Christmas is early this year!

I had to work for and pay them myself, but it felt like christmas.

As a little kid I was counting the hours at work before I could go home and get my presents. I logged into wow and stared at a queue. Wow, that was long ago. Ah..it is Al’Akir server where my RL friend Sorciah migrated to (to play in a casual PvP guild with his brother and friends) and I have a hunter which I use to talk to him. I switch to good old Skullcrusher, queueless ofcourse and first spend my honor points. I had approx. 40k honor assembled (I am not THAT hardcore), so bought the new bracers and belt. (I forgot how expensive that bracer-enchant was. Auch!)
Then I flew to Area52 where I noticed lots of bodies laying around. Always good to see PvP is going on. I bought the S3 head and S3 wand there. Both were upgrades from the last 2 blue items I had (apart from the pvp-trinket), so extra resilience was coming in. I gemmed the head with the 18stam/5 stunresist gem. (now that mystical gem has a hidden 45 second cooldown). Not sure if it is the right call, but being the tank in my 2v2, makes the 18stam/5stun a better choice imo.

I am now at 456 resilience with 12.6k life. Last resilienceupgrade will come from my pants, where I still use battlecastpants. Then I will be close to the 492-max and beginning to be the powerhouse that I am in my dreams! Next upgrade will be the new ring to replace seal of the exorcist! (finally getting rid of that thing). I am still debating if the 1750 life trinket will be better than talisman of the horde. 34 resilience is a lot, but so is 1750 life (and passive damage), but no need to make that decision now since I don’t have the points anyway.

S3 for locks has a nice blue look. (pic stolen from wowhead)

Some lockhaters already came up with this pic with ‘stiking resemblance’ for warlock T6-looks

Whatever…

:D

Maix was still too low in points (1150 arenapoints) to get anything usefull. I have epic craftable gloves and will upgrade them later. It’s not like the 0.1 second on cyclone will not get me 2-shotted, so better save those points for head/pants/chest/shoulders. Shoulders will come later when (and if) we break 1850.

So we have work to do. All ratings at 1500. Let’s see if I can get some action tonight.

PS: And I will respec to a 1 point different spec this evening as well. Last time somehow I managed not to put a point in shadowembrace and left it like that (when I discovered) because I am a cheap bastard who doesn’t want to spend 50g on a respec for 1 point. In the mean time we might have lost some matches against dispell-classes because they don’t have that extra debuff to dispell. It’s S3 now, time to do it right!

PS2: Did I mention Nimra is back? o_O.

-- Zhero (feeling reborn with S3 and ready to rumble!)

Patch 2.3.2 ==> more whagelove wtf!

Patch 2.3.2 looks nice for a lot of classes. Buffs left and right for druids/rogues/shamans, a significant buff for hunters it seems and megamajorbuffs for mages!

The biggest lockhaters, or 'whages' as some people call them, are buffed again in patch 2.3.2. Fresh from the patchnotes:
- Cold Snap (Frost) cooldown reduced
- Conjure Mana Gem (Rank 6 - Emerald) now restores 1800 to 3000 mana and has three charges
- Ice Block (Frost) is now available on the trainer to all mages at level 30.
- Icy Veins (NEW Frost Talent) decreases casting time of all spells by 20% and increases the chance your chilling effects will freeze the target by 25%. Lasts 20 sec. 3 min cooldown. It is now in the Cold Snap position in the talent tree.

So those whages (popular term amongst locks. It stands for ‘whining mages’ but saves you the trouble of typing 2 words) somehow got in Blizz’s pants and got more. I sure must ask them how they do that, but I’m actually fine with it. The more they buff mages, the more I will enjoy killing them. AND I WILL.

I can understand the iceblock-thing, even the new talent (though totally not needed it seems, those icelances weren't overpowered or anything), but what pisses me off most is the managem.
"Yeah, but we need it, we can't kill people, we don't have enough mana to take 3 people down"
Well buddy, i have news for you: I DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH LIFE TO TAKE DOWN 3 PEOPLE EITHER. What mana is for mages, is hitpoints for warlocks. So, I demand a healthstone with 3 charges (warlock only) as well. Small thing and all fair imo.

But to make sure not all warlocks will reroll, blizz decided to give a daily warlock-only quest as well in 2.3.2.

the 'any level' was added after several locks did not manage to get the quest done within 24 hours on the testrealm.

-- Zhero (wonders if destruction or full affliction will ever get this kind of love)

10 minute queue weirdness

Last night me (Zhero) and Krexxor (resto shaman) still needed to play 4 games to get our weekly 10 games together. With an average waiting time of 10 minutes (hello!! playing on tuesday-evening...zomg) it took us a small hour to get them done. But boy oh boy, what a strange games that were.

Now we are not that high (it is an old team that Krexxor still had), so we started on 1650 or so and went 5-1 so far this week (losing to warrior/paladin, that is kinda nasty though it was a close one). So the first 6 rounds were interesting, fun and (some) tense games. But then comes...

...Round 7:
After 10 minutes there is our 1st match of the evening. Shaman+priest. Seems enhancement-shammy with a priest. The enhancement shammy runs towards Krexxor who kites him round a pillar with both of them frostshocking eachother. I put 3 dots on him and concentrate on the priest and try to fear/manadrain him. When I look again, I see that shaman on 10% or so (from my dots and some shocks). I quickly deathcoil him, start drainlife and spell lock the priest. An extra shock from Krex does the job. WTF: he did not heal, nor did he walked towards his priest, nor was a single dot dispelled. Whatever, easiest match ever. 3 dots+shocks = dead enhancement shammy. Lol.

Round 8:
Shaman+lock. Mirror match: it takes a while, but since I do twice the damage of the other lock (I totally have no idea what he was doing) and drain more mana from his shaman, we take this one in the end. Nothing strange here.

Round 9:
Shaman+mage. Wassup with all the shammies? A resto shaman with a firemage?!?! Strange combo, but ok. The mage comes out (as am I) and starts a fireball?! I pack 140 resist with a totem from Krexx, but decide to spell-lock it anyway. At first I tried to kill the mage with dots while controlling the other shaman, but that took too long. The firemage was switching between me and Krexxor and I decide to manadrain him which gave us a wanding mage after some drains and a restoshaman still trying to kill us (me on full life, Krex on 80% mana. Lol?). It was too funny, so we mess around some more and finish them off while telling eachother that THIS had to be the easiest match ever (with never a dangerous moment). That would have been the easiest match of the evening if it wasn’t for …

…Round 10:
Shaman+mage. Elementalshaman + firemage can pack some serious burst I can imagine, but Krexx is our pillar-line-of-sight-abuser-champ so while I was standing still and putting on dots, Krexx was running around the pillar with both of them chasing him, but unable to cast anything. A silly sight if you just looked at it (as I did, I was standing still after all, but they ignored me). They both died from the dots I applied without a single heal/sheep/cs/purge/decurse. I think the shaman managed to cast 1 NS/chainlightning on me right before died. He probably had the idea that he had to do ‘some’ damage, else it would look real foolish. To add insult to injury, I resisted it. Strangest match ever. Really. I wonder how they reached 1750.

I just wanted to put it down here, cause it were strange games. All opponents looked really bad, while the first 6 games which we did earlier that week (so lower opponents), were hard fights here and there. Maybe it’s because it’s tuesdaynight and people still need to play the games and invite randoms to complete their matches? I don’t know, but at least it made us laugh.

9-1 for the week and funny matches, what more do you want from arena on tuesdayevening!

-- Zhero (looking forward to serious drinking. It’s been 2 weeks…)

Maix's first arenapoints!

Yesterday, I witnessed something great. Something I really enjoyed. I saw 2 players in arena coherent like Tango&Cash. Always bashing eachother, but showing great finesse (ok, that’s not Tango&Cash like) in killing the opponents.

I am talking about Artanias and Nakedsnake.

Now before you start laughing, let me bring you the story.

Yesterdayevening I logged on to Maix to do the daily pvp-quest. That single BG (or 4 EOTS as I had to do) nets a nice amount of extra honor so I try to do it every day. When I finished that, I logged Zhero to do some more EOTS and Artanias starts whispering me as he is doing so often when he is doing arena. He whines some about overpowered locks, I tease him and then he tells me about the teams they beat. This can go on for like half an hour or so. “WTF man, we had a mirror, but it was against 2 humans, so they caught Nakedsnake with perception before he could spot their rogue. Man, racials fuck us over”. This is the standard conversation, but I like it. As I am always cheering inside when our raids get a boss down (though I am not raiding myself), I like it as much when we have high PvP-teams, though I am not in it. So I enjoy it when Artanias and Nakedsnake (current rating: 2130!!) do arena and do well.

I teasingly asked Art if they need a druid for a nice 3v3 and much to my surprise he said they were done with 2v2 anyway and wanted to try it out. I tell them about my green gear, but that’s fine and Naked has a team (inactive I guess?), so I get an invite on Maix. My 7.2K selfbuffed health and 18 resilience are pale compared to those 400+ resilience guys, but hey let’s see. I now notice the team has 20-3 score and a 1750 rating already. Somehow I would have liked to start lower. First time arena on this druid, so anxious to try it out. And here is where I come back to my early statement. These dudes rock! It’s amazing how well they play together and while I throw random heals, cyclones, roots and try to escape from a bazillion dots, these guys launch coordinated attacks with sheeps and blinds at all the right times. You can see they have played a lot of games together. They down locks, priests, shamans, druids and even warriors within a couple of seconds with well timed kicks and counterspells and a random cyclone tossed in from me on the other team’s healing. We play 11 games, go 8-3 (losing to a double hunterteam. o_O) and reach 1835. We win against druidteams with much better geared dudes, but these guys make up for it. I loved playing with them. No (real) whines, no blaming after some mistakes, the way it should be in my opinion. Just healthy, nice arena. I had a blast and get my first points on Maix. Now I know these guys really are looking for a 400 resilience priest, but since they can’t find one up till now, I hope I can enjoy the points some more weeks.

Did I mention the double hunterteam? Now imagine that those 2 hunters and 2 bigass pets are standing on top of the tomb ready to kill anything in sight and Art runs in the arena while me and Naked are stealthed.
Art: sap that rogue, naked!’ while running within range and getting downed pretty fast.
Me: Uhhh…sap that rogue’?
Naked: ‘wassup art’?
Art: ‘Ah sorry guys, my mistake, I thought it were 2 rogues…”

Art, don’t do drugs and arena at the same time man.

-- Zhero (pvp-ing feels good. I like 2.3)

2.3 rulezzzz (when you’re no whine-kiddie)

Season III:
Season III is postphoned 1 week and now will start november 27th (www.worldofraids.com)

Patch 2.3 Roxxorz…
…at least, that was my impression after last night. I first helped out a friend who still wants to collect 0.5 set for his lock for roleplayreasons. We had to go LBRS and kill orcs there. o_O. But after that:
- I enjoyed the daily PvP-quest collecting in total 750 honor and 11g on both Maix and Zhero for winning 1 AB
- I picked up the new alchemy recipy, ran to the bank to get the 100 Ragveil that I thought were in there, only to remember I vendored them a month-and-a-half ago, because they seemed so useless and having 48 free spaces in your bank is SO MUCH better than having 43 free spaces. AH-prices on a stack are 30g+ atm. I already knew that would happen, but was too lazy to act on it. Still enjoyed the recipy by looking at it.
- One of our tanks called out for heroic ramparts. His group fell apart, while all that was left were the last 2 bosses. Quickly picked up the quest and got 4 badges (2 from quest, 2 from bosses), epic gem, prismatic shard, 25g, 350 rep for Thrallmar/Consortium for 30 mins of work. Flying there was the hardest job.

Do I like this patch? So far I do, I just think I go level my fishing and cooking on Zhero. Never did that, cause my paladin was at 375 cooking, but with all the daily quests flying around even a PvP-er like me has something usefull to do besides BG’s.

Do my fellow locks enjoy the patch? Haha, let me show you their thoughts. What better place to do a little research than the warlockforums. Might you miss that extra motivation to kill yourself? Go to the warlockforum! It is said there are people in this world with REAL problems like starvation etc, but they seem little whining bastards compared to the European (did not bother to check US though the average mental age is normally even lower there) locks who have it REALLY REALLY hard.

I just put a yellow sticky on my monitor not to look at the forums anymore with the idea of getting some real info. It’s a fine place if you are suicidal, have mental issues or are blessed with an IQ below 80 (after all: “Ignorance is peace”), but for all others I must advise you to stay out.

So with this knowledge I went into AB. Killed 5 or 6 pvp-geared warriors one on one with 30-50% life left, killed 5 hunters one on one, ended the BG with a 23-3 score and had 300k damage done, which was 75k more than #2. Nothing out of the ordinary for your average lock. I did shit like that pre 2.3 as well, but maybe I just ran into 1 very strange AB and were locks killed all over the place in all the other AB’s. Could be so, could be so…

So ofcourse I need to do more PvP to get a good picture, but so far I did not notice a big difference compared to pre-2.3.

Maix
I noticed the nice change to Natural Perfection with my druid. Good thing I have 0 resilience, it just means I get critted all over the place and can enjoy it to the fullest :D A quick browse through the druid forum gave me the other side of the spectrum: happy druids for extra manaregen and the cool swiftshift abilities now.
Druids give you that little warm feeling from time to time :D

Conclusion
Besides the extra week for season III, I am enjoying 2.3 and hopefully can go into ZA tonight for the first time to see the new content.

-- Zhero (enjoying 2.3 and life in general)

Patch 2.3 and season III

Patch 2.3
Everybody is aware that patch 2.3 is installed atm and I bet everyone knows now what the patchnotes are as you will probably have looked them up for your class(es). Here a line that caught my interest:

“The latest patch of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade shows a benefit on today's popular multicore processors like the Intel(r) Core(tm)2 Duo processor family. The enhanced patch has demonstrated higher frame rates by spreading the work across both processor cores”.

Now this is interesting as I am about to receive a new PC (my works give you a new one every 3 years for personal use) and was already worried about the dual core shit. Most games only use 1, so in my case that would mean no upgrade in terms of gaming. I was in doubt already what to do, but this gets my hope up and I will jump on the dual core bandwagon as well now.

Another interesting thing:
“Client spell cast requests are now sent to the server even if your player is already casting another spell. This eliminates the need for /stopcasting in macros to compensate for latency.”

Then as I am an alchemist, there’s this thingy:

“Added a new potion to alchemy trainers: Mad Alchemist's Potion. This new potion requires Alchemy to consume”

The cost are very low, using the herb nobody uses

So basicly a superrejuvepotion for nowhere like the costs. Hooray for me for discovering that one 2 nights ago…
But here is the good part. Alchemists get a nice buff on top of it. It will be a random elixir effect and you will only gain it when such an effect(guardian etc.) is not in effect yet. Nice for in BG’s where I will swallow these like there’s no tomorrow. Here a pic as prove (stolen from somewhere around the net)


Season III (not this week, but next week so save for 1 week more)
Zhero
- has 25k honor
- has 2300 arenapoints
- will purchase the S3-head (next week) and slowly upgrade the honor items
- is sexy as hell
- just got himself epic flying mount, so is broke (very good thinking, doing that right before SII ends, so I have no gold for enchants and stuff. It’s incredible how stupid I am sometimes while being so brilliant. Must be to preserve balance in my head or something like that)
- Herbs actively now as herbing with a slow mount was like having sex with Lindsay Lohan. It sounds good, but never actually happens.
- Will (I hope) to continue to play with Krexxor and Daymare/Zekro in 3v3. Not that we score that high (yet), I just like playing with them.

Maix
- has 10.5k honor
- has 0 arenapoints
- will purchase the S3-bracers (next week) and even more slowly upgrade (though I might go pve for a bit with this one).
- Needs an arenateam as sexy healbovine (2v2 or 3v3. I decided I don’t like 5v5), but has questgear, 1 or 2 blues and 1 epic.

Another small thing
“Removed the casting time from the Drums of Battle, Drums of Restoration, Drums of Speed, and Drums of War.”
Aren’t these things good for raiding? (just a question from a pve-noob)

So that’s about it, let’s download, refresh those addons and check out all new things.

-- Zhero (ready for SIII and hoping to break 1800 somewhere).

Maix is 70 and Ravens roleplay

Maix
So finally this female druid is 70. Was it worth it? YES SIR! Whenever I see a male cow I giggle and think it was worth it. I specced her resto and are trying to get some honor and blue gear to get things started. I dinged 70 (thanks Ghostt, Szwok and Daymare (amongst others) for helping me out along the way) last week, but RL prevented me from posting because...

...A new house
I made it out of my parent's basement! (well attic it was, but let's keep to the stereotype) and moved to my own place. I bought a small house in Beverwijk, The Netherlands. Moved the stuff last weekend and have been busy getting all kinds of administration done, while putting all stuff in place. It feels good (though my cooking skill is seriously low) and I am looking for a blonde female cooking trainer atm. I upgraded my line to 8Mbit as well, so pron is coming in even faster now.

Hellgate Londen
I downloaded the demo. It's from Bill Roper's team (the big man behind Diablo) and that showed. Though the environment and creatures look different, the slaying and items you could get (5% chanche to proc blablabla-lightning) reminded me very much of Diablo. I finished all the quests you could do and was a bit undecided in the end. It looks fine, but I wanted to play some more to get a good feeling. (or maybe I could, but I just did not know). Well, download the demo. It at least gives a good impression of the graphics you can expect.

Roleplay
We had a wedding in the guild!

The "treasure" we call night elves breasts. A whine about dwarfs.

Artanias made it to ROTM (Retard of the Month). This is what we call 'adding insult to injury'

Whatever the disfunction, Ravens is your home.


-- Zhero (getting some honor in preparation of S3)