Project Lore

If you haven’t been over to the Armory lately, you should definitely check it out. Blizzard has just done a major update which displays all of our achievements and game statistics along side the typical gear and reputation information. Reviews have been a bit mixed on this. I, for one, think it's great, but there are those that would argue there is now a bit too much information available to anyone interested enough to look it up. For me the armory has always been an invaluable tool when deciding if it is worth my time to go along on that PUG heroic. You can check out the groups gear and see if they are up to the task. It can also be very useful when filling out raid slots. I remember a few slow raiding nights where we almost took a few people in quest greens into The Eye because they claimed to be “geared.” A quick Armory can usually let you know really quickly what you are dealing with. Now the new Armory goes a bit beyond that; not only can you check out a persons gear, you can check to see if they have cleared that heroic before, or any heroic, or if they have ever earned an emblem of heroism. You can even see if what raids they’ve done, how much gold they’ve earned, and how much their biggest heal has been for. It’s all amazing really. I’ve heard arguments though. Is it really good to have the amount of gold you have earned out there? Doesn’t this make you a target for gold farmers, or beggers in Stormwind? While I personally like it, and don’t feel like I have much to hide. It still begs the questions. How much available information is too much? What do you think? Are you digging the new armory, or wanting your privacy back?

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I haven't been playing a whole lot of WoW lately. I'll hop on vent every once in a while to hear the latest haps, or maybe log an alt and spy on the Totally Rad Guild (or their lower level equivalent, The Knights of Radshire), but I haven't spend much time doing anything meaningful in game. The one thing that really made me want to play last week, Brewfest, is no more. Of course, there are some other fun holidays coming up, but the Darkmoon Faire just doesn't do much for me. I turned in the Blessings deck a while back for the Crusader card, but now I don't even use it in enhancement spce (I've got a couple of trinkets that are better). So in light of this lull that many players seem to be noticing, I decided to look forward. The 3.0 patch is coming soon, which means there are going to be a lot of changes for, well, everyone. For some, more than others. Some classes, like Shaman and Paladin, are having set pieces reworked to play nice with new class mechanics. This will probably cause me a few headaches. To avoid those headaches, I have been playing around with Wowhead's recently unveiled Item Compare feature. In short, it allows you to compare a bunch of items or groups of items with built in stat weighting so you can decide which item would be best for you. For example, say I have two helmets and I need to decide which one is better for me. I take a look at this page and it shows me. What does this have to do with the changes to certain set pieces? Well, change the www. in that link to wotlk. and you get this page. Now, currently the feature doesn't seem to allow socketing or enchanting, but since, for an enhancement shaman, strength will be worth one attack power after the patch hits, even a lowly Bright Blood Garnet will be better than an epic Bold Crimson Spinel. So, let's say red socket will be worth 16 AP, a Bright Living Ruby. That offsets the AP bonus. Enh shaman will also be gaining 1AP per agi and 1AP per Int (talented). This means that, while crit chance will go down by a little under 1%, with the Cyclone Helm, AP will be much higher. Take into account a Meta gem and we have a winner. So, all I'll need to do is change to a Bright Living Ruby and I will be set for 3.0, at least in the helmet department. This tool will give me a chance to really figure out what I will need to change before the market gets crazy. Well, crazier, I guess.

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So Wade had a great question which a lot of people starting out ask, even myself. "WTF is Tier?!" I will admit that it took a number of times having this explained to me before I fully grasped it so I hope this will clear it up. Basically, the Tier system is a way to explain the quality of loot dropped and where it comes from. So Tier 4 Gloves, Netherblade Gloves, are not as good as Tier 5 Gloves, Deathmantle Handguards. Tier 4 Gloves drop in Karazhan which is an easier raid than SSC, where the Tier 5 Gloves drop. You'll also notice that both are part of a set. Tier 4 raids (Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, and Magtheridon's Lair) have bosses that drop Tier 4 tokens, which are turned in at a vendor in Shattrath for a part of your class set. So, all you really need to know is Tier 6 is better then Tier 1 and when you get a drop it will fall somewhere on that scale, according to where it came from. I know it's confusing and I hope this helps. If I missed anything please help clarify in the comments. - Dr Dark

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By now, it's probably pretty obvious that I have a new 70 which I am pretty excited about. Somebody brought up a good point on vent the other night, though. With Wrath of the Lich King creeping up on all of us pretty quickly, I have to decide how much time and gold I should put into gearing up my little warlock. I could save all of my money and be pretty well off for when the expansion comes out, or I could put tons of money into upgrades that might prove meaningless in 6 months while having fun and learning a thing or two along the way. I'm probably going to end up closer to the latter than the former. I've nearly maxed tailoring and have made two out of three pieces of my frozen shadoweave set, which has already cost me a fair amount of gold. I still need to gem those pieces and make the final piece of the set, and then I will probably start running more heroics and maybe head into Karazhan with an over geared guild group. I don't think I will be spending tons of money to completely maximize Xeno's performance, but I won't hold back if I've got the resources on hand. Learning the dynamics of playing a warlock in instances and raids will also help me as a player, even if warlocks' play styles change in Northrend. So, given the amount of time I have to enjoy playing at level 70, I think I just won't worry about being rich in WotLK until it comes out. After all, spending money is more fun that saving it, and I play to have fun.

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As we all know, Season 4 is almost upon us. What does that mean for me? It means Season 2 equipment will be available for Honor. Ideally, I would be grinding out Honor and tokens with the rest of the noobs who don't have Merciless or Vengeful gear yet. I'd love to buy a whole set of Epics, since both my Enhancment and Restoration sets have ugly blue holes in them. Unfortunately, I decided long ago that battlegrounds alone are much worse than battlegrounds with friends. Now, for me, this is pretty much the case with anything in WoW. But most of my time is spent dealing with guild organization (I had no idea what I was getting myself into), raids (same), or financing my habits, both in game and IRL. This leaves precious little time for battlegrounds and even less when friends are available. Alas, Season 2 gear, it seems we are not meant to be. I guess I will have to try and make those ZA runs in the future.

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