Elkagorasa the Casual

for HolyCow I was looking at the Cataclysm Glyphs . With 9 total glyph 'slots', we're going to definitely get some breathing room. No longer forced to sell our Souls only to get a flying kilrogg . I don't know about you, but weren't you giddy with exhaustion that your demon enslaved FASTER. (He only lasts 1 MINUTE, every milisecond counts!) Seriously, having these 6 options and only get mediocre low-level glyphs, was, well sort of an insult. 35 glyph options and we all knew EXACTLY which ones you absolutely had to have. ~3 Minute preview of (a mage) New Glyph UI! Coming soon, we'll get 34 glyph options (7 Minor, 14 Major and 13 Prime). Most of the Prime glyphs are existing Major (3.3) glyphs, so you'll need to move them around from your major slots to the Primes. Prime glyphs aren't going to be exciting in a 'change up your rotation' style. We want primes to be unambiguous dps (etc.) increases so we figured they might as well be ea...

Last night, we had a freshly minted 80 join the guild. This death knight reached max level by, (gasp) questing. The first emblem he acquired was last night after an invite to the weekly raid ( Satharion ), #1 thing to do when your ICC raid failed to go. Unfortunately, due to his leveling via questing, he was almost totally in quest greens. GearScore listed him at 1400 .  He died promptly with the first fire wave. First step, get some badges, emblems, er, points.    PVP points - As I mentioned for Children's Week , doing the random battleground, and Wintergrasp regularly will get you a good start. PVP gear is often 'cheaper' (if you win regularly) and easier to obtain. Heck, for straight "GearScore", I will often equip some PVP pieces just because they have such nice +SP. If you do WG early enough in the week, you can also (typically) get into a VOA run to obtain class specific gear and 2 frost badges. Emblems of Triumph and Frost - Start running regular d...

New Orgrimmar as viewed through Old As the rumored November 2nd release date looms, I have started thinking about my Day 1 in the new world. With any new release, the starting zones are going to be overloaded with all those people who are coming back, and seeing the areas for the first time. They are going to be flooding these zones, and if you remember Dalaran being laggy, imagine now Old World content being extra laggy (-2fps!!) So, my intent for day 1, will include those Shared Topic items , plus the following: Wake up in Orgrimmar . Everything Horde will be based in Orgrimmar. The level 80 quest hub starts right outside. The Flight trainer is there. The Reforging dude is right there. Like the leveling days, I'll probably park in the Inn. From the Inn, head up towards the Drag. Buy Azerothian Navigation - Take the new elevator right outside the Drag and run across the plateau and give her some gold. (200g exalted with Orgrimmar). Possibly another 4000g if you want a mas...

Over the weekend, I was working on soloing the Steamvault . I was doing great, got two bosses down, finally found the keys to open up the third. When I mentioned what I was doing to a guildie, he suggested waiting until after Cataclysm drops. His reasoning is the Cataclysm Guild Perks. One of the items they state as a way to get Guild rep is by doing dungeons and raids with ~80% guild attendance. For example: Participating in a qualifying Guild Raid Boss Kills (Raid must be composed of 7/10 or 20/25 guild members) So, if this is correct, we could attack all the old world, BC and wrath dungeons and get the achievements (for completion and in Wrath, the specifics) and get a glut of guild rep. Would be nice... I am hung up on the word "Qualifying".. On the otherhand, I am still NOT even friendly with my beta guild and I've gotten 1.5 levels on Elk. No dungeons, no raids or PVP though, maybe that's why?..

Update: The date is slipping. According to Wow.com , the date was originally posted as November 23rd. This is just Amazon stating that the software was likely released to manufacturing. I guess, we'll see it, when we see it. Ok, again, I am basing my info on a pre-order date of my Amazon Cataclysm done back in April. I just got a confirmation letter from Amazon with an estimated ship date of November 29th. Hello from Amazon.com. We now have delivery date(s) for the order you placed on April 15 2010 (Order# ): "World of Warcraft: Cataclysm" Estimated arrival date: November 29 2010 Of course, this information could still be speculation and actually be closer to the 11/2/2010 date from MMO-Champion.

The last few months, I've been listening to TNB in my car to/from work. One of their "Final" questions, is to ask, "What one thing would you ask for from Blizzard?" When I started playing Warcraft, back in the day, one of the biggest perks for chosing a Warlock is the "Free" mount. Nope, I didn't need to pay some trainer and buy a mount, I earned it via an epic quest line (and a fair amount of gold). Then Blizzard, announced with BC, that we'd be allowed to FLY! Yes, fly around our world, no longer need to use the taxi system to get from one area to the next. On the tip of every warlock's (and pally's) tongue was, what will the mount look like? Unfortunately, Blizzard never implemented one. Nope. Sounding too much like my parents, or myself now, " maybe someday " (aka never ). Sorry for the bad news, but unfortunately there are no current plans for giving class flying mounts to Paladins and Warlocks. But do not give...

After our guild (achievement) run of ZG last night, it got me wondering about other Pre-Wrath dungeons and Raids. A year ago, Elk solo'd Hellfire Ramparts , but I haven't tried anything since then. In the last year, Elk went from i200 gear to mostly i251, learned more about stacking hit, enchanting correctly and some PVP experience. I'd love to finish off more of these other dungeons to get the Classic Raider and BC Raider achievements. My first problem is getting lost in these dungeons. What have you successfully soloed? What armor class? How many times did you die doing so? Here's the entire list, if you need some reminders... Dungeons: Blackrock Depths (48-60) Dire Maul (54-61) Strathholme (56-61) Lots of CC required. Easily pull all skeletons in room. Scholomance (56-61) Hellfire Ramparts (60-62) Normal Mode -  Successfully completed June 2009 The Blood Furnace (61-63) The Shattered Halls (70-72) The Slave Pens (62-64) The Underbog ...

Now, that my guild is fighting Sindragosa, and soon (I hope) Lich King, the Demonic Circle is playing an enormous part in my fight strategy. The first night we attempted the bone dragon, my lock closet kept timing out. Nothing worse, than dying due to the AOE, because your madly clicking "teleport" and there's nowhere to go to. What I have started looking for is a PowerAura to help out. I love that I have glowy, shiny reminders to tell me when something is available, missing or on CD. Over at MMO Champion , they've started a warlock guide for PowerAura's and this one is posted right on top. I've tried a variant Friday of this on my own, but couldn't get it to work, probably a typo in the creation or mix-up the coding. To simplify it, I've found code that I can import. Just need to update the reference in the first to the second and vice versa. I am not getting this to work, but I think it appears to be my relationship of the two auras. When I move...

Over at Just My Two Copper , Markco has posted a great review of the various Guild Perks that are coming in Cataclysm and how they will help you make MORE gold. If you haven't had a chance, this site is an excellent resource discussing gold making methods and tricks. Personally, I am excited about a few of these per k s as they are directly going to replace benefits from BOA gear, and trinkets like the riding crop . Simply by joining a guild, you will (eventually) get all these perks. The rate at which your guild gets each perk is based on points, points you get from completing quests (and possibly more that I haven't seen). These points also add directly to your reputation with the guild. Better rep, better rewards you can purchase at the guild vendors. For a breakdown of all the various perks, check out this WowHead breakdown .

Instead of a long-winded exposé of the cool things that make up a goblin, Wow.Com linked to this excellent video. Think rockets and explosions! Not, well Queen's English and lah-dee-dah.

Last year, I posted an article about those rarely used minions, the doomguard and infernal. Looking forward to Cataclysm, these dps monsters are going to get a lot more play, at least for some specs. As never played a Demo lock, I have hardly seen these two minions. CoD is one of those curses, mostly used in raiding, and until very recently, I was only pugging raids. When I did spawn a doomguard, it was totally a surprise and I didn't even enslave it. Do Demo locks have another means to summon one of them? The infernal actually saw more play. I liked to use it on the final two phases of the Black Knight . The AOE was wonderful of mopping up the scourge adds and typically the fight would end just as the infernal popped. In Cataclysm, that (ALL) changes. These two minions are now summon-able, no reagents necessary. Click, fire, new pet. Better yet, they don't override your existing pet, so you can have both! I was running an imp and doomguard in parts of Mt. Hyjal last night...

In the next two Warcraft patches your existing badges and PVP tokens and honor will be converted to the new Cataclysm currency, gold or Catacylsm Honor and Justice Points. This means that if you had been looking forward to that last piece of your pvp arena gear, or that last tier piece... it maybe in your best interest to get it before the PTR build goes live.  Here's some information on how each of the currencies will be converted in the next content patch. Keep in mind these values may change, and they can get a bit math heavy. Just know that our intent is to appropriately value each mark and provide a conversion we feel is fair. The following items are immediately converted to gold: Emblem of Heroism = 5.5 gold each Emblem of Valor = 5.5 gold each Emblem of Conquest = 5.5 gold each Badge of Justice = 1.833 gold each Your New Honor Points total will be the sum of the following amounts: Old Honor * 0.024 Old Arena Points * 0.85 Battleground Mark of Honor * 2.976 W...

The idea of this shared topic is to discuss what I loved best, my absolute favorite, in Wrath of the Lich King. What comes to mind, over and over, is song from Mary Poppins (specifically the 30s from here). Dungeons were cool, Vehicles neat. Phasing was awesome, Questing, a treat. But the one thing, I really loved was raiding with friends. OK, not quite a great rhyme, but you get the point. Wrath is the first dungeon, where the planets have aligned and I have been able to raid, reliably for 3 hours a week. For two months, each Monday from 9PM local to almost midnight, we attack ICC. It was slow at first, but we are now down to the final 3 bosses.

Elk with a (free-beta enhanced) race change. It always happens. In comes a new expansion, out goes all your epic purple gear for quest greens . At level 82, Deepholm opens up as an explorable area. Here, you are questing to 1) fix the damage Deathwing caused when escaping his prison 2) determine who may have helped him escape (twilight cohorts?). There appears to have been some conspiracy here, as one quest chain has you investigate mysterious deaths on an Alliance gunship. (just started this) So far, Elk has made it 2/3rd the way to 83. He has replaced: i251 Tier-10 legs and shoulders i232 neck i245 wand (triumph badge wand) i251 offhand and sword i251 bracers i264 belt.  One of the biggest changes that I am seeing is the dramatic amounts of stamina and intellect stacking on all the gear, just look at my health. In Wrath (5600 gs), I had 21,000 unbuffed. Not really worried about +hit during leveling, since all my mobs are within 1 level of me. Haste is staying on ba...

Just a few minutes ago, while working in Mt Hyjal, clearing dragonkin, I got a pst telling me that I was a #)(*@ RICHARD . All CAPS at that. Ouch! I was hurt, sorta. Best I could figure is this poor DK couldn't compete with my caster reach for tagging mobs. Sure, I ran around then let my minion beat them down. What else was is a lock to do when there's only 6 mobs, I need to kill 12 and there's 5 other people competing for resources? Mr. DK, every aff-lock has had this problem before, because our DOTs don't didn't tick immediately. I've lost mobs where I was first, but melee (aka you) was standing right there and hit it too. Sorry to offend, but what are you going to do when there are 15, 30 or 100 people all competing for those same mobs? In other news, I am still questing in Cata as destruction. I have respec'ed back into Improved Soul Fire , now that I found Soulburn makes it Instant Cast. The hard part is SB has an almost 45s CD (ATM). SB-SF, Ba...

Q: If 310% speed is becoming trainable, does that mean we'll be able to fly in Azeroth from the get-go? A: We have considered the concept of “Old Weather Flying.” Just kidding. More than likely, you’ll just be able to fly from the beginning. ( source ) "Old Weather Flying" has been implemented in Cataclysm. As exalted with Orgimmar, it cost me 200g. To this end, I suggest you finish your rep grind with Orgimmar before Cataclysm drops. Wow.com has this training at 250g. Elk finally got invited to a guild this afternoon. Working from home on Friday's does have perks. One of the cool guild perks this one has is it's own mount. It is currently selling for only a few silver, but that may change. ATM, I also cannot add it to my corral or ride it. A bugged bug?? I also see a guild pet armadillo. (/giggle). Oh, speaking of mounts, check out this one, yes it's an underwater mount, but darn cute. Imagine Elk on one!! Look like a Tauren on a Pally Pony. Yes,...

Today, the Trolls have reclaimed their islands . This short little quest chain starts with a message in my mailbox and ends with me looking like a troll and rolling over Zalazane . It was a fun quest chain, but not an AQ sort of epic. I was really really looking forward to something that would take potentially weeks to complete. Do my little part and then with some big boss fight at the end. If you haven't already completed the quests, here's the basic run down. Reading the wowhead comments, I see people as low as 51 completing this quest chain, so, make sure to enjoy with all your alts. Read more to reveal quest chain spoilers.

uuuuuhhh? Last night, Felruk and I ran another 10, obligatory fights in the rated Arenas. Unfortunately, that was another 7 losses and 3 wins. This isn't saying much, because 1 defaulted, 1 no-show and one, well, one member of the team disappeared, did 0 damage then reappeared when his spell/potion wore-off. I was curious if he was hoping we'd forfeit when we couldn't find him. I think I need more practice .  I think I was dying too quickly.  I think we need a healer . I think Felruk was sleepy and distracted (daughter sitting on his lap). Practice would make the spells come easier. I felt much better getting DOTs on my targets, but still.. I could do better. Now that I am running destruction again, my Fears are taking almost (seems like) a minute to cast. So long, that casting Fear is pointless if they are already attacking me. Howl is great, but it still has a 1s cast time. Shadowflame and Soulflame are great, but both have a long cooldown. Felruk has a pally al...

From the online Horde 21-30 guide I have long been a big fan of Jame's leveling guides over at WoW-Pro.com . These online guides helped Elk level fairly quickly and painlessly from 20 to 75. The guides were concise, with maps and locations to grind for quest items. (He specifically designed the guides to avoid grinding extra mobs to level.) At any time, you could find printed, dog-eared copies of these guides, sitting around my computer, with crossed out segments, and circles of what I still needed to complete. They were extremely helpful, but cumbersome. "Oh man, I skipped a line and missed that quest item, I need to run back..." My current questing status Earlier this week, the Wow-Pro team has released an add-on version of their leveling guide. I loaded up this add-on yesterday (off Curse , WoWMatrix hasn't added it yet) and was quickly impressed. Once, I updated my ACP Questing build to include LightHeaded, and TomTom, I was greeted with a simple interfac...

I would like to propose that we have fun! Let it loose. Quit worrying about gear scores and trainers for a few hours and simply go into the game to be silly, rude and even random().  Here's what I am thinking... Frat Party to the Panties Raid Grab as many of your friends, pick a 10-20 man raid (old world or BC) and complete it. Two requirements: you are totally smashed , pick your poison. healers cannot heal you if you are not. you end with less gear on that started. I suggest a rule where each class must remove an item based on what drops. Cloth shoulders, all priest, mage and warlocks must bag their shoulders.  Repeat raiding until all are naked (or only in non-stat clothes (i.e. seasonal clothes, pirate shirts or guild tabards )) Streak Dalaran Now that you are all (virtually) naked, streak around Dalaran (as a group). Make a few laps, whooping it up as noisily as possible. Invite those that join you for on a...   Naked Progressive Party By now, hopefully,...

the master at work I want to be just like him. I want the ability to work in my alchemy lab, and discover new potions and elixirs. Not just your standard research , but I want to go out in the field and pull samples from enemy mobs. I want to create poison gases and fuming flasks that I can drop like hunter traps. I want CC type potions that I can throw at mobs and turn them into ooey gooey blue gooey goo . I want to sprinkle some elixir on my dead party members and turn them into Festergut (at least for a short time). I want my Mad Alchemist potion to sometimes turn me, visually, into an actual Mad Alchemist (ala Savory Deviate Delight ). I don't want to be a grand master alchemist. I want to be a professor.

Last night, Order of Thought , made our first pass at Sindragosa . For half the group, this was old hat. Having it run it in 10/25 on their mains, this easy-mode 10 was cake. Unfortunately for the other 5 of us, this was a first encounter. I feel that 7 wipes were actually great for this fight, considering it is the second to last boss. At least one of those attempts she was below 10% health. Guess who's coming for dinner?? This fight is all about the dance . You have phase one and the Unchained Magic, which reminds me of Tyrannous (in PoS) with his targeted damage (what you cast, hurts another raid member). Phase 2 reminds me of the fight against Garfrost , where you need to hide behind the object ("I got a rock") to avoid massive AoE damage. Here's what I learned in our 7 attempts on her Monday night. Let me first rehash her abilities: Ground phase: Unchained Magic - 2 targeted people get a stacking Instability debuff = 2000 dmg x per stack when buff f...