PvP Progress: Ironman

  I just did a random battleground as a warm up to this evening's Rateds, and landed in yet another group where everyone decided to fight in the middle instead of running the flag. Fortunately, the opposing team was doing the same thing, so I ran the flag unopposed, with no EFC up. I capped as soon as I got there.

  The second run I had a Priest buddy with me, and one of the Horde Hunter's slowed me with Concussive, but I Scatter-Trapped him and Jump-Disengaged out of range quickly. I was a little nervous when I got to cap, since there was an EFC out there, but he died quickly. I'm glad he did, since I don't think I'm a very good defensive player, even with Spirit Mend.

  My third run a different Hunter tried to Scatter-Trap me, but I trinketed it and returned in kind. I ran unopposed again, and capped.

  It seemed so easy, like taking candy from a baby.

Screenshots: LFR Fails, Skoll and Death, Stonedrake, Ghostwolf, Clownsuit, Nice Transmog

  I snapped this while in a rough start to LFR. It bugged somehow on the umpteenth wipe, and he/she(?) was just floating there waiting on the fresh influx of suckers.

Random Ramblings: Crappy BC Dungeons, NIR Begins, The Auction House is Like Fishing

  Dinged 65 on my Pally, and I'm so glad to now be taking a break from tanking or healing BC dungeons. I don't know what happens to players at this level. Shaman and Druids knockback mobs into other packs with abandon, DK's grip on cooldown, and non-DK tanks take their non-DK status as a pass to tank in DPS gear within fearing range of three other packs, berate the DPS for "Running into the other groups" (feared), berate the healer for going OOM (4 packs on a squishy tank), and demand a rez since they can't find the entrance. I switched to tanking mode and finished the dungeon with the DPS, while self healing. Pallys are OP. Warriors tanking in agility/haste gear can lay dead on the floor, for all the use they are.

Jewelcrafting: Cuts, a Comment on Variety

  Jewelcrafting is one of the more lucrative professions, and though most gems sell in varying amounts, many patterns seem useless. Also, there's a very uneven spread across the ROYGBP spectrum. Primary stats as well as Mastery for tanks becoming so much more powerful than other options has further reduced the effective variety to cuts.

  These are the cuts considered ideal, not counting Resilience gems, with just a bit of my own commentary:

My Macros: Targeting

  Targeting with macros makes target switching a breeze. I primarily use mouseover and focus macros as well as the occasional target specific macro. The two that I use most are:

/focus target

and

/target focus

  These simple macros are keybound and let me focus a target quickly and switch to a focused target quickly. They're invaluable in clinch situations. Other targeting macros are a bit more complicated, but knowing what each command does allows me to tailor a macroed abilities behavior precisely.

Random Ramblings: A Rant I Dreamed, Stonedrake, Playing Shadow

  It was a really weird dream, and I have no idea what triggered it. Of course, have lived with and worked with some big time rubes (haven't we all), but I don't often call them out on it. What I was going on about was the false assertion that people are becoming dumber with each successive generation.

  As far as I can recall, my central point was that calculus, which was developed by Issac Newton to explain planetary motion, is now taught in high schools as a subject worth knowing just for the sake of knowing. I also went on about how the very secrets of life, like DNA and genetics, and General Relativity, are taught to all children. Even seemingly mundane subjects, like History and Geography provide children with the opportunity to know so much about the world around us. Even optional courses like Drama and Debate establish a great variety to education. The generations past beyond living memory wouldn't be able to conceive of knowledge that we now consider "Elective". The world it's self didn't change. We changed it. We got smarter, faster, stronger, can travel with ease, can live twice as long, and have a greater resistance to disease. We entertain ourselves in previously unimaginable ways. We're better than ever.

  I could go on, but I'd rather segway into how this relates to Warcraft, so... uh... here's how it relates to Warcraft.

PvP Progress: First Round of 3's

  My first round of 3's started off with a win! Thanks to a couple of Guildmates, I've had a great initial experience. One of them was in PvE, and I'm not gonna name any names (cough, high deeps, cough), but luckily not many opponents caught on. We were alternately steamrolling, or being steamrolled.

  I think I need to pay more attention to positioning, since I missed a few fearing opportunities against enemy healers.

  I also have found predicting incoming damage to be nearly impossible. I think learning more about DPS cooldowns and their visual/audial indicators will help there.

  I was very surprised just how many melee seem to not know what an interrupt is. Not complaining, just stating an observation. I had so many Rogues, Kitties, Warriors, even a Pally, just chopping away at me without doing much damage, and letting me freecast on my teammates.

  A good Warlock is the devil, and a good Rogue paired with that Lock is the spawn of the devil.

  I think I'm going to move my raid/party frames back to the left. having them right next to enemy frames is too much clutter in one place. Also, I think I need more clear space in the middle for arena, so I'm going to make player, focus, and target frames thinner.

Rolecall: April 2012

  I deleted my 55 Worgen Druid, which is now the highest level of character I have deleted, other than DK's. I didn't really feel invested in the character, though I did log about 50 hours on it. It occurred to me to faction change, but I think it's too expensive. If it were $10-15, then I would have. $30? Nah, I'll just reroll.

  To a Tauren Druid. I like Tauren. Besides, since I rolled new Mage and Warlock Dwarves, and my Shaman, Hunter, and Priest are all already Alliance, my Horde side needed some ranged.

  So to help me sort of solidify my character planning and progress, I'm going to write up a snapshot of where I'm at today, so without further ado, my characters:

My Macros: Crafting, Kill Command and Bestial Wrath, Castsequence

  Macros are one of those things in WoW that can really increase the effectiveness of your gameplay, and it seems that to many players see them as merely optional. That's too bad, because there are some that I don't think I could play well without. I use macroexplain.com to troubleshoot sometimes, and to get new ideas from their links.

 The most basic macro, however, is:

/macro
You'd think making a macro would be easily accessible, but typing /macro every single time you want to make an adjustment gets reeeaaalllly annoying. So, I made a macro labeled Macro that just says /macro, with the screaming bunny button face. Yo dawg.

Search Terms That Led Here

    It's been almost 4 months since I started blogging, and I'm not getting to very much traffic. Most of you are coming from Blessing of Kings (Thanks, Rohan!) and a few from other places I lurk, like Huntsman's Lodge and Cynwise's Warcraft Manual. I guess I should comment more prolifically? I wouldn't know, I'm new at this.

My Journey From Raiding to PvP

   I used to love raiding. Pre-BC, it was a thing I did to burn time along with some old friends. Three or four of us would be in the same room, running the raid. Well, they would run it. I was just along for the deeps. I didn't care about gear or progression. I just liked being a Hunter. My favorite raid was ZG. It was the only rep grind I obsessed over, much less finished, and the last fight had me in the kiting role, which really made me feel accomplished.

More Transmogrification and Shammy PvP

  That's a Dark Vessel Breastplate, Tablet Bearer's Pauldrons, and Legguards of Caution, all from a few quests in the Hinterlands, Swamp Vest Gauntlets from a quest in Dustwallow Marsh, and my old Frostscale Belt and Boots. I left the Vicious Embersilk Cape as is, and have a Stylish Blue Shirt underneath. It took me awhile to find a decent helm, and I finally settled for Flesh Handler's Headpiece, from a quest in Netherstorm. Quite by coincidence (or subconscious association) it's the same helm Dagla Hammerbeak has.

My Transmogrifications

  I've finally finished the Overlord's set on my male Dwarf DK, though technically I cheated with the boots. I took the quest reward look-alikes. I prefer a simpler, somewhat realistic look to my characters. As an RL veteran, I think the lack of a helm is equally ridiculous to plate bikinis in principle, if not in scale. For this reason, I'm still on the look out for a Field Plate Helm.

  For some very deep nostalgia's sake, I'm going to craft a Tough Scorpid set for my male Dwarf Hunter. He's been sporting a Frostscale Binding set.

  My Female Dwarf Shammy's Enhance set is also Frostscale, and her Resto set is Nerubian Hive. They're both great sets, just getting stale. I'm not sure what to pick, but Marauder's Mail looks pretty good.

  My female Dwarf Rogue (still leveling) has the heirloom daggers transmogrified to Torturing Pokers. They're a hoot in BG's. They look especially good with Fiery Weapon and Lifestealing. Now, maybe it's jumping the gun a bit, but I put together a Righteous Garb / Frostsaber Armor set. It looks great on the Dwarf model. I have to get the shoulders over from the Horde side and level to 57 before I can take some screenshots.

  Finally, I've decided to start farming up the Absolution Regalia for my female Human Priest. BC truly was a golden age of armor design.

Random Ramblings: BRD Leveling, Group Play and Marketing, Recount and the Prisoner's Dilemma

  I'm about halfway through leveling 3 characters though the 50's now, and boy have I about had enough of BRD. It's always been one of my favorite places in WoW, with so much fantastic design poured into it. Since I've made a special study of it over the years (It was the place I started out soloing on my Hunter, easy start plus nostalgia), I can lead a group through it in a fairly efficient manner with very little downtime.

My opinion of WoW Races, in which I reference Pratchett, Tolkien, Star Trek, and Napolean Dynomite

 
  I'm playfully biased against what I consider the unnatural and alien races in World of Warcraft. I don't judge other player's choices at all, or even voice strong opinions, especially around players I don't know well. I just can't play certain races. I'd like to post my opinions for anyone who cares to read, or better yet, respond with your own.

11 Class Challenge in MoP

  In preparation for MoP, I'll be leveling up 3-4 more 85's, which will leave me 2-4 short of all classes (Tauren Monk incoming). Part of my motivation for this is to get involved in the Horde AH, and more robustly in the Ally AH, but in the back of my mind, I've always wanted one of each class. But to what end, just AH profession mules? I want to play, dammit!

  So, it is my intent to play the endgame on every class during MoP. I know I won't become an expert in each class, much less each spec, but I'm sure there isn't a class I can't play well. What passes as endgame "completion" sounds like it will necessarily be arbitrary in nature. Full heroic 25 clears or 2400 rating? Dwarf, please. I'm way more casual than that. I'll give it some more serious thought, but if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

SV Rotation Thoughts

  Over on BoK, Rohan gives us a first look at Ret and Holy Pally and has this to say about the Ret rotation: "Basically all non-finishers now produce Holy Power, so you can use Templar's Verdict essentially once every 4 GCDs." This sounds to me like the SV rotation, as three shots build focus and one shot spends it, though I'm sure our 1 second GCD makes ours go a lot faster.

  For the most part, the base SV rotation has stayed about the same through all of Cata: Explosive-Cobra-Cobra-Cobra, occasionally replacing one Cobra with Black Arrow or Arcane. In my experience, it was a very satisfying tempo, a simple back beat with a bit of syncopation.

  Garwulf also posted on the beta, and it looks like MoP could change SV to a multi-dotting spec. I imagine a 2-4 target fight starting with a Multi-Shot to get a full duration Serpent Sting up on all targets, Black Arrow on as many targets using as few casts as possible, then rotating through targets refreshing Serpent with Cobra using the same tempo as before, ES-CS-CS-CS, and refreshing Black Arrow every 20 seconds.

  Three key differences from the current rotation would be possible multiple casts of Black Arrow (depending on how the damage maths out), multiple Black Arrow DOT's either way, and rolling Serpent Sting on more than two targets. This is of course, wildly speculative.

My Crafting Process April 2012

  Maximizing gold per hour is often the goal of AH players, and critical to this is an efficient routine. Logging in and out of alts looking for items wastes time, and sometimes material. I've written down the routine I've developed for my Alliance crafting core that reduces logins almost to 1 per character and maximizes each of my professions (except Alchemy) as much as possible in the current market.