As i mentioned before, i joined Pox Arcanum, an interesting guild that has been called “Anti-PuG experiment”. Basically, from level 10 and up all your leveling is done in a 5 man group. I rolled a druid, and quickly got him to level 10, where he now waits for more companions.

I figured that my toon would have to wait a while to get in a group, since all the ones that already existed were full, but i managed to luck out and hook up with Doodle to start a new group, or Pox. Poxes are designated by colors, so we decided that from now on, we will be called Goldipox. We recruited a resto shaman, and are now waiting for two dps players to join us.

If all of this sounds interesting to you and you want to know more, you can go read the guidelines, and if you’re still interested after that, you can fill the sign up sheet. After that you can join the Google Group where all the guild discussion takes place, and where you will find the spreadsheet with all the teams in it. If you have one or more weekend evenings available to play, and you want to play a DPS class, Goldipox has a spot for you!.

Pox Arcanum it’s an exsperiment by a group of bloggers to create an alt guild, divided in fove man groups that level together, at scheduled times. Sounds interesting enough, so i joined. Seems like there’s quite a few established groups, but some of us are trying to put a new group together, so if you’re interested, now may be the best time to join.

Also, i’ve decided to give Twitter a try. Seems like a fun way to waste time at work, and to rant during raids. Now i just need to find a way to put it n this blog… maybe RSS? let’s see what i can do.

And speaking of Epic Kills, we had to basically 12 man mags with 5 melee, some healers and the tank… running to click cubes and then back to DPS was not pretty, but he died anyway.. The melee group is just that good.

Many people think the best kills are the ones where everyone is alive and well at the end of the fight, and the boss goes down way ahead of the enrage timer. Not me.

For me, the best kills are the ones where the boss enrages at 1%, just as the tank pops Last Stand, Shield Wall and the healers try to keep him alive as the dps wails away trying to kill it before the tank goes down. Or the kills where your raid frames look like that image to the right. The screenshot is from our first Rage Winterchill kill, where seven people took him from 25% to dead after everyone else was slowly killed one by one.

Luckyly we were way ahead of the timer when people started to drop, and with the help of the NPCs the surviving people managed to burn him down, while the rest of us cheered over vent or chat, suffering while we watched healthbars drop and then go back up.

Eventually every fight ends up being put on farm and losing it’s thrill, but first kills like this are memorable enough that they give you energy to keep going for weeks and weeks of farming old content and wiping on progression.

]]> http://anglachel.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/epic-kills/feed/ 0 Anglachel http://anglachel.wordpress.com/2008/05/22/wotlk-enchants-from-a-warriors-pov/ http://anglachel.wordpress.com/2008/05/22/wotlk-enchants-from-a-warriors-pov/#comments Thu, 22 May 2008 21:05:12 +0000 Anglachel http://anglachel.wordpress.com/?p=45 ]]>

Along with talents, the leaked information also included enchants. As i am a 375 enchanter, i looked around, and there’s some new and interesting things in there.

Besides upgrades to the current enchants (think +16 stam to bracers and things like that) there are some new enchants that open new possibilities for gearing our warriors.

• Enchant Cloak – Haste: “Permanently enchant a cloak to increase haste rating by 20. Requires a level 60 or higher item.”

• Enchant Bracers – Expertise: “Permanently enchant bracers to increase expertise rating by 15. Requires a level 60 or higher item.”

• Enchant Gloves – Expertise: “Permanently enchant gloves to increase expertise rating by 15. Requires a level 60 or higher item.”

• Enchant Weapon – Lifeward: “Permanently enchant a melee weapon to sometimes heal you. Requires a level 60 or higher item.”
• Enchant Weapon – Scourgebane: “Permanently enchant a melee weapon to increase attack power by $44594s1 against Undead. Requires a level 60 or higher item.”
• Enchant Weapon – Icebreake: “Permanently enchant a Melee Weapon to sometimes inflict Fire damage. Requires a level 60 or higher item.”
• Enchant Weapon – Deathfrost: “Permanently enchant a weapon so your damaging spells and melee weapon hits occasionally inflict an additional 150 Frost damage and reduce the target’s melee, ranged, and casting speed by 15% for 8 sec. Requires a level 60 or higher item.”
• Enchant Weapon – Giant Slayer: “Permanently enchant a melee weapon to have a chance of reducing movement speed and doing additional damage against Giants. Requires a level 60 or higher item.”

• Enchant Ring – Haste: “Permanently enchant a ring to increase haste rating by 20. Only the Enchanter’s rings can be enchanted, and enchanting a ring will cause it to become soulbound.”
• Enchant Ring – Assault: “Permanently enchant a ring to increase attack power by 40. Only the Enchanter’s rings can be enchanted, and enchanting a ring will cause it to become soulbound.”

Personally i think the biggest thing is Deathfrost. Depending on it’s proc rate it may become the new tanking enchant of choice. Not only will it add threat, but it will also add a good deal of mitigation through the slowing effect, which unlike Thunderclap applies to casting sped also. If it stacks with TC, even better.

For DPS, the thing that pops up first are the new expertise enchants. This is a very powerful stat, and seeing 2 new sources for it is quite good. Also of note are the haste enchants, but the value of haste is still being disputed, so we’ll have to see how they do.

Finally it looks like weapon enchants are steering away from stuff like Mongoose or Executioner and going back to stuff like Fiery and Icy.

surfing the forums at work, i found a link to supposed leaked warrior talents. At first i dismissed them as fakes, and i just kept going with my routine, until i came back from lunch to find the talents had been posted on WoWInsider, and then removed at the request of Blizzard. Apparently, Blizz’s PR department sent an email threatening sites to deny them press access to Blizzcon unless they pulled the information.

That, right there, pretty much convinced me that there has to be something true about the leaked stuff. Since i have no chance to go to Blizzcon, much less with press access, i am happy to present to you the leaked data, courtesy of this wiki.

• Titan’s Grip – Allows you to equip two-handed axes, maces and swords in one hand, but you attack 28/26/24/22/20% slower then normal (fury)
• Strength of Arms – Increases your Strength and total health by 1/2/3/4/5%. (arms)
• Shockwave – “Sends a wave of force in front of the warrior, causing ${$m3/100*$AP} damage (based on attack power) and stunning all enemy targets within 10 yards in a frontal cone for 4 sec. This ability causes a high amount of threat.” [20 rage, 45 sec cooldown] (prot)
• Sword and Board – When your Devastate and Shield Slam abilities deal damage they have a 2/4/6/8/10% chance of refreshing the cooldown of your Shield Slam ability and reducing its cost by 100% for 5 sec. (prot)
• Safeguard – ,”Reduces damage taken by the target of your Intervene ability by 20/40/60% for 6 sec. In addition, your Charge, Intercept and Intervene abilities have a 33%/66%/100% chance to remove all movement impairing effects when used.” (prot)
• Trauma – “Your normal melee critical strikes increase the effectiveness of Bleed effects on the target by 15/30% for 15 sec.”
• _Bladestorm – Instantly Whirlwind all nearby targets and for the next 4.5 sec you will perform a whirlwind attack every 1.5 seconds. While under the effects of Bladestorm, you can move but cannot perform any other attacks or abilities but you do not feel pity or remorse or fear and you cannot be stopped unless killed. [25 rage, cooldown: 90 sec] (arms)
• Stalwart Protector – You gain 1/2 rage every time you parry or dodge an attack.
• Furious Resolve – Reduces threat caused by attacks in Battle and Berserker Stance by 4/7/10% and increases your total Stamina by 1/3/5%. (fury)
• Mighty Blow – Inflicts normal damage plus $s1 to an enemy, knocking it back.
• Bull Rush – Increases the duration of the Stun effect of your Charge and Intercept abilities by [?] seconds. (arms)
• Unrelenting Assault – Reduces the cooldown of your Overpower and Revenge abilities by [?] seconds. (arms)
• Bloodsurge – Your Bloodthirst critical hits have a [?]% chance of reducing the swing time of your next Slam by [?] for [?]. (fury)
• Critical Block – Your successful blocks have a [?]% chance to block double the normal amount. (prot)

There’s also a mock up talent tree here.

Personally, i think prot got the best end of the stick, but overall the new talents are underwhelming, so i foresee a lot of warriors, especially DPS, using hybrid builds, since mostof the deep talents seem to not be worth not getting some mid tier talents.

First, about my fishing cooking:

Pretty decent… i still need to do more fishing, but for now i can cook Roasted Clefthoof, which saves me a good amount of money, and i can catch Lurker (i always seem to get it on the first cast too… i’m that good).

I’ve been PvE arms specced for about 3 weeks now, and it’s been really nice to be able to take that time from tanking. To be honest, tanking had gotten to be a bit of a chore, and i am glad to have a bit of a vacation from it. I may go back to prot in a while, but for now i am enjoying being DPS.

I’m also looking quite spiffy, if i may say so myself.

Yesterday, after a ridicoulously long, but incredibly fun AV, i was looking for something to do, and made a decision… it was time…

Time to follow Filthy Rich K’s advice and pick up fishing and cooking.

So, i headed up to Elwynn, bought a fishing pole and got to fishing. I thought it would be boring, but to tell you the truth it has a strange appeal… i said “only 30 minutes”, and i ended up spending an hour and a half doing it… i even logged in for 20 minutes before going to work just to grab a few extra fishes. I lucked out and caught a Weather Beaten Journal, so it seems the future is promising.

So far i’m at 154 cooking and 133 fishing, and i’m hoping to get to the useful level for both in no more than two weeks… it should help lower my raiding expenses, which are getting kind of scandalous.

Since some other bloggers are taking this, i went to Guildcafe and took it and got the following results:

AEKS
Breakdown: (Achiever 93.33%, Explorer 46.66%, Killer 46.6666666666667%, Socializer 13.33%)

People with high Achiever scores tend to prefer collecting points, levels, treasure and accomplishments that set them apart from other players–or simply present challenges.

Makes sense… every single thing i do in the game is a step towards a greater goal, and i’m always setting goals for myself to keep me motivated. First it was getting to 70, then it was getting geared, then it was Kara, then getting my Epic Flyer, then getting into 25 man raiding. If you think about it, i’ve done a lot of things since i started playing last october… and hopefuly, with the great raid i’ve been running with, i’ll be killing Illidan before Wrath…

Never respec in a hurry, or you’ll end up forgetting essential talents.

/slapface

I had to respec fast for a Kara raid, and forgot to take the very useful Shield Mastery.

Good news is we still managed to clear all the way up to Curator in a little over 2 hours, and the Shattered Sun shield proved it’s value as a threat piece.

Also, in lack of a sacrificial gnome, a sacrificial Dwarf will do just fine. After our resident dwarf fury warrior started dying we got a blue JC pattern and the +shadow neck from trash.

There’s few feelings in this game that match up to the one you get when you down a boss that’s been giving you problems for the first time. Especially if you get him on your first attempt of the day.

Last week we had been having issues with Al’ar. Our add tank was getting blown up, people were standing in Flame Patches, it wasn’t pretty. This week however it was a different story. We walked in, and everyone was perfect, paying attention and making sure to stay alive. We downed him with plenty of time left on the timer, which is always good, and as soon as he died Vent went razy with all the people cheering… it’s great to get a block out of the road.

The great thing about starting a raid with a new kill is that you feel powerful. We went ahead and one shotted Solarian, and then 2 shotted Void Reaver, who is still bugged apparently.

So, now we’re coming back tomorrow, and try to get Kael down… we pulled him once just to see how far we could get, and it looks like an incredible fun fight, but hard as hell.