Karazhan, No Drop Love

SpitebladesSo here's the question, is it still worth RAIDing if you don't get any loot? I think it is but man does it suck! With all the time it takes to get a group together. Not enough healers, too many healers, no off tank, too many tanks. We don't have the group make up for ZA let's do Kara.

So the stage was set for a nice Kara run. There are a few good drops in there I haven't got yet so I'm really excited. We easily down Huntsman, Morose, Maiden, Curator and Shade... then we get trapped in Shades room! Really, door won't open? Crap! Then our lock DC'd!!! And our group fell like a deck of cards. I just want Spiteblade!!!

Was fun though, so what do you think?

DrDark

Click to read more ...

Ahhhhh . . . Arathi Basin!

Arathi BasinOh crap... not again. Another Battlegrounds where people have no freakin' idea what they are doing or how to get there. That's it people. All you drones who would rather jump into the fray than understand the battle plans, you had better listen 'cuz I am only, only, going to saw this once: Look where you are and what you have to do. Arathi Basin is a capture and hold battleground. That means... capture and hold. Not capture and run to the next one or gank people out in the open. Capture and hold! Look... I got to farm about 60 marks from Arathi for a few items that would be nice upgrades, so do me and yourself a favor, read and memorize this strat: Capture and hold! You get more honor points for winning. You get more marks for winning. You even get better gear sooner for winning. So would you like that? Then CAPTURE AND HOLD! Crap... is that clear enough? Gawd I hope so. Now back to the bgs.

Click to read more ...

Shaman

Masters of the elements, shaman are one of World of Warcraft's hybrid classes. Shaman are extremely flexible, and, depending on talents and gear, they can act as ranged caster DPS, melee DPS, or healers. A shaman's totems can enhance any class' abilities and are some of the most important and powerful group buffs available. Shaman are available to Dranei, Orcs, Tauren, and Trolls. Shaman can wield any melee weapon except for swords. They can also use leather armor, shields, and at level 40 can train to use mail armor. They cannot wield any ranged weapons, as that slot is reserved for a Totem Relic.

Click to read more ...

Warlock

Warlock

Warlocks were once mages and shaman, but have been consumed by a lust for power. Warlocks summon demonic minions to serve them, control fel-magic to destroy enemies, and curse enemies with painful afflictions. Warlocks are a powerful casting class who have a myriad of valuable abilities. The primary role of a warlock is dealing damage, but they can also weaken enemies with their many curses. They have the ability to incapacitate hostile elementals and demons, and may conjure healthstones and soulstones to aid allies. Warlocks are available to Humans, Gnomes, Orcs, Undead, and Blood Elves. They wear cloth armor, and can wield staves, daggers, and swords. Their ranged weapon is a wand.

Click to read more ...

WoW Gold... And How To Make More

GoldYou really want to know the secret, the real secret of making gold in World of Warcraft. No more bull$hit, no more hype, no more tricks that will make you a WoW millionaire overnight. Here's the simple straight-forward truth about how to make gold in WoW. It's three parts so be prepared. Are you ready? Here it comes... Rule Number One: Sell Everything Invest in a few high-slot bags, go kill stuff and vendor everything gray, DE ( or get a buddy to DE ) the greens and Auction House the rest. That includes blues and purples. Sell the DE'ed mats or, if your an enchanter, buff your own gear. Okay some greens are worth Auctioning, but don't AH ever one of them. Some just won't sell. Know what each class prefers and sell those greens. And if you really, really need a drop from a mob, keep it. Just DE the rest. Rule Number Two: Buy Low, Sell High Ah the free market economy in action. Finding cheap items and selling them back to people who have no idea what just happened. This takes time and an investment in knowing what people want, where to buy it for cheap and when to list it at the AH. You can do it. Without addons or data lists from web site. Each realm has it's own individual economy. Learn it and use it to your advantage. Rule Number Three: Don't Buy Crap You Don't Need Do not buy that epic sword that will be useless in 10 levels. Do not buy that little, over-priced firefly to scoot around after you. Do not buy a 28-slot engineering bag that will just collect dust in your bank after you've made your little airplane... UNLESS you really, really want to. All that stuff is fine to buy and enjoy in the game, but if you do not have your epic flying mount and your guildies are sick and tired of summoning your slow butt to every freakin' instance 'cuz they have to wait on you to fly from Shatt, then do not buy crap you really, really don't need. Now there are other super obvious ways to make gold in WoW - do quests, do dailies, farm motes, farm mats, kill monsters - but for those of you who do those are still don't have an epic flyer or bitch and moan about not having enough to get 20-slot bags, you either don't play enough to get the gold or you might be violating one or all of the rules above. So if you need gold, don't ask me. Even thought I am sitting on quite a nice pile of earned gold ( never bought even a silver from anyone ), I have no intention of handing out in Shatt just cuz some 70 noob can't make enough gold to buy a 20-slot bag.

Click to read more ...

Warrior

Warrior Warriors wade into the thick of the battle, exchanging blows with enemies while wearing heavy armor. They are an important part of a group, often acting as the tank to absorb damage while keeping enemies from killing his allies. Warriors deal heavy damage in hand to hand combat, relying on brute force to kill their foes. A warrior's skills use Rage, which is generated whenever they hit an enemy or get hit by an enemy. Their shouts buff the group and debuff the enemies. They can wear mail armor, train to use plate at level 40, and use nearly any type of weapon.

Click to read more ...

Gearin' For PvP in Season 4

Great... Season 4 is here, along with a new patch which I am sure to rant about tomorrow, but for now let's all remain focused: Season 4 gear. There has always been two basic games in WoW: kill monsters or kill players, more commonly known as PvE or PvP. And Blizzard has done their best to keep the gear rewards for both sides of this dynamic as balanced as possible... mostly. With Season 4 gear PvP seems to have stepped up a little bit, namely you have to do arena to get the best PvP gear. Period. Usually you could do AV until your eye's bleed or until your voice shriveled into oblivion from screaming at the screen 'cuz most people have no freakin' idea what to do in battlegrounds. But still, with the right combination of battleground weekends, and if you were lucky, a few premades along the way, within a few months ( yes, MONTHS ) you could have a decent set of PvP gear suitable to get your ass kicked just a little less in all those battlegrounds you just spent your life doing. ( Anyone else see the futility of this? ) But now, not only do you have to do all of that all over again to get honor points and marks and new Season 4 gear, you have to have a personal arena rating to get certain items. Holy crap! Okay, yes, I have four of five vengeful pieces. I also have some other fun PvP gear, but those damn shoulders keep alluding me. That personal rating was just to much of a personal time commitment to get - all freakin' weekend trying to wack people, figure out their possible tactics against me and hoping to get a lucky crit off now and again to fry someone just to move my personal rating up 17 points. Damn it sucked. And I guess it will again. Oh well... I'm off to arena...

Click to read more ...

When Your Guild Doesn't Want You

Zul\'Aman BossWell how's about that. I started a guild about a year ago and we've been rocking it! We leveled like mad and got tons of 70's pretty quick. Seeing as we were so uber we started farming Kara. Then we moved onto ZA. At about the time we started really owning Kara I started working on this site and took a break from WoW while I did it. My first day back I'm swept up into a Gruul's Lair group and we two shot him for the first time in the guild! Oh the joy!!! So when I got back on and really wanted to start RAIDing with my guild I signed up for ZA on the guild calendar... "Oh there's no way you can go with them." "What? Why?" "Oh that's the group that runs through ZA easy they can't have you with them." Why is ZA so different from Kara? Is it soooo much harder? I know it's the next step up but really? I'm going to cause the group to fail? Me a good DPS rogue who knows how not to be killed. Anyway, rant = over.

Dr Dark

Click to read more ...

The Dreaded PUG Roulette

Oh how I hate puggin'. Pick-up Groups (PUGs) in World of Warcraft are so freakin' random. I have had PUG groups that destroyed Heroic Shattered Halls in 41 min and I've have the unfortunate experience of PUGs wiping multiple times on the first Boss in normal Ramparts. Normal Ramparts! And most of them were level 65+. AHHHHHHH!!!! What to do... what to do... Join a guild is a good option... but sometimes that falls apart. People may not be on at the same time. Or people may not want to do that quest your on. Or what-the-freak-ever reason they have for not helpin' a guildie. And the other thing is that when they do decide to help out, sometimes the people are good and other times they just say that they are good. Mostly the second. Unless it's a group that's developed together over time. Then at least everyone sucks at the same level. I was very fortunate to be in a great cohesive guild for quite some time (Midnight Run, Frostmane thank you very much ) but that fell apart in the space of a weekend 'cuz a few jackasses screwed it up for everyone (that and some other stuff but that's a different blog...). But with that group now fractured beyond recognition, I'm looking for another guild that raids late server time, that knows what they are doing and likes to kill bosses instead of bitch about who got what purple three weeks ago. But back to my point. PUGs generally suck. Seriously. But what do we do about it? I know I know my class and it's responsibilities in a raid or an instance. I know I have the gear and experience in doing serious DPS and CC (Damage Per Second and Crowd Control). I also know what other classes are supposed to do and what spec they should be to do it. So I know what I'm looking for when I try and find a PUG. What I don't know is if some moron is going to go all emo (emotional) when someone else doesn't do their job or if someone who says they know how to hold threat couldn't hold a bucket of water without a forklift and two friends helping. I know we all need to get experience and learn boss strats (one of the reasons I'm helping produce Project Lore), but for heaven's sake - please be conservative in telling people how good you are when looking for a PUG. Be honest just don't tell me your the best lock in the game when you don't know when to use seed of corruption or when to enslave (Kara PUGs come to mind...). BOTTOM LINE: If you are looking to be in a PUG, be kind, be honest and don't be a freakin' moron that goes all emo at losing a greed roll on a stupid mail chest piece you'll never, ever freakin' wear. And if you do go all emo, I will forever ignore you.

Click to read more ...

A Cold Shoulder From The Frost Mages

Okay, okay. Sorry. Geez... Stop your cryin' and belly achein' for crap sakes! All you frost mages who think I'm not showin you luv or that I'm bashing on you or your talent tree need to take a freakin' chill pill. Maybe you have a talent for that or something... Yeah, yeah. I know. Frost mages can do damage and it's how you play your class and your spell sequence that determines your mana management and that a frost mage is incredibly effective against A'lar and... blah, blah, blah. Hush! listen up here peeps. The point is this: fire mages still kick ass in raid situations. Period. I'm not saying frost or arcane can't kick ass. I'm just sayin fire mages kick ass. Okay. The water elemental is nice in PvP and yes ice barrier is a very cool spell. I have seen some rockin' frost mages in AV kick the crap out of buckets of people with that frost nova and ice lance. And yes, yes, I know that ice block was originally your talent tree and for that one I thank you. But my whole point with talking about fire mages before is that some people have the misperception that only frost mages are good for raiding and end-game content. That is pure bull$hiT. I certainly can, and I have seen other fire mages, decimate instances left and right, utterly destroying clusters of mobs with a few well-placed arcane blasts and dragon's breath. But this is what get's me agitated: I've actually had people tell me that their guild doesn't want fire mages because they pull too much aggro or lack DPS or suck at killin raid bosses. What f'kn morons! Those issues are with the person playing the game, not the game itself. Got get Omen2 and Deadly Boss Mods to clear half of that crap up. So once and for all, so as to quell this brewin storm twix fire, frost and arcane mages I may have inadvertently started, the real bottom line is this: we mages have CC, we have great DPS, we have remove curse, AI and can drop enough tables to feed an entire raid. Frost is great for PvP. Fire is great for PvE. Arcane can one shot just about anything their level. All are doable for killin mobs in BT, Hyjal and Sun Well and will continue to be in WotLK. Face it: If you rolled a mage, people want your DPS.

Click to read more ...