"New" Calendar Wallpapers

Some people call it lazy, but I prefer to call it simplifying. If I can get all of my Wow news information from one source, or one web page, I do it. Sure there's probably stuff I miss sometimes, but overall, I get the big picture.

So, in that spirit, I stopped going to worldofwarcraft.com a loooong time ago. Their news of their own game was usually already out on some other site. The comics were funny, but I was generally following those artists on their own sites already. But somehow... I missed this.

Blizzard has been putting out Wallpapers for your desktop that are Wow images, and have a calendar of the month on it. Apparently they've been doing this since about April of this year, and I'm just now discovering it. On top of that, I'm generally forgetful about changing my Wallpaper, hence why (at work) I've had the same alpha picture of Stormwind Harbor since after the NDA was lifted from a friend of mine who was lucky enough to get in to alpha.

So, there's a really fun wallpaper up for December, 2 in fact. I hope they continue this trend. I'm not sure when they release the next month's one. Hopefully they'll have January's up soon. At any rate, it may actually motivate me enough to monthly change my wallpaper. Now, if I can just figure out a way to automate that.

The Toothpick of Winter's Veil

I know this is actually old news. In fact, this news is technically about 1 year old. The majority of people that care are completely over the fact there is a Winter's Veil achievement. They've done it. Heck, the probably did it a year ago. But for me, and all the other people that haven't gotten around to it yet, there is an achievement, and I'm working on it.

But, just like Hallow's End, there's a completely crappy random part of the achievement that you have to complete. It's the Bros. Before Ho Ho Ho's achievement. Nevermind the fact that Horde has to find 3 brothers while Alliance has to find 9. No, that's not my issue. Also ignore the fact that we have to go to 5 different locations, where again, the Horde has to go to only 3. No, that's not what I care about either.

The issue is, just like the Tooth Pick, it's completely random what you get... you know... from the person you can get stuff once every hour. In Hallow's End, it was the Inn Keepers. In Winter's Veil, it's the Mistletoe. Yep, once per hour you can /kiss one of the Holiday people in the Inns and they either give you Snowflakes, Fresh Holly, or Mistletoe.

Want to take a guess who's gotten a ton of Fresh Holly and Snowflakes but no Misteltoe? Yep... there's the random part of the game again that's completely against me. /sigh. Well... at least I have until January 2nd. Maybe I'll log in once per hour tomorrow. Of course, I still won't have any, but still...

At any rate, hope everyone has a very, merry Christmas. And may all your loot drop and you win the rolls.

3.3: The Death to Hogger Raids

I spent a small amount of time on the PTRs this time for 3.3. It was fun to get a sneak peak of some of the stuff coming up. Other than that, I really haven't read too much about ALL the details of the patch that's going live today... until today.

Since it is patch day, I try to read in detail, or at least peruse the lines that would be of some importance to me. (Like I really care about warlock changes. lol) And with 3.3, I read a line that saddened me. It basically ruins a number of the fun things that I always wanted to try but never got around to actually organize or participate in.

From the official 3.3 Patch Notes:

Players below level 10 may not join raids.

So, what does this mean?

• I can no longer suggest my running joke of level 1 Hogger Raids.
• Level 1 bank alts cannot form raids to help 80's farm Old World Raid Content.
• And the naked gnome race from SW to IF that I always wanted to do can no longer be tracked with a raid mod.

Think of it as the end of an era, I guess. I also remember seeing a really cool even where a bunch of level 1's took on a level 70 mage "boss". Looked like a fun time. If I recall correctly, the mage only used low level spells, had certain emotes before major spells, etc. It was really well thought out. But alas, it would have to be a bunch of level 10's against the lvl 80 mage "boss" now.

Screwed Again by Legendary Weapons

Preface:

Let me start off this post with a disclaimer. I fully realize the tremendous feat that it can be to obtain some of the Legendary Weapons in the game. Especially some of them that required long quests or multiple drops. I also realize that I will most likely not ever be in a position to actually obtain any current-content Legendary Weapon, but that said...

So, it looks pretty certain that 3.3 will be coming on Tuesday if not "soon"®. And with it, we get a whole bunch of goodies that Blizzard has been working on. That's great! I'm excited. No really. There's a lot of new stuff that I'm really looking forward to. From running dungeons with Pug's from other servers, to the random dungeon quest, to the new dungeons to the new raids... It really looks like Blizzard is hitting a home run with this one. With the cop-out of easy design for ToC and Onyxia's Lair, this is really a breath of fresh air.

Only... I'm a little concerned about some itemization. And while I don't play my mage as much as I used to, I'm going to have to take a full mage point of view here. Furthermore, as possibly a first, I'm going to have to side with Warlocks. *gasp*.

See, the thing is... if you take a look at the Legendary Weapons and which class can use them, there's really a huge discrepancy in what should probably be equal distribution. Out of the 8 Legendary weapons in the game as of 3.3 (1 of which, Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian, is no longer attainable), Warriors can use 6. And those 6 can all be used in a Warrior's role. (I'm not counting the temporary Legendary weapons you loot in The Eye while fighting Kael'thas.) Rogues and Paladins can use 4. Death Knights and Druids can use 3. (1 of which is Atiesh for the druids.) Priests, Hunters, and Shaman can use 2. (Again, Atiesh for the Priests.) And Mage and Warlock? Well, technically it's 2 that we can use. But 1 of them is Atiesh and the other is Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker.

Does anybody see anything wrong with this? As a Mage or Warlock, if you want a legendary weapon, your options are either get Thurderfury that does absolutely nothing for you since it's a melee weapon, or buy an account that got Atiesh before it was taken out as of patch 3.0. Furthermore, we haven't had a new legendary weapon introduced into the game since before The Burning Crusade. That's over 3 years!

Rogues had a hay-day in TBC when the 3 Legendaries that dropped off of Illidan and Kil'jaedon could all be used by them. The Thoridal, the Stars' Fury practically screamed Hunter, but could be picked up and used by the other two bow-wielding classes. And most of the classes, except for the one fight up in The Eye didn't get a single legendary for all of TBC.

And now? Now they're bringing them back. All of the healers I knew were excited for Val'anyr, even if better weapons are out now. And with the introduction of 3.3, we have this new Shadowmourne.

Look at it. Mouse over it. Click the link. Do what you need to. You'll notice something. It blatantly mocks every class except the 3 listed. Even if the other 7 classes wanted it just to look cool, they cannot. It is for these 3 classes only: Death Knight, Paladin, and Warrior. One class that's been here for only 1 expansion, one class that also had access to Val'anyr, and one class that now has access to 8 Legendary weapons.

So, the morale of the story is thus: If you're looking for Legendary weapons, role a Warrior.

The Wow Doldrums

So, I got called out on my lack of writing lately. And since it's completely true, I figured I should fix the situation. But truth be told, there's just not a lot to write about lately. So, I really feel like I'm in the Doldrums for Wow.

I've seen and conquered all the fights in 10-man ToC. There's still Ulduar to finish off, but people aren't as interested to do that with ToC gear out. I started building my tanking set for my Shaman, but it requires way too much pvp, and I could never get that dang stamina trinket to drop out of normal 5-man Toc. So, I've been slowly working on my druid... just to have a tank for kicks, but he's still about 11 level away from tanking anything at level 80.

On top of that, work being slightly engaging lately... and Ikariam taking up time. (heh... yep.)

So... yeah... but I have been working on a post. I'll see what I can do to finish it up and get it out today... maybe. :)

Gear Rating Web Sites

I'm a little concerned about the recent trend that has come up to entirely base people's ability to play WoW on a gear score. I mean, these gear scores have been around for a really long time. I can remember in mid-BC sites like be.imba coming up and telling you everything you need to know about your toon (wrong enchants, upgradable gems, etc.). Now we have ones like Wow-Heroes and probably 15 others as well that will give a score and tell you where these people can (and can't) raid.

This was set off when earlier this week, we ran a pretty smooth 25-man PUG into Onyxia. There were only about 4 of us from the guild that wanted to do it, so we had to PUG just a few people. As we were forming the raid and getting people on Vent, a couple of people were asking what gear score was needed to join our PUG. Is such and such number high enough for my friend to come along?

Umm... I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but it's Onyxia. Get a couple of geared tanks (which were in guild) and a couple of good healers (which I am *flex* and so was another guildie or two), then you can pug a crappy healer and a whole bunch of dps. As long as everyone stays out of the deep breaths, you really don't have to worry about killing her in record speed. I'm thoroughly convinced that a group in all blues could take her down. She's not hard. She hasn't changed much in the past 4 or so years.

So, while I really appreciate all these gear-checking/rating sites, I would advise using them with caution. Even with the best gear in the world, you still have to know how to (A) do your job, and (B) avoid fires.

Furthermore... didn't Blizzard make "most" classes equal so that we can play with our friends? If one of your 15 (or so) DPS is a lame duck, it's probably okay if he dies. Especially if you get Ony to phase 3... DPS makes it go faster... that's all. Shoot, at that point, all you need is your healers and your tank. She'll die eventually.

Economics on Enchanting Pre-3.3

Matticus posted his thoughts on disenchanting for 3.3. Overall, he believes it's a good thing. And while I agreed with him initially, his article got me thinking about materials we use and how they're gathered, and how I completely disagree with him.

One of the points he makes is that skinners, miners and herbalists get to keep everything. Heck, you don't even roll on one of those things unless there's multiple toons that have that profession. And yes, that person gets to keep it all.

He also points out that given this thought process, enchanters would roll on everything so they could shard it. Personally, I think this is a huge fallacy. If an item is an upgrade for a player, it is much more valuable then the shard would be. So the priority list would go something like The Upgrade > The Offset > The Shard > The Gold from Vendoring the item. Look at how we treat green items today. No enchanter "needs" on all the greens. I've never had anyone ask if there's an enchanter that will collect the greens. And I'm sure that's a function of greens that drop in instances are BoE. But in a sense, aren't blues and purples BoE for a short amount of time now with people in your group?

So, let's take a look at what we get from those gathering professions that everyone in the group can use.

Skinning
You get leather. I suppose you could argue that that could be useful to everyone by means of the Drums of Forgotten Kings or Drums of the Wild. But we always run raids with at least 1 druid and 1 paladin, so I really don't care. You could even go as far as to talk about leg armor for melee classes or tanks, but it doesn't really benefit everyone. So, Skinners? Go ahead and keep your leather.

Herbalism
Herbalism gathers flowers. Flowers make flasks. Flasks can also be ground into ink for Glyphs. Maybe we should start rolling on herbs. Then again, if you want a flask or glyph, you generally just go to the AH and pick those up. You don't usually see somebody looking for an alchemist in Trade unless the AH is completely out of them. But I'm sure you'll get a fight if you ask to roll on the flowers.

Mining
Ore can be prospected into gems. Gems are generally more valuable than ore. Even the raw ore is still something that should be rolled on, but I don't see that happening after years of habits of letting the miners get it. So, fine... miners can keep their ore as well.

Enchanting
Yep... everyone can use the enchanting materials. Everyone can (and probably should) enchant their gear. And yes, it's needed by everyone. But as an enchanter, do you want to disenchant all of the items people don't use? The economic answer is: NO! You do not.

Let's pretend that all enchanters on your server went on strike. "No more Instance Disenchants" is their battle cry. (It's not catchy, but you get the idea.) They only disenchant the blues, purples, and greens that they win on greed rolls. Supply for Enchanting Mats would go down, therefore raising the price. On the other side, for you non-disenchanters, you'll be forced to sell those blues and purples you won on a greed roll to a vendor, so you now have more money to spend on Enchanting Materials. Prices go up some more.

Bottom line is this: Enchanters revolt! We only have a small window of time before 3.3 goes live and forever breaks our ability to revolt. Stop* enchanting all the PUG blues and purples. Reclaim the enchanting materials market and profit. Make sure every enchanter you know gets this message!

*Note: You might want to continue providing this service to guild members. But then again, I guess it just depends on how much of a jerk you want to be.