34 posts tagged “kibitz”

Because I didn't want to whisper it anymore...

Mount
/stopmacro [flying]
/userandom [nomodifier,outdoors,nomounted,flyable] Swift Purple Gryphon, Purple Riding Nether Ray; [outdoors,nomounted] Summon Dreadsteed
/cast [modifier:alt,outdoors,nomounted]  Summon Dreadsteed
/dismount [mounted]

“You need your spell hit at 202”

That is what everyone preaches…wowwiki, the Raid Leader, DPS Officer, Class Leader, other casters, even the troll under the bridge.

You will always have a 1% chance to miss. So any spell hit beyond 99% is a wasted stat.

At revered with the Scryers I picked up the Scryer's Bloodgem. The increase in spell hit by 32 is a huge jump. Then I stayed at 155 for a long time. But my spell hit rating is moving up...soooo sloooooly. My last gear upgrade moved me from 176 to 177. Not an encouraging upgrade.

Killing the Congealed Void Horror in Netherstorm drops a quest to get the Starkiller's Bauble which gives you 26 spell hit increase. If you are not Scryer, not Revered with Scryer yet, or just need spell hit it is an easy trinket to get. The Bauble put me at Spell Hit Rating of 203.

The Skull bosses are calculated as level 73 to the players. So yes you need your Spell Hit Rating to be 202.

BUT…

There are class specific ways to increase your spell hit using talent points. Warlocks have Suppression. It is an Affliction talent on the first tier. Each point in Suppression increases your spell hit chance by 2%.

For a player at Level 70 in PvE killing a level 73 boss:

The down side is it only affects your Affliction spells. You can have one point in Suppression with a spell hit rating of 177 and be maxed out for your Affliction spells.

But…

The Shadow Bolt spam between putting up your DoTs?

Taking into account that one point in Suppression you will have a 97% chance of hitting with your Destruction spells. You will be losing 2% potential DPS from your Shadow Bolts.

To meet the Spell Hit of 202 I am switching between the Starkiller's Bauble and Oculus of the Hidden Eye. If I am SB spamming a lot, I throw on the extra hit with the bauble.

I am trying to hold out till 2.4 for a talent respec. But I don’t know… if I am hit capped and changing my talents anyway… it may be a good time to try out Destruction tree.

I am getting familiar with WWS. It is a lot of information and I don’t want to interpret the data wrong. I am mostly concerned with my DPS in …well… DPS fights.

I am a clicker in Mag’s so a lot of time is spent positioning myself. I am also doing a lot of banishing and fearing. So that will not work.

The Gruul’s Lair fights, other then worrying about a cleave or cave-in, my job is DPS. I pulled up these to assess my overall DPS.

Date     Boss           DPS     Presence (otherwise known as not dead time)

2/25      Maulgar       477       96%      Gruul    580       87%

3/3        Maulgar       648       98%      Gruul    570       99%

3/6        Maulgar       728       100%    Gruul    576       86%

The biggest thing I am seeing with the Maulgar fight is KNOWing the fight. The first attempt I didn’t even know I was going. Had to write down and refer to a notepad each time a boss was downed so I knew which to DPS next. I was totally slow to react.

Another thing, of course, I had some gear changes. But really I have not seen my Spell Damage go up by much. What I have worked on is my Spell Hit getting that up to 202 (Nibuca over at Mystic Chicanery just did an entry on Spell Hit).

The big increase in DPS was in me learning the fight dynamics.

As for Gruul I need to stay alive. I am heading in the right direction. But I am having trouble with seeing the cave-ins. Having to adjust my camera angle after every knock back is …well… I forget. Then I die. On my second run, I focused on staying alive till the end . Being dead doesn’t help me DPS a boss. So I still have to work on that.

Comparing myself to the other Warlocks in the group has been the most enlightening. WWS shows how many of each tick each DoT goes off. For the last Gruul fight comparing myself to the highest Affliction Lock DPSer I saw something immediately…        

Dmg. Out                      Me        Him      Difference

Corruption                     56         84         -28

Immolate                       8          12         -4

Shadow Bolt                  18         47         -29

Shatter                          7          8          -1

Siphon Life                    89         89         0

Unstable Affliction          66         73         -7

That really opened my eyes. I need to work on reapplying my DoTs better. That is a lot of damage that I am missing. This doesn't have anything to do with gear. It is something that I can affect without anything other than changing macros and practice. The Shadow Bolts?? … what is that all about… how could I miss 29 Shadow Bolts. Something is seriously wrong and I have to fix it.

I did get to run Kara with this same lock… he said something that made me laugh after he died…

“I don’t notice that I die because I am so focused on my timers to reapply.”

That is some of my problem. I like to LOOK at everything. Where everyone is at, what is going on in the room, where the healers are, how the boss is dieing… that kind of stuff. So somewhere in the middle (as always moderation is the key) I need to pay more attention to when my DoTs expire AND Shadow Bolt more.

In this last Gruul run a CoD went off for 9461. Checking Mag’s I had one go for 11,507. Never cared for big numbers before, I feel they get distracting in the middle of a fight. Seeing the information afterwards is much more satisfactory for me. Still lots to learn but I am excited to have the information there for me to poke around in.

My mom stopped by for a visit. It was, as always, a very pleasant experience. We chatted and got caught up. Little sister is doing well. She is getting some honor at College but the details were sparse… I will have to get that update directly.

When the visit was done, we waved goodbye and separated our ways.

Then I get a call…

[Mom] I have your house key.

[Me] Well yea you do.

[Mom] No. Your house and car keys.

[Me] You stole my keys?

[Mom] I was wondering why my pocket felt so heavy. Then I pulled out my keys and yours.

Speaking of rogues... there was a nice crowd controlling entry done by Doomilias using a focus macro for sap and blind.

So it is time to hunker down and get to work on finishing my gear. I have been reading Nibuca’s blog and she had up a “List of Affliction Warlock pre-Kara DPS Gear”. I have been using this as a guide and some things I will have to modify.

Bracers of Nimble Thought this is a craft item and takes Heart of Darkness a drop in Black Temple. *laughs hysterically* Yea right Farstriders has exactly ZERO guilds doing BT. Belt of Blasting is another crafted item that I will never see anytime soon. I will have to find a replacement for bracers and waist items.

So what does that leave me:

There are a few items on the list that require Heroic Badge of Justice…

Studious Wraps (Hands) – 60 Heroic Badge of Justice

Carved Witch Doctor's Stick (Wand) - 25 Heroic Badge of Justice

Icon of the Silver Crescent (Trinket) - 41 Heroic Badge of Justice

One requires Spirit Shards:

Seal of the Exorcist (Ring) – 50 spirit shards

I am not going to see 60 Badge of Justice for a while. I decided my next PvP item will be the Gladiator's Dreadweave Gloves. This doesn’t break up my current sets and is a significant upgrade.

Sethekk Oracle Cloak is a dropped off Talon King Ikiss. I have seen this drop once. I lost out to the mage running with us. I have not seen it drop since. I am going to watch for an alternative. This is a good candidate to PvP for a replacement.

I don’t really want to put together a Darkmoon Card: Crusade set because that is just a pain (and expensive). But in researching options I just may have to hunker down and pick this up. This thing Procs on EVERY successful spell… after the tank has established agro the first 10 seconds of a battle I toss up about 6 spells or more. That is a lot of stacking. But what a pain ...

Ashyen's Gift (finger) requires Cenarion Expedition reputation of exalted. So some reputation runs are in my future.

Enchants? Augments? Gems?

I am a mess.

I am slowly upgrading. With the epic flyer out of the way… I cringe less over a 40G gem and that is only +2 stats better then the 2G gem. I sure feel like I have a long way to go… but in reality I am almost there.

Now that I have a Hunter friend I have someplace to send my Kibler’s Bits. I sent them to her by mail telling her they were for her kitty and thanked her for a recent run.

Well she didn’t know about the recipe. My favorite part was her wanting to KNOW how to get the recipe. That is a good hunter.

Ummmm…

Yea…she is such a sweetheart.

So I let her know that you get the recipe for the pet food from the daily cooking quest in Shatt. Just in case, I let her know I found out about it at BigRedKitty.net who has some great trapping and kiting movies. Good for a refresher if anything.

Are you suuurrre that all your hunters know about the buff pet food?

Come to think of it does this work for Druid type pets? I will have to ask.

I am finally catching up on my google reader (which is still full) and some older items that I never shared. I have been very bad at sharing the other information and funnies that I have read. There were some really great blogging going on. This should also keep some of you busy before a three day weekend.

In no particular order some things…

·         Say Hello To My not-so-Little Friend - This is my favorite Pally story to date. They pretend to be all “For the light”. The idea of being Rezed to be killed again… I was in awe.

·         Out of Mana – Horns one of my favorite reads and documents some things in another of my favorite reads. Who can beat that!

·         25 Awesome Warlock Tricks – “8. You can banish druids in Tree of Life.” My new PvP favorite.

·         Embrace the Shadows: Level Your Warlock - Arrens is doing a great series about leveling. Part 4 came out and I am sure there are more great things. 

·         The Losing AV gives Zero Honour Fallacy - Very helpful AV breakdown. Now that I don’t get as lost and I actually know what “Galv” means it has become more helpful in follow-up readings.

·         The K Game – Agro game for the farming instance.

·         Be a Man… - ROFL *clears throat* Silly boys. Stupid Mage’s comment of “Testosterone puts brains on global cooldown.” Was icing. On that note… don’t watch this at work.

·         What do you mean, it was looted already? Ninja'd??? – This I actually shared with my other officers, we flipped. We don’t do Kara but going would be such an accomplishment. We will have to PuG some of the spots I am sure, so at least we are forewarned. But to have this happen in guild? They were nice enough not to have a witch hunt. Me? There would be a smack down people and you would see it coming because the anticipation is half the fun.

·         Webcomics shout out! – Because I am too lazy to do it myself when others have already done it.

·         Ratings Buster – Nibuca on one of my favorite addons for those pesky “How much better is this armor” type questions. And read her other stuff she is smart and just put up her first video.

·         Someone is leaving WoW and I wish him the best of luck I copied one of his entries here. It was an interesting read and was more information than I ever looked up.

Originally form Someone on Nov 28, 2007:

Alla, Thott, Wow, IGE, Gold Selling?

There's been (again) an up-rise regarding wether or not the three main WoW Database sites are related/owned by a gold selling company. The issue keeps popping, and the database sites keep saying that that's not the case. So, I decided to dig a bit deeper and ask someone (no, not myself but "someone" else who I believe knows what (s)he says), to try and explain me a bit about this article which seems to have re-spawned some confusion. I won't say who that person is nor where (s)he works, and thus you may feel free to ignore the following text if you want to keep believing what that article insinuates. For those with a more open mind, continue reading for some enlightenment...

The article draws some pretty erroneous conclusions.

There was a forum thread about this on the official forums a little while ago (which I now unfortunately can't find), but it runs down the gist of it.

This is the history as best as I can figure out: IGE started ages ago as an RMT business. They bought a few content websites and covered them with ads for IGE's services--the content websites promptly died, as you would expect they would. During the beta of WoW, IGE secretly negotiated to purchase Thottbot.com. But Thott was headstrong, and successfully argued with IGE that the best way to make money would be to keep the association a secret, increase traffic to the site, and make money off of banner ad rather than gold sales. He turned out to be right, and Thottbot got huge.

Later on, a clever web developer used a series of DNS lookups etc. to discover that Thottbot.com was registered to "RPG Holdings", which was a shell company that IGE had set up so that they could pretend they didn't own Thottbot. There was a huge uproar over IGE owning Thottbot, and a number of conspiracy theories about whether the Cosmos patcher was forwarding your information to gold farmers so they could hack your account. Thott is too smart for this, he knew he had to keep his nose clean if he was going to run a business.

About this time, though, IGE started to realize that the banner ad revenue from Thottbot was pretty significant in its own right. IGE is already two different businesses--one of which is the US RMT business (IGE US, LLC) and the other is the overarching company (IGE) which owns the US RMT business, as well as some other businesses in China and Korea. They continued to own Thottbot, and keep RMT advertising of any kind off of it. Around this time, Brock (founder of IGE) says to himself, "Wow...maybe this is a viable business model on its own, regardless of whether it can help out my RMT business."

So Brock rearranges the company. The overarching company (IGE) is renamed to "Affinity Media". The RMT business remains "IGE US, LLC". Affinity Media now legally owns Thottbot, IGE US, as well as the Korean/Chinese businesses and a few other content websites that Affinity has scooped up, such as www.ogaming.com. Affinity Media is a holding company that doesn't do anything except own the other companies. Brock is CEO of Affinity Media, but the rest of the staff is all accountants and finance guys.

Later on, Affinity Media buys Allakhazam. The content business is officially named "The ZAM Network". There's no crossover between ZAM and the RMT business, but ZAM is owned by Affinity, Affinity owns IGE US (the RMT business) and Affinity is formerly known as "IGE". After a while of doing this, Brock finally realizes that the ZAM Network is making more money through advertising than IGE is making through gold sales. Brock decides to sell the RMT business--or possibly more accurately, Atlas decides to take the business away from him, because they feel he's mismanaging it.

This is what we mean when we say "Affinity Media sold IGE". The RMT business is honest to god gone, they took it away from Brock. He's also resigned as CEO of Affinity Media--the current CEO is a hollywood entertainment mogul named Steve Bannon.

The reasons why articles like this keep popping up are two-fold.

1. Because the holding company that owned the RMT business (IGE US, LLC) was originally named "IGE", people are making the claim that "IGE" still owns ZAM. I guess you could still technically argue that this is true, but if you were to say that "A goldfarming company" owns ZAM, you would be wrong.

2. The class action lawsuit that was filed against IGE US, LLC was filed before the business was sold. Unfortunately, Affinity Media is not legally allowed to simply "sell off" a company that is potentially liable for damages in a lawsuit. The gold-farming business was sold in an "asset sale", which means that everything the business owns, including computers, employee contracts, etc. were sold to another company--but the NAME of the company, and the legal liability, still belong to Affinity Media. Affinity Media doesn't want to be associated with the name anymore, so they renamed "IGE U.S., LLC" to "Affinity Media Holdings, LLC". You'll notice that the line cited in the link you sent says "Defendant, IGE U.S., LLC n/k/a(now known as) Affinity Media Holdings, LLC, ("IGE US")".

Basically, Affinity sold the business and got left with the short straw, because they were unable to get rid of the liability. So legal documents and such keep surfacing which supposedly "link" IGE and Affinity Media.

Hopefully this makes the whole story a little more clear.

Hoping to have shed some light, see ya all around.

EDIT: Shalkis has posted a link in the comments that seems contrary to this interpretation. After more research, it appears that both ideas can be true. That is, Affinity did sell off IGE, but that doesn't mean they don't own other gold-related businesses... According to C|Net News: "Earlier this year, Affinity sold IGE, but it still has a hand deep in the market for virtual weapons, currencies and the like."

I've since mailed Affinity asking them about this, but I won't hold my breath waiting for an answer... :) If it does come, I'll post it here or perhaps make a new post for those viewing this through rss feeds...

I am starting with 7668 of 19,300 experience points, 40%, to level. *shudders at the thought* (Not that you cared it is for documentation purposes.)

The first kink in my plan of doing “quick” runs was I didn’t have Flight paths…

No Menethil Harbor…

No Theramore Isle…

No Ratchet…

Did you know that they put Defias I-don’t-know-what-level-you-are-cause-I-am-level-19-and-you-are-a-skull-to-me Brotherhood in Dustwallow Marsh? Well a newly discovered Defias Diver finally killed me. This was after Sprint, AGM, Evasion, and even my Insignia. So I used ghost travel the rest of the way to Ratchet.

With the traveling I had to do, I ended up at 8399 experience. An increase of 731, I feel is not a bad price for getting my Serpent's Shoulders on the first drop. How does that work…

Have leader of the party be the Twinker (the one you sweet talked into running you through). Twink stays outside the instance. Twinker then goes in and clears everything to the boss, or other appropriate area. Twinker call the Twink into the instance. Set looting to Group Loot for a roll or on Master Looter selecting the Twink. Twink takes off all their gear, or everything but items that get durability damage, run up to the mob and die. Once dead you get no experience points. The Twinker can kill the rest.

Wailing caverns is nice, you can use the 3D aspect of the game and have the Twink die below some of the bosses, like Verdan the Everliving and Lord Serpentis. The Twinker doesn’t have to kill every mob in the whole instance. Just walk past.

Now off to get my chest piece!

Getting to VanCleef of Deadmines requires a complete clear of the instance. To combat this Twinker and Twink Main clear out the instance. Two level 70s clearing every mob to VanCleef. It becomes a challenge to see how fast you can make it go. Once clear with only VanCleef alive, the Twinker set as the party leader, the Twink main leaves the instance and logs onto Twink. Twink should have been stationed right outside the instance.

Now as a Rogue, I can sneaky sneak past the patrols. Other classes will need the Twinker to clear the patrols before entering the instance.

Again remove armor and run up to the boss and die. Loot and repeat as needed.

Hydra made quick work of the Defias between Siphon Life and Seed of Corruption there was little down time. VCWC took us about 30 minutes because we were looting. Setting loot to free-for-all is best for getting that done fast. We were able to get 3 runs in before we were called into a REAL instance. No Defias Armor but a shinny new Cruel Barb dropped.

We can now do this run as many times as need be for the needed drop. With no experience gained, time becomes the limiting factor.

As for the upgrade? That +9 Agility put me at 48.2% Dodge!

**random story that no one will care about but a few**

So I have been taking my new shoulders and Shadowfang out for a spin in 2 vs. 2 Arena skirmishes. Prior to this I had competed in arena skirmishes 4 times. A kidnapped 5 vs 5 and more kidnapped 2 vs 2.

In WSG as a flag carrier I am a gouge and go kind of gal. But after a 1 vs. 1, FC vs. EFC, Rogue vs. Rogue, twink vs. twink epic battle … I knew I needed to improve my 1 vs 1 skill. Of COURSE I won… what do you think this is HIS blog. Flag returned and capped too. I am an all-in-one kind of package.  

So while waiting for WSG a bunch of us queue for 2 vs. 2. It pops and I hear Aed say that he got a pop, I letting him know I did too. But before I click to go in… I see a scary thing…I see Ulti vanish.

This is THE hunter Twink on our server. With 2K health and a pet that eats your face before you get a chance to blink. Been playing with him for about a year and is a good friend. But I am always glad he is on our side.

I tell Aed what I saw … we put together a “If it IS Ulti lets-hope-it-is-not-plan”. Sure enough it is us vs. Ulti. Our plan is whoever he finds first will have to keep his and pet’s attention. The other must burn him down a fast as they can.  We already decided that we lost to him…so our goal is getting Ulti under 25% health.

Ulti finds Aed first … serpent sting, concussive shot, arcane shot… Ulti starts to kite Aed.. like a good hunter.

But Ulti walks right into my backstab, sinister strike, sinister strike, gouge, slice and dice, sinister strike...

We get Ulti to under 40% before I lose Aed. Maybe less I was a little busy at the time.

At 15% I start to flip out I still had about 60% health … I start panicking at the realization I just MIGHT kill Ulti!!

But I had all of Ulti’s attention now. I can see he is trying to kite me. HE pops his AGM. I got him to use his trinkets!! Success me. I still had all my cooldowns Evasion, Sprint, and my AGM.

He gets a concussive shot on me but he is low on mana but does get a serpent sting off to. I will NOT be kited by a hunter. Sprint into his face so he gets a good look at my new Shadowfang, hit my AGM because at this point I am at about 35% heath and he reminded me that I had one of those.

Ulti goes down.

Much laughter and rejoicing. Ulti and I talk about the battle… he is so hard to kill… it makes me almost feel sorry for the Horde. Almost.

Here are my thoughts on some of the items in 2.3.0 because no one else wanted to know them. Full notes can be found here. I focus on Warlock, twink PvP, and profession changes… only ones that affect me.

But I don’t think anyone should read this rambling. Better off reading the patch notes yourself. But they may give you some insight to my thoughts on particular subjects. And who knows you might just be bored enough to find it entertaining.

General

• Guild Banks have been introduced. The Guild Bank will allow players with the appropriate permissions to store items and money for use by the rest of the guild. We shall see how easy this new guild bank is to maintain.
• Healing reduction effects will now affect all health drain spells and abilities (e.g. Mortal Strike will reduce health gained from Drain Life). Pfft.
• Healing: Almost all items and enchantments that provide bonus healing now also provide a smaller number (approximately 1/3) of bonus spell damage.  You should not be wearing any healing gear Warlock. But if that Healy Belt drops and you have no spell damage on yours it maybe worth picking up for a while.
• A new flight path has been added to the Rebel Camp in northern Stranglethorn Vale. Too long coming!
• Vendor Discounts: All vendors with an associate faction now give discounts at all levels above neutral.  Sidewalk sale!
• Quest givers who have available daily quests will have a blue exclamation point instead of a yellow one. Daily quests? =P
• You can now obtain a [tiny Sporebat] pet with exalted Sporeggar faction. OMG! Must have!
• If you are seated and try to use abilities that require you to be standing, you will stand up and use them. This can be disabled with: /console autoStand 0 . This modifies your play style. If you are trying to get well fed you need to be aware that casting can break your eating.

• Racial Abilities
• Gnome: Escape Artist cooldown increased to 1 min, 45 sec. What!! Ohhhh... don’t tell Aurum she is going to stab someone in the gut over this nerf.

PvP

Battlegrounds

• Daily quests have been added targeting a random battleground for that day. Look for Alliance Brigadier Generals and Horde Warbringers near your faction's battlemasters in all major capitals. Wonder if this only gives honor and reputation points or if they were silly and tied experience to the completion. Because twinks will stay away from experience quests.
• Dropping the Flag in a battleground will now result in a debuff that will not allow you to pick up the flag again for 3 seconds. The same person cannot drop it and pick it up repeatedly. No more taunting each other.
• Players will now be able to cast spells for free in the Battleground before it begins. Yea! Less consumables to carry around.
• Players will now be able to cast spells for free for a few seconds after being resurrected by a Spirit Guide in the Battleground. This may actually get people to rebuff the group. /shrug Wishful thinking.

Alterac Valley

• Lots of stuff happening here so that is why the place holder. I still have trouble around that place, so it doesn’t mean much to me right now.  So go read it on your own.   

Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, Eye of the Storm

• Additional bonus honor is now awarded upon conclusion of the battle. Bonuses are always good, particularly any awarded at the end.

Mages

•  (NEW SPELL) Ritual of Refreshment available on trainers at level 70.  Now we have cookie dispenser and picnic table preparation before an instance.

Priests

• Fear Ward is now available to all priests at level 20. Duration reduced to 3 minutes, cooldown increased to 3 minutes. Warlocks beware this. It is another ability to reduce the effectiveness of fear.

Rogues

• Kick: Interrupting a channeled spell with this ability will now always properly prevent casting spells from the same spell school for 5 sec. It was not working correctly? Great to know now.
• If you are in Stealth and try to use an ability that may not be used while stealthed, you will leave stealth and use that ability. This can be disabled with /console autoUnshift 0.  I don’t know if I like all this form shifting “fixes”.

Warlock

• Banish can no longer be cast on targets tapped by other players or groups. Wail in agony at the lost! /cry
• Conflagrate: The Immolate debuff will now always be removed correctly when this spell is cast. I don’t think I like that. I will have to look at the damage caused by an incomplete Immolate with Conflagrate vs. casting Shadow Bolt. If it is worth the casting time and mana.
• Drain Life and Siphon Life now reduce the amount healed when the warlock is affected by healing reducing effects (e.g. Mortal Strike, Wounding Poison). I guess it should work that way. /lip quiver
• Hellfire: This spell will no longer cause enemy spells to increase casting time or reduce channel time. It will also no longer prevent flag captures in Battlegrounds. Why do I only ever find out about this after the fact?
• Ritual of Souls now takes significantly less time to cast and complete. Well if I can get them to click and not wiggle so much. All that shadow energy tickles the Pallys.
• Seed of Corruption detonation will now obey line of sight. Well that is just annoying.
• Shadow Embrace: This talent's effect can no longer trigger other effects. Unstacking our trigger effects.
• Shadow Ward: This spell now gains additional benefit from spell damage bonuses. Base absorb value of rank 4 has been reduced. We should be stacking as much spell damage as possible so the first part is good. The second though contradicts the firsts benefit. Can you believe there was Blizzard meetings about this change? 
• Soul Siphon (Affliction) now increases damage by 2/4% and no longer affects Drain Mana. Okay then.
• Soul Siphon (Affliction): If a Warlock already has a particular spell cast on a target, reapplying before its duration ends will no longer grant an additional bonus. Well you were not suppose to reapply the DoT before it expired, but this is post knowledge of a benefit from reapplying, which is now taken away. So all you overriding DoTs don’t have to beat yourselves from past madness. Just now.
• Unstable Affliction: The silence from this ability is now subject to diminishing returns. Silence ability? I thought it was another DoT and did damage to those removing it. Again, good to know it did that too.

Warrior

• Hamstring now has a 10 second duration when used on PvP targets. This is reduced down from 15 seconds. Back to making CC and ammonization effects to a standard 10 seconds.
• Mace Specialization (Arms) now has a reduced chance to occur but generates 7 rage instead of 6. Totally not interested in this change. But it makes me ask “Why?” It is one of those we are reducing the frequency of the proc so ”NERF” but to make it less of one we are giving you a 1% increase in rage generated. Why? … Why?
• Pummel: Interrupting a channeled spell with this ability will now always properly prevent casting spells from the same spell school for 4 sec. Hello! Shadow and fire. We are shadow AND fire. Figure out how to switch to either in PvP. Any other casters should take note too… I guess.
• Shield Bash: Interrupting a channeled spell with this ability will now always properly prevent casting spells from the same spell school for 6 sec. See above Pummel. Particularly note worthy for my healing friends with the mad healz.

Professions

• You can now control-click on a recipe to see how the item that is made by that recipe will look on you in the Dressing Room. Fine and dandy but they took away my undress feature. So my tabard still covers up whatever I am trying on.

Alchemy

• Added a new potion to alchemy trainers: [Mad Alchemist's Potion]. This new potion requires Alchemy to consume. Ragveil will now go up in price and be farmed a lot more.

Blacksmithing

• Sharpening Stones and Weightstones now last 1 hour. Very cool. Twice the benefit for the one stone. Will help in those hour long WSG battles of premade vs. premade.

Cooking

• Daily cooking quests are now available from The Rokk in Shattrath City. In addition to gold, you can receive random cooking reagents and new recipes as a reward for completing these quests. My cooking has been stagnant at around 360, this will make it entertaining to get those extra points. May also be a way for those that are lacking skills in the cooking area to catch up.

Enchanting

• Duration of wizard and mana oils created by enchanters has been increased. PEOPLE BY HOW MUCH! Ugg.You should be living by your wizard oils. I will minimum bid on these for farming purposes. There is always an enchanter trying to level up their skills, and trying to dump the product. Just don’t let your regular supplier inspect your bank. Then you get “I didn’t make that one for you.” /glare. Doesn’t have a problem with all the guys I PvP with but another enchanter LOOK OUT.   

Fishing

• Fishermen and women can now track fishing nodes. This ability is learned from a journal sometimes found in crates obtained through fishing. Fun stuff. I do wonder if it is bind on pickup or if they are auctionable. =)
• You can now fish in Ironforge again. Where? In the wading pools or in the molten metal? I think this change only affected the pool in The Forlorn Cavern.

Leatherworking

• Stylin' Hats no longer require Zhevra leather. OH!!! We had one of these patterns drop for our leatherworker. They so rock! I wish Aurum could wear one. She would so rock that pimp hat.

Items

• All old world dungeons have had their loot revisited. Players will now find that all loot dropped inside instances will be of Superior (blue) quality. Nice… since we go into them still for shards since Azeroth enchanting materials still sell well.
• Cooldown removed from [Noggenfogger Elixir]. The shrink effect will no longer stack with other shrink effects. I really hate finding out funny things like this after the fact.
• [Essence of Undeath] now drops from level 57-60 non-elite undead in the Eastern Plaguelands. This may give some added activity to the deserted EPL. But it will also drive down the price.I guess I should sell the two I have in the bank immediately.  
• Lockboxes will now display the numerical lock picking skill required to open them. Now this is nice. End of the crap shoot on if the rogue can pick the lock or not.
• Low Level Cloth Items: All agility and strength on low-level cloth items has been replaced with other stats, usually bonus spell damage, but also sometimes other stats beneficial to mana users. About time. I can go for the argument about cloth having agility but strength? Strength doesn’t add to my ability to Wand someone to death.
• PvP Trinkets: Insignia of the Alliance, Insignia of the Horde, Medallion of the Alliance, and Medallion of the Horde now clear the debuff from Judgment of Justice. I should care, but for some reason I do not.

Dungeons and Raids

• Players that complete the attunement quests for Tempest Keep and Coilfang Resevoir may now choose to display a new title; they will appear as "<PvP rank> <name>, Champion of the Naaru". I didn’t realize there was still PvP ranks. So some day I can turn this on and it say “Loser squishy Hydrargyrum, Champion of the Naaru”.
• The Requirement for Heroic Keys has been lowered to Honored. Well at least some of us can say we got our keys before this change. I on the other hand, I will benefit from this change. But I did get my Coilfang Resevoir heroic key before the change. Honest I did!

Auchindoun: Sethekk Halls

• The Shadow Labyrinth Key can now be looted from the Talon King's Coffer next to Talon King Ikiss in the Sethekk Halls. Granted we were in Shadow labs because of our Rogue, but we did finally get the key by prying it out of Ikiss cold dead hand. Because if I am reading this right you no longer have to kill him.
• Mobs inside Sethekk Halls will now continue to award Lower City reputation into Exalted. Works for me.

Quests

• New random Daily Dungeon quests have been added for both the heroic and non-heroic five-person Outland dungeons, as well as for the 5-person Caverns of Time instances. Each day both a single heroic and a single non-heroic dungeon are randomly targeted by these quests. The Consortium quest givers can be located in Shattrath's Lower City. I hope this helps with the number of PuG being formed. Having it focused on one dungeon will also help get everyone on the same goal. I find this simulator to the Headless Horseman event. Finding a PuG for that was better then average experience.
• Dustwallow Marsh
• The Steamwheedle Cartel have just completed building the new town of Mudsprocket in south west Dustwallow Marsh. Thinking Urban Sprawl.
• Quest givers who have available daily quests will have a blue exclamation point instead of a yellow one. This may actually allow me to locate them all any.

User Interface

• The Auction House UI has been much improved. The useless categories have been removed (Plate-Cloak for instance) and a number of additional sub categories have been added. In addition, many items have had their category changed so that they make more sense. How long did it take for them to do this? We are on patch 2.3.0 correct?
• When you inspect another player, you can now see their talent choices as well as their equipment. Nice. We can now quickly make fun of Retribution Pallys without going to the Armory. I always felt like inspecting people and trying on their clothes was like opening medicine cabinets while being a guest. Has never stopped me, just saying it feels like that. 
• You can now send up to 12 items in a single mail message. But for the same 30 copper? I hate when I cannot tell. I think it will still cost 3 silver 60 copper still for those 12 items.
• Many interface elements now display players in their class color so you can easily recognize what class a player is. Interface elements affected by this are LFG, Channel UI, Guild and Who. Remember Kill the healers first. Wait dang nabbit killing your own faction doesn’t come out until next patch.
• All players now have a tracking bubble on their minimap. From that menu you can select a specific type of vendor or npc to look for or you can select a specific tracking type if your character has tracking. I see less “Ask a guard.” In Stormwind general chat.
• When an item drops that you cannot loot due to uniqueness or other factor, you will get a chat message letting you know what the item was that you passed rolling on. Fun to know that engineering recipe dropped even if I cannot use it. Makes the boss fight more worthwhile.
• NPC's with level appropriate quests will now always appear on your minimap as yellow exclamation points. NPC's that have quests that you have completed will now display as yellow question marks instead of yellow dots. In addition flight masters that you have not yet gotten the flight point for will display on the minimap as a green exclamation point. Okay I can turn this off for my twink, right? Because it maybe just annoying.
• You can now pull the list of players in a channel out into the gamefield by clicking and dragging the channel name onto the gamefield. This list will show all the players in the channel sorted by voice chat status. Will be nice to see who is on our guild alliance channel without opening the menu each time.
• Voice chat will now display the nameplate for who is talking when you are in a chat group. Currently it only displays the nameplate when you are in a party/raid. Good because I keep asking “Who is talking to me?”
• Sorting of auction house searches has been simplified so you can only sort by one column, and automatic sub-sorts have been created for those columns to be as useful as possible. In addition, sorting is now done on the server so as you page thru results, items will appear to be sorted across the entire results instead of just the page you’re looking at. Fantastic!

This is the most exciting thing for me right now. I am by no means good at it or perfect. I am constantly looking for ideas to make myself better. I cannot reinforce how important it is for you to have some type of cooldown timer for mobs.

Warlocks have Seduce, Banish, Fear, and to a lesser extent Enslave demon. (I am still reeling that I couldn’t enslave a boss demon. Pfft.)

Locks can control 3 mods at one time. Crowd control (CC) is a skill that is desired by groups everywhere.

You must practice in a group. Yes, the tank can take all three mobs. No one is chagrining the tank their brawniness, but why? Think if it as a reduction in repair bills. CC one and help dps the other two.

Seduction:

Make the humanoid mob to be seduced your focus. Cast Curse of Shadow to reduce early breaks and resistance to re-seduce. Then cast your seduce macro.

My Macro:

SeduceFocus

#showtooltip Seduction

/clearfocus [modifier:shift]

/clearfocus [target=focus,dead]

/clearfocus [target=focus,noexists]

/focus [target=focus,noexists]

/focus [target=focus, noexists]

/cast [target=focus] Seduction

This lets me assign my focus to my target to be seduced, plus later lets me reassign my focus to another target to seduce. Typically moving from my initial seduced mob that is being picked up by the tank and take over to the Rogue’s broken sap.

Our group is learning to move fluidly through mobs. On the occasions that things go “wrong” we can easily modify. I can seduce as long as Demora has mana. So I keep tabs on her mana use. This will determine how long she can keep the last mob seduced.

Banish:

Banish is only for demons. This is pretty much an unbreakable CC. I use the above macro modified for Banish if no other CC is needed. If focus is Seduce I use the Banish right out of my spellbook on my cast bar.

If the last mob is the banished one, call out the time till the banish breaks. Also, banished mobs for warriors create rage and agro when the mob cannot hit back. Which is nice since the demon most likely will be going for yours truly.

Fear:

I have talked about Fear. I only use in very rare occasions (read above the easily modify bit). I lead off with an instant Howl of Terror (HoT). Any mobs near the healer area get the first HoT. Then pick a mob and use the below macro.

WarlockFear

#showtooltip

/castsequence [nomodifier] reset=20 Curse of Shadow(Rank 1), Fear, Curse of Shadow(Rank 1), Curse of Recklessness(Rank 1)

/cast [modifier:alt] Curse of Recklessness(Rank 1)

Since you are not trying to deal damage, you conserve mana by using Rank 1.

Enslave Demon:

It does exactly what it says… enslaves a demon. For a nice long 5 minutes. I pull it directly from spellbook to cast bar. You should be an expert in directing demons by now.

One last note to help our CC brethren, remember warlocks, our friendly mages polymorph is an arcane spell. So hit that sheep with your Curse of Shadow to reduce breaks and resistance to re-sheep. CoS doesn’t break sheep. So slap mob when you get done with your own CC duties or before if you are able.