Warcraft Outsiders

The kind folks over at Warcraft Outsiders have posted an article I wrote. I will be writing one or two each week with a focus on instances. To begin with I will be covering the basics but I intend to work up to some more advanced details about raiding and end game.

Warcraft Outsiders is a spin off from the Videogame Outsiders podcast. Both are a great listen!

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Black Temple - Super Bowl of not Standing in Things

After a moderately successfully session of wiping repeatedly on Malygos and some premade PVP on Saturday night we decided to set up a Black Temple run for the following evening. Sadly we didn’t have enough guildies on to make up a full raid and ended up PUGing about a third of the raid out of trade chat. The first seven bosses were fun with the fact that nearly half the raid paid no attention to what anyone said, refused to wait for people and need rolled on items we agreed to distribute at the end merely a mild annoyance. However once we hit the Illidan council things got worse! I really shouldn’t be surprised as the stupid things people say and do when they think they are anonymous but I am. The evening was saved for me by the following comment on Wowhead for the Illidan council

“Well My friends its time for all that experence to pay off because Illidari council is the SUPER BOWL OF NOT STANDING IN THINGS!”

Sadly we did not down Illidan as we were unable to get past the second (fire elemental) phase.

But it is all too easy to get caught up on things like how I will never raid or group with anyone from thanks their horrible attitude and miss the fact that we did get to see something that when I started in the Burning Crusade I never thought I would get to see. Perhaps when we are running around in tier 10 equivalent badge gear we will come back and hand it to Illidan. It will be a lot easier now I know what is coming.

Also thankyou very much to Samyell and Smeric. Sam for his very helpful information of what to expect from some of the boss fights and Smeric for handling the majority of the loot rolls. Oh and thanks to Strag for coming into Vent and keeping me sain.

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Their cold dead faces - Death Knights and PVP

There has been mounting complaints that Death Knights are over powered in PVP, I’m sorry but I just don’t see it. Perhaps it is that my PVP experience with death knights is too limited, maybe I have just been lucky and only fought bad players or it could even be that a protection warrior (especially a Dwarf with a racial that counters disease) is a good counter to a Death Knight. Sure they have a lot of interesting and annoying tools but nothing that can’t be overcome. You are welcome to take my post with a grain of salt because I haven’t actually played a Death Knight but just the other day I managed to kill a Shaman, Death Knight duo (Keep in mind this is essentially four kills including a shaman’s Ank and Death Knight’s “come back as a ghoul” thing), sure I didn’t have much health left at the end but I was still the victor.

My comment earlier about protection warriors being a good counter to a Death Knight may in fact not be too far from the truth. I can silence, stun, disarm and sunder them while introducing my shield to their cold dead faces. But until I can craft a PVP protection spec and get into some more battlegrounds and arena I wont know for sure.

Alassiel, Sellia and I are reforming Triptych on the Arena Tournament realm. We have all signed up and will be participating in the 200 matches so Alassiel and Sellia can get their Armoured Murloc pets. Alassiel will heal for us as a restoration druid, Sellia will stay as a frost mage and I will create a Death Knight. It seems like this is will be an interesting chance to try the class without the bother of leveling it. Worst case I realise I can’t do it and swap to a fury warrior or perhaps even a protection warrior.

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World Events - The Good and the Bad

Blizzard have made some great world events and some really bad ones. So I thought I would detail what (based on my opinions as well as those in other blogs and guild discussion) are the good and the bad points of these events.

Good
Achievements/rewards
The introduction of achievements made world events a great deal more satisfying. However this makes obvious the world events that do not have achievements and leaves them slightly hollow. Having some sort of reward to work towards is also good, I am a big fan of the mounts, titles and other fun items that are slowly filling up my bank space.

Special bosses
I love special world event bosses, this was a great introduction and I hope more are added and updated for each year. Something that would be really interesting would be the addition special bosses, similar to Prince Tenris Mirkblood in Karazhan for the introduction of Wrath, every now and again. I’m sure there are a few instances in Northrend that could house an extra boss when required.

Fun daily quests
Daily quests sit hand in glove with a token based reward system. Despite a couple of small bugs I really enjoyed the Brewfest quests, groups of us would complete them together each evening before heading off to Black Rock Depth to lay some Smack Down on the Dark Irons.

Token based rewards
As mentioned below having rewards based on a Random Number Generator(RNG) is not fun! So the introduction of rewards that are purchased with tokens acquired during the event is a great way to go.

Available to all levels
Okay so every part of a world event doesn’t need to be available to all levels but it is good when newer players can still participate. Winterveil is a good example of this, lower characters can still get some of the presents and complete many of the quests.

Bad
Random Number Generator
Tasks or rewards that involve random drops are no fun at all. This is especially the case for short events where your opportunities to acquire said item are limited. A great example is the recent “Love is in the Air” festival. Instead of having each item be randomly included in a gift of adoration why not have different type of NPCs give you different things as a gift. So for example male guards give you Love Rockets and female guards Love Fools, male food vendors give you a Bag of Candies and female give you a Box of Chocolates. As mentioned above, for rewards, a token based system when you receive token for completing tasks is a much better. I’m all for having power items have low drop rates but when there is a limited time frame it just gets frustrating.

Long travel for short task
There is nothing worse than having to travel to a far off zone to complete a task that takes all of 5 seconds. So although I enjoyed traveling around the world for the “Honor your Elders” achievements having to go all the way to the end of Maraudon for one of the elders as very annoying.

Imposed participation
People shouldn’t have to participate in world events, I believe this was the mistake of the Zombie Invasion (well one of them). There should always be an opt out, especially in major cities where most people just want to do their auctions in peace. If for story purposes a city needs to be involved then limiting the event to only one city for each faction would mean people can escape to other locations if they needs to.

Opportunities for griefing
I play on a PvP server but there is a difference between PvP and griefing. If a world event allows a level 80 to kill a level 10 over and over then that level 10 player is going to be a bit upset.

Overall I think that World Events are slowly improving. It is nice to have a purpose in world events, a reason to complete quests that is storyline or reward based. Hopefully some of the annoying RNG tasks will be removed as events are revisited. It would also be good to see some of the rare items have their drop rates improved or be acquired with tokens. Probably the most important thing will be to have events with special instanced bosses updated to the new level cap of 80.

Images thanks to Wowhead and World of Warcraft Blogger.

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Weapon Enchants for Tanks

In the last patch Blizzard toyed with adding an excellent weapon enchant for tanking. In the end they pulled the plug and no new weapon enchant was introduced. But what does that leave those of us who aren’t Death Knights?* Below I have detailed what is, in my opinion, the top three tanking enchants and a bit of detail as to why. There are other options (when isn’t there really) but based on my research these are you best bet.

Titanium Weapon Chain
My current choice and also the cheapest of the three, this is a blacksmith created weapon enchant which improves your hit rating and reduces weapon disarm time. In terms of threat, hit is a great stat for tanks and although not stunning a reduction in weapon disarm time is handy. I prefer this enchant because it is cheap, easily acquirable and effective. If you min/max your character this probably isn’t the tank enchant for you.

Accuracy
Similar to the weapon chain, Accuracy provides hit rating but it also provides some critical strike rating as well. This enchant is usable by a lot of classes and is probably thought of most as a DPS enchant. However for a tanking warrior the hit and critical strike rating do translate to increased threat. The downside is the cost, this enchant is quite expensive. In fact if you had to buy all the materials and then tip your enchanter this could run at almost 1000 gold. If you can afford this and you aren’t low on mitigation then it is well worth the cost.

Mongoose
Mongoose was the tanking enchant of choice in Burning Crusade. It gives the weapon a chance to provide you with 120 agility and a slightly increased attack speed for 10 seconds. For a level 80 warrior this translates to approximately 1.3% extra dodge (based off these calculations) as well a slightly increased critical strike rating. If your low on mitigation then this may be well worth it as apparently it activates pretty often but the previous two enchants are still superior in terms of stat allocation and thus result.

*Death Knights can place runes on their weapons which function as powerful enchants. For tanking DKS, these runes help to mitigate the face they don’t have a shield (like warriors and paladins) or an extensive health pool (as with druids).
Image from http://www.solware.co.uk/gadgets-toys/radio-controlled-tank.shtml

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Victorian Bush Fires

Image from http://www.abc.net.au

Over the last few days fire has devastated many parts of Victoria, over 100 lives have been lost, nearly a 1000 homes destroyed and the toll rises almost hourly. It is believed that these fires which have displaced thousands and effected almost every Victorian where, for the most part, deliberately lit. We are currently planning a donation drive around my office and I encourage anyone who can to donate to the Australian Red Cross and help out those who have nothing.

EDIT: Sadly the toll is expected to reach 200 today.

A special shout out goes to our family friends who lived just out side of Marysville. I spent a lot of time on their property growing up and have many fond memories of times spent in the bush around their house. Last I heard they had made it out alive with their photos, dog and one change of underwear but they do not expect to return to a home. Stay safe guys! Our thoughts are with you.

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Three Mounts

So you have seen all those people ridding through Dalaran on their Caravan Mammoths or flying over your head on all manner of strange and beautiful beasts. But when you mount up it’s just the standard Ram or Griffon. Perhaps it’s time you went out and got that upgrade? Well here are three mounts that almost anyone can get a hold of with only some time, their eightieth level and perhaps a few friends.

Green Proto-Drake

An easy option is the Green Proto-Drake, this is obtained from a Mysterious Egg purchasable for 3g at Revered from The Oracles in Sholaza Basin. Getting to revered with the Oracles will take you a few weeks if you regularly complete the dailies, providing good experience or a decent payout. However there is a catch, each Egg only has a small chance to contain the Proto-Drake and takes seven days to hatch. The other downside is that although it’s visually unique and not a common sight it is, in my opinion, butt ugly!

Deathcharger

This mount used to be a very rare sight in Vanilla Wow, it had a drop rate of less than one percent and required a group of five switched on players. But times have changed; the drop rate has been significantly improved and the majority of level eighty players can solo Stratholme killing Baron Rivendare with little trouble. Subsequently this is the perfect mount to aim for if you do a lot of solo play. There is also the added benefit that despite it’s age Stratholme can still be a profitable instance to run solo, plenty of items to sell of disenchant and large amounts of cloth. It is also a good time to start working on The Argent Champion achievement. A couple of tips for a level 80 in Stratholme:
Avoid killing what you don’t have to it will take you a lot longer if you clear the whole place out
Don’t stealth because the stealth diction mobs can see you more easily in stealth than out
Avoid the gargoyles they move quite fast and will bring lots of friends if you agro them

Bronze Drake

Of the three, the Bronze Drake is the hardest to acquire purely because you do need a good, well geared group. The Bronze Drake is a 100% drop from the Infinite Corruptor a timed boss in the Caverns of Time: Culling of Stratholme. You must reach and defeat this boss within 25 minutes of beginning the instance. He is located very close to the end just before the final boss Mal’Ganis. The 25 minute timer is achievable as long as everyone in your group knows what they are doing. Plenty of AOE helps because there will be no Crowd Control and don't bother looting the trash.

Of these three I have only acquired The Bronze Drake, so thankyou to Alassiel for providing the excellent screen shots.

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