Apr 17

The title says it all; interesting information straight from the crab’s mouth.

For putting up with all of this garbage, you’re dedicated man. My hat is off to you

Re: GC I’m going to send you a Gallon of Gin by Ghostcrawler

Nice. I’m going to have a sweet weekend.

Quote:
But how do crabs reproduce?

Arthropods generally lay eggs. If you mean how do the eggs get fertilized, the same way they usually do. One catch with big crustaceans is that they can only mate following a molt. Males of some crabs will literally keep a claw on a female who is about to molt until she’ sheds her skin. Molted crabs are soft, which is where softshell crabs come from. However because their mouthparts are also soft, they don’t eat for awhile following a molt. This can make them difficult to catch say blue crabs (Callinectes spp.)through conventional methods, which use bait. Many crustaceans carry the eggs until they hatch. Larval crustaceans are very small and are carried through the water column as plankton. Insects by contrast tend to have a mobile adult form and a relatively immobile larval form (think butterfly v. caterpillar). Crustaceans have a mobile larva and adults that don’t travel great distances (or in the case of barnacles, not at all).

This oceanographic moment has been brought to you by Blizzard Entertainment.

Re: GC I’m going to send you a Gallon of Gin by Ghostcrawler

Quote:
Ghostcrawler, are Malacostraca the class of crustaceans or a sub-class? Aren’t crustaceans themselves just a sub-phylum of Arthropoda?

There are more types of Arthropods that any other multicellular lifeform, so the taxonomy gets pretty complex. For example, there are probably 300,000 species of beetles. There may be 50,000 species of crustaceans, but crustaceans are vastly understudied compared to insects — something to do with the difficulty of sampling.

Phylum Arthropoda (armored things)
–Subphylum Crustacea (double legs)
—-Class Malacostraca (antennae, mouthparts, head and thorax)
——Order Decapoda (10 legs)
——–Crabs, shrimp and lobsters are in this group.

Quote:
GC, don’t forget that alot of freshwater insects do move around. Dragonflies, Mayflies, and aquatic beatles come to mind as examples of where the larval form of the insect is much more mobile, and interesting, than the adult stage.

True enough. They aren’t as planktonic (generally at the whim of water currents) as most baby crustaceans though. Interestingly (to me anyway) freshwater crustaceans like crayfish also skip over the planktonic larva. It doesn’t work well for stream-dwelling critters.

Quote:
on a side note, what is the yellow ‘mustard’ part of the crab? thats not crap is it?

It is called the hepatopancreas, and is a digestive organ that does some of the same functions as a vertebrate liver. It only looks that bad because you’re usually looking at the cooked version. Some people like the taste. It isn’t typically dangerous, but can accumulate contaminants depending on where the crab lives. Unless you eat crabs every week, it’s probably not an issue.

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5. Interesting News Regarding the Next Expansion

Apr 1

~ amin il ona lle de / amin il yamen’ lle ndu / amin il auta pelu / ri’ anfauglir lle ~

No related posts.

Mar 2

Let’s take a look at this theoretical DPS chart below, comparing the DPS of five members of a heroic dungeon run (not necessarily to scale):

Which of the three DPSers did the best job? The insinctive answer is “the rogue, they did the most DPS.” And in a way, you’d be right.

But what if I told you the rogue stole aggro on half the pulls, refused to sap the correct target, and rolled need on every boss drop? And what if I told you that the hunter consistantly trapped mobs that got loose and ran toward the healer, never Multi-Shot mobs that were CC’d or minding thier own business, and offered a feast every time someone died?

I’ll tell you right now, as a tank and someone who often puts together and leads instance runs, I’d take the hunter anytime they wanted to run, and I’d add the rogue to my NotesUNeed list under “Avoid.”

It is very common to judge the worth of a player quantitatively–that is, based on how much damage, threat, or healing per second they can produce. Partly, this is because we’re human–how often are first impressions the only judge of a person we care about?

In the guild’s first Obsidian Sanctum run, which I blogged about a while ago, there were two particular guildies (who are no longer with the guild) with us: one of them was very well geared and had good DPS, the other one was a bit lacking in both gear and DPS. The first guildie, however, couldn’t manage to avoid the lava walls–I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me he got hit by every single one. The second one, with the lower DPS, avoided almost all of them, if not all of them.

In this situatation, the ability to follow directions and follow WoW Rule #1 (”WoW Rule #1: Don’t stand in the ______!”) was much, much more important than the ability to pump out tons of DPS.

While sometimes the numbers are important, don’t fall into the trap of judging people quantitatively. THE METERS DON’T TELL THE WHOLE STORY! Take the time and make qualitative assessments of party and raid members!

PS: Because I said I would: Yoder is awesome.

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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.

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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.

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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….

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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!

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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!).

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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!

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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

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