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Here's an AV idea ...
2008-03-10 18:35:00
There's an argument that Blizzard favors Alliance, AV is one of those reasons. I've seen Alliance PUGs grind down Horde premades and win 300+ bonus honor. It's a map issue. There are 3 Alliance choke points, between Stonehearth graveyard and Icewing, the narrow road before Stormpike graveyard, and the bridge from Stormpike to Dun Baldar. Once the Alliance set up shop on the bridge with the Dun Baldar tower archers, offense grinds to a halt. The same can be said on about the road leading up to Stormpike. Horde has 1, outside Iceblood tower. Once a few Alliance gets past that, there's no regrouping point. You can try at Frostwolf graveyard but it comes to that, they've probably already taken the relief hut. It only takes a few Alliance to take the relief hut. Horde on the other hand is a much more daunting task. Is it just that the Horde archers suck? Why is running up to and past the Frostwolf towers so easy compared to the Dun Baldar bunkers? Here's an idea on special AV weeke...
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AV premades, let's talk strategy
2008-03-10 17:54:00
When it comes to Alterac Valley premades you got a lot of variables that can screw up your 600 honor in 15 minutes.Players - yours and theirs. If your team is full of noobs and theirs is full of noobs, you can run over them. If your team has got pros and theirs is noobs, 600 honor for you, zero for them. If your team if full of noobs and theirs is full of pros, you're done. It drags out until eventually you have 5 people on offense and everyone is hanging around Frostwolf graveyard. Pros vs pros and you gotta long game on your hands. If you can hold the choke or keep the battle at Icewind graveyard you can win, assuming you get Stormpike graveyard early.Far too often you get lots of players not willing to do what they are told and criticizing the leader because they feel they should be able to get fast honor without doing anything. I don't mind playing D, because D wins games, and you plenty of HKs. On offense you just kill as many as you can, and when you die, you go back and do ...
More About: Strategy , Talk

WoW short: Netherdrakes
2008-03-06 18:13:00
1.2.3.
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Finally!
2008-03-05 20:59:00
Finally got my Vindicator belt! Made a push last night to pick up the needed honor. 3 AV games, 1 EOS, 1 AB. The first 2 AVs were 188, and 250 honor, gave up and played EOS and won, jumped into an AB and won the last AV was at the end of the night. By accident I fell into a premade and got 501 honor in 10 minutes! I even actually capped SPGY. It was all offence. Unbelievable. Never had that happen before. Probably the fastest AV win I've ever participated in.Anyways got the belt, replaced my crappy belt and it matches the rest of my gear. Now if I could only get another 27k honor for the war staff...
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PUGs suck!
2008-03-03 17:54:00
Surprise, surprise! PUGs (pick up group) suck! Weekend record for AV PUGs, 1 - 5. The one we actually won happened to be a premade that I just luckily fell into. 522 bonus honor, the rest of them 188, 188, 250, 125, 250.Arathi Basin also sucks. I went 0- 4. Finally I got frustrated and stopped BGs altogether. Still 2,500 short of the Vindicator belt. I have no idea how I'm going to get the 27,000 for the war staff.I don't ever remember the 51 - 60 BGs being this bad. Why is the 61 - 70 bracket terrible? You'd think at higher levels Horde players would learn how to follow instructions. Atleast be able to work together to achieve a common goal. I don't know how many times I've seen "DO NOT CAP SHGY" ignored while the noob claims ignorance. Capping stuff does not give you any additional individual bonus honor, it simple turns a regular AV game into a turtle. Like 15 minute AVs? Then don't cap Stonehearth Graveyard!
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Ninjas and 40 yr old virgins
2008-02-27 20:46:00
Damn ninja's! Always stealing my loot!Notice how they are Alliance? Horde gets laid period.
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F-f-f-FREE?!
2008-02-27 15:15:00
I was on my ALT last night. Leveling my hunter and preparing to head to Outlands. Dinged 60 while grinding out some frost sabers and moontouched owlbeasts in Winterspring. Back to Everlook fly to Orgrimmar, auction off the major chest enchant and runecloth bag pattern, crap I gotta go to Silvermoon to get my swift mount./1 LF port from ORG to Silvermoon pst, paying 1G (yes I'm cheap)no response, doh! So look around and see a lvl 70 undead mage (female toon)./w excuse me but could bother you for a second?"what's up?"/r could you port me to silvermoon? I'll pay you 2G?"sure"(awesome!) /invite, open a trade window type in 2G, but then she cancels the trade. wtf."don't worry about it"(f r e e .... f-f-f-f-free?!) Talk about a random act of kindness!/r ZOMG! TYVM/hug/kissI think that's the nicest thing any random character has done for me. I truly was thankful. This got me to thinking, should I be more generous when getting food requests? As well, are female players more giving than...
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Do you enjoy getting ganked?
2008-02-25 23:12:00
I stumbled on these 2 posts about FPS (first person shooter) games and a study on players' reactions to death.Game CriticsCollision DetectionI can definitely relate. In any FPS game you experience anxiety and stress. The object is to survive and hopefully frag your opponents. Danger is potentially around every corner. Virtual killing only increases the anxiety because ultimately you know that that it will be your turn soon. Virtual death brings a release, a short period where you are safe, until you respawn. And then it starts all over again.However in the World of Warcraft pvp is not the primary goal. There's leveling to 70 (which is the most common goal) then there's making gold to buy all those nice shiny things, then there's the stuff you can't buy until you get reputation with some obscure faction, then you have to find a group to complete a quest to get a chance to get reputation points ... and on and on. It's really one big virtual consumer game. You want to get all the...
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AV premades vs PUGs
2008-02-25 18:17:00
On the weekend I had renewed vigor and decided to grind out the honor for the remaining PvP gear (Vindicator's Silk Belt, Gladiator's War Staff) however I fell a bit short or rather lost interest. At first I got into a great premade, 3 wins, 580 bonus honor, 486, 550. Awesome but then, as most premades go, people complain, people don't open the console, and people leave. So that was the end of that. I looked for another one but it seemed was in short supply. So I turned to PUGs.*sigh and then I lost interest. The next 3 games went like 188, 125, 188. Terrible. This is why I can't grind out the honor to get the rest of my gear. The staff looks cool but is only a minor upgrade to the staff I currently have (Battle Mage's Baton). OK, so it's a good upgrade but I just have a hard time grinding out the 27k honor. That's A LOT of premades.Maybe I will chip away at it this week.
More About: Pugs

WoW Insider Mage build shop
2008-02-21 14:57:00
The guys over at WowInsider did a post on Mage builds. Here's some tidbits:17/0/44 Frost Arcane Mage buildThere are a number of variations of deep Frost builds, but this one goes far enough in the Arcane tree to grab the very useful and powerful Improved Counterspell. The Frost tree has been synonymous with survivability for a long time, so it's no wonder that it is so often seen in the Arena. As with other builds of this nature, it picks up talents that increase your damage output as well as those that boost your ability to stay alive. Frost allows you to kite your opponents, or hit them with reliable burst damage utilizing Shatter. (link)10/47/3 Fire Arcane Mage buildSo what makes Fire so great? Well, this build picks up all the damage-increasing talents in the Fire tree, some goodies from the Arcane tree, and even gives you a free point to put wherever you want. Hey, no one can say I'm not generous. Alright, so actually I'm not generous, there just seems to be no general cons...
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Intra-faction disputes: Skettis daily escort
2008-02-19 16:36:00
Usually out in the "wild" (contested areas) fellow Horde (and Alliance likewise) band together to fight off any gankers we might happen upon. Spot a mage getting ganked in Terokkar? Be a pal and jump in to take out that nasty gnome rogue. *wink. As you are well aware, the daily Skettis quests are overflowing with players wanting to complete the dailies (Fires over Skettis, Escape from Skettis more commonly known as the escort) from both Alliance and Horde. In one instance I was in a full group waiting to start the escort and there was a bit of trouble ... from a couple of fellow Horde.We had a full group and we had been camping the Skyguard prisoner, competing with other groups both Horde and Alliance. Finally our turn, we land on the platform and are waiting on the last member to arrive. A couple of fellow Horde swoop in and land. Our group leader advises them that we have a full group and are waiting for a final member, basically claiming this one as "ours". As well he says, "IF Y...
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Netherdrake ... almost
2008-02-19 01:40:00
I noticed this Netherdrake bug after I had finished some dailies over on the netherwing shelf. I did it twice just to make sure. I got to Shadowmoon Valley, dismounted, remounted and I still had my swift wyvern. Here are a couple of pics.BeforeAfterLook close. You will see that before I'm still wearing the dragonmaw uniform. After I've changed back but, lo and behold I'm still flying the Netherdrake! Oh well, if only for a little awhile, I got to fly my netherdrake, outside of the netherwing shelf.

2.4 patch notes - thoughts?
2008-02-15 16:54:00
The Sunwell Isle is now available for play. This area includes a new quest hub and 5-player and 25-player instances.Great! (haven't even entered Zul'Aman yet, or Shadow Labyrinth for that matter)Diminishing returns on honor for kills is being eliminated.This is good if you're the one doing the killing. Not so good if you're a squishy mage ... like me.Honor will now be instantly calculated, and available for player use.Yay!If a player dies 50 times or more in a battleground, they will no longer be worth honor for the remainder of that battle.WTF? Who even dies this many times? The most deaths I've ever had was 12, and I was a lvl 69 doing AV.Vanndar Stormpike and Captain Belinda Stonehearth have had their health totals reduced.Yay!Horde players will now start the battle closer to Drek'Thar and Frostwolf Keep.Boo!When both flags are held, the flag carriers will receive 50% increased damage done to them after approximately 10 minutes and 100% increased damage after approximately ...
More About: Thoughts , Notes , Patch

To transfer or not to transfer
2008-02-13 18:56:00
Looks like Blizz is trying to balance the population again (free characters transfers). I could transfer from my server to Anetheron, but should I? I don't know if transferring is a good idea. I mean I already know what to expect when I log into my current server. What if I transfer and the new server is totally crap?!So going from a high population server to a low population server. Some initial problems I see are: economy, running dungeons, BG's. Who's gonna buy my herbs and potions? How long is it gonna take to get a group to run Arcatraz? Wait times for Alterac valley? Sounds like candidates for transfer will usually appeal to those who've already attained their epics, reputation, gold, etc. Maybe they should just appeal to a couple of big guilds and ask them if they want to "own" a low population server?Anyways, back to me (as this is my blog). Should I do it? I think a big concern is ganking. How much of it goes on? I think I can live with what goes on now, with the occasi...
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Ha! Funny image just came to mind ...
2008-02-13 16:10:00
I read this while scanning the Engadget website."what girl wouldn't want an iPod touch next to her commode blasting tunes while she grinds instances with her level 80 priest on a pink Sony Vaio" (link)So picture this, hot girl with her pink laptop playing World of Warcraft running an instance with her priest, while pinching a loaf. LOL! That just makes me laugh."ok everyone mana up, oh wait, I gotta wipe my bum"Check out the dude's version of a pimped out washroom.Seriously, when you're planning to run an instance go to the washroom first, get a drink and be prepared to dedicate 40 minutes or more. Nothing's more frustrating while some idiot is talking on his phone while your group is wiping.Hello Kitty Pink Laptop.
More About: Funny , Mind , Image

You think that Mind Control had anything to with that?
2008-02-11 19:29:00
I was doing the netherwing daily quest (not so friendly skies) and a priest happened to crowd my space. First of all, I got there first. Secondly a horde warlock was waiting for me to finish so he could complete the daily. The priest mind controls me and just jumps around, doesn't run me off the island and laughs about it. OK fine, ha ha. The warlock took the dragonmaw transporter. Then he does it again. So I've missed out on 2 potential relics AND I was just 2 away from finishing thereby getting the priest one step closer to getting his turn. So I'd had enough. Arcane Power, Presence of Mind , Pyroblast, Fireblast, Counterspell, Frost Nova, Ice Lance X 2, Scorch, Fireblast. Priest turned into a pile of funny smelling ash. I continue my daily now competing with the Horde warlock.Over? Not quite. He comes back and /ponder (other in game emotes). As in "(moron) ponders my actions". What?! You don't think interfering with my questing wasn't going to piss me off? El cheapo mind cont...
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LF AV Premade
2008-02-07 17:56:00
Patience is a virtue ... especially when looking for an AV premade. Not all premades are made equal. It's important to consider the alternative. A frustrating PUG where Horde loses the majority of the time.Most of the PUG Alterac Valley battlegrounds I get into we A] lose badly B] lose a close one (ie. we get to Van but Drek is already dead) C] lose in a turtle because some dumbass took SHGY. I don't know why so many players do not get this point. If you take Stonehearth graveyard they will spawn back at Stormpike graveyard. You can progress to Van if you don't have Stormpike. Which mean a long a frustrating turtle which ends up in YOU dying a lot on the road before Stormpike. Geez! Figure it out!When you do get into a premade A] be thankful B] be patient C] have the freakin preform av enabler mod D] be at the battlemaster E] open up quickly F] don't complain G] follow instructions H] for God's sake pass the leader!People have unrealistic expectations when it comes to premades....

What I like best about ...
2008-02-04 22:38:00
I read this post at WoWInsider about "What do you like best about your class?" and I decided to kick in my 5 cents. To my knowledge, I've never (rarely) ranted about the shortcomings of the Mage class. For the most part I've learned to live with it. Here's what I like about playing my mage (in no particular order):1. Portals - the ability to open portals is a huge time saver. Hearthstone still on cooldown, no problem, teleport yourself to safety. New world to old world from anywhere.2. Conjuring - food and water at a cost of a bit of mana (don't get me started on how much I had to pay for those stupid tomes). Conjuring a refreshment table in BG's or starting an instance is very handy.3. Range - as a Fire/Arcane mage I have lots of range. Pyroblast? Fireball? and with the Gladiator gear increased range to Fire Blast. Awesome.4. Polymorph - sheep or pig (turtle might not be in the future, I mean when can I get a group to run ZG?) extremely useful when running an instance. I shoul...

Superbowl XLII, Feb. 3, 2008
2008-02-04 17:15:00
Did you watch the pre-game? Was it any good? I didn't bother. I tuned in on the 2nd or 3rd play of the game.First half: bo-ring! I was expecting a bit more offence from both teams. First sign of trouble for New England, unable to score after Eli Manning interception. New York Giants: defence spectacular! Did not give Tom Brady any time. New England Patriots: come on O-line! Do your job!(No commercials, filtered out in Canada :( )Second half: a bit of offence, mostly defence. WTF? NE can't get anything going? FUMBLE! Randy Moss is doing nothing, Plaxico Burres is doing nothing, oh wait, suddenly they do something! Each of them catches a touchdown, but only one of them is a hero. Eli Manning shows his pedigree. Bill Belichek shows he's a sore loser. Las Vegas is raking in the money, cha-ching!End of game. Skip the post game, back to grinding.
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Building your Mage: 15 - 19 Arcane
2008-02-01 17:16:00
Arcane Mage Lvl 15 - 19I didn't get into Arcane until later so the early stuff I'm not really sure about. Why are you playing an Arcane Mage anyways? :)Let's take a look at the talents.Arcane Subtlety, Wand Specialization, Magic Absorption: um, no. I can't see the benefit at this level. Arcane Subtlety - sure if you are running dungeons a lot and you don't know how to manage your threat. Wand Specialization - do you really even have to ask? Magic Absorption - you aren't going to be resisting a whole lotta stuff at this level.Arcane Focus vs Arcane Concentration: this comes down to, do you want your opponents resisting your spells or do you want your next spell to cost zero mana? If you don't take Arcane Concentration now, you must take it later.* here's what I took.
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Building your Mage: 15 - 19 Frost
2008-02-01 16:52:00
Frost Mage: Lvl 15 - 19You've got a dilemma here. Lots of good talents, not enough points. Let's quickly go through them.Frost Warding: if you plan on relying on your armor to save you - you chose the wrong class , skip it.Elemental Precision: mana conservation will become an issue later. It really depends on how you play. Skip it for now.Ice Shards: more damage is always good. If you don't take it now, you must take it later.Frostbite: freezing opponents for 5 seconds, that means you get to pop off another frostbolt. This is good if you plan on kiting a lot but ...Improved Frost Nova: a better alternative to Frostbite. This will be your cast sequence, frostbolt x 2, frost nova, strafe/run, frostbolt x 2, frost nova, strafe/run ...Permafrost: skip it.* here's what I took, Improved Frost Nova, and the rest into Ice Shards.
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Building your Mage: Lvl 15 - 19 Fire
2008-02-01 16:27:00
Fire Mage Lvl 15 - 19The second level of talents gives you some choices. The one you should not take is Improved Fire Blast. Absolutely tempting to have that instant cast fire damage available to you every 6.5 seconds (as opposed to every 8 seconds). Really, it's not worth it.Impact - it's nice to have. Stunning mobs for 2 seconds giving you a chance to get off another spell is great. Unfortunately there are just other talents which give greater benefit.Flame Throwing - extra 6 yards casting range for your fire spells. If you don't take it now, you should definitely take it later.Ignite - more DOTs when you crit. If you plan on being a fire mage, you can expect to crit a lot.* I split my points. Took Flame Throwing and then filled up Ignite.
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Mana Energy Potion
2008-01-31 22:55:00
This can't be good. Video game / virtual items making a real world appearance? Take for example this: mana energy potion. It even refers to restoring "+160 to mana" I mean really? Now let's take a look at the disclaimer"Most of the statements on the website have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, in fact, all of the statements on this website have not been evaluated by the FDA."Uh oh, this doesn't sound good. Are you adventurous enough to give this a try as opposed to your usual Jolt, Bawls, or RedBull? I'm tempted to buy just to have it around for aesthetic purposes.What the heck is mana anyways and how did it come to exist?I guess it comes from a variant of Magic Points which began with the whole RP gaming segment. But the question is, does mana, in some shape or form, exist in real life? I'm sure people can argue a person's spirit or soul is comparable but what do you think?I'll be downing an old fashion beer to restore my alcohol level (+100 pain thre...
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Item of the day: Eye of the BM
2008-01-31 15:22:00
With the ongoing problems of players blocking the battlemasters I've created a trinket. I don't know why people do it. Not just the battle master but the mailbox, npc's, flight master, you name it, and it has seen the fat ass of a Tauren.Eye of the BMKey stats: moves any players blocking the BM, allowing the BM to be clickable (and visible)"Move your fat ass!"
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Gold farming for my epic flying mount
2008-01-30 16:42:00
I've become a gold farmer. Doing the daily quests, grinding the same mobs, herbing but not for someone else. I need GOLD! 5,000g for my epic flying mount. The daily quests open to me (Skettis, cooking, pvp) earns about 40g a day. Herbing netherbloom can earn maybe 20g per stack at the auction house, and maybe 5-6g for stacks of dreaming glory. Plus any additional trash or greens that drop from mobs. However I try not to get into combat because that causes downtime (eating/drinking, even sometimes dying).It's really become a sad existence. I would go back and do any quests I've missed but it's time consuming and does not result in much gold. Forget running instances, that becomes expensive once you go through potions, and repair costs, and often you end up with nothing.Who's got quick gold strategies for me? Even at 100g per day that would take another 12 or 13 days to get enough gold to pay for my mount. Which mobs produce the best vendor trash? *sigh back to farming ...
More About: Gold , Flying , Epic , Farming , Mount

Jerks in Hellfire
2008-01-29 16:56:00
Usually I complete the daily quest in Hellfire to get some honor with Thrallmar and pick up some easy marks, but last night I got to Thrallmar and the quest giver was dead. WTF? I never noticed the guards were only level 60 (some even 58,59). Grrr! This pissed me off so I went looking for allies. Didn't take long, spotted a couple of 70's just outside ganking a 58 BE paladin.For some reason they were both at about half health. Warlock and priest. I swooped down, targetted the lock and popped off a POM(presence of mind) pyro, fireblast, counterspell, arcane missile and he was done. The priest got off one heal on the lock but I was not going to be denied. A warrior swooped in and helped take down the lock however he got caught in the AOE of the Fel Reaver/Infernal/thing that attacks the guys outside of Thrallmar and died. The graveyard was close so he rezzed and helped take down the priest. The priest tried to fear and run but I clicked WOTF and he was dead.Jerks ! Two level 70s gank...

PVP Raiding leads to server crash
2008-01-28 17:42:00
I'm sure you noticed the server shutdown last night (unless you were on Nordrassil). I got the "server shutdown: 15:00". WTF? The server never shuts down at this time! I also noticed a spike in latency as well BG queue times spiked. Then I found out there was an 80 raid on Ironforge on my server, this after Undercity was raided by the Alliance. Payback? Reading on WowInsider it turns out it was a world event. Alliance and Horde all over took turns raiding each other's major cities.Me, personally I've only taken part in small raids in Loch Modan, Red Ridge, and Duskwood but never anything like the scale that happened over the weekend.I hope people took screen shots, can't wait to see the carnage. It was an inconvenience but if it was to re-ignite the hate between Horde and Alliance, I'm willing to accept that.
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Even Gronn have standards
2008-01-25 19:28:00
I tried this quest grouping with a few others and killed him pretty easy but I could not loot the standard. WTF? Bugged? The standard sparkled and everything but I could not click on it. Only 1 person was able to loot it, and it was the guy who left the group shortly after downing Slaag. I wonder if him leaving screwed up the item. Anyways the bastard never came back to help us kill Slaag again so I guess it's one of those quests I will have to keep in my log. If I could just get these quests done I could start doing the dailys over in Ogri'la, which would make obtaining my epic flying mount a lot easier.
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Need vs. Greed
2008-01-22 19:31:00
I got an idea for dungeon looting. You know when you run an instance and then a nice blue pops up. You don't really need it but you greed it so you can sell it at the auction? And then some jerk needs it and then he sells it at the auction? How about changing the item to bind on pickup (BOP) when a need roll is selected? That way whoever rolls need can only equip it or sell it to a vendor. On the other hand when everybody greeds it and it's normally a BOP item, make it a BOE (bind on equip) then it truly is a gamble if you get the item. Also it lets the winner get some good coin for it when they do win it fair and square. Also how about changing the rolling percentages based on how many previous items you've won during the run. I don't know how many times I've run something to come up empty, meanwhile other guys have won 3 or 4 items on greed rolls? Just looking for a bit of fairness that's all, a bit of balance. Hey, I got an epic flying mount to save for!
More About: Greed

NFL sunday!
2008-01-21 16:20:00
Every now and then you gotta unplug. NFL football was an excellent opportunity. New England vs San Diego was a bit of a let down. SD couldn't take advantage of any turnovers and NE eventually wore them down with their running game. Boo! No very exciting.GB and NY was back and forth. I was pulling for Brett Favre but Eli Manning pulled it out the in the end in OT. So this leads to the big Superbowl match up of the New England Patriots vs the New York Giants.
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