Goblin engin or gtfo

XD"

 I also got a chuckle out of his signature line:

"How many Gnomes does it take to paint StormWind: Depends on how hard you throw them"

With logic like that, it looks as if I'm going to be a goblin engineer.

Down in the Deeps

I've continued my romp through the low level instances with Tomakan, hitting the Stormwind Stockades and Blackfathom Deeps last night.  Not having done the Stocks before, it was a pretty intense 15-20 minute run.  Luckily we were geared enough (and I had enough mana potions) that I didn't run into mana issues like I did in the Deadmines.

I actually was kicking myself after the Stocks run because I could have used some of those rings that dropped, but I was in my Northrend 5-man heroic mode and basically greeded everything.  I paid much closer attention in BD, but nothing I could have used dropped.

Blackfathom Deeps demonstrated that I miss my Blood Elf, at least in terms of judging distances between jumps.

It was embarrassing to be in a 5-man and miss the jump on the rocks not once, not twice, but three times.  I was cursing up a blue streak under my breath, suddenly grateful that I wasn't on Vent or anything.  But at least everyone stopped and waited for me while the big ol' lug finally jumped over the pattern of rocks.

I also had a Shaman in BD who, almost from the get-go, asked if I could handle this place and he could step in if I couldn't.  I kept assuring him that no, I was fine, but that all I missed was Cleanse for the dispelling the ice related debuffs from the nagas.  (I get it in the 30s, I think, so I have to get used to not having it for a while.)  In fact, the run was noticeable in that I don't think the tank's bar dipped below 50% more than once or twice until the final fights.  I didn't want to spam heal, so I typically waited until his health dropped enough that Flash of Light would have a full impact.  We also had some DPS that wanted to pretend they were the tank and pulled some of the trash, and I was surprised that the tank didn't call them out on it.  If I wasn't constantly watching the bars, I'd have said something, but really, the group could handle it.

That last boss fight with the Twilight's Hammer character, that was rough.  Not him per se, but the trash that flew to us after the fight ended.  A portion of them aggroed on me, and I was frozen in ice so I couldn't run to the tank.  Hand of Salvation didn't do diddly either, so I used Lay on Hands on myself and Hand of the Naaru on the tank, and hoped that when I freed up I wasn't watching a full party wipe in action.  After that initial onslaught, things settled down and we survived.

After the instance was over, the Shaman told me he healed a bit in that last fight.  Normally, I wouldn't have cared --I do that from time to time on Northrend 5-mans-- but for some reason that kind of irked me.  The entire run was pretty much a non-event until the final fight, and while it may not have been his intention, his comment came across with an "I told you so" attitude.  Perhaps it's my stubbornness in wanting to be perfect; on my first healing stint last fall, I used to take it as a blow to personal pride if the party wiped on my account, and I thought I did a decent enough job for the run.

Oh well.

A few things I learned:

• Tanks can get lost.  The tank in BD got lost after the initial pulls.  "Where do I go now?" he asked.  "This is so not inspiring," one of the DPS said.
• For a world tree, Teldrassil has a lot of smaller ones on top.
• I can get used to the female Night Elves.  The males still don't look right, but the females are slowly growing on me.
• I haven't seen a warlock since the Glimmer Twins in the Deadmines.  And I like it like that.
• While I was waiting at the dock in Teldrassil, I was parked next to a Tauren DK.  The boat arrived, we got on.  The Alliance people getting off razzed him a bit --"Stupid Horde!" (as if he could read it)-- but the whole thing was amusing to me.  When I got the Explorer achievement it was on a PvP server, and I wouldn't have been caught dead doing what the Tauren did.
• Oh, did you know that Tyrannus has a bug?  Apparently if you start the fight before he does, the entire last boss fight tries to reset itself.  What eventually happens is that things go haywire and you have to leave the instance.  I found that out this morning, much to my dismay.

Everything I Need to Know I Learned in PuGs

This list was inspired by my daily run this morning, when I was ported smack dab into the middle of the Garfrost fight in Pit of Saron.  One moment I'd landed on a mountainside away from any mobs in Icecrown, and the next I'm seeing the "Saronite Rock on You -- Move!" on screen.

That was not an inspiring feeling that went through my system, let me tell you...

• Don't be a Jerk.  You'd think this goes without saying -Golden Rule and all that- but I never cease to be amazed at the number of pure idiots out there who think they can get away with bad behavior.  The anonymity that they feel they get in a cross-battlegroup PuG works both ways, pal, and the Kick option is a powerful one.
• Expect the Unexpected.  Just when you've got everything down to a science, Karma has a way of throwing you a curveball.  Like a disconnect in the middle of a boss fight.  Or the healer going down when you least expect it.  In other words, don't assume things will always go the way you think they will; plan for a rainy day.
• Don't forget Proper Nourishment.  Sure, you can slog through for a while without stopping to eat or drink if you're overpowered for a 5-man run, but that won't work if you're level appropriate for the instance.  Eventually, it catches up to you and you'll fail the team at a critical point.
• Remember to Share.  If you can bring something to the fight that will help a run -a Fish Feast, a Felstone, etc.- sharing that skill will help the entire group.
• If You Don't Know, Ask.  It goes without saying that a good sized portion of the wipes I've been part of are due to someone not knowing what to do.  If the person involved -and yes, I include myself in this- had only asked beforehand, we wouldn't have gone through the wipe and run back.  Bluffing your way through an instance only works when you are so overpowered you can solo it, and even then you still can mess up.
• If You Want Friends, be a Friend.  I know that in the age of the LFD tool you can get away with not having to pester Guildies or people from your Friends list to join a run --and you just know the raid version of the LFD tool is coming-- but WoW is a social game.  Yes, you can play it solo, and yes, I do all my questing solo, but you can't really hide from everybody else in the game.  I know that people randomly asking you to duel or join a guild is annoying, but if someone asks for help, why not help out?  That way, when you need help others can assist you as well.  That includes PuG runs, when someone asks if they can work on an achievement or for the group to not skip any bosses.

Feel free to add to the list!

(Oh, and that Pit of Saron run?  Apparently the Pally DPS dropped group right at the beginning of the Garfrost fight, but they got me quickly enough that we survived the fight.  We had one wipe on the trash right before the tunnel, but after the runback we refocused and made it through.)