Recently in Arita Category

I have a lot to do. I am collecting herbs for my guild, as well as for myself. I am debating furiously with myself about inscription and my lowbie hunter, Traluun, and trying to still get in time for job hunting, writing, beta testing, and have a small semblance of a social life. So it is with this in mind that I ask you, my readers, what do you think my priorities should be.

The reason this came up is that in conjunction with the recent beta build 8905, Blizzard's reps have posted feedback requests for all of the currently open dungeons in the beta, from Utgarde Keep to Naxxramas in both 10 and 25 man versions, and I realized that even with Med not even at 74 yet, I have not hit a single instance. Not even a one. I got my starter Death Knight through the old Starting Experience and into Inscription/Herbalism professions, worked a fair bit on Med's blacksmithing, and a bit on Arita's Northrend herbalism and alchemy, but I haven't *done* much in the beta.

Sure, I have moved and been doing renovations, and I haven't had the unregulated time I would like to be working on the beta and live realms. I also find it really hard to go from Medros, level 73 ret Paladin with awesome abilities and the capability to take down the mobs with ease, to Medros, level 70 Paladin, or even Telaan, Level 70 Paladin, or even still Traluun, level 45 Hunter. It's a bit of a shock, you know? A big change in the game and the world.

So, as my readers, I come to you, playtime in hand, and ask for your advice. Do you want more Wrath prep info as I push through the live realms to gather needed materials for the Inscription profession coming in 3.0.2, or should I spend more time on the beta realms, digging through the lore, the stories, and the experiences to give you all a better insight into what awaits us in the wonderful continent of Northrend, from gorlocs and proto drakes to dragon aspects and scarlet lackies? Sound off in the comments!

We are currently in the beta phase of the next expansion, as you are all well aware. All of the classes have new talent trees, and some have spectacular abilities that totally kick ass. Some, not so much. I understand that some all players want those OMFG abilities to be seen. Not all will get them. Some may get them eventually. Everyone wants a Divine Storm, a Titan's Grip, a Beast Mastery, a Typhoon to be given to their class. Not everyone can. This is a fact of life that we will just have to struggle to accept and live with.

The way I see it, having a Hunter, 2 Paladins, and a Druid at 70, is that the big skills are being given to those classes and specs within classes that really, really need them. Hunters have long been the mockery of gaming. Ret Paladins too have suffered being the butt of all DPS jokes. Many raiders seem to feel that Moonturkey are carried, not doing real damage or contributing much to a run other than the aura. I play all of this. I see why we are getting the OMFG talents. We need them.

In a most recent Ask the Beta Tester segment on WoW Insider, their rogue columnist said that Rogues aren't getting any must have talents. He admitted that they will still do massive damage in any raid or group. No doubt rests in my mind that without the changes to Paladins in Wrath, Rogues would still be the hands down favorite for any raid or group. As it stands now, I have a small chance I could win out if their was a choice in a raid, especially with buffs to auras which make them raid wide and the talents and improvements to Retribution Aura that I have taken in the Retribution tree.

Changes to spell power will definitely affect Arita, my druid(renamed Aritas due to name change), but I am trying to get Medros to Dalaran in order to see the amazing city of magic. He only just dinged 71 last night, so it will be a bit until he hits the 74 minimum, but I will then spend some time learning the druid abilities to see how they do in solo and group play. I pretty much stuck to the prospective talent tree I posted about, and I will be sure to report here when I begin doing more than mere fedex quests on the Doomkin.

Hunters. Huntards many call us. Too easy to play, too streamlined, too anti group. We are the most insulted group, and the least wanted in groups. In fact, I think that if a raid were to choose between a Hunter and a Doomkin, they would likely choose feather over fur. Not to mention that hunters are almost never allowed to bring out their biggest asset, their pets, in most raid or group encounters. While Beast Mastery will undoubtedly be the most popular hunter spec in Wrath, cause let's be honest, who doesn't want to tame a Devilsaur, but Chimera Shot and Explosive Shot seem to have some promise. I will be looking at my Hunter last in the line of alts I will bring to the beta.

I guess what I am trying to say is, if your class isn't broke, don't expect a fix. Blizzard is giving clothies spell power, which will automatically give you a buff in that all that juicy healing gear that used to drop will now be usable. They are still working on classes from the Death Knight on down, so don't think that just cause we might have a cinematic, that the beta is over, cause it's not. This change. Things will continue to change. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.

So I mentioned here that I have begun in the Wrath of the Lich King beta test, and I have some thoughts and questions here. First, are there any mods for the beta? I am a mod fiend and I am feeling really lost without a single mod. I have my Statusbars mod which tells me in a HUD type display what my health and the mobs health is. I have died a number of times because of this. Second, Gatherer? Is there any way to mark gather nodes? I am finding Cobalt ore hard to find and would love to mark them.

As an aside, it is nice that WoW Head WotLK has comments with coordinates, but how exactly do I figure out those coordinates? How did they get the coordinates? I love the look of the zones in Northrend. I have seen both Borean Tundra and Sholazar Basin, though the later only when I pulled a noobish hop off the ledge without remembering that Divine Protection was changed, and thus dying on the rocks. No more suicide jumps from Aldor Rise. I wanted to thank a kind GM from the beta realms who unstuck me in the world so I could return to my journey on Aritas, who was stuck in a server issues last night. The final tip comes from Galanis on the Northrend beta realm, "Profession Trainer tracking is critical in the newbie towns", a good tip to put into practice when you are just hitting Northrend!

Lastly, below you will find the huge, massive gnome lore found in the Tundra. Spoilers may be found! Enjoy!



[Update: Thanks to Lassirra for the tip about WoW Interface for WotLK!]
[Update: Thanks to MrCynical in IRC for the reminder that Divine Shield still does what Divine Protection used to do, and for longer!]

So I spent a better part of yesterday on a new, unrevealed hordeside alt on Argent Dawn, but came over to spend some time PvPing with a close friend. When she had to go, I was lucky enough to see a call in guild chat "DPS still needed for Mags.   Anyone up?". I only have 1 toon high enough for 25 man raids, and that is Arita. I do have a wish list to get Medros up to the point where he meets my guild's list of Retribution Paladin stat minimums, but for now the Boomkin is the one who will see Zul'Aman, Magtheridon's Lair, or Gruul's Lair.

The run took awhile to get started. From that first call out to first pull was over half an hour. I logged over quick, made up some elixirs and pots, then accepted the summons. I ran in, drank and ate, then waited. I chatted with the other 3 guild mates who were in the raid, and got an idea of the place, which I now realize was a lot of worrying for almost nothing. I have never seen Ony, so the description of 'it's like Onyxia' tells me nothing. I was shocked when a few short pulls in I was staring into Mag's room, and they were explaining the fight.

I can't say it went great, we did wipe once, but I know it wasn't my fault cause all I had to do was do DPS on command. On the second run I was able to battle res a healer, and we got him down, my excitement and nervousness building with every percentage closer. I ran up to loot my badges, and noticed that there was a lot of purple there. 2 and a bit 'pages' of loot to be exact. There was 2 Chestguard of the Fallen Defender, 1 Chestguard of the Fallen Champion, Girdle of the Endless Pit, Crystalheart Pulse-Staff, Pit Lord's Satchel, and Magtheridon's Head of course.

I didn't win the roll on the Chest, but all but one of those who rolled above me were rolling for off sets, so I got one. The Champion and the Girdle both went to the Ret Paladin(yes, there was a Ret Paladin there!). I did roll highest on the Satchel, but I had already won something, so I agreed to pass on it for the next highest. In the end I was the only guildie to win something in the run, as one had to go after the wipe and the others didn't have anything drop they could use(Hunter and Warlock), but both were happy I won an additional piece to boost my stats. I added to spell damage, crit, and hit, which I believe now puts me fully over the top in specs for 25 person raids. /cheer

I am pretty sure, if you listen back, I ranted pretty hard when the 2.1 Alchemy changes came into the game. As an alchemist, the changes to elixirs meant that the profit of a large part of the profession was pretty much gone. Yes, we still had potions, but the resistance potions were nerfed to the point that almost no one needs them, not when you now have 5-10 minute fights and 2 minute long cooldown resistance potions.

Well, guess what. The current beta build shows that I will even more adamantly refuse to do any alchemy for money, and alchemy for toons will be pretty much non existant. My Alchemist, unless they nerf that too, will be a transmute bot. Oh, wait. He already is. The only times I log my Alchy is to do his daily transmute, and that too will be a lot less important as Wrath gets close and the demand for those primals becomes a thing of the past.

As it is right now I am slowly liquidating my gem stocks on Telaan, not gathering herbs unless I need it, and preparing to sell off any but the most high end mats that can be used for those first few late 300s skill points. Now, in Wrath, I will pretty much farm only what I need for my toons, and that's about it. I do, though, have a couple related points to make. First, what happens when you get 2-3 mobs on you? You get that debuff on you after the first potion, and can't use another until you are out of combat. This is a player killer in the wild.

The other point I wanted to make was in response to Alex Ziebart, who wrote the post about this new beta 'feature'. I think Alex is right about one thing. Much like the elixir and Resistance Pot changes, this change screams 'raiders' louder than a Kazzak kill message. I wonder, honestly, how much further Blizzard will kill Alchemy in the name of the raiding game. Also, maybe Alex's realm has a rich AH for flasks, but I know my own Argent Dawn doesn't have anything near 100g flasks, or I would have made them all the way to a 4th epic mounted alt.

What do you think about these changes to Alchemy? Is this profession the new Engineering of the current and future versions of WoW? Do things like Alchemist stones make the profession more worthwhile to train up in? 

Take note that these are alpha talents and changes. These may and likely will change in some way between now and the live release of Wrath of the Lich King, release date unknown. Today we will look at Druids, a class I play. We will look at my other two classes, Paladins and Hunters, when they are alpha released.

Druids. Bear Butt. Boom Turkey. These are two of the common nicknames we have received in the community. Well, soon, that bear butt will look different, though we know not how. Also, we will also get a new Dire Cat, which will also look different from the non Dire appearance. We don't know what either of these will look like, nor what will make the new form so 'Dire', but I am sure most druids are excited about cross spec forms coming. This does not, though, affect the discussion I will make here. Perhaps Aly over at Bitter Roots will blog other trees(pun intended) but I will be talking balance in this post.

There are some really interesting changes coming to the Balance tree, and some even more interesting new talents coming. While there are no small number of things to mention on each side, I will go into the changes to see what points should be used on day 1 of patch 3.0, even before the expansion is launched. Before that, though, here is a link to my planned talent usage. Oh, and here is the talent build I currently use on my Druid, Arita.

Old Becomes New
Brambles - Currently: Increases damage caused by your Thorns and Entangling Roots spells by 25/50/75%. Alpha: Damage from your Thorns, Entangling Roots and attacks from your Treants increased by 25/50/75%, and damage from your Thorns and Treants have a 15% chance to daze the target for 3 sec. Thoughts: The addition of treants and the stun make this a great talent to spec in to, and with the drop of 3 trees, and 30 seconds per cast, you are nearly guaranteed to have that proc at least once.

Nature's Reach - Currently: Increases the range of your balance spells and Faerie Fire(Feral) ability by 10/20%. Alpha: Increases the range of your balance spells and Faerie Fire(Feral) ability by 10/20%, and reduces the threat generated by your Balance spells by 30%. Thoughts: Long overdue threat reduction for Moonkin druids, though for those who are used to being the aggro magnet that stands between a wayward mob and the healers, this could be a problem.

Lunar Guidance - Currently: Increases your spell damage and healing by 8/16/25% of your total Intellect. Alpha: Increases your spell damage and healing by 4/8/12% of your total Intellect. Thoughts: Unnecessary nerf to damage, though hopefully we will see some other stuff or changes coming to make up for this.

Dreamstate - Currently: Placed next to Moonkin Form on tier 7. Alpha: Placed next to Moonfury on Tier 6. Thoughts: Good spell, available earlier in the tree and allowing for earlier mana regen boost. Good change for leveling turkeys.

New Hotness
Improved Moonkin Form - Your Moonkin Aura also causes affected targets to have a 33/66/100% chance to gain 20% spell haste when they critically hit with spells for 10 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every few seconds. Tier 7. Thoughts: This will officially make Moonkins the must-have-in-my-group part of a raid set up when working out the casters, both healers and dps.

Owlkin Frenzy - Attacks done to you while in Moonkin form have a 5/10/15% chance to cause you to go into a Frenzy, increasing your damage by 10%  and causes you to be immune to pushback while casting balance spells. Lasts 10 seconds. Tier 8. Thoughts: This will make for a very interesting time soloing on my turkey, that's for sure-

Eclipse - When you critically hit with Starfire, you have a 20/40/60% chance of increasing the damage done by Wrath by 10%. When you critically hit with Wrath, you have a 20/40/60% chance of increasing the damage done by Starfire by 10%. Effect lasts 30 seconds and has a 2 min cooldown. Tier 9. Thoughts: Might be a good spell if you opened with Starfire until this procced, then switched to Wrath once the mob was coming at you, or used Wrath on a boss to minimize threat and then near death you used Starfire for the big numbers. Should be fun!

Typhoon - You summon a violent Typhoon that does 530 Nature damage when in contact with hostile targets, knocking them back 5 yards. 20 second cooldown. Tier 9. Thoughts: I assume this is an AoE, though unsure if it will be above the turkey by nature or if it will give a location choice like Hurricane. As it has a range, I assume it is like Hurricane, but that could, incredibly, mean it would be a 20 yard from the caster circle effect, which would be.... wow!

Gale Winds - Increases damage done by your Hurricane and Typhoon spells by 25/50%, and increases the range of Cyclone by 10/20%. Tier 9. Thoughts: Many folks were already angry in PvP about the current yardage of Cyclone, and this will only make that worse. The first part will be nice, especially if there are fights like the worms in Kara or Magister's Terrace in the expansion. 50% more damage on lightning bolts that, by the end, already leave the targets within a moonfire of death? Hell yes I'll take it!

Nature's Fury - Your Wrath and Starfire spells have a 20/40/60/80/100% chance of applying the Nature's Fury debuff on the target. The Nature's Fury debuff increases Nature and Arcane damage done to the target by 2%. Lasts 12 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times. Tier 10. Thoughts: I like the 100%. All I would need to do is keep casting Wrath throughout the fight and the debuff would never die. Arcane Missiles, and I suspect some Shammy spells, would benefit from this.

Starfall - You summon a flurry of stars from the sky on all targets within 30 yard of the caster, each doing 500 to 580 Arcane damage, and an additional 170 arcane to all nearby targets within 5 years. Maximum 20 stars. Lasts 10 seconds. Tier 11(Final point). Thoughts: Whoa. We saw this in Warcraft 3 from Tyrande(interestingly a priestess) and it looked awesome. It sounds like this would not be a Volley like AoE, but more like the stars will fall on hostile targets only, not just randomly. Also, the nearby targets bit is a little confusing. It is like if you have like 5 or so targets all grouped within 5 yards, coming at you, it will not only do initial damage to each, but proximity to each other damage? I want to see this!

As you can tell, I have a... few opinions on this specific tree. As you will also notice, there is some changes over in the Resto tree. I have currently 13 points, and that will be lowered to 2. Not only because Improved Mark is changing to 2 points from 5, but I also don't think that the other spells will be that big of a deal in this current tree. I'll spend 2 over there, and save the other 11 for some of the changed, and more of the awesome new stuff coming in Wrath of the Lich King. Stay tuned, eventually, for the Paladin and Hunter tree reviews.  

After my recent time off from game, I have found it harder and harder to play the characters I have. My Paladin isn't hot enough my druid too thin and with racials that suck, and my hunter has just horribly boring speech patterns. I am sad to announce that effective immediately, I will be liquidating all of my current characters across most realms and making Horde versions with the same names. Arita will become a Tauren Druid, Medros a Blood Elf Paladin, and Ameland a Troll Hunter.

I will miss my friends on the Alliance side and invite every one of them to join me in the abandonment of the Alliance to the kids who have made the faction unplayable. The Alliance is filled with noobs who can't play their classes, can't PvP worth a damn, and can't follow the rules no matter how clear they are. Hope many times do you need to ask the same moron to not be talk about raid progression, his latest pnwage, or whatever in Say channel before you just want the chance to force him to stfu at the end of a gun?

On that note, it is almost time for work, 2.4.1 has just downloaded, and the realms are offline for an extended maintenance, so I am going to go get ready for work. Ishnu-dal-dieb.

I have had a lot of people find me on my site and in game who are asking me about gear. A lot of new guildies who have just hit Level 70 are also looking at our guild's minimum requirements for Karazhan with shocked disbelief at the disparity between their numbers there as compared to what they are at now. The plan here is to link you my characters WoW Digger Profile, and explain why I chose it and where I got it from.
Profile: Arita
Slots:
Head - Druidic Helmet of Second Sight | Sockets:: Gleaming Dawnstone, Glowing Nightseye, Glowing Nightseye | Enchant: None
Neck - Torc of the Sethekk Prophet
Shoulder - Mantle of Autumn | Enchant: Inscription of the Blade
Back - Shadow-Cloak of Dalaran | Enchant: Enchant Cloak - Spell Penetration
Chest - Tunic of the Nightwatcher | Sockets:: Potent Noble Topaz, Potent Noble Topaz, Solid Star of Elune | Enchant: Enchant Chest - Restore Mana Prime
Wrist - Illidari Bracers of the Invoker | Enchant: Enchant Bracer - Major Intellect
Hand - Clefthoof Gloves | Enchant: Enchant Gloves - Spell Strike
Waist - Windchanneller's Ceinture of the Sorcerer
Legs - Kurenai Kilt | Sockets:: Runed Living Ruby, Gleaming Dawnstone, Gleaming Dawnstone | Enchant: Mystic Spellthread
Feet Shattrath Jumpers | Sockets:: Glowing Nightseye, Great Dawnstone | Enchant: Magister's Armor Kit
Rings - Violet Signet & The Horseman's Signet Ring
Trinkets - Scryer's Bloodgem & Vengeance of the Illidari
Main Hand/Two Hand - Bloodfire Greatstaff | Enchant: Enchant Weapon - Major Spellpower
Off Hand -
Ranged/Relic - Idol of the Unseen Moon

Have questions about gems, improvements, and enchants? Reply to this comment or email me, med2008@allthingsazeroth.com!

Updates:
After a great weekend in Kara, I have replaced:

• Manasurge Pendant
• Ruby Drape of the Mysticant(replacing Shadow-Cloak of Dalaran from an earlier run)
  
• Bracers of the White Stag
• Mitts of the Treemende | Sockets: Radiant Talasite & Veiled Noble Topaz 
• Ruby Slippers(replacing Boots of Foretelling from earlier in the run)
• Violet Signet
• Spectral Band of Innervation

Today I finally got my last 70 up to Ogri'la, the Ogre heaven, and had Ameland proclaimed an Ogre king. Due to the quest chain to get this, I made a nice 350g today just from a few dailies and the Ogri'la chain, I already have my 2 lowbies up to 300 in their crafting professions, only Telaan's mining needs to get to 300, but that is more of a time based thing. I am trying to decide what to do with my money now. I have the 1600g for my hippogryph, whenever I get the rep for it, and the only 70 without 375 in a primary profession is Ameland, who has 370 Leatherworking. I may need to go to the AH and get a rough guess of the mats needed to get those last 5 points...

So I was talking the other day, about birds, and which one to get when I get to 70 on each of my two major characters. I would like to get snowy ones for each of them, but they are by far the more common of the birds. This shot here is merely evidence on the matter. It is at least a 2:1 ratio of snowy to either of the other versions, or more, on Argent Dawn. So, would I be more unique if I got a plain one? I have now spent almost all of my 60 some odd levels riding that same bird, though. Maybe they should change up some of the gryphons in game to the other forms we can buy? Nah, it would probably take away from their speciality.

As well, on the bird front, Tseric posted in the forums that Blizzard is working on an epic flight form for druids, which will be a quest line(similar to the Paladin and Warlock epic mount quests?) but will require the Epic Riding skill to begin, so I would expect it will not be nearly as high on the cash outlay as the Paladin and Warlock epic quests are. Still, that Blizz is noticing that druids deserve the love that Paladins and Warlocks got for the land based mounts is definitely a good sign, and that, along with a lot of other things that have been tagged as 'upcoming content patch(es)' is much to look forward to, and another sign Blizzard is not slowing down between expansions.

Now, to the in game stuff. Sadly, no birds for me just yet, least not the ones that are only a one time payment, but there is one thing of note. After now 3 failed attempts to complete The Blood Furnace instance, we have only met with frustration. The first time was doomed, as it was an early, early morning run(2 or 3 AM start) with 2 members who were dead tired. When those two are your tank and your priest, you should pretty much just fork over your gold to the repair vendors and call it before you start. Drissa and I did get the fel orc blood quest done, so that was a good thing.

The next day, myself, Drissa, Falaurus on his Priest, Megawatt on his Warrior, and Cancey, another guildmate, tried very hard to finish what had been started the night before. Alas, the forces of bit and byte would work against us, as the Instance server decided on this day to be utter and complete crap. We twice got within site of the room with the second boss, only to have the Instance server die on us and after a good solid 3 hours of trying to get in, only to get partially done and ave the server crash, we called it. We hope to get another run, hopefully more successful, tonight. Drissa did get a nice drop(I think) off the first boss on the second run, and I got a new Libram off the first Boss on the run the night before, which I will be switching out with my current one, a demon/undead specialized one.

Therefore, a ding, since Drissa and I were both so close, was left to grinding. We went out killing wolves and Warp Stalkers, as we both needed Worg Tails and Drissa needed more Warp Burgers, a nice +agi buff food that Medros can cook and even get skill off of still. After many kills, and enough meat to make a levels worth of burgers, I am happy to announce...

Live from Outlands, it's Level 66!!!!

That is right, only 4 more levels until Medros could fly on a bird. I am sitting a little under 1/4 of the way to a bird, and think I just might need to get Arita some questing done, as he now has most of the starter quest in Zangarmarsh. I need some Paladin gold, since my Paladin put so much gold into his epic. Time for a little role reversal, me thinks. I think I might do some questing on Traluun, my Draenei Hunter, as he is in need of some leveling, and has 100% rested XP at this point as well. I guess we'll have to see.

Hope to be recording the next episode of All Things Azeroth with Lelia in the next day or two, so look for more on that in a week or so, once I have time to edit it and all. See you soon, and take care.