Feb 27

There are plenty of folks talking about the bosses on the PTR, the change to the hearthstone (link to blue post here ’cause it’s funny), dual-talent specs, and so forth, but today BRK posted a picture that piqued my interest, and not because of the numbers in the center of the screen, but rather the little box at the top:

Now that’s what I’m talking about! A way to know that you’re going to be saved to a raid or heroic before it actually happens–and you even get a “Leave Instance” button so you don’t have to make a mad dash for the exit! This is quite possibly my favorite 3.1 change so far.

Related posts:

1. Changes to Debuffs, Buffs, and Raid Stacking
2. These are the People in your Raid
3. 2.4.3
4. What Can a Discipline Priest Bring to Your Raid
5. Weekly WoW Bash: Sounds Like a Raid to Me

Feb 23

Corpse Explosion is a talent in the death knight Unholy tree. It didn’t used to look like this, it used to say something to the fact of:

Corpse Explosion
1 Unholy
Cause a corpse to explode for craptastic Shadow damage to all enemies within 20 yards.  Will use a nearby corpse if the target is not a corpse.  Does not affect mechanical or elemental corpses.

I feel certain that if the WoW tooltip system supported italics, that “craptastic” would indeed have been italicized.

The reason Corpse Explosion sucked so badly was two-fold: first, its cost was an unholy rune. I have so, so many better things to do with an unholy rune, like say for instance, casting Scourge Strike? The second reason it was a horrible talent is because it did very little damage. Put those two things on the fact that you needed a corpse to even use it and you’ve got yourself a truly worthless talent.

My guess is almost nobody took it, because a little while back it was changed. Now, it costs 40 runic power and does significantly more damage. How much more damage? Well, I wasn’t sure, so as I respecced last weekend to pick up Anti-Magic Zone, I decided to nab Corpse Explosion too, and take it for a test drive.

Short version: I like it. A lot.

Long version: In my current tank gear, Corpse Explosion does approximately 1000 damage to affected mobs. That’s not as much as a Death Coil, but it’s AoE, and unlike Unholy Blight it does not take time to do its damage. It’s really good for quick bursts of AoE damage or threat (assuming there is a corpse around). Violet Hold comes to mind, as does the hallway between Noth and Heigan (the one with all the bats and stuff). And in AoE situations, if Unhoy Blight is already ticking, or if the mobs won’t live long, I’d rather toss out a Corpse Explosion than a Death Coil.

Furthermore, if you cast it on your ghoul, he will explode! This includes both pet ghouls and Risen Ally ghouls. I’m not sure if it actually explodes them per the spell or if it makes them cast the “Explode” spell, but either way they do indeed explode.

It also helps that the spell is insanely fun to use anyway. I mean, just look at that picture at the top of the article! Furthermore, it can be cast on player corpses. Raid member die to Heigan’s dance? Take THAT! Completely owned that ganker on a PvP server? Forget /spit, just explode their corpse! Nothing quite as humiliating.

In case your wondering, after a corpse is exploded you’re left with either a pile of bones or a hunk of meat with bones sticking out–both of which can be looted, skinned, mined, and so forth as normal. As an added bonus, the pile of whatever is always the same size, from a gnome death knight (kill it!) to Gruul.

All in all, my test drive is pretty much complete–Corpse Explosion is staying on my action bar.

Related posts:

1. So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: DPS
2. So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: Unholy Tree
3. So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: Tanking
4. Tanking as an Unholy Death Knight
5. This Just In: 2.4 Hits the PTR!

Feb 20

I’m a little late to the game, but I figured I’d join in all the “post the sixth screenshot from the sixth folder” hubub going around. I don’t have my screenshots in folders, so I just picked my sixth screenshot:

Well now that brings back some memories! My WoW life pretty much started like this:

1) Roll a mage on Shadowsong-Alliance. Get him to level 6 and realize you still have no clue what you’re doing.

2) Roll a warlock on Maelstrom-Horde with some friends.

This screenshot is shortly after number two. You can also tell it’s old due to the lack of addons (even the extra action bars are missing!). Simpler times….

Related posts:

1. Standing Room Only
2. Problems with Dual Specs and Action Bars
3. My Day as a Tree
4. New Stuff in Kara
5. Just a Cool Screenshot

Feb 18

I have nothing earthshattering to report today, but I did take a bunch of screenshots in some instance runs the other day. This one had a really nice feel, in my opinion. A /wave to Alliniana, who happens to be in the shot, and kept us alive during the encounter.

Click the small to make large!

Related posts:

1. A Day of (Mostly) Good PuGs
2. Screenshot Six
3. New Stuff in Kara
4. Why Can’t I Decide?
5. Patch 2.4: People are Far Too Optimistic

Feb 17

Blizzard has released a quick preview of Ulduar, the new raid dungeon coming in 3.1. Though the article is short, it does help shed some insight to the thinking behind this dungeon’s design, and also gives away a neat spoiler or two (Yogg-Saron, here we come). Check it out on WoW Europe’s site (I can’t find a link to a US version!).

Related posts:

1. Blizzcon, Cataclysm, and Stuff
2. WotLK Information Released
3. New Theme. Again.
4. Greetings
5. New WoW Model Viewer Works with 3.x

Feb 17

Today I am going to lead you on a discussion about the two major tanking runes for Death Knights: Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle (SG) and Rune of Swordshattering (SS).

Diminishing Returns

One key contept to understand in this debate is that of diminishing returns. Diminishing returns on avoidance stats, new to WoTLK, is a method of making a certain attribute less useful the more you have of it.

For example, let’s pretend that 100 dodge rating increased your dodge chance by 1%. For your first 100 rating, you’d have a 1% dodge chance. But because of diminishing returns, the next 100 rating might only give 0.95% dodge chance. The third 100 rating might give 0.90% dodge chance, and so on. This is an oversimplification of the topic, but it gets the point across–if you’re interested in more, check out this thread at TankSpot.

Why Does it Matter?

It matters because both runes provide their avoidance outside of diminishing returns. That means that the 25 defense skill from SG provides a straight 3% avoidance (1% miss, 1% dodge, 1% parry) and SS 4% (straight-up 4% parry).

Benefits of Swordshattering

Swordshattering, as mentioned, provides a plain 4% parry chance, while Stoneskin Gargoyle provides only 3%. Furthermore, 2% HP is not a lot, though it certainly shouldn’t be discredited–for a tank with 30,000 health, 2% would only be 600. Furthermore, since Rune Strike only becomes usable after a parry or a dodge (not a miss), Swordshattering is a slightly better threat rune (extra 2% chance to activate Rune Strike).

Benefits of Stoneskin Gargoyle

The major benefit of the Rune of Stoneskin Gargoyle is the ability to build your tank set without worrying so much about remaining at 540 defense (the soft cap for being uncrittable by level 83 raid bosses). Although technically not superior to SS, SG allows you to gem and enchant for things other than defense rating, and gives you freedom in your gearing choices–especially since it is hard to remain uncrittable as a death knight once you start upgrading to epic pieces with better avoidance.

Conclusion

The conclusion is this: there is no definite conclusion! (I told you this was a “discussion”!) If you can remain uncrittable and use the Rune of Swordshattering, great! However, if you feel you want more gear/gem/enchant options, or need to reach the defense “cap”, by all means use the Rune of Stoneskin Gargoyle, there’s nothing wrong with it!

Related posts:

1. So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: Tanking
2. Chill of the Throne: Sunwell Radiance 2.0
3. So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: Gear
4. Two Pugs Enter: Stupidity vs. Ignorance
5. Patch 2.4

Feb 13

Aes Sedai ventured into The Obsidian Sanctum (10 man) last night for their first full-guild raid. I started off as an off tank, moved to DPS as we reshuffled the raid after people disconnected and/or had to leave, and moved back to off tank for Sartharion himself. We pugged in a great shammy healer, Kasylin, for the final encounter and I want to thank her immensely for her help.

For those of you who don’t know this fight, from time to time walls of lava rise up from the left or right side of the island and move across, doing damage to anyone standing in the way; if any of the adds that spawn get hit by the walls, they gain a lot of damage.

As you can see, there are gaps in the walls, which the raid must stand in to keep from taking damage, and where the off tank must pull the adds to keep them from enraging. The first time we attempted this encounter, we discovered that Deadly Boss Mods keeps track of, and announces to the raid, when and how many times people fail to get out of the way of the lava. And there were a lot of them–and my DBM happily called every one of them out.

It makes it very easy for leadership to quickly see if folks are doing their job.

We make a second attempt, which fails quickly due to respawns being added to the fight (is this normal or did someone aggro them?).

So, we take a moment to repair, come back, clear some trash, type “/rw MOVE THE #@$&*% OUT OF THE WAY OF THE LAVA WALLS!” (actually, there was more discussion that than, but when it all boils down…) and engage him once more. The “lava churns,” moves across the island… and I’m silent in raid chat. Adds spawn, I pick ‘em up, my buddy the main tank does his thing, lava churns again… nothing. Nobody called out. Great!

Throughout the fight, we took maybe two or three lava waves, and though our DPS was low, we managed to bring Sartharion down.

And what should drop? Gloves of the Lost Vanquisher. And who should win the roll?

/happydance

Related posts:

1. New Stuff in Kara
2. The Shallow End of the Big Kids’ Pool
3. Patch 2.4: People are Far Too Optimistic
4. Qualitative vs. Quantitative Performance Analysis
5. A Day of (Mostly) Good PuGs

Feb 11

So, as mentioned a few posts back, I dinged 80 recently. My plan was to continue questing for gold and rep, and get into some heroics as DPS when I could, seeing as my tanking set wasn’t quiet up to stuff for heroics. However, some guildies of mine had other plans.

First, my prot warrior friend decided to tank VH to give me a shot at the Bolstered Legplates. They dropped, but the holy pally won the need roll (for an off set)–that’s okay, they’ll drop again (I hope–my prot warrior friend ran that place like thirty times before they dropped!).

A couple of guildies gave me two Frozen Orbs and some mats, which when combined with my mats ended up being a Tempered Titansteel Helm and Tempered Titansteel Treads. I purchased Tempered Saronite Shoulders, Tempered Saronite Belt, Daunting Handguards and Daunting Legplates. I also purchased a belt buckle for the belt, a bunch of gems, and a meta-gem for the helm.

All in all, it was a good night for my tanking set. I’m uncrittable for heroics now, but only because of the weapon enchant, which I’d like to replace if I can get enough gear.

I want to say “Thanks!!” to my guildies, especially Badas and Yoder, for the materials and instance runs yesterday!

Related posts:

1. Decisions
2. The Altoholic’s 3.3 To Do List
3. The Slightly Deeper End of the Big Kids’ Pool
4. Levelin’ Like a Madman
5. Role Consolidation, or “Great, Now I’m Useless”

Feb 10

I didn’t realize it until just now, but I managed to miss my blog-o-versary! As of three days ago, this blog has been around for one year! I still remember making that initial welcome post, never thinking the blog would amount to anything more than a fun place for me to put my thoughts. I have to say “thank you” to all of you for helping making this blog a sucess, and I look forward to the future!

Related posts:

1. New Blog Azeroth Rule
2. 100%!
3. A New Domain Name. Yes, Again.
4. My Decision about Outland
5. Howling Blast Cooldown Not Removed

Feb 10

I’ve taken a few moments to update some areas of the site that have been long neglected. The “About” and “My Characters” pages have been updated, and I’ve gone through and cleaned up the categories (there should be no more “Uncategorized” posts). I’ve also updated the “Featured” section with more recent and relevant posts.

If you see anything that’s out of place or missing, feel free to let me know!

Related posts:

1. Status Update
2. 100%!
3. The Craft of War: BLIND
4. Back in Business!
5. Double-Specs Not Dead Yet