Blue Post: Intellect Plate Issue

Bashiok -- Intellect plate

  The situation with intellect plate is an ongoing discussion among the designers, but we have yet to come up with a solution that's better than just continuing to make intellect plate. ... Maybe someday there will be a new class that also uses Intellect plate."

 source

  Two words: Battle Mage

New UI Format

  Had a lot of fun in rated's tonight. We got off to a bad start, but turned it around for a few good wins.

  But really I just want to showcase my UI setup:

  I'll start at the tooltip Shadow Protection and go counter-clockwise.

Addons I think Everyone Should Have

  And I mean everyone. Whether you play PvP or PvE, craft, run dailies, whatever. These addons or ones like them will make your game play that much smoother. Every now and then I clear all my addons and reintegrate them one at a time. These are the ones that are always present:

Comparing DK's and Hunters

  Hunters have long had the Huntard image: Chinese Farmers, Girls collecting pets, everything is a hunter waepon (sic). Then Wrath came out and most Huntards rerolled DK's. That resulted in Dork Knights, Death Knoobs, Arthasdklol, and the like. Bad players will be bad no matter their class, though, so all matter of name calling aside, DK's and Hunters do share a few other similarities.

Ding #4

 
  I'd been avoiding my DK lately. I think it's because I hate tanking for lousy players. So I do a last few randoms to get to cap, and I get into a string of groups so bad, I nearly swear off tanking.

Professions: Starting Inscription from Scratch

  Inscription is primarily the business of crafting glyphs. Sure, there's some other cool stuff, but glyphs are the steady money maker. A unique advantage to this profession is it's low-level payoff potential. All of the other crafting professions must be leveled to current content before any real amount of returns can be made, but glyphs that sell for over 100g can be crafted as low as level 10. So, while crafting is mostly regarded as a max-level activity, profiting from glyphs can be done while leveling.

Random Ramblings Redux: Old People are Awesome

  Over on WoW Insider today, there's an interview with a 70 year old raiding GM. It's awesome, and you should read it.

  I just want to highlight and comment on a couple of things she said:

Random Ramblings: Horde Alts, Rares, Heirlooms

  I've tried rolling alts on other servers, and there's a certain challenge to starting fresh, no heirlooms, bags, or extra gold. A while ago, I leveled a Blood Elf Mage to 20 and a Tauren Warrior to 17, and made about 300g. I'd say it was a successful bootstrapping. I deleted them, however, since I just wasn't feeling it.

  Just yesterday, I started a female Tauren Paladin and male Blood Elf Mage, and got to 13 on the Pally before I realized that the names I picked out, Kalonika (beautiful victory) and Kallahan (bright-headed, lover of churches), were backwards in style. So I deleted them both, re-rolled a male Tauren Pally (Kallahan) and female Troll Mage (Kalonika). Besides, I really couldn't get into playing a male Blood Elf, even with the awesome dance.

Rename

  I renamed the blog to something more accurately descriptive. I think trying to limit my topics to one of the classes I play less often now is to constrictive.

Rethinking the Human Racial

Creepy, or really creepy?

  Every Man for Himself is considered the best racial ability. Maybe, but it isn't simply a free trinket. Consider it an extra trinket effect.

  For example, my Priest has an Insignia of Dominance and Badge of Dominance, since I don't need a Medallion of Tenacity. The base resilience is the same on all trinkets, so disregard it. What the Human racial really is for me is an extra spell power buff. Let's see how it stacks up with the other throughput increasing racials:

PvP Progress: Not Much, but Good

  I did some rateds the other night on my Priest, and a few last night on my Hunter. I got enough to cap the first, but not enough to significantly affect the ranking of either. The competition got an earlier start than us, so it feels like playing catch-up. Honestly, though, since no one on the server has even reached 2k this season yet, it's way to early to call.

  It seems my Priest is needed more often. I really like PvP as a healer, even though it's like having a "Kick Me" sign taped to my back. Priests in particular are fairly resilient compared to Shaman or Druids, and can put out some serious throughput and cool downs. In PvE, I chafe at the idea of class-stacking, or denying entry based on spec. (A good BM Hunter does better DPS than a mediocre Fire Mage) PvP seems to still have class/spec issues. I think Mists will alleviate with the new talent trees, as the various specs within a class will have access to that classes major utility abilities. (Yay, baseline Readiness and Silencing Shot!)

  But 5.0 is months away. This season, I have a Priest and Hunter ready to go. Maybe a Shaman, but I think if I do any PvP on my Shaman, (Female Dwarf, what else?) it will be arena, probably as Enhance. I went up against an Enhance Shammy while on my Priest in 2's that stuck to me like glue. He gave me lot's of practice dodging interrupts, but curiously used Feral Spirit on cool down, but always when Psychic Scream was up.

  I'm debating doing the honor grind a fourth time to kit my soon-to-be new 85, a DK. I have very little BG experience as melee, much less FC, but I did almost get Ironman last week in a random. My DK has been leveling as Blood almost exclusively through dungeons and JC dailies. I hate dailies. If I want to tank endgame, though, I need a better graphics card. I'm playing on a GeForce 6150SE nForce 430, so even with all settings turned down, my FPS drops whenever I stack up. This is one of the major reasons I can't raid.

Random Ramblings: Memes, LFR, Crafting

2 Hunters on Magmaw

  I like Memebase. I made that one awhile back, but it doesn't have a very wide appeal. However, if you have kids and the Worst Toy Ever, have a laugh.

Looking For Retard, as they say.

  Everyone has their opinion about the new LFR feature, with a few bold souls unabashedly loving it, others hipstercritically lampooning it. A few have actual complaints. I think it has a sort of Rorschach quality to it, in that opinions expressed of it reveal a bit of the expresser. Personally, I see it simply as a logical continuation of LFD.

  I do have a few objections, though:

4.3.2 PTR Patch Notes

  So the patch notes are up, and everyone's talking about them. I'll give you my take: 

PvP Progress: The S Key

  I use WASD, and am not ashamed that my S is bound to backpedal. It's a good way to edge out of melee range of a boss, or interrupt a cast on my priest. But I don't backpedal away in PvP. At least I don't think I do. So I set S to screenshot and did some arena. Here's the results:

Blue Post 1/3/12

Blue Post

  So Vial of Shadows was bugged. The problem arose and was addressed before I even was aware of it. I don't even have the trinket.

MyUI

  I really liked GarUI, but didn't get the hang of the whole thing, so I scrapped some of it and instead drew on it's format and used addons more familiar to me. Reflux, in particular, was amazing for it's profile saving.