2.3, Flying Mount, and Tanking

Yesterday, being Veteran’s Day here in the United States, I was off work, so I figured that gave me a free pass for my blog as well. But by doing that, I’m going to have to make this a mish-mash of a post so I can cover a couple different things.

Patch 2.3
I fired up the old World Of Warcraft program on my computer this morning just to make sure that 2.3 has gone live, which it has. I know some people complain, but I love that the Blizzard Background Downloader did most of the work way before patch day. I think I only had to download 2 mb or something trivial like that (as compared to the over 200 mb patch that it is).

I think our guild, as a whole, is pretty excited about the whole patch. And I’ve stayed on top of most things on the PTR where when people have said, “Hey, did you know…?” I was confidently able to answer, “Yup.” And from what I’ve heard in the raiding community, it seems that this is one of the patches that has been able to be tested the most (at least for the new instance) since there’s a lot of guilds that have cleared Black Temple and whatnot. So, it will be fun to start playing in there, even if the instance server crashes once or twice.

And the guild vault will be a great place to store goods both in the large guilds, all the way to the 1-man guilds that have sprouted up all over. (I’d love to see numbers on how many new guilds started up over the past few weeks and next few weeks.) 2.3 is really just full of win.

Flying Epic Mount Update
Well, with dailies and a whole bunch of easy quests in Shadowmoon Valley, I was able to hit 5000g on Saturday night. I was also fortunate to find some purple BoE cloth bracers (totally forgot the name, and too lazy to go look it up) in Blade’s Edge which I empowered with Apexis Crystals and put on the AH. The buy-out was 550 with a bid start of about 450. It sold for the bid, and I was able to get both skill, and new riding mount.

I also started on the Netherdrake quests. In two days, I hit Friendly; I got really lucky with finding probably about ½ a dozen eggs. So, I now have something like 6 daily quests there. Not sure I’ll have time to do all of those each day, but it certainly opens up some money making possibilities from quests there. Heck, at this rate, maybe I’ll have enough for my flying epic mount if I ever get my priest past level 64.

Uldaman
My Shaman got to go play in his first instance since Dead Mines. And, I actually co-tanked it. The group we had was two Shamans (level 44), a Druid (level 38), a Hunter (level 40), and a Priest (level 44). The Druid was the main healer, and while I was the Main Tank, the other Shaman probably pulled agro and tanked ½ the time as well. (In this case, pulling agro was a good thing.) The Priest, my wife, was pretty much in shadow form busting out the damage the whole time. We made it through most of the instance by ourselves. It was a good challenge, and lots of fun. If I have the time and appropriate level friends, I love to do the instances at the appropriate level. They’re kind of a bore if you always have somebody walk you through. (Of course, there’s a few, such as Dead Mines, that I could probably live without seeing ever again.) We did call in reinforcements for the last two bosses. We go the 4 statues down to just 3, and then the other Shaman went and got his level 70 hunter to wipe up the rest for us.

The group was all RL friends, so that was fun as well. But afterwards, I remembered that it may have been more level appropriate for the hunter and druid to run Scarlet Monastery, which I haven’t run yet. Oh well. Like I said, it was a lot of fun, and I don’t feel bad that we called in help for the last two. I’m only a wannabe tank, after all.

Why Do We Do Dailies?

Lately I’ve been a lot more diligent about doing my dailies out in Blade’s Edge Mountains.  The driving force behind this is simply the aprox. 7.5g that I get from each of 3 pretty easy quests, and the 6g (and speed boost) from The Relics Emanation.    I look around at all my friends that have epic flying mounts, and I want one too.  My wife even got me a license plate holder that says “My Other Ride is a Flying Epic Mount”.  I really should make that an honest statement.

I’ve probably spent too much time in dungeons where you make less money, and neglected most quests.  I had no problem buying my flying mount, but probably stopped doing quests shortly after that.  In fact, I also realized that there’s very few quests in Nagrand (I knew that one) and Shadowmoon Valley (completely forgot about these) that I have completed.  And most of them are as easy as the dailies.

Oddly enough though, I’m not worried about the speed of the mount.  Yeah, the armor on the standard griffon looks cool, but that’s not really my goal either.  Ever since I first got sight of the Nether Drakes, I wanted one.  They just look so dang cool.  And of course, you can’t get past Neutral reputation with them until you have your 300 riding skill.  So, you need 5200g just to start the reputation grind.

I was thinking about this last night as I was doing my dailies.  One of my rich friends came out to where I was wrangling Aether Rays to get an enchant from me.  (He actually got his money off somebody else that quit the game, but that’s a whole different story.)  And he told me that he hasn’t done his dailies in a long time; there’s basically no motivation for it anymore.

So, when is enough gold… enough?  Once you buy the most expensive thing in the game (300 riding skill), and you’ve got enough to take care of your repairs, how much more do you need?  Sure, there’s still those insanely expensive World Drop Patterns that you’ve been ogling.  And I guess there’s the potential to have something similar to another level of riding skill once the next expansion comes out, but I imagine that 5000g will look about what 1000g did before the expansion came out once the new expansion comes out.  Oh, and there’s always that alt addiction… easier to make money when you have money, so why not have your main finance your alt’s epic flyer?  But seriously… when do you have “enough” money?

It's Not All Good

Ah… next Tuesday.  Patch Day.  I’m very excited; but at the same time, I know it’s going to be bitter-sweet.  All the fun and goodness, with all the normal patch day activities.  This is more of a friendly reminder that 2.3 will break some add-ons, there will most likely be issues, there may even be random server restarts or crashes.  Instance servers have been known to crash; and with everyone wanting a peek at Zul’Aman, I’ll probably surprised if they don’t crash at all… at least somewhere.

Most of the major mod developers seem to be on top of getting things updated quite rapidly.  Hopefully, this will be true for 2.3 as well.  Remember as well, that a lot of times, you can simply load the outdated mod, and it will work just fine.  Sometimes there’s some small side effects as well.

On a pretty major mage note, Kalgan has stated that iceblock will soon (post 2.3 most likely) be trainable for all mages, mana issues in longer fights for mages will be addressed, and mana gems will soon get a buff.  Hmm… I wonder if they’ll ever be sharable.  Now wouldn’t that be wonderful?

Managing a Guild Vault

If you’ve read any WoW news site or been on the forums, you’re probably aware that patch 2.3 is scheduled to be released on November 13th.  Knowing Blizzard and also that it’s only a week away, that’s a pretty firm date, unless testing goes horribly wrong.  I’m pretty excited about it myself, but I thought I’d start addressing some of the side effects that I’ve anticipate thus far.

Today, I’m looking at the Guild Vault again.  First, the facts: There are 6 tabs that can be purchased by a Guild Leader.  They have a progressive cost, just like the extra bank slots do.  The cost at the time of this writing is 1g, 10g, 100g, 1000g, 2500g, and 5000g.  Each slot can hold 98 non-soulbound items (one of the bigger differences between Banks and Vaults, IMO, besides the whole shared thing).  Each tab has its own permissions of who can see it, take items out of it, and how many items/stacks can be taken out based on rank.  Each tab can also be named and an icon associated with it (default is the red question mark).  Each tab also has its own log of which items are deposited and withdrawn and by whom.

The money of the vault is its own separate permission group.  Again, based on rank, you can specify how much gold a player can take out per day.  There is also a log identical to that of the item tabs, so you can see where the money is going.  Related to this, when each guildie goes to repair their armor, there is now an option to repair your armor with funds from the Guild Vault.  When I last tested this, that money would appear on the log, but I believe it would go against the cap for that rank.

So, what should one store in the Vault and why?  Also, who do you give access to?  Finally, how do you keep the coffers full?

ITEMS
There’s probably not a lot of armor that’s going to be stored here that’s extremely valuable.  In anticipation for future instances, we have a lot of resist gear in our current guild bank.  Most of them are random greens that we’ve picked up here and there.  You’ll have your occasional epic BoE; but for raiders, you’ll find better gear equipment on the bosses you down.  You’ll more than likely be storing enchanting materials, but other tradeskill materials would be ideal as well.  (Primals anyone?)  Since we’ve had a few months with TBC, you’ll also store a decent array of rep items as well.  Don’t need that Aldor rep anymore? (Just hit exalted last night, btw.)  Send those Marks to the Guild Vault.  Already have that semi-rare non-BoP recipe or pattern?  Send it over.  Assuming you have the space, this may be ideal spots for it.

Some other great items to put here are potions, elixirs, flasks, and food.  As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been skilling up my fishing.  I now sit at a skill of 315, and with a cheap lure, am able to catch most things in Terrokar Forest, the lower portion.  In the loot tables for those waters are the Golden Darters which can be cooked into Golden Fish Sticks.  (Increases healing by 44.)  While these sell for about a gold and a half each, I’ve been divvying them out to the different healers in our guild.  The Vault would make a perfect place for those.  Also, all those Apexis Shards that you don’t know what to do with can be converted into the Unstable Flasks for Gruul’s Lair, and then put in the Guild Vault.  Plus… almost everyone (/acknowledges Feral Druids) can use health and mana pots, so this is a good place to share them as well.

A lot of these items are the same ones that have been in question for years with the current guild bank situation (level 1 alts controlled by Guild Leaders).  But the biggest change will be with the gold.

GOLD
First off, I think this is a great equalizer for tanks.  For years, they’ve had to endure the higher repair costs.  At one point, I thought a patch equalized the difference between repairing plate and cloth, but it still seems that I pay way less, even fully red, then my warrior friends.  Taking all the money from the same pot, will equalize that burden.  So, even though I technically will have to pay more, I think it’s a very fair idea.

But there’s also the possibility that somebody might take advantage of this.  Maybe it’s that guy who’s raiding with another guild because his schedule changed, and he never contributes anything to the Guild Vault, but yet his repairs are always from the Guild Vault.  Maybe it’s the girl that’s in Azeroth greens and running around in Gruul’s Lair.  (Who let that hypothetical person in the raid anyway?)  You’ll almost always have people that will participate more than others.  Some may spend a lot more in repair costs, but they might also be the ones that are contributing more.  

How do you raise the funds for the Guild Vault and how do you keep them there?  This is the part that I’m finding tricky.  You can claim all raid loot as Guild Property to be doled out by some loot system (DKP or whatnot), and sell all items to go towards the Vault.  You can tax your guild by a weekly/monthly or per instance amount.  If you have seed money, you can have somebody that’s good at playing the AH help to offset some of this.  Or do you hire a Chinese Gold Farmer to keep everything going.  (I like the last option, but haven’t been able to hire one yet.)

Whichever way things are handled, this will add another level of depth to running a guild.  Let me know of any other suggestions you may have.  (And I’m accepting applications for a Gold Farmer for Primogeniture.  Nationality is not important.)

Bombing Fun with Opposite Faction - PVE Style

Last night, I ran over to Blade's Edge Mountains to do some of my dailies. I generally tend to do the dailies much later at night, but since there wasn’t much going on in the guild, I decided to do them when I first logged on around 8. The place was camped like Yosemite Valley in the summer. The bombing runs weren’t too bad, but banishing the demons was tough. It was so bad, that I had no fear in going afk to get a drink, even though I was standing almost right between two flak cannons; I knew somebody would get them if they spawned near me.

When I came back from the kitchen, I saw that health was down to about 50%, but there were no mobs in sight. I didn’t even have time to check the combat log before I figured out what had happened. A smart alec Tauren was mounting his flying mount right next to me and then just sitting there so the flak would shoot towards the both of us. He’s fly away just in the nick of time for him, but it would hit me pretty much dead on. I immediately checked to see if he was flagged PVP, which he wasn’t. So, I recognized the genius in it, and went on my way.

So, what do you do to annoy the opposite faction on a PVE server? I don’t generally go out of my way to mess them up all the time, but it’s fun on occasion. Also, I’ll generally only do it a couple of times; I hate when they’re pestering me. (Warlocks banishing the elementals I’ve already tapped…. I can’t sheep mobs that are tapped, why can they banish mine?)

Stopcasting and 2.3

In case you’ve been living under a rock while playing WoW, you probably know that WoW 2.3 is already being downloaded to your computer via the background downloader.  It started late last week, so I’m guessing that the patch will be next Tuesday.  Regardless of when exactly, it will most likely be soon.

Quite awhile ago, I showcased the Quartz macro and /stopcasting macro combination that will help casters improve the downtime due to the way your computer communicates with the WoW servers.  Coming at it from a different angle… With vanilla WoW, you had button mashers: people that would hit a spell many times when the previous spell was about to finish casting so they could get the spell off as soon as possible.  With /stopcasting, it now had to be precision.  If you button mashed, you’d just be interrupting your spells all over the place.  GirlMeetsWow spoke about 2.3 that it was the return of button mashing, while Altitis has said it’s more like the precision needed for /stopcasting.

I say that we’re actually somewhere in the middle now.  In 2.3, casting a new spell while you’re currently casting one will trigger the Global Cooldown (GC). But if your latency is decent, the GC will reset, not having to use the full time.  So, it’s not button mashing, but it doesn’t penalize you the full GC either.  So, what does a caster do when 2.3 comes out?  First off, get rid of most of your /stopcasting macros.  Quartz will still be extremely useful, as it will let you know when to cast your next spell.  Cast your spell like you would have when using the /stopcasting.  If you’ve been using this already, then it will be like nothing has happened.  You just won’t interrupt your spells if you cast it too early.  If you haven’t been using it, what were you waiting for?

Keep in mind that the /stopcasting command itself is still very useful.  A perfect example would be that of Counterspell:
/stopcasting
/cast counterspell

This allows you to stop casting that pyroblast (or any spell) to the face and interrupt the paladin’s heal.

Karazhan Cleared... Again!

Since the guild coup, our guild has been farming most of Karazhan.  We'll usually get through Prince, but then somehow neglect Nightbane.  We either give it a few tries and a healer mysteriously goes afk (he fell asleep with his headphones on, lol), or we just don't get around to him before the reset on Tuesday.  But last night Primogeniture cleared Karazhan again.  We've got the skill, we're just a little short on numbers lately for Gruul's.  If anyone raids at around 8 pm server time on Bronzebeard, and they want to help out, let me know.  ;)

It's really everyone's responsibility to recruit when a guild has open recruiting.  Sure, it's up to guild leadership to decide how many of which class is needed.  And it's even up to them, generally speaking, to decide who actually gets in, but I really think that guild recruiting is the responsibility of everyone.  But I also feel that I'm in the minority as far as my thought process goes.  "Somebody else will get the new people" seems to be the standard modus operandi.  

p.s. Just for clarification purposes, I was not in the Karazhan group this week as I was helping other guildies get keyed, passing out candy, and helping the wife.  Oh noes... maybe it was me!  lol.  Being one of the best geared mages in the guild, towards the top of the damage meters, and rarely pulling aggro, I kind of doubt it.