Monthly Archives: October 2010

A Guide to Warlock Raiding (4.0.1)

Posted on October 30, 2010 by

With the expansion coming to an end soon I don’t really expect that anyone needs a guide on how to raid as a warlock. However, I’m feeling particularly silly today and therefore will write this guide. I wouldn’t expect anyone to take it seriously though, as it’s definitely not meant to be taken that way.

So here goes, my guide to warlock raiding.

As a warlock, there are several things that you have to think about during raids – as well as important utilities that you can use during bossfights to make the fight easier for yourself (and possibly your fellow raiders, but that’s a minor detail).

Soul Shatter. In the latest patch soul shatter was buffed from a 3 minute cooldown to remove 50% threat to a 2 minute cooldown with a 90% threat drop. This means that we can ride really high on threat, and then soul shatter and start right over again.

Personally I like to compete with a mage and then soul shatter just as the boss turns to me so that he will immediately turn to the mage that was just below me on threat and one-shot them. It brings me joy.

Doomguard & Infernal. Another change in the patch is that our Doomguard and Infernal are considered guardians and share a 10 minute cooldown to summon. They no longer require a reagent either, which is even better. Infernals are better for AE fights and Doomguard is better for single target.

Another good change is that your regular demon won’t run off in spite when you summon your big, new pet – but he’ll stick around with a jealous look on his face. The look on your imp’s face will only be rivaled by that of the mage in the raid, whose ugly water elemental can’t live up to the glory of your doomguard or infernal.

Searing Pain. Now, this is the spell that make our threat shine brighter than the tanks. Like, totally. If we’d just be allowed to wear plate I swear we could tank every boss better than every other tank. Really. I mean it.

Demons. Yes, I know – they’re awesome. Our minions of death and destruction. However, while you may favour one depending on what you favour in your spec there are times when you may want to consider bringing another one out. If not for the benefit of the raid, then to show how shiny and awesome we are with our utility.

Need some CC? Bring succubus and have her seduce them! Need an extra silence? Felhunter is your friend. You need to tank something? Bring out the voildwalker and put up soul link (oh and don’t forget that awesome searing pain spam for your awesome threat!). Not to mention that my personal go-to demon of choice – the imp  (his name is Laznik btw) – now is able to dispel magic as well as increase my health. Go demons!

Soul Portal. Putting down a portal in a strategic place as the fight is about to begin is always a good idea. There are a lot of fights out there where it can save you from a swift death, or quickly getting out of the nasty. Or to get quickly back after getting out of the nasty once it’s safe. A good example of this being a life saver is the Lich King fight where you can port back to safety after the Valkyr drops you off the edge.

My personal favourite however is putting my portal next to a mage and then porting to him so that whatever nasty is chasing me will get them as well. This is especially fun if the mage is a gnome.

I hope that these points will give you some ideas of your own on how to use your warlock abilities in the best way possible. If it brings pain to a mage – it’s always a plus in my book!

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Posted in Funniez, Warlock | 4 Comments

Cataclysm Download Version

Posted on October 28, 2010 by

As I’m sure a lot of people heard during/after Blizzcon this year we will be able to pre-purchase an upgrade to Cataclysm from Blizzard directly. For me, who lives out in nowhere with no local store, this is great news. No more having to rely on an online store to ship my game in time, all I have to do is order it online and download it, and I’ll be able to play one minute past midnight on launch day.

I’ve already placed my order today as the service became available. The only thing that may be a bit annoying for some compared to buying the game on release is the fact that you pay for it today (or the day you do the online purchase) rather than on December 7th. However, the way I see it – I’d have to pay the price anyway so the date doesn’t matter so much.

To get it, all you need to do is logon to your battle.net account and where your WoW games are listed you will now see the little green arrow button that means it’s a game that can be upgraded. Clicking on it will take you through to purchase Cataclysm. If you have more than one WoW account though, make sure you pick the correct one! Also, it doesn’t look like you can upgrade more than one at a time, so if you’re planning to upgrade all of your accounts you will have to do them one by one.

Once the payment is done, all you need to do is log back in to the game and after that the upgrade will be registered and you will start downloading the data. It’s pretty much like normal patch data, downloading in the background when you’re either in-game or in the launcher. Everything should easily be downloaded by December 7th, and as the clock strikes midnight (or rather a minute past!) you can logon and start playing.

Purchase Complete

As I’ve said, I already put my order in – since I don’t want to wait for the mail delivery guy in the afternoon of the 7th! What about you guys? Are you going to a local store to pick the game up at midnight, are you ordering it from an online store or are you – like me – trying the new download feature?

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Posted in Cataclysm Beta | 8 Comments

Comic #2

Posted on October 27, 2010 by

I’m sorry for the lack of posting lately, it’s a combination of being busy in real life and having little to write about at the moment. However, I am still playing around with some comic ideas. The new patch broke my WoW Modelviewer and I couldn’t do human female models for a while, which is how I came up with the idea for the new comic. That, and my ever-lasting hatred for gnomes ;)

I hope you’re all enjoying the Hallow’s End in WoW, and have something fun planned for this weekend when the “real deal” rolls around!

Click the image for the larger version of the comic.


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Posted in Curse of Fail | 12 Comments

The 4.0 Protection Warrior Guide

Posted on October 16, 2010 by

Since Warrior has been my main for the last few tiers of raiding I wanted to try and keep up to date with their changes. It feels like things are still a bit up in the air and people are complaining quite a bit about having problems with rage/threat. This may depend partly on changes done to the warrior, but also the fact that a lot of classes’ damage was boosted quite a bit in the patch. Hopefully things will simmer down.

This is of course aimed towards Protection Warrior since that’s what I’ve played the most. If you would like me to go through the other specs, just let me know and I will.

THE SPEC ITSELF

As with most class builds at the moment the choices are pretty straight forward.

http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#LMZhZcfudRRodbu

You can change a few points around if you want to get Impending Victory or Incite. However, with the current rage problems some warriors seem to be facing I don’t see us using Heroic Strike as much as before and Incite may not be as useful.

THE STATS

In the patch we lost Defense rating (you get uncrittable by speccing into Bastion of Defense) as well as Block Value/Block rating. Depending on each piece of gear those values would have all been turned into either Dodge or Parry.

Your new stat priority is Stamina, Dodge, Parry and Mastery.

There are currently quite a few discussions ongoing regarding whether or not one should reforge stats into Mastery rating. For protection Warriors the Mastery increases your chance to block by 10% and your chance to critically block by 20%.

At the time of writing no clear conclusion has been drawn, but if you’re having rage problems (as some tanks are) reforging some of your dodge or other stats that you may have too much of into mastery may help you. The reason for this is that you spec into Shield Specialisation, which gives you rage when you block an attack, and the mastery makes you block more often. And of course more rage = more threat.

However, if you’re planning to reforge – don’t bleed yourself. You’ll want to still keep a decent amount of dodge/parry on your gear.

I would say to not go below 18-20% dodge or parry. Also, remember to have 8% hit and 23 expertise (this will be 26 again at level 85). Interestingly enough up to 23, expertise is showing as the best threat stat – but beyond that it doesn’t seem as useful.

THE GLYPHS

Prime glyphs are pretty straight forward in your choices, but you can probably play around with your Major and Minor glyphs. My own choices below.

Prime glyphs: Devastate, Revenge, Shield Slam
Major glyphs: Thunderclap, Shockwave, Sunder Armor (or Cleaving)
Minor glyphs: Command, Battle, Berserker Rage

THE ROTATION

The rotation for single target is for the most part the same, but you may want to use Thunderclap and Shockwave even for single target now. In general, prioritise Shield Slam, Revenge and use Devastate as your filler move rather than Heroic Strike as before. Most of the time we won’t have the rage to spam Heroic Strike as we have previously, only use it now if you have more than 60 rage and don’t need it for anything else. Pop Commanding Shout before the fight for an instant 20 rage.

AE tanking takes a little bit more work than before (and it took quite some then already). Remember that Commanding Shout (and the other shouts, but with a shared cooldown) now gives you 20 rage, so pop it before packs if you don’t have any rage or little rage. If you want to, you can also toss a Heroic Throw at one mob (costs no rage) and charge another. Put up Rend first, then Thunderclap which will apply it to every mob in the group. Use Thunderclap and Shockwave on cooldown. Shield Slam every cd as well on the mob that requires it most, stack sunders on as many as possible by tabbing between them.

If you specced into Thunderstruck, try to time your Shockwave for when you have 3 stacks since it will then do more damage. You will most likely have to rotate high threat moves and Devastate on the mobs in the group while using Thunderclap and Shockwave when you can. If you have spare rage, use Cleave.

AE tanking was difficult before the patch at times for a Warrior, and with the insane damage some classes do now you may still not be able to hold threat – but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

OTHER CHANGES OF NOTE

  • Vigilance has changed and no longer transfers threat to you, all it does is refresh your taunt cd when the target is hit and makes them take 3% less damage. This means there’s not much use for it in dungeons unless you want someone who pulls off you a lot to take 3% less damage and maybe refresh your taunt so you can taunt off them. (Personally I rather let them die!) In raids though it’s useful to put it on the Off Tank.
  • You may have noticed that you lost a bunch of Armor. That was intended, and will mean that you will be taking a bit more damage. It’s one of the reasons I’m thinking Mastery may be worth going for.
  • Blood Rage, our go-to ability for some instant rage was removed – but instead you can use any of the shouts to give you 20 rage instantly. If you still want more instant rage, glyph for Berserker Rage and that will give you an additional 5 rage when popping an ability.
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Posted in Warrior | 28 Comments

The 4.0.1 Destruction Warlock Guide

Posted on October 15, 2010 by


Note: Since some people seem to miss the fact that this was a pre-Cataclysm guide to go with patch 4.0.1 I’m adding this at the top and hoping that this will make it more obvious. This guide is now out of date because it was for the period between the Shattering and Cataclysm launch.

Please note that the spell links are to the Cataclysm section and the tooltip may show the 85 version, but the tooltips on the current site aren’t correct either with the new patch.

Since I’ve switched to play my Warlock more than my warrior I’m collecting some information on how the Destruction (my chosen spec) is playing in the new patch. Now that things are starting to simmer down we’re noticing more what glyphs, stats and rotations should be used. I’m sure there are plenty of good actual Warlock blogs out there who will already give you this information, but I wanted to try to put a little guide together if only for myself now that I’m back to being a lock.

This guide, as mentioned – is aimed towards Destruction Warlocks in a PvE setting. If you’d like to know about the other two specs, please let me know and I’ll make another post about those.

THE SPEC ITSELF

As with most talent trees these days the choices are pretty straight forward, with a few points that you can move about as you want.

http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#I0bZcZIrbcRbsRdo

You should get those talents, but out of the 31 in Destruction you can choose if you want to remove the points in Nether Protection and put it in Improved Searing Pain or Backlash. After they nerfed Searing Pain again (for a little while it was doing more damage than Incinerate) you won’t really be using it in your rotation, but you might want to use it for soloing or fights where you don’t have time for a more intricate rotation (and threat is a non-issue).

Backlash is very situational and quite honestly not something you’d get a lot of use from in a raid/HC since nothing should actually be hitting you. Nether Protection I – again – find very situational, there are only a few fights where you’d actually get to use it, so really any of those options are about as equally good/bad.

THE STATS

With the new talent trees our 3% hit from talents was removed, so was also the hit we received from having a Shadow Priest in the raid, as well as the 1% from draenei. This means, you now have to get 17% hit from gear and gems alone. The one good point is that the hit gems are no longer yellow but blue so you can use them to fill your Meta requirement. Intellect + Hit gems are purple (so fits in blue or red sockets).

For Destruction you want to get hit capped, then lots of Spellpower (which you now get from Intellect) and lots of Haste. Crit is not as important anymore at all from what I can tell. However, there is no point having more than about 1200 haste. So if you’re hit capped and have 1200 haste, reforge any remaining hit/crit (as well as spirit because it’s useless now) to Mastery rating.

For Destruction Mastery rating gives you increased fire damage, which we want. We want lots of fire damage.

THE GLYPHS

When it comes to glyphs, the only ones that really matter for your dps are the Prime ones. Anything else is just for show really, and I won’t bother listing them. It’s up to everyone to choose what they like.

Prime Glyphs: Conflagrate, Imp, Immolate
Major Glyphs: Life Tap (for 0.5 sec less gcd) other than that, anything you want
Minor Glyphs: Anything you want

THE ROTATION

As before, Warlocks work on a priority system rather than a rotation. You will use which ever ability is currently not on cooldown/ticking according to a list of priority. Also, you should renew your dots before they fall off. Preferably between the second to last and last tick.

The biggest difference to our rotation is the addition of Corruption (which has been useless for this spec since Ulduar pretty much), Shadowflame and Soul Fire.

Since we specced into Empowered Imp we will get procs where we get instant Soul Fires. Use those procs. This is extra nice because we have also specced into Improved Soul Fire, which gives us 15% haste after dealing damage with Soul Fire.

What I like to do, and I’m sure there are people out there who can tell me I shouldn’t (you can also hard cast it) is to start my rotation off with blowing a Soulburn and getting an instant Soul Fire. That gives me 15% haste for 15 seconds when I start my normal rotation.

You only get 3 Soulburns per fight since you can’t regain your soul shards in combat anymore, but at the moments the fights aren’t really long enough for you to worry about that anyway. Maybe once you get higher into ICC, in which case you may want to be a bit more stingy with when you use them.

Shadowflame is pretty situational but has proven to be a dps boost. If you’re in a fight where you’re in melee range of the boss (standing close to Marrowgar, being in the melee group on Festergut or close to Rotface for example) it’s well worth the gcd.

So, the priority list is as follows:

Start off with a Soul Fire (above 80% you want to keep the buff up from Improved Soul Fire)
Immolate
Conflagrate
Bane of Doom
Shadowflame
Corruption
Chaos Bolt
Soulburn: Soul Fire
Soul Fire (when Imp procs)
Incinerate as filler

Now, there can be variations to this of course. On fights where I may have to run in to get positioned I will use instant cast spells like Soulburn: Soul Fire, Bane of Doom and Corruption while still running and then start the rotation at Immolate. Or if you’re UI is a little bit slow to light up Conflagrate (like it tends to do for me) I sometimes cast Corruption after Immolate while waiting for Conflagrate to light up.

Please note that Curse of Elements is still a curse whereas Agony and Doom are banes. This means that you can have CoE up and still use Agony or Bane. So if no one else in your raid is putting it up, you should.


OTHER CHANGES OF NOTE

  • Spirit is by all accounts useless for Warlocks now, if you have any on your gear – reforge it into hit, haste or mastery depending on what you need.
  • Soulshatter is now on a 2 minute cooldown and decreases threat by 90% (used to be 50%  and 3 minutes – was 5 minutes a few more patches ago!)
  • Doomguard and Infernal are now guardians and share a cooldown of 10 minutes. They can be used as a dps boost, and no longer remove your normal, active demon. Doomguard is for single target damage and Infernal is for aoe damage. Please note that they will not attack anything unless they have Bane of Agony or Doom on them (I don’t know if that’s a bug or not).
  • Seed of Corruption used to be the go-to AE spell for all warlock trees, now you’re meant to go with Rain of Fire (especially if you have some mastery rating since it will boost its damage).
  • Soul Shards are gone the way we knew them, instead you have a resource bar with 3 shards which cannot be replenished during combat. You use the Soulburn spell to empower some of your normal spells, which means you can do this three times per fight. Ways to regain shards are; Drain Soul (the target has to die as you do it – regains 3 shards), Shadowburn (usable once target is below 20%, if they die within 5 seconds you regain 3 shards) and Soul Harvest (can only be used out of combat and regains 1-3 shards depending on how long you channel it).

Any questions, feel free to ask.

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Posted in Warlock | 13 Comments

WoW Memories

Posted on October 14, 2010 by

I was sitting around being bored and decided to have a look through my screenshot folder. It’s actually a pretty fun thing to do, and I suggest everyone do the same. You end up remembering things that you may have forgotten.

So below I’ve gathered some “highlights” from my screenshot folder, warning for an image heavy post! I would encourage others to do the same, it’s really a lot of fun to look through the old screenshots that you may have saved.

To save people’s browsers though I’m adding it as a gallery, so to see it bigger (with comments) just click the images.

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Posted in Screenshots | 9 Comments

My first Comic

Posted on October 11, 2010 by

I’ve been wanting to do a comic (and have several ideas stacked up) for more than a year now. The intention was to draw it by hand, but I’m not very good at it so it’s just never happened. So now, inspired by the awesome Liala over at Disciplinary Action and her incredible comics I decided to try making them using photoshop instead.

So here, I give you my very first comic. (You’ll have to click it to be able to read it I’m afraid.) It was definitely a learning experience, and if I can bring myself to do another I know a few things to look out for next time.

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Posted in Curse of Fail | 18 Comments

So where do I go from here?

Posted on October 11, 2010 by
After I realised that I didn’t want to be a tank anymore – a decision I struggled with quite a bit before I could finally make it – I had a new one to make. So, I’m going to be dps again.. Which class will I be? Lately I’ve really been enjoying my hunter, and the idea of making it my main has been skipping around at the back of my mind. But then there’s also my warlock, my old main. The character that throughout WoW I think would probably be the one I played the longest.

She was my second alliance character – the first being a priest – that I rolled as we were still doing Karazhan in TBC. I switched to her as soon as we had enough healers in the guild to cover for my priest (who was meant to be shadow, but 9 times out of 10 had to be holy), and I stuck with her until the days of Trial of the Crusader in Wrath. I switched to tank when we started ToC heroic modes.

Choosing between my warlock and my hunter for Cataclysm has been incredibly difficult. I’ve been enjoying the hunter a lot more in Wrath, but the warlock has all that history – and while I’ve found her lacking through some parts of Wrath I still love her.

So, let me introduce you to Démonique, Warlock Extraordinaire. (And it’s not pronounced demonic but rather like the name Dominique, except demon at the start.) She likes piña coladas, getting caught in the rain and burning people’s faces off. Mainly the latter.
Warlock powah!http://www.youtube.com/user/TotalHalibut#p/u/26/sgkKyibZSVk

I hope that I’m making the right decision, and I’m now busy catching up on things I’ve missed out on while being a tank for the last tiers of raiding. I’ve started by finishing up some old reputation grinds that I want for mounts (I do love mounts!), and then I guess I’ll see what I continue with.

Nether Ray

Netherwing Drake

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Posted in My Adventures/Characters | 8 Comments

Hanging up the Tanking Shield

Posted on October 8, 2010 by
For the last tiers of Wrath I have been a tank, it was the first time in my WoW career that I had and I have to say that I have quite enjoyed it. While stressful and one of the most difficult jobs (for me at least) you also get a sense of accomplishment when you do a good job.

However, that being said – I have decided to hang up the tanking shield.

This is a decision I struggled with quite a bit before I could finally make it. I think the final realisation hit me when we were doing our final tries on Lich King, and before the raid I just felt a strong sense of not wanting to go, not as a tank. Had I been a dps I’d have been jumping at the chance, as it was I was slowly moving towards the instance – even though I wanted nothing more than to see Arthas dead.

Even after we killed him the feeling didn’t leave me. I didn’t enjoy the tanking anymore. I felt too stressed and it was wearing me down. So I eventually came to the conclusion that my tanking days are over.

My decision is based on a few other things as well; first and foremost the fact that tanking is indeed very stressful and I suffer from a condition which is aggravated by stress. For my own sake I’ve decided that it’s better for me to go back to being a dps, since at least for me personally, that’s less stressful. Other people may not feel that tanking is all that stressful, but I really do – possibly because I am also less stress resistant than I once was.


I’ve enjoyed my time as a tank. There’s something special about charging head-first into battle with your allies at your back.

But as Cataclysm rolls around, my warrior will be hanging up her tanking shield and taking some time off. Instead I will be playing a dps class, the question now is; which one?



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Posted in My Adventures/Characters | 4 Comments

Cataclysm: Worgen Females

Posted on October 7, 2010 by
As I think everyone knows by now (so it’s not much of a spoiler) the Worgen race is being introduced in Cataclysm. For the longest time there was no model in the game for the female but only of the male. They’re finally added her to the game and I have a few thoughts on the new race joining the Alliance.

First of all, I think it’s nice to see a more fierce and savage race join the Alliance, we could use some fresh blood and something that’s not just all-together pretty. The Worgen story is interesting and captivating (as you will notice if you play through the starting area once Cataclysm arrives).

My main quarrel with the race is the look of the female models. I know we’ve only just gotten them playable and it’s already on it’s second (or third?) incarnation. I’m glad that they’re not too pretty, but it’s a shame that every single face option has a permanent snarl on her face. From the front this isn’t visible, and from the front they almost look too pretty, but then you turn around and see them from the side and realise that they’re not really all that pretty.

But there are a few other things wrong with the models. Some they might fix, others I’m not sure if they’re actually intended.

  • There is a point in front of the female’s ears where you can see straight through her skull.
  • When viewed from the front the torso seems oddly twisted.
  • The breasts are insanely huge and seem almost too high up on the chest. If Draenei are supposed to be double Ds then Worgen must be double E or F… Seriously, it looks like they might choke on them!
  • The butt, in profile, is actually square.
  • The tummy has a very odd protruding area, kinda like she swallowed a small racoon and it’s still being digested.
  • The above two things gives her body a very weird slouch and I think that combined with their heavy breasts they’ll be prone to back problems.

I hope that they address some of these issues, but I must admit that I’m not sure they will. Don’t misunderstand me though, there are a lot of good things with the female model too. I really like their hairstyles, they’re wild and untamed, much like the Worgens are meant to be. Their animations are also pretty good, both for melee and casters. With a few adjustments, I think the Worgens could end up looking really cool (admittedly the male model is already really high on the cool factor – we just need the female model up there too).
Some photos to show what I mean below, click to enlarge.

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Posted in Cataclysm Beta | 6 Comments