Off Topic

Win? Maybe?

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On the issue of international availability of the Blizzard Authenticators, as reported by MMO-Champion, this came from a blue post:

“We’re also aware that non-U.S.-based players on our North American realms were unable to purchase the Blizzard Authenticator from the online store when it was available. This was due to shipping-related issues with our store for this device that could not be resolved by the time it first went on sale. Rather than delay the launch, we felt it was important to make the Authenticator available to as many people as possible as quickly as we could. We’re continuing to work on a solution for these players and will provide an update as further progress is made.”

I don’t see what’s so hard about the “solution” of shipping overseas – I hear the postal service has this thing called ‘international mail’ now – but I’m glad to know they’re not deaf to the issue, at least.

Game Info

Holy Paladin Raiding Consumables

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Update: This post has been revised and updated here.

This one’s going around the blogosphere lately, so here’s my quick guide to raiding consumables for holy paladins. (Bellwether covered the same issue for resto druids, and Big Bear Butt for feral tanks; I’m sure there will be more coming soon.)

Two things to note:

  1. I’m recommending consumables that give you a good balance of stats, where feasible. If you’re very well-geared in one area and need to boost a specific stat, you can make your own choices.
  2. My recommendations are specific for holy paladins. If you’re a priest, all those +Spirit consumables I wrote off are great for you. If you’re a protection paladin trying to heal, anything with spell crit is relatively useless and you’re looking for all the mp5 you can get. Et cetera.

Elixirs: Battle Elixirs

Adept’s Elixir – the increase to spelldamage is irrelevant, but this elixir gives a boost to both throughput and mana restoration. For holy paladins, this one’s a show-stopper.

Elixir of Healing Power – this one’s a good alternative for situations where you just need healing oomph, and nuts to the regen. In other situations, it’s inferior to Adept’s Elixir, but better than nothing.

Elixirs: Guardian Elixirs

Elixir of Major Mageblood – the standout choice for paladins, who tend to suffer over passive in-combat regen.

Mageblood Potion – it may be a pre-TBC recipe using Azerothian mats, but this is surprisingly effective as an emergency replacement for Elixirs of Major Mageblood.

Elixir of Draenic Wisdom – inferior to Mageblood elixirs, as paladins derive no benefit from Spirit, but 30 Int is still nothing to sneer at.

Flasks

Flask of Mighty Restoration – again, the standout choice for paladins. Shattrath Flask of Mighty Restoration is a good alternative if you have the relevant rep to buy it (Exalted with Cenarion Expedition, Sha’tar, and Scryer/Aldor) and you’re raiding the appropriate zones.

Flask of Distilled Wisdom – again, inferior to the regen-boosting Restoration flask, but an acceptable alternative for the all-around boost to healing, mana pool and spell crit.

Unstable Flask of the Elder for Gruul’s Lair raids; this is superior for paladins to the Unstable Flask of the Physician, although that’s certainly better than nothing.

Weapon Oils

Brilliant Mana Oil – arguably the best choice, with a balance of mp5 and +heal. Unfortunately it’s an old-world recipe (requiring Zandalar faction).

Superior Mana Oil – inferior to the Brilliant Mana Oil, but much more readily available. Superior Wizard Oil is also a good option; although the tooltip says “spell damage”, it does apply to healing as well.

Foods

Blackened Sporefish – for mana regen and survivability. The mp5 boost is small enough, though, that this is on-par with:

Golden Fishsticks – which has a really good healing buff. The Spirit is useless for paladins, but 44 +Heal alone is nothing to sneeze at.

Any stamina food, such as Feltail Delight (which is the one I use most often). The spirit does little for a paladin, but an extra 300 health is always welcome, and 20 Stamina foods are common enough that you should keep this up pretty much all the time unless you need one of the better food buffs for a boss fight.

Potions

I won’t list them all, as one of my earliest blog posts was a guide to mana and healing potion types; however, these are the ones I specifically recommend:

Super Mana Potion, or the stacks-to-20 version, the Mana Potion Injector. Your basic mana potion; you will, at times, drink these like water. You can replace these with any of the alternatives I list in the linked post, of course.

Super Healing Potion and the Healing Potion Injector. You don’t need to take nearly as many of these to a raid, but you should always have at least some on you.

What about Super Rejuvenation Potions, or the Alchemist-only equivalent Mad Alchemist’s Potions? Carry 1 stack, but don’t use them unless you gotta. Remember that healing received will top up your mana via spiritual attunement, so if you’re healing yourself with a pot, that’s a lost opportunity for mana regen.

Obviously, don’t stint yourself on healing (self-heals, pots and healthstones) at the expense of other healers’ mana pools, but if there’s ambient healing available (Leader of the Pack, Vampiric Embrace, etc) and you’re not likely to take a big spike of damage you’re better off taking advantage of those to restore your health, and taking an ordinary mana potion instead.

Scrolls

These aren’t essential, as they don’t stack with player buffs, but they are handy for situations where rebuffing is unlikely (for instance, after receiving a battle-rez) or where you’re missing a particular buffing class from a raid (not uncommon in 10-mans). You can safely ignore Strength and Spirit scrolls, but scrolls of Intellect are always good for a boost to your mana pool. Scrolls of Stamina, Protection, and Agility can also be useful if you’re expecting to get hit.

Other Items
Note that these all share a cooldown.

Demonic Rune – it’s only a small amount of mana restoration, but it’s enough for 5-8 Flash Heals (and causes you damage, thereby giving you the opportunity to regain mana via Spiritual Attunement).

Charged Crystal Focus – available from the AH in their uncharged state, or farmed from mobs around the Ogri’la daily quest hub. Excellent for when you don’t have a healthstone handy.

There are some profession-specific extras, as well: Fel Blossoms are good for herbalists, as a damage shield isn’t affected by healing reductions (from mortal-strike-y effects); Dense Stone Statues for Jewelcrafters heal you for 1250 healing across 25 ticks, but it counts as healing rather than ‘health restore’, so it does give you a small amount of mana back as well.

Personally?
I carry: 20 Healing Potion Injectors, 20 Mana Potion Injectors, 10 Mad Alchemist’s Potions, 1 stack of each type of elixir, 1 stack of Mighty Restoration flasks, 10 charges of Brilliant Mana Oil, 1 stack of Blackened Sporefish and 1 stack of Stamina food, 2 stacks of Dense Stone Statues and 1 stack of Charged Crystal Foci. Oh, and a stack of Intellect V scrolls.

Edited to add in Superior Wizard Oil; thanks Valyre for the reminder!

Game Info

Ahune, take two.

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For those of you well-aware that I’m a tabardaholic, here’s the latest to grace my collection!

Tabard of Summer Skies

This means, of course, that we succeeded in getting Ahune down on the first attempt, this time around. Group makeup was: bear druid, holy paladin, prot paladin (the alt of one of the frost mages from last time), fire mage (the other frost mage from last time, post-respec) and a (different) BM hunter. Bear druid tanked the hailstone elite elemental, prot paladin held the swarms of little elementals, holy paladin (moi!) healed, and the mage and hunter DPSed. Zero problems – as it should be, given that everyone other than the prot pally was in T5+ gear.

Given the un-sterling loot off him, I’m not particularly fussed about going back in to farm him, but I’m glad to be able to say the sucker’s dead – and I’d have been mighty upset about missing out on the tabard!

Playstyle

On roleplaying, and why I don’t RP in WoW

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I just read a very interesting post on WoWInsider talking about what roleplayers want that Blizzard’s not giving them.

In summary, the article said that what RPers want

…is customization. They want to create items and spaces which are all their own, not just appreciate the events and stories that Blizzard comes up with. They want things like houses to live in, family surnames, notebooks they can write in, clothes and disguises they can wear at any time or any place, ways to show their personal descriptions and other information without needing a special addon to make it work. For them, the game is not just consumption of whatever Blizzard creates, it is a sandbox playground, in which they can use the tools to make up stories of their own within Blizzard’s world.

This sums up really well why I feel that trying to RP in WoW would be swimming against the tide. Blizzard offers the RPers vanity frills like the Fire Festival dancing girl, but there are no ways to make your mark on the world.

I can’t help but compare this with a few other games of my experience:

  • Everquest 2: Almost as poor for RP; you could have your ‘own space’ in the world by acquiring a player apartment, but it was expensive, had little customisation, and was totally instanced so people only knew you were there if they were already looking for you.
  • Lord of the Rings Online: Better; you can have surnames, you can create and display family relationships (one character can ‘adopt’ another, and they both have access to titles like “Arwen, daughter of Elrond” and “Elrond, father of Arwen”), you can enter a character bio (which I believe is visible to people inspecting you), and there’s housing. The housing is instanced, but the instances are on a neighbourhood scale of a couple of dozen houses, so there’s a sense of making an impact on the world around you. And there are several dozen titles you can earn by doing things in the world – everything from “Fur-Cutter” (killing wolves in the Shire) to “Warlord of Angmar” (for owning everything in the face, hero-style).
  • Star Wars Galaxies: A roleplayer’s delight. SWG allowed you to choose surnames, but it allowed a lot more than that: you could place buildings in the world (as each zone was vast), so homes were accessible for all to see; there were buildings for all kinds of functions (one of our players used to run a bar in a tavern-style building); there were totally viable non-combat classes (dancers and musicians, for instance, served useful and viable roles in the world); you could create hundreds of outfits of non-combat clothing in thousands of colour combinations; et cetera. There were other factors that made SWG great for RPing, but those were the standouts.

Put simply: although I’m a roleplayer as a hobby (why yes, I do play Dungeons & Dragons) I find the idea of roleplaying in WoW actively offputting. I really enjoy some of the RP exploits in WoW I’ve read about – Anna of Too Many Annas writes great character vignettes, and no-one can forget the vastly entertaining adventures of Team Ratshag (especially Galertruby ♥). But personally, I just can’t get past the absolute inability to customise your character and the way they’re presented to the world, nor the dearth of opportunities to make your mark in the world (beyond a quest NPC yelling out zonewide thanks to $your_name_here).

Give me player housing, character customisation, visible marks of achievement (and I don’t mean Phat Epicz), and I’m there. Without them? I find it impossible to forget that WoW is a computer game, with very visible and intrusive game mechanics, and I’ll stick with Dungeons & Dragons (yes, and Shadowrun, and Exalted, and so on) for my roleplaying fix.

Off Topic

Diablo 3 it is, then.

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So, it’s official: Diablo 3 is the next Blizzard game. I’m having a heart attack and dying of not surprise, as Zazu would say; the rumours pointing to this announcement had become almost overwhelming over the last couple of weeks.

The haters and the forum trolls are alive and well, of course, but personally I’m excited. Diablo 2 apparently still holds the record for the fastest-selling computer game of all time; despite the claims of the haters, it’s a much-loved computer series, and almost everyone I know is hyped to see it.

I HAZ A THEORY
I believe there are crossovers – connections, of some type – between Azeroth and the world of Diablo.

Consider, for instance, the similar abilities of some characters in the World of Diablo and in Azeroth. Paladins, as a stand-out example, have a lot of points of commonality between the two settings. (For instance, the core unique mechanic of Paladins in Diablo 2? Auras.)

And here are two pictorial pieces of evidence. First, someone on the MMO-Champion forums pointed out that there’s a certain amount of similarity between the Lich King and Diablo.

And secondly, does this landscape look a bit familiar?

The image on the left is from the Diablo 3 cinematic trailer; the image on the right is a Wrath of the Lich King screenshot.

Perhaps Diablo and the other Prime Evils lie far in Azeroth’s past… or future.

Game Info, Playstyle

Anyone For Cards?

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(aka the WoW Trading Card Game Loot Guide)

There are a number of fun vanity items in the game that you can’t actually get in the game, and I often see questions about how you get them.

The World of Warcraft Trading Card Game is published by Upper Deck Entertainment, in collaboration with Blizzard. It’s a fairly typical collectible/trading card game, with cards of varying rarity purchased in small assorted randomised packs. The game itself isn’t bad, although I haven’t had as much chance to play it as I’d like.

What sets the WoW TCG apart from other trading card games such as Magic: the Gathering is that it has lots of concrete tie-ins with WoW itself, allowing you to get in-game WoW items by acquiring cards in the card game.

There are two main ways to do this:

  1. UDE Points: Every booster pack of 15 cards also contains a “UDE Points card”, usually worth 100 UDE points (although some rare examples have much higher values). Each UDE points card has a unique code on it that you enter online to add the card’s points value to your account; you can spend the UDE Points at UDE’s online store for a variety of items, including in-game items.
  2. Loot Cards: In each expansion set of the game there are three cards which have a special, much rarer, “loot” variant. The loot cards have scratch-off panels hiding a redemption code; entering the code online will net you the in-game item specific to that loot card.

1a. Redeeming Points
UDE Point Card codes are entered at UDE’s site, which functions like an online store. Once you have enough points for the item you want, you place an order, and the store software gives you a code. See step 2.

1b. Getting Loot Cards
Unless you are interested in the trading card game anyway, or have a lot of money to spend on a card game you’re not going to actually play, the best place to get the loot cards is from eBay. This site tracks eBay.com auctions for WoW TCG loot cards, showing you historical price trends and items currently available on eBay. I haven’t used it myself, but it looks like a good service. Once you have the loot card, scratch off the panel to reveal the hidden code. See step 2.

2. Getting the Item
You take your code you received either from UDE’s Points Store, or from scratching the panel on the loot card. Enter that code at Blizzard’s Promotion Code Retrieval page, which will then give you a second code, the “in-game code”. Take this in-game code, make sure you print it out or write it down, and head to Landro Longshot in Booty Bay. He has a redemption dialogue box where you select the category of item you’re seeking, enter your redemption code, and you receive the in-game item. (If your bags are full, you’re supposed to receive the item in the mail instead, but I wouldn’t want to gamble.)

The Loot!

So, what can one get, in-game? Let’s take a look!

Summary as of June 08, patch 2.4.3

  • Tabards: 8
  • Non-combat pets: 5
  • Mounts: 1 flying and 1 ground (both with epic and non-epic versions), and 1 ground with no speed boost
  • Ground-placeable social items: 4
  • Other: 1 disguise trinket, 3 items with cosmetic effects, 2 miscellaneous ‘toy’ items, 1 pet buff consumable

Items from UDE Points

Items from Loot Cards
The card game was released with an original set, the Heroes of Azeroth, and a number of expansion packs. Each set has three loot cards in it:

Original Set: Heroes of Azeroth

  • Tabard of Flame – see right. Card: Landro Longshot.
  • Hippogryph Hatchling – gives you a baby Hippogryph non-combat pet. Card: Thunderhead Hippogryph.
  • Riding Turtle – a riding turtle mount that doesn’t give you any speed boost. Card: Saltwater Snapjaw.

Expansion 1: Through the Dark Portal

  • Picnic Basket – sets up a picnic grill lootable for food, and an umbrella. Card: Rest and Relaxation.
  • Banana Charm – gives you a monkey non-combat pet. Card: King Mukla.
  • Imp in a Ball – an imp, in a ball! Like the sign says! Card: Fortune Telling.

Expansion 2: Fires of Outland

  • Goblin Gumbo Kettle – sets up a kettle of Goblin Gumbo lootable for food. Card: Goblin Gumbo.
  • Fishing Chair – sets up a chair and umbrella to fish from. Card: Gone Fishin’.
  • Reins of the Swift Spectral Tiger and Reins of the Spectral Tiger – see right. A very cool translucent tiger mount; the same card lets you get both epic (Riding: 150) and non-epic (Riding: 75) versions. This card is tremendously valuable, and regularly eBays for four figures. Card: Spectral Tiger.

Expansion 3: March of the Legion

  • Paper Flying Machine Kit – creates a Paper Flying Machine, which will stack to 5 in your bags and can be thrown to others like a Heavy Leather Ball. Card: Paper Airplane.
  • Rocket Chicken – gives you a mechanical chicken pet, complete with rocket boosters. Card: Robotic Homing Chicken.
  • Dragon Kite – gives you a Chinese-style dragon kite on a string (effectively a non-combat pet). Card: Kiting.

Expansion 4: Servants of the Betrayer

Expansion 5: The Hunt for Illidan

  • Path of Illidan – see right. Gives you a buff that leaves green fel-fire in your wake. Card: The Footsteps of Illidan.
  • D.I.S.C.O. – places a disco ball (complete with sparkling reflections) on the ground. Card: Disco Inferno!.
  • Soul-Trader Beacon – summons an Ethereal Soul-Trader “pet”, an Ethereal NPC who follows you around and absorbs energy from kills you make while he’s in the vicinity; you can then use this energy to buy items from him. These include a set of cloth armor meant to look like the Ethereals’ armor, and various consumables with fun non-combat effects.
Game Info

Ahune = Too Hard

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Bellwether of 4 Haelz recently posted about her woes with Ahune, the summonable boss who’s around during the Fire Festival. I commented there, agreeing and saying that I think Ahune is tuned too hard, and I want to elaborate on that here.

I’m sure plenty of people can comment and say they PUGged Ahune with no problems, and that clearly I’m “lol doin it rong”. So, let me explain my problem with the issue:

We went in there with a group of T5/6 geared people who’ve been grouping for two years or more; as a group, we can do heroic Magisters wipe-free; we’re not random Donalds. We had a bear tank, a BM hunter, two frost mages and me healing.

First up, of course, everything in the encounter is immune to frost, which limits the mages to arcane damage (or below-par offspec fire spells), which means they OOM in no time flat. So there are swarms of adds around, which the bear finds very hard to control, so there’s lots of stray agro, everyone gets smeared, I can’t heal through splash damage very well as a paladin, I get smeared from heal agro, we wipe. And because the daily quest is to summon Ahune, not to beat him, you only get five tries a day at him.

You should not have to ask people to respec for a holiday event. Holidays are supposed to be fun and relaxing, with some free gifts for everybody. Look at the Headless Horseman – he was, in my opinion, a well-tuned holiday event. Easy enough that you didn’t have to be well-geared to take him on and people could bring alts for a bit of fun; rewarding (gear-wise) for people at the right level to take him on. Compare that with Ahune, who is far more challenging, with a loot table that’s fairly unrewarding for people who can actually beat him.

I understand why Ahune and his adds are immune to frost damage, but I think it makes for a bad seasonal event. The one-two punch of the frost immunity plus there being a score of adds that have to be AoE-killed or AoE-tanked is just too picky for a holiday event.

In other words: Blizzard, if you’re going to put in a holiday event that’s unplayable for a (fairly popular) spec, you need to make it easy enough that the rest of their party can successfully ‘carry’ them through it rather than having to replace them. Who wants to PuG a holiday? That’s like going on a roadtrip with a stranger because he’s got a better car than your friend.

So, I will still be heading for Ahune to smash his face in – I’m not letting that tabard pass me by. But I’m not happy about the design of the encounter, and I think it’s disappointing that Blizzard dropped the ball on this, when the rest of the Fire Festival has been done so well.

Game Info

One (More) Good Reason to Play the Fire Festival

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In the spirit of my motivational post about the Lunar Festival back in February: here’s why you should do the Fire Festival content:

Experience.

The XP rewards are astounding! As part of the content, you can run around Honoring the fires of your faction, and Desecrating the fires of the enemy faction, and there are 30+ fires for each side.

The XP scales based on level; for instance, Desecrating a fire at level 55 will net you 8150 xp; at level 58, it’s over 9k xp. I can’t speak for all leves, but for my level 55 alt, doing all the fires is going to be worth over 380,000 xp. Given that an entire level only takes about 150k xp for me right now, I’m hoping to be able to ride this event nearly all the way to Outlands!

And that’s not including the XP rewards for the other, associated content like the fire-tossing and fire-catching dailies, or Stealing the Flame from all the enemy faction capital cities.

So – get out there and burn things!