Woot, Kitty!

Wow... writing up a BRK event has it's perks. (Besides participating in it. Running of Da' Bulls was totally fun!) Lock and Roll got linked in BRK's most recent blog link list. Thanks BRK, we read you all the time. We're working on a Hunter-Lock post to put up at some point... you know, something along the lines of Warlocks are like hunters that instead of shooting devour your souls. It'll be uplifting and fill you with optimism, I promise.

QuestQQ

Go check out this CriticalQQ rant on quest depth. Spot on. Talks about class defining quests which of course made me think of the epic mount quest for locks... What a fantastic quest and final event that was. You really feel like you've earned something great by the end of it.

Wrath of the information sharing

Evidently, Gamespy, (which I only remember from back in my days of CS), got the serious dish on WLK before most other sites. Alpha testing seems to be fun and exciting, and thanks to firewalls, I'm not reading any of their coverage. EXCEPT, thanks WoWinsider for not being part of my jobs firewall settings. Boo, Panda Gate Defender. In any event, here's a few tidbits that I've pulled off of their various articles and my thoughts on these:

"Flying Mounts are gone until level 77, at which point you will either complete a quest or a visit a trainer to be able to use them again. You will still not be able to use the mounts in the old world, so even though Naxxramas is on Azeroth, your flying mount will not be able to cross back over the sea to visit the old stomping grounds. The Old World was designed using too many graphical shortcuts in places people were not meant to access to allow flying mounts."

Interesting! Now, my question is... "Will you need epic flying before you can upgrade at 77?" Because I sure don't have epic flying skill on either of my toons at 70. If so... I better get grinding that money.

"The 5-man news really was expected, but the raid info is much more exciting:
*All raid dungeons will have both 10-man and 25-man versions
*The 10 and 25-man progressions will not depend on each other
*There will be no attunements or keys necessary for any raid
*The 25-man loot will be a tier higher than the 10-man loot
*The 10 and 25-man versions of the same raid will be on different timers so that each can be attempted on the same day by the same people"

Now this is crazy! No attunements, all raids can be played as 10-man. I think what this could do is really allow more access to raid content then has previously happened. I know that I've never really entered the raiding scene, mainly because of the attunements initially, but also the size of our guild. I couldn't see us ever getting up to 25 man, and so, we really didn't push hard to get to 10-man content either. But, with all raids being accessable, it might be interesting to push through into this raid content in the expansion.

"There are "vehicle" quests, where players drive a vehicle (planes, trucks, or even dragons) around to accomplish tasks"

Oooh, that sounds interesting. I always enjoyed the pilot the fel reaver quest in shadowmoon, so, this could be great! Also, the flying planes that battle each other and such... that sounds really neat!

Of course, there's a lot more info now about the death knight and how that will actually work. I'm definitely digging the NO quest to unlock. Seems like the only requirement is that you already have a level 55 or greater character. (check!) So... looks like even fewer people might not roll a DK.

So... are you excited about Wrath?!?! You bet I am. Let's get that beta going!

Medium Black Kitty!

So, I really want to heal too. I mean, I've got two ranged, DPS, caster classes up at the level cap with my mage and my lock, so I need to try something different. I just have found that I love grouping, but am not such a fan of doing dailies... well, daily. Now I'm leveling a new character, and while my original plan had been to level my hunter next, I feel that it's too similar to the role I'm already playing in groups that I wanted to find something new and different to bring to the party... or raid, as the case might be.

I'm leveling a druid. I've dinged 25, and am bars away from 26, and I plan on going resto endgame because I really want to be a tree. It seems like the cliche acting exercise, so how could I not want to actually be a tree? Of course, as my guild has pointed out many times, who in their right mind would actually level resto?

I'm sure some people would, but wouldn't you be sad about how horrible it is and how you can't seem to do anything all the time? Therefore, I'm taking the feral approach as espoused in BBB's guide: (here). Thanks Big Bear Butt. Now of course, he says Feral FTW... all the way. But of course, I want to heal. So I'm going to claw and stealth my way up to the high levels and then respec at the end.

Of course, gathering gear as I go along is important, and I'm enjoying collecting two sets so that I CAN actually heal in a group when I have that opportunity.

Since I do like PUGing, (for the most part), I think the druid is a good choice, because it allows me to fill any role they need. Ranged caster, healer, melee DPS or tank. I've been elated at the flexibility and can't wait to continue to progress. So, there may be a few more updates on how rahranan is doing in her progression towards the end of levels. Now if I can just ding her at 70 before WLK hits, we'll be all good.

And that ain't no Bull

I, like around 400-600 other faithful readers of BigRedKitty ran in the Running of 'Da Bulls for Sharvan, a memorial event for a friend of Kitty which was ridiculously fun and successful. It's gotten tons of press. (That's from Wired... wow! Big deal Kitty!) And lots of bloggers have already written about it: (see here).

Unfortunately I wasn't able to complete the race, but I hung out for quite a while at the beginning, talking to people, cheering for kitty, mooing, etc. I was able to run to the Zep outside of Ogrim. but because I had disconnected my mouse from my laptop and was using my trackpad and the command key to move, I fell off when I tried to board, and then our company showed up anyway, so I had to abandon the event. I'm really bumed I missed the hogger raid though. Nothing like getting toasted by a few hundred cows!

Here's a pic I'm actually in!

I'm in the B, at the very top, first one starting the curve. (So not part of the straight line, but one out!) I'm pretty stoked that I finally found this pic! Thanks ratshag!

In any event, I'm proud to have finally participated in something that shows how massive the M in MMORPG can be. Now of course, there are two M's there, but who's counting.

/moo

Who's NOT going to roll a DK?

WLK seems to be getting closer and closer, and I've been reading lots about it on places like WoWinsider and the like, and their breakfast topic this morning talked about switching mains when the expac hits. This got me thinking as I read through the comments posted on the topic and as people continually mentioned how they were going to roll a death knight.

So, who's not going to roll a death knight?

There are so many interesting aspects to the class, at least as far as I can tell from what blizz has thrown our way so far.

1) The new mechanic - not rage, not mana, not combat points... runes. Neat.
2) They can tank, and we always need more tanks, and they'll start higher level, so it's not as far to go... Sounds promising.
3) They cast spells and stuff. I like spells... and casting.

This kind of hybrid appeal, plus the new mechanic for abilities is just so interesting that I'd imagine the VAST majority of people who buy the expac are going to be rolling one of these DKs. Especially since it is clear that you will not be converting one of your current characters into the DK, so there is no fear of loosing all that work with your main.

So, who do I think isn't going to roll a death knight.

1) People who don't buy the expac. Obviously, but I believe that like WLK, they are going to start to quickly be left behind by the game as blizz continues to develop content for the new levels and tweak things in the expansion, TBC and Vanilla will be left in the dust as $80 of investment to play the latest part of the game.

2) People who really don't want to tank. Tanking for me is... not a whole lot of fun. I've done it a few times at low levels and taken a couple characters to the mid 20s, grouped and tanked, and I just didn't find the same enjoyment in it as I did in the PewPew game. I think the idea of me getting hit stresses me out, and considering that's pretty key to being a tank, I'm thinking it's not for me. Even the allure of new mechanics, tempting though they may be don't really seem like enough to grab me. (Unless my guildies who all will roll one as soon as they can convince me that it's worth it).

3) People who don't like "evil" characters. If you are alliance, (because I think this would be less of a problem generally if you are already the "bad guys" on horde side), and have always stayed away from warlocks because they are "evil", I don't really see you picking up a death knight. Seems a little too dark for ya.

4) People who really want to progress on their mains and don't have the time to devote to alts will probably just stick with their main, and while they might unlock the ability to create a death knight, and technically create one, I don't see them going very far with it.

I wonder among those I know, who might be resisting the urge when WLK hits to summon upon the powers of darkness. We'll have to wait and see.

/combatlogon (WWS)

Trifectae has taken the leap into data analysis and are now recording runs with WWS. (Thanks Haru!) So, for the first time I can start taking a look at how I'm doing on my own time and without being logged into the game. Let's look at our first recorded instance that I was a part of and see what WoWWebStats is saying about me:

We ran Shadow Labs last Sunday and did a great job of taking the beast down. The only thing we didn't one shot was Murmur, which was unfortunate as I had to leave before the second attempt. We almost got it in there before I had a gig I had to play, but they took Murmur down after I left. More power to them!

Here's the anon. WWS report. I'm Shamshel. Topped the DPS for the instance, but what I'm really proud of is the first two boss fights. I think looking at these fights and the numbers shows where locks can really excel! Both Ambassador Hellmaw and Blackheart the Inciter have abilities that stop the group from being able to actively DPS them. Hellmaw fears periodically and Blackheart has, well, "fun". (Mind controlling and having you each attack each other). What a warlock can do in these fights, that's different from most other classes is keep attacking through these periods of time.

DOTs keep ticking even if you aren't casting them at the moment. Unlike mages who can rock out the burst damage, boss fights make warlocks shine. The longer the encounter goes on, the more damage you can rock out if you keep a steady rotation of DOTs up. You can see if you go to the individual fights for both Hellmaw and Blackheart, on Hellmaw, I was 45% of the damage with 100% DPS uptime. I did avoid a couple of the fears and while everyone else was being chased around, (our dr00d tank did a great job of holding agro, even when feared), I was able to keep refreshing my dots and SB in the downtime. Even when I got feared, I was able to keep 3-4 dots up for the duration of that time, so this REALLY increases the amount of damage you can do.

The same business happened on Blackheart, where funny enough, he died while we were mind controlled thanks to my dots ticking away at him. Though, we remained upset at each other and fighting for a few seconds. (In memory of good old Blackheart, I suppose?)

It is so important as a lock, especially with boss fights, that you do your best to refresh your dots as soon as they finish their duration time. My general rotation for a boss fight is:

Opening: Trinket + Amplify Curse + Curse of Doom

Corruption, Unstable Affliction, Siphon Life, Immolate

SB, SB

After two SBs you are going to have to refresh something. I avoid life tapping for quite a while and will generally try to time it with moments where I won't have to refresh a DOT for about 5 secs so that I can get in another SB or double tap if I'm really low on mana. However, if you are siphoning life without life tapping, you aren't really getting the most out of the healing capability of that which you could turn into more mana. I'm generally okay with this on the 5 man fights because my mana pool is large enough that I don't have to tap very often. I'd rather be OOM at the end of the fight, but have succeeded at keeping a constant stream of DPS on the boss the whole time than to still be full on mana and have my DPS suffer.

Once you start refreshing DOTs, fill your void with SB after SB, life tapping as needed but leaving space for refreshing DOTs. Watch your timer bars. (Quartz is great for this). If you've got 2 secs left before UA runs out, start casting it. Same with immolate. Try not to refresh CoA until right after it has actually expired because you don't want to miss out on the end of its damage. Since CoA becomes most powerful at the end, refreshing it early is a loss of potential damage.

One final note about the WWS report that should be made is I was by far the best geared player on the run. Most of the other toons were relatively newer minted 70s and so the fact that I was able to top the damage charts is expected, and frankly, there would have been a problem had I not. The whole group did a fantastic job. Our pally healer did a great job keeping everyone up and got several nice drops while we were there. Our BM hunter was chain trapping up a storm. Our newly converted Ret Pally had fantastic DPS, much to the shock of all those ret-haters out there and our dr00d tank did a great job holding agro throughout. Thanks to our other hunter too who helped come in and clean up on Murmur after we bit it the first time and I had to leave.

Here's looking forward to improved performance due to data analysis! Yay Webstats!

The three macros you'd meet in heaven

There are many, many macros that a lot of warlocks swear by. Cast sequence macros, funny tells for summoning things, etc. But the there are THREE essential macros that you need to find a place for on your tool bar. They are your crowd control focus macros to control Seduction, Banish and Fear, and my recent computer wipe re-emphasized the importance of these as I recreated them just recently. So, here's what you need to know to make these three beauties shine.

First of all, all three of these macros work on the same framework. They all set your focus so you can keep your DPS up on the tanked target and allow you to crowd control without having to retarget that enemy.

Seduction macro
The first macro is one I've already discussed in my How to seduce with a warlock post: The seduction Macro. Here is it again:

#showtooltip
/clearfocus [modifier:alt]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]; [target=focus,dead]
/clearfocus [target=focus,help]
/petstay
/petfollow
/cast [pet:succubus,target=focus,exists,harm] Seduction; Seduction

This macro clears your focus if you press alt. It will set your focus to whatever you are targeting if you are targeting an enemy and your previous focus is dead, or you don't have a focus. It also clears your focus if you are currently focusing a friendly player, (which lets this work in the heat of battle, if you somehow changed your focus setup). Then it finally casts Seduction on your focused target. Remember that Seduction is a spell cast + channeling, so you need to leave your succubus be as it takes care of the mob. Mash this macro again when seduction is about to pop and it'll break seduction and start casting it again. It's the best way to manage your succubus and seduction there is.

Banish macro
Next up is a very similar macro for Banish. We basically take the same macro as above and remove all the pet aspects.

#showtooltip
/clearfocus [modifier:alt]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]; [target=focus,dead]
/clearfocus [target=focus,help]
/cast [target=focus,exists,harm] Banish; Banish

I removed the two lines about petstay and follow and then removed pet from the cast line and changed Seduction to Banish. This macro will set your focus target and banish it. Mash it again when banish is up and you'll re-banish.

Fear macro
Finally, let's do the same with fear.

#showtooltip
/clearfocus [modifier:alt]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]; [target=focus,dead]
/clearfocus [target=focus,help]
/cast [target=focus,exists,harm] Fear; Fear

This is perfect for your fear yo-yo. You'll be able to keep track of who's running around without the difficulty of finding them again. Same deal as the banish macro, just with fear.

Of course, you can only use one of these at a time. If you find yourself, like I have several times, in a situation where you are seducing, banishing and fear yo-yoing, then you are going to have to do two of those without the aide of focus. I usually choose the seduce as the focus macro I use and then manually fear or banish. I like to automate as much as I can when it comes to the seduce because of it's occasional lack of reliability.

So, if you don't have those macros, copy them and put them on your action bar this minute. I mean, if you're a warlock. Obviously Ret Pallys should avoid these macros at all costs.

DPS (Non-epic) Caster Gems

It's exciting to get a new piece of gear, but when it has sockets, I've always found it a little daunting as well, feeling like I wasn't really familiar with what options are out there. Here's a list and mini-guide to socketing for dps caster types. The list of gems is at the bottom and doesn't include any epic quality gems, because they are REALLY expensive, and you need to really make an informed decision when you're socketing a piece with that. I also tend not to use them because most of my pieces are epic quality on their own. My rule is you should only really put as good a quality gem in a piece as that piece's quality. So, if you have some blue pantalones, don't go socketing an epic purple gem... save that for your epic head piece and throw a bluey in the pants.

Color Categories and Characteristics
First let's look at the colors of gems and what generally characterizes those colors so you know what your general options are before you start looking at all the individual gems. There are first, the three socket colors: red, blue and yellow.

Red = + damage, at various levels, but always pure damage.
Blue = spell penetration or stamina.
Yellow = spell stats (like hit or haste), resilience, int, and NOT DAMAGE

A lot of pieces have a combination of red and yellow slots so you can add a damage gem and a non-damage gem. But of course, you have other options as well in the not so primary colors of gems to socket:

Purple fits inbetween red and blue, blending the spell damage and stamina. (No spell penetration).

Orange blends red and yellow, giving you the red damage with yellow spell stats, (like crit and hit).

Green gives you the blue stam or penetration and the yellow spell stats.

The primary gems give you the most quantity of the stat they influence, but of course, the blended gems give you increases in multiple categories with the sacrifice in the amount those stats get buffed.

The best way to figure out where you want to be in terms of socketing is by looking at where you'd like your stats to be. If you are pretty much there in all categories, go with the blended gems because they'll increase more of your stats evenly. If you are seriously lacking in an important stat, like resilience when first getting into pvp, you might want to socket primary gems to give you the most bang for your buck in terms of catchup.

Meta gems are sort of on their own and tend to require more gems of the type of stats that they supply. There are also some interesting possibilities in terms of cast time, mana cost, etc. with the metas. You should look at the list and see which ones interest you the most. All the ones I've listed below would make good caster gems, so you need to decide what stats are going to benefit your playstyle and character the most.

Caster Gems
Here's a list of relevant gems for caster types of uncommon and rare quality:

Red - Runed Living Ruby (+9 Spell Dmg)
Red - Runed Blood Garnet (+7 Spell Dmg)

Purple(R/B) - Glowing Nightseye (+5 Spell Dmg, +6 Stam)
Purple(R/B) - Glowing Shadow Draenite (+4 Spell Dmg, +4 Stam)

Blue - Stormy Star of Elune (+10 Spell Pen)
Blue - Eye of the Sea (+15 Stam)
Blue - Solid Azure Moonstone (+9 Stam)
Blue - Stormy Azure Moonstone (+8 Spell Pen)

Green(Y/B) - Dazzling Talasite (+4 Int, +2 mp5)
Green(Y/B) - Forceful Talasite (+4 Spell Haste, +6 Stam)
Green(Y/B) - Notched Deep Peridot (+3 Stam, +4 Spell Crit)
Green(Y/B) - Radiant Talasite (+4 Spell Crit, +5 Spell Pen)
Green(Y/B) - Steady Talasite (+4 Resil, +6 Stam)
Green(Y/B) - Unstable Talasite (+4 Stam, +4 Spell Crit)
Green(Y/B) - Dazzling Deep Peridot (+1 mp5, +3 Int)
Green(Y/B) - Radiant Deep Peridot (+3 Spell Crit, +4 Spell Pen)
Green(Y/B) - Unstable Peridot (+4 Int, +6 Stam)

Yellow - Brilliant Dawnstone (+8 Intel)
Yellow - Gleaming Dawnstone (+8 Spell Crit)
Yellow - Great Dawnstone (+8 Spell Hit)
Yellow - Mystic Dawnstone (+8 Resil)
Yellow - Quick Dawnstone (+8 Spell Haste)
Yellow - Brilliant Golden Draenite (+6 Intel)
Yellow - Gleaming Golden Draenite (+6 Spell Crit)
Yellow - Great Golden Draenite (+6 Spell Hit)

Orange(R/Y) - Potent Noble Topaz (+4 Spell Crit, +5 Spell Dmg)
Orange(R/Y) - Reckless Noble Topaz (+4 Spell Haste, +5 Spell Dmg)
Orange(R/Y) - Unstable Topaz (+5 Spell Dmg, +4 Int)
Orange(R/Y) - Veiled Noble Topaz (+4 Spell Hit, +5 Spell Dmg)
Orange(R/Y) - Potent Flame Spessarite (+3 Spell Crit, +4 Spell Dmg)
Orange(R/Y) - Veiled Flame Spessarite (+3 Spell Hit, +4 Spell Dmg)

Meta - Chaotic Skyfire Diamond (+12 Spell Crit, +3% Crit Dmg)
Meta - Destructive Skyfire Diamond (+14 Spell Crit, +1% Spell Reflect)
Meta - Ember Skyfire Diamond (+14 Spell Dmg, +2% Int)
Meta - Imbued Unstable Diamond (+14 Spell Dmg, +5% Stun Resist)
Meta - Insightful Earthstorm Diamond (+12 Int, Chance to restore mana on spellcast)
Meta - Mystical Skyfire Diamond (Chance to increase spell cast speed)
Meta - Powerful Earthstorm Diamond (+18 Stam, +5% Stun Resist)
Meta - Swift Starfire Diamond (+12 Spell Dmg, Minor run speed increase)

114 is the new black in resil

Thanks to the plunking down of the Blue quality PvP sets at quartermasters around outland, PvErs now have the ability to enter the BGs with a baseline of resilience. If you add the resilience, without even socketing the set, all five pieces of, say for instance, the Dreadweave Battlegear will give you 114 total resil. Add more if you get the socketed bonuses or throw in some Mystic Dawnstones as well. Has this set a new baseline for where the least geared PvPer will be? There's really no excuse now to walk into a BG without the 114 resil.

Why the change? Many of us have experienced, since the addition of resilience, what it's like to go into a PvP setting for the first time with a newly minted 70 without a bit of Resil gear to our name and to get completely hosed by the other players. But, with these items now available to people who have NEVER set foot in a PvP experience, is the door wide open to experience PvP without the barrier of the great gear gap standing in the way?

I don't think so. The great gear gap still exists due to the proliferation and decent availability of epic gear for the casual player. If you are committed to either dying 10 times a week in an arena setting, or putting in your time with the BGs, you can pretty quickly garner yourself some epic PvP gear, that can really send your stats soaring.

For instance, the Gladiator's Dreadweave Battlegear, which is now available for purchase for honor, but was formerly the s1 arena reward gear, would give you as a complete set, 161 resilience, without any gems, 185 with Mystic Dawnstones in only the yellows and no socket bonuses, and 209 resil if you use every slot as a Mystic, stacking nothing but resil. Considering a majority of PvP players have a full compliment of epics in their arsenal, their resil is starting up near the 200 point mark and climbing well into the 400s, especially if they've continued to do Arena, or are serious about PvP.

With that kind of resistance to crit, and the amount of health that the majority of these players are packing, due to the stacked stamina on most of this kind of gear, it'd be pretty hard to be competitive or contributory in some ways with PvE quest blues. The proliferation of epic PvP gear in the battlegrounds and arenas, and serious overload of stats that these gear sets provide is making it necessary to equip prior to stepping into the BGs so that you can progress without feeling as frustrated.

It's a great move, and if Bliz continues to push PvP as heavily as it has in recent history, I can see this as a helpful tool to allow casual and hardcore PvErs alike to come into the realm of PvP with a little more confidence and a little less death. And that might be crutial to the continued direction of the game. With the addition of the much talked about Lake Wintersgank, they'll be the theoretical endless swirl of PvP, destructible things, (besides your armor), and hopefully some decent rewards for participating. So many of the epic arena gear provides some of the most easily accessible options of gear, even for hardcore raiders. So, it only makes sense that blizz would want to make it easier to get into PvP.

It'll be interesting to see where all this gear ends up after WLK comes out though. Are we going to be seeing S4 gear available at old faction vendors? I'm guessing it'd be left to exalted, but then that'd probably be harder to get than it was originally. Either way, it should be an interesting future for all our hard(ly) earned gear.

Dreadweave Battlegear

Not only did Nar recently pick up some more PvP pieces, but Rahr now has 4/5 on the dreadweave PvP blue set... because he might as well. For a self-admitted non-pvper, I now have 7 pieces that are explicitly PvP, stack resil, etc. What has this done for rahr, how am I going to socket them and what other burning questions in my own mind am I going to answer here for others to read? Look below and find out.

Again, the level 70, blue quality PvP set became available from various quartermasters of outland factions with the hit of 2.4, so why not pick it up for some quick PvP cred. Granted, it's not really much PvP cred because most serious PvPers have long established their completely epic sets and running around in little bluey pieces isn't exactly impressive, especially when anyone at Honored can buy these, but it is a nice reward for those who have PvEed and want to start getting into the PvP scene and not totally get demolished.

We know how important resilience is in PvP. You just won't have the survivability in BGs or arenas if you are easily critable and if your health pool is low. Without demon armor and with blood pact from my imp, I'm sitting over the 10K bubble with the new gear thanks to its heavy bias towards stam. That makes sense since it's specifically geared at locks. Let's take a look at these pieces now.

I skipped over the dreadweave hood because I already have the Vengeful Gladiator's Dreadweave Hood. You don't get any better than that with PvP, so it didn't make sense since I could take the other four pieces in the Dreadweave set and still get the set bonus. Oh arena, how I've skipped over you. Vengeful is providing 33 resil, +4 more for the socket bonus which is socketed with +12 and +9 spell damage. Total spell damage off of this head piece is +63. That's awesome!

Dreadweave Mantle (Shoulders) - +19 stam, +15 intel. We've got the opportunity to throw in a blue and yellow gem to give us +3 resil with the socket bonus. We're adding 6 to spell hit, 17 to resil passively and 26 to damage. It's really nice. This piece is over my previous shoulders, the Mantle of Three Terrors which is fine, but not nearly as good for PvP.

Socketing this piece, I'll throw in a Mystic Dawnstone for the +8 resil and in the Blue socket slot either the Green(Y/B) - Steady Talasite (+4 Resil, +6 Stam) or the Blue - Eye of the Sea (+15 Stam). The extra stam is nice, but since I'm sitting well under 400 resil, (obviously), I'll take the Steady Talasite. That'll be an additional 15 resil from socketing the piece.

Dreadweave Robe (chest) - Replaces my Robe of Oblivion. They are both great, and I definitely won't be taking the dreadweave piece into instances, especially after we talk about how I'll be socketing it. There's great stam on this one, +49 with +29 spell dmg and +14 resil. This piece along with the mantle gives me the two piece set bonus so we're getting an additional 35 resil as well.

Socketing this is easy. Runed Living Ruby in the red slot for +9 Spell Damage. That's my damage gem of choice by far. Expensive sure, as it's often 60g on AH, but it's well worth the cost. Best +dmg you're going to get without going epic, which I refuse to do on a blue quality piece. The Yellow slots are perfect for two more Mystic Dawnstones at +8 resil a piece. Throw all that in with the socketing bonus, another +4 resil and you get a total of 20 resil from socketing.

My resilience before socketing any of these items was 185 with the set bonuses and the other pieces I have. Throwing in the gems we've added, we've accumulated 35 more resilience for 220 total. Woot!

The other two pieces that I've equipped are nice as well, but don't have sockets, so we're stuck at 220 resil until I get some nicer PvE pieces and can resocket my Veteran's Dreadweave Cuffs. I should really be putting a Mystic Dawnstone in that bad boy for the added 8 resil, taking us to 228 total resil, but I'm unwilling to do that until I get as good a piece to use when PvEing, which is still my main focus.

Dreadweave Gloves (hands) - give us a great buff to our fear casting: +50% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting fear. Man! That's mean. I'm all about it. the added resil, stam and damage are great and they replace my Gloves of Oblivion, the equal PvE partner.

Dreadweave Leggings (legs) - complete the four-set, giving us a .2 sec reduction to our Fear spell cast time. Add that in with the gloves reduction of interruption chance and we are a fearing machine. This is another heavy stam piece with +49 and replaces the Trousers of Oblivion, again, it's PvE counterpart.

So now I'm sitting at 220 resil from a measly 85 resil before I started this whole endeavor. I've jumped firmly over the 10K barrier in terms of health and can't wait to give it a shot in the BGs again. I had already felt that my lock was in a better place for PvP -- partly by virtue of the fact that he's a lock, FTW, come on! -- but I think that the increased resil is just what he needed to be able to really annoy people with his ability to live. Today or tomorrow, I'm logging in and taking on the holiday weekend. Let's see how rahr handles it.

...So what did I do?

In my last post, we talked a lot about the Evoker's Silk PvP set and geming it out, listing out all the blue and green quality gems that I like for mages for some reason or another. So, what did I do with my set? Well, I'm glad I asked on behalf of you all. Let's look, shall we:

Evoker's Silk Cowl:
Insightful Earthstorm Diamond
Runed Living Ruby

Evoker's Silk Amice:
Radiant Talasite
Mystic Dawnstone

Evoker's Silk Raiment:
Runed Living Ruby
Gleaming Dawnstone
Great Dawnstone

And just for your information, here's my other socketed pieces that go along with this set at the moment:

Shattrath Wraps:
Potent Noble Topaz

Frozen Shadoweave Boots:
Gleaming Dawnstone
Radiant Talasite

My principal in socketing these items was 1) to follow the gem type to get the socket bonuses, 2) to try to balance my stat progression so that I didn't just pour everything into one pot, and 3) to avoid breaking my bank. The Runed Living Ruby's were expensive on AH at 60g a pop, but other than that, everything was pretty reasonable. I was able to snag the meta for an 80g buyout which was nice considering that the next auction of the same gem was at 150g. Yeah, saving money. Sure there are some better gems I could plunk in this, but for a couple hundred gold, it isn't a bad way to bling out the set. I took it into an AB immediately after socketing the set to see how my performance had changed. It was hard to tell since it's been a while since I PvPed, especially with nar, but, playing almost entirely on D, I got a large number of kills, was not insta-nuked as I had been accustomed to, and was able to hold my own against a majority of players. I felt like I contributed to the team, so all was good for this mage.

Next up on the block, Rahr re-enters the PvP scene with some newly purchased Blues to compliment his other three epic pieces and we'll see what kind of difference that will make for him. Of course, he's a lock, so he's already OP, right? But we'll be taking a look at him very soon to see what benefit some extra resil, stam, etc can do for this scary dude.

Pimping out the Silk

Naranan spent some of her hard(ly) earned gold and bought up the blue quality PvP set that recently became available from the quartermasters of Honor Hold, Cenarion Expedition, Sha'tar, Lower City and Keepers of Time. Let's look at the PvP set and how it is an improvement over her PvE gear collection. Is resil and health gain worth the loss in crit and purple shoulders? Find out below!

Evoker's Silk Battlegear (5/5), that's what we are! Sometimes, I think we forget about all the changes that come out in patches, and it had slipped my mind that all that questing I had done and instance running had probably unlocked some new gear. So, I went around and spent about 65g or so and bought up the full set of Evoker's Silk for nar. (I even picked up a few pieces of the dreadweave set for Rahr, see a future post for his PvP asperations). Let's look at the pieces and some socketing possibilities that I'm exploring.

Evoker's Silk Cowl (head) - One, it's one of the cooler looking hoody headpieces I've found for nar. Certainly better than her Exorcist's Silk Hood which looks super stupid. Compare the stats. With the socket bonus on the Evoker's, you will get +23 resil as opposed to the +14 you get from the silk. Even if you got the Exorcist's Dreadweave Hood which has a +20 resil, you'd still be missing the resil that you get from the socket bonus. +39 stam instead of +34 is great for extra health, but of course, the loss is in spell crit. Exorcist gives you +25 spell crit vs. the +17 here for the evoker's piece. I'll probably still be using my Exorcist's for PvE, but definitely going to right click this head piece in for PvP pwnage. Plus, the extra socket in the piece is nice. I can throw on some more +Spell Dmg. or get a hybrid gem. We'll talk about gems later down.

Evoker's Silk Amice (shoulders) - This is a little bit more of a challenge decision, because I have two other options here. The first was my first piece of epic crafter gear, the Frozen Shadoweave Shoulders. Just one less intel and the same stam for those. The jacked up damage of those shoulders is ridiculous. +50 to frost, which is basically all I use vs. the +25 generic spell damage of the Evoker's. Same socket options and the bonus is a +3 in hit instead of resil for the PvE focused Frozen Shadoweave. Since I don't have the robe yet, (but do have the boots), I'm not going to get the set bonus anyway of the 2% of dmg heals me, so I'm not missing those if I drop them, and the added +18 resil with the socket bonus is a nice addition. I'm loosing half of the spell damage by using the Evoker's here, so it's a tough trade off there for resil and crit, but probably better while I am still a little n00by at BGs. The other option is a drop from last night's BM run, the Mantle of Three Terrors. +9 more intel and +7 more stam is nice. Spell hit is more than either of the other pieces at +12 with spell dmg up a bit at +29 vs. the +25 of the Evoker's. Obviously this still falls short of the Frozen piece but it's still nice. The lack of resil and crit though is troubling which makes me lean towards the Evoker's still for the PvP application with the Shadoweave the clear choice in PvE where I don't need the resil. Once I get the robe, it'll be hard not to keep that equiped though.

Evoker's Silk Raiment (Chest) - We're looking at this versus the Warp-Infused Drape which has red, blue and yellow sockets instead of two yellows, way more intel at +28 but way less stam at +27. The socket bonuses are the same but the Warp Drape affords +12 hit and +30 dmg. So, you do see a dmg and hit reduction with the Evoker's, but the extra resil and an actual increase in crit, (to balance some of the other losses from other gear we've already talked about), works well. It's a really nice chest piece and is the clear winner for PvP choice.

Evoker's Silk Handguards (Hands) - You can't miss the extra stat on equip on this item, because it's straight ballin'. Improves the range of your fireblast spell by 5 yrds. That's awesome. I'm always sitting at max cast distance if I can and can't finish with a little fireblast, so the extra yardage will be a nice addition. However, these handguards are up against my latest aquisition, the Tempest's Touch with two blue socket options and +20 intel, +6 spirit and +10 stam. It stacks on some spell penetration, that always missing stat to the tune of +10, increases spell dmg by 27 and adds +3 Spell crit with the socket bonus. You take a serious reduction in +spell dmg with the Evoker's, but gain way more crit: +17 and the resil as well, +17. The stam is also much more substantial as you'd figure on the Evoker's, sitting at +33 with +12 intel. The resil and crit is certainly nice, but taking the hit in the loss of the two sockets is a tough sell. Tempest's are the definite choice for PvE and I'm still up in the air about the others. If I use 4 other pieces of the Evoker's set, this might be the item I drop. I'd still get the set bonus, but just have those blue gem slots rockin' out.

Evoker's Silk Trousers (Legs) - This is the big resil piece, only matched by the head piece, and that's with the socket bonus. Compare to Incanter's Trousers with +30 intel, +17 spirit and +25 stam. More damage on the Incanter's at +42 but less crit at +18 and no resil. I don't have any of the other incanter's pieces, so there is no set bonus that I'm loosing to equip the silk trous', so it seems like they're the obvious choice. The big question becomes whether I take the Evoker's in PvE as well. In some ways, they might be an improvement. Even though I don't need the resil, the extra life is nice for those occasional shots so I'm not as much of a liability to the healer, and the extra crit is always appreciated. The loss in damage isn't substantial so they might make the better PvE piece as well.

Gems

So, with these new pieces come new gems to equip. Let's see how much money the AH is going to take of mine to bling out these new pieces. Here's a list of relevant gems for caster types of uncommon and rare quality:

Red - Runed Living Ruby (+9 Spell Dmg)
Red - Runed Blood Garnet (+7 Spell Dmg)

Blue - Stormy Star of Elune (+10 Spell Pen)
Blue - Eye of the Sea (+15 Stam)
Blue - Solid Azure Moonstone (+9 Stam)
Blue - Stormy Azure Moonstone (+8 Spell Pen)

Yellow - Brilliant Dawnstone (+8 Intel)
Yellow - Gleaming Dawnstone (+8 Spell Crit)
Yellow - Great Dawnstone (+8 Spell Hit)
Yellow - Mystic Dawnstone (+8 Resil)
Yellow - Quick Dawnstone (+8 Spell Haste)
Yellow - Brilliant Golden Draenite (+6 Intel)
Yellow - Gleaming Golden Draenite (+6 Spell Crit)
Yellow - Great Golden Draenite (+6 Spell Hit)

Purple(R/B) - Glowing Nightseye (+5 Spell Dmg, +6 Stam)
Purple(R/B) - Glowing Shadow Draenite (+4 Spell Dmg, +4 Stam)

Green(Y/B) - Dazzling Talasite (+4 Int, +2 mp5)
Green(Y/B) - Forceful Talasite (+4 Spell Haste, +6 Stam)
Green(Y/B) - Notched Deep Peridot (+3 Stam, +4 Spell Crit)
Green(Y/B) - Radiant Talasite (+4 Spell Crit, +5 Spell Pen)
Green(Y/B) - Steady Talasite (+4 Resil, +6 Stam)
Green(Y/B) - Unstable Talasite (+4 Stam, +4 Spell Crit)
Green(Y/B) - Dazzling Deep Peridot (+1 mp5, +3 Int)
Green(Y/B) - Radiant Deep Peridot (+3 Spell Crit, +4 Spell Pen)
Green(R/Y) - Unstable Peridot (+4 Int, +6 Stam)

Orange(R/Y) - Potent Noble Topaz (+4 Spell Crit, +5 Spell Dmg)
Orange(R/Y) - Reckless Noble Topaz (+4 Spell Haste, +5 Spell Dmg)
Orange(R/Y) - Unstable Topaz (+5 Spell Dmg, +4 Int)
Orange(R/Y) - Veiled Noble Topaz (+4 Spell Hit, +5 Spell Dmg)
Orange(R/Y) - Potent Flame Spessarite (+3 Spell Crit, +4 Spell Dmg)
Orange(R/Y) - Veiled Flame Spessarite (+3 Spell Hit, +4 Spell Dmg)

Meta - Chaotic Skyfire Diamond (+12 Spell Crit, +3% Crit Dmg)
Meta - Destructive Skyfire Diamond (+14 Spell Crit, +1% Spell Reflect)
Meta - Ember Skyfire Diamond (+14 Spell Dmg, +2% Int)
Meta - Imbued Unstable Diamond (+14 Spell Dmg, +5% Stun Resist)
Meta - Insightful Earthstorm Diamond (+12 Int, Chance to restore mana on spellcast)
Meta - Mystical Skyfire Diamond (Chance to increase spell cast speed)
Meta - Powerful Earthstorm Diamond (+18 Stam, +5% Stun Resist)
Meta - Swift Starfire Diamond (+12 Spell Dmg, Minor run speed increase)

Possible Gem Configs for Evoker's
Here's a couple of ways to maximize different stats you might be lacking in, just with the gems and these items. We can get into enchants at another time, but honestly, if you're interested in that, I might just head over to my post about warlock enchants, because for a PvP purpose, you've got a pretty similar value set.

In this set we've got the following spaces:

Head: Meta, Red
Shoulders: Blue, Yellow
Chest: Red, Yellow, Yellow

6 standard gems, plus a meta. Unless I've otherwise noted, I've tried to put the right kind of gem in the right socket to give you the bonus throughout these recommendations.

Resil in the Hizzil:

If you really wanted to stack resil and ignore everything else, including socket bonuses, you could throw in 6 Yellow Mystic Dawnstones at +8 Resil a pop. This would give you +48 Resil from gems alone. Without any of the socket bonuses, your set will sit at 174 Resil. Not bad for having no epic PvP pieces. Of course, you are missing out on +7 resil that you get by the socket bonuses, but you make up that much in one gem, so if you seriuosly need the resil, just plug those yellow gems in there and enjoy your nearing 200 resil.

An alternative Resil heavy socketing with stam buffed to increase your HP:

Head:
Meta - Powerful Earthstorm Diamond (+18 Stam, +5% Stun Resist)
Purple(Red) - Glowing Nightseye (+5 Spell Dmg, +6 Stam)

Shoulders:
Green(Blue) - Steady Talasite (+4 Resil, +6 Stam)
Yellow - Mystic Dawnstone (+8 Resil)

Chest:
Purple(Red) - Glowing Nightseye (+5 Spell Dmg, +6 Stam)
Yellow - Mystic Dawnstone (+8 Resil)
Yellow - Mystic Dawnstone (+8 Resil)

Spell Damage, yeah, we gots it:

Head:
Meta - Imbued Unstable Diamond (+14 Spell Dmg, +5% Stun Resist)
Red - Runed Living Ruby (+9 Spell Dmg)

Shoulders:
Green(Blue) - Radiant Talasite (+4 Spell Crit, +5 Spell Pen)
Orange(Yellow) - Reckless Noble Topaz (+4 Spell Haste, +5 Spell Dmg)

Chest:
Red - Runed Living Ruby (+9 Spell Dmg)
Orange(Yellow) - Reckless Noble Topaz (+4 Spell Haste, +5 Spell Dmg)
Orange(Yellow) - Reckless Noble Topaz (+4 Spell Haste, +5 Spell Dmg)

As time goes on, I might come up with some more scenarios for this little silk darling. In the meantime, let's all be looking over those gems and see what we are most lacking and try to make up for it. Gems and enchants provide great customization if we use it properly.

Thanks for the Rez!

The iBook G4 has received a rez from the apple depot in Tennessee and is up and running WoW again! We had a run scheduled at 8 pm EST last night and I got the computer home at 5pm. I started with Apple updates right about 5:10 pm and logged into WoW at about 8:15. My guildies already knew what was up, so don't think I was just dissing them. They hadn't seen me on for a week and knew that it was because my computer went /self destruct.

It took about 20 minutes to update apple software with a restart, then I started the process of reinstalling Warcraft. It took about 30 minutes to get the five disks for the original game to get plunked down onto the HD, and then took about another 20-25 minutes for TBC. Then, we knew it was coming: Patch time.

Patching was intense. The first download was from TBC 2.0 to 2.3 which was over 700 MB. That took about 20 minutes to download on my connection and then 25 minutes to install. I was watching that bar forever. ("Go blue bar, Go!") Then, once that was finished, it patched up to 2.4, which was another 250ish MB patch, with about a 10 minute download and a 15 minute install. Finally, we went all the way to 2.4.1 which was a measly 4.something MB. That took almost no time in comparison.

I was trying to ready myself in other ways while I was installing or downloading, so I downloaded ventrilo and set up my audio preferences, though I had to wait till I got back in game to get the server info for my guild. I also went to WoWwiki to look up some of the macros I was going to need to recreate. I knew that when I logged in, I would be playing Nar, so I HAD to get my focus sheep macro again. I can't group without that. I remade a set focus macro, an assist macro, a counterspell macro with a /stopcasting, (the only way to go, imo) and was good to go with those in a text document before I even started up the game so I could quickly cut and paste.

I also downloaded WoWmatrix once I started patching and used it to find and reinstall my addons. I don't know why I ever worked with addons without wowmatrix or a program like wowace. It's just so much easier to let an updater program do it for you. So, I reinstalled quartz, ratingbuster, recount, omen, and autoprofitx. I thought those were absolutely necessary if I was going to be functional. (Well, at least quartz and omen were).

Then I finally logged in. Do you remember the first time you played the game, and all those months/years you spent customizing your interface? Wow... I had forgotten about some of the default options. The common theme of my comments over vent during the runs were along these lines: "Hey, do you remember when you first installed wow and the camera would always snap back to right behind your character?" or "Do you remember when your quest text used to slowly write itself before you could accept a quest?" Here's a list of all the things that I had forgotten I changed in WoW:

Quick Quest Text
Camera Follow = Never
Scrolling Combat Text (with lots of options turned on)
Video Resolution = 800x600
Texture Detail = low
Click on all the stuff that improves performance
Run windowed
Music = off
Error Speech = off! (OMG!)
Show target's target (it's in the combat options)
Show cast bar, etc.
Middle mouse = auto run
Tab = auto run
Tilde = target nearest enemy
B = open all bags
Still need to redefine a lot of the action bar key bindings, but set a few:
ctrl-~ = focus spell (sheep on mage)
v = assist macro
shift-z = set focus

A lot of that I remembered before the run started, thankfully. Some of it I forgot until halfway through when I tried to do something and was like, "Oh... uh oh... ughm... Sorry, I'll fix that."

The good news is though, I'm back playing, we ran CoT: Durn and BM and nar got some sweet gear, awesome rep, went around and bought some evoker's silk gear for PvP, made her frozen shadoweave boots and is back in business. It's nice to be playing again.

Rahr is next on the list to recreate!

Armory Mirror and Spell Damage.com

Woot! I can now check the armory at work! This is a handy link to the WoW armory that seems to be anti firewall. Huzzah. Let me give you a link to the spell damage calculator that helped me find it too:

http://12.129.242.20/ - WoW Armory Mirror

http://www.spelldamage.com/Default.aspx - Spell Damage. This is a theory craft site which will pull your armory data and give you a break down of your spell's damage capability. It's really pretty sweet... though it'll only help you out if you are a mage, warlock or priest. And really, why wouldn't you be. Enjoy!

Ka-Boom!

My iBook is no more. But it's going to get better. Turns out that I was right in my assumptions about what was going on with the whirring sound as I mentioned in my last post. The hard drive is shot it seems without any hope of recovering any of the data on it. So, they've sent it off to the Apple Depot to get refitted. They should be completely replacing the hard drive and the keyboard and maybe some other stuff. Who knows what goes on at Apple places. So, I'll probably get an iBook G4 12" reset to it's factory defaults. So, it's my little iBook ver. 2.0. Should be exciting. Of course it being refit doesn't actually make it good enough to really play the game... so I'll still be consdierably under-speced for it, but at least I'll be back to playing.

So, while I'm excited to get my shiny "new" old laptop, here's what I'm really excited about doing once I get it:

1) Installing WoW
2) Installing TBC
3) Patching it all
4) ... Still patching
5) ... hmmm....
6) Setting up my action bars again
7) Setting up my key bindings again
8) Recreating all the macros I had
9) Downloading and Installing all my addons
10) Playing again! (seriously.. I am excited about that)

Sad Panda =(

So my warcraft playing iBook G4 isn't starting up. That's no good. This is the last development in a long list of problems that the little happy mac has been going through for a while now. The first problem that developed is that the battery died, such that you could only operate the computer when it was plugged in and if it became unplugged it would immediately shut off. So, it basically became a very small, and not very powerful desktop.

The second thing to happen was that the computer starting making a scary whirring noise about where the hard drive was anytime you would move it quickly. This became any time you would move it rather sharply to almost anytime you would move it.

And now: the final chapter in "my iBook is dying", Sunday night the computer was REMARKABLY slow. Slower than it had been in quite some time. Suddenly the whirring seems to have stopped and now the computer won't start. Me thinks my hard drive is in trouble. So... it looks like I might not be getting any WoW time in the near future. Ah... the dailies!!! Ah... all the cash. Instance runs!!! NO!!!

One or two things are hoping to come out of this little incident. Either, the computer gets fixed and there is much rejoicing, or a new PC desktop gets ordered and there is rejoicing, with a heavy tint of sadness.

I'll keep you updated.

Chant it with me

You've dinged 70 and started bursting the loot piñatas that are the level 70 instances or that is PvP or whatever it is that is getting you the gear you want. Congratulations. However, your task is not yet complete. To get the full potential out of all that hard earned gear, you are going to need to get it enchanted, and that is not as easy as it might sound. There are a lot of enchants out there, and you may have to do some work to find the enchanters with the right formulas to hook your soul stealing self up. But here's a look at some of the best enchants for locks to slap down on their good gear.

Again, we should state that as an affliction lock, you want to stack stam and spell damage. + crit is fine, but not as good as spell damage since your primary damage source is DOTs. (Hence, the reasons locks are awesome at long boss fights, and sometimes suck in trash clearing).

Now when you go to find an enchanter to do this, you're going to need to provide the mats. A lot of enchanters will do these for you for free, (though tipping is nice), if you can provide the mats because high end enchants like these are needed to level their skill to 375 so they don't mind practicing on your dime. There are a couple of enchants that you'll be able to rep grind to: Head, Shoulder and Ring, (though only if you, yourself, are an enchanter). Otherwise, you'll need to find that willing enchanter, bring your mats and have at it. I'll list out the mats required for each enchant so you can know what is involved. Let's go slot by slot:

Head enchant: Glyph of Power -- By using a glyph, you can add some nice stats to a head item. Go ye verily to the Tempest Keep instances and run them forthwith so that you might achieve Revered with the Sha'tar and get the beauty of the spell damage and spell hit that this glyph provides. If you PvP, the other option would be the new Glyph of the Gladiator which adds +18 stam and +20 resil. If you are end game and good on spell dmg already, go for the added resil. Basically, if you are PvP oriented, you can increase which ever stat you still need more work in. If you've reached the resil cap, go for the Sha'tar glyph obviously.

+22 spell damage
+14 spell hit

Neck enchant: Did you expect something here? Sorry. No necklace enchants as of yet in the game. Just get something really nice to hang around your neck and you'll be as good as you can be.

Shoulder enchant: Greater Inscription of Discipline -- VINDICATION! For choosing aldor, you miss out on the really nice Seer's Signet, but you do get the better of the shoulder inscriptions for locks. This becomes available to Aldor grinded players at -- that's right kids, you guessed it -- exalted! They scryer counterpart is the Greater Inscription of the Orb which is more crit and less spell damage, and we already had that conversation about why the aldor one would be better then. There are also not so greater versions of these two that you can get at a lowly honored, and that you WILL get at the lowly honored. (after all, what else are you saving those arcane tomes/fel armaments for anyway?) Inscription of Discipline, Inscription of the Orb.

+18 spell damage
+10 spell crit

Back enchant: Enchant Cloak - Spell Penetration -- You might as well. Looking at the other options you have there for cloak enchants, this is your best bet I believe. I certainly wouldn't put this enchant above many of the others in terms of importance though. There's really nothing less positive for you than this enchant, so you might as well invest the time and money in the other ones first and come to this one last if you have extra mats and money.

+20 spell penetration

Greater Planar Essence (x2)
Arcane Dust (x6)
Primal Mana (x2)

Chest enchant: Enchant Chest - Exceptional Health -- This is the best bet you've got, and it's not really that expensive either. There's a PvPee option too if you'd rather build your resilience than your health pool: Enchant Chest - Major Resilience. Added health means added mana through life tap, so this is the way to go.

+150 health

Arcane Dust (x8)
Major Healing Potion (x4)
Large Brilliant Shard (x2)

Bracers enchant: Enchant Bracer - Spellpower -- This is a seriously sweet enchant. This comes with a big bonus to spell damage, but of course at the cost of a pretty mat intensive enchant. Another perfectly acceptable option would be the Enchant Bracer - Fortitude for the less rich of us. It'll give you more health, +12 to stam is going to give you a fairly nice boost there, but you aren't going to be maximizing your damage potential like you would have if you spent the big bucks for the Spellpower.

+15 Spell Damage

Large Prismatic Shard (x6)
Primal Fire (x6)
Primal Water (x6)

Gloves Enchant: Enchant Gloves - Major Spellpower -- Another nice big, powerful boost to your spell damage, which is the goal after all. Expensive again. Here's a less costly option: Enchant Gloves - Spell Strike which gives you a boost to your spell hit by 15. The spell power is still your better bet. There's also an Enchant Gloves - Threat which is an interesting choice if you are having a problem gaining agro... as in you do it too often. Spell power is still the best choice though.

+20 Spell Damage

Greater Planar Essence (x6)
Large Prismatic Shard (x6)
Primal Mana (x6)

Legs enchant: Runic Spellthread -- Get thee to a tailor and beg them to enchant your pants. This will seriously cost you though! You gain stam and spell damage, so it's perfect, but you're going to need a Primal Nether. You can definitely opt for the lower tier of this: Mystic Spellthread. Both of these items can be bought on AH if you'd rather not interact with people... and you're probably better off that way anyway if you don't happen to be a tailor yourself.

+35 Spell Damage
+20 Stamina

Rune Thread (x1)
Primal Mana (x10)
Primal Nether (x1)

Boots enchant: Enchant Boots - Fortitude -- This is a tough call. Even though this is the less costly enchant of the two you'll consider, I think you might be happier with the additional stam on this one. The other option would be Enchant Boots - Boar's Speed which gives you +9 stam as opposed to the +12 of the Fort enchant but also gives you an increase to your run speed. Run speed increases are fantastic in PvP, so if you think you're going to head that route, then go for it. It'll cost you Large Prismatic Shard (x8) and Primal Earth (x8) as well though, so that might put a damper in that plan.

+12 Stamina

Arcane Dust (x12)

Ring enchant: Enchant Ring - Spellpower -- You have to be an enchanter to do this, and you have to be a 360 skilled enchanter. So, I'd imagine many of you may not be able to make this happen, but if you can, do it. Each ring can be enchanted to add +12 damage, which is really nice. You learn it from the Keepers of Time at Honored, so go run Durnholde and BM to get your rep up!

+12 Spell damage (x2)

Large Prismatic Shard (x2)
Greater Planar Essence (x2)

Weapon enchant: Enchant Weapon - Major Spellpower -- The enchant. Get this on any weapon you get. A huge +40 spell damage is too much to pass up. You can enchant it onto one or two-handed weapons, but not onto your off-hand. Wouldn't that be cool? Go into that trade channel and be ready to pony up some mats.

+40 Spell Damage

Large Prismatic Shard (x8)
Greater Planar Essence (x8)

The Results

So what does it all add up to? Here's the results on your stats and the shopping list you'll need to put together to make it happen. Adding these enchants is a lot of work, but if you are at the point where you aren't going to be getting much better gear, but still need to improve your performance before you can move on to the next tier, here is where you can make a difference.

+174 spell damage
+14 spell hit
+10 spell crit
+20 spell penetration
+150 health
+32 stamina

Greater Planar Essence (x20)
Large Prismatic Shard (x24)
Arcane Dust (x26)
Rune Thread (x1)
Primal Mana (x18)
Primal Nether (x1)
Primal Fire (x6)
Primal Water (x6)
Major Healing Potion (x4)
Large Brilliant Shard (x2)
Sha'tar - Revered
Aldor/Scryer - Exalted

Rep Rewards

So you are affliction speced and you're looking to see what rep you should grind to make sure you have access to some of the sweetest goodness in the game? Well, unfortunately, most of the best Affliction lock gear is going to be quested or drops in instances/raids. Remember that as an affliction lock, +spell crit does very little for us because most of our dps is coming from DOT which will NOT crit. So, you need +spell dmg gear. Your other two primary stats to look for are +stam and then +int. Remember that Health = Mana for us... (thank you bliz for not changing that around), so the more stam we can build, the more casting time we have thanks to life tap. So, with that said, let's look at what there is by way of gear for us Afflic. lockies in the wide world of rep:

Top of the List

Okay, these items might actually be worth the LONG, (and for the most part we are talking exalted rewards here), rep grinds that they require to get... but some seriously sweet items can be had if you are willing to work for it. And here I'm talking about endgame stuff for the most part.

Honor Hold (exalted) - Blade of the Archmage [sword] -- Incredible spell damage bonus for a single-handed weapon. At +159 spell damage, this thing seriously brings the pain. Most of the Blue quality, but nice staffs that you'll get will only get you +120 spell damage, so this thing is nice. So... why don't more warlocks have them? Because the only way you are getting to exalted is by running shattered halls... again, and again.. and again... That's why.

The Consortium (exalted) - Nether Runner's Cowl [head] -- That's a LOT of stam and a LOT of intel. It has a place for a meta and a yellow and gives you +4 spell damage with the socket bonus. You'll probably find better out there if you are taking the time to get up to exalted with consortium, but fortunately, there's lots of quests and things you can do to make this happen. So, might be worth it if you don't have a group to go instancing with and you don't want to PvP. Because those are some crazy head pieces there my brother.

Ogri'la (exalted) - Crystal Orb of Enlightenment [off-hand] -- Nice. Stam and Int. Our fav. Plus it has spell damage. Let's just say you put this up with your new and shiny Blade of the Archmage. Throw on the +40 spell damage enchant on your main weapon and lookie, lookie: 232 spell damage from JUST YOUR WEAPONS! OMFG WTF BBQ?!?!

Shattered Sun Offensive (exalted) - Shattered Sun Pendant of Acumen [neck] -- It's a pretty nice pendant. And for all those 70s who've been doing the dailies like it's their job. Or wishing it was their job so they didn't have to go to their real one, this is a nice'un. the +37 spell damage brings our Archmage/Orb combo up to +269. Wow... we're really making it happen. For the record, I have no idea what it means to call down the power of the arcane. Anyone? Ideas?

Scryer (exalted) - Seer's Signet [ring] -- This is the ring that makes me wish I went Scryer. I think about it a lot actually. It's alright though. I'll get all the rewards and then just basilisk my way back the other way... yeah right. It's a fantastic lock ring. All stam and +34 spell damage. We like it! Orb+Blade+Acumen+Signet now equal = 303. That's not bad from rep only. (of course, was the grind really worth getting exalted in all four of those factions?)

Cenarion Expedition (exalted) - Ashyen's Gift [ring] -- Dude... That's a pretty nice ring. +30 stam and +21 spell hit, +23 spell dmg. I dig it. This is a nice compliment to the Seer's Signet if you went Scryer or a nice consolation if you missed out on that.

Sha'tar (revered) - Glyph of Power [head enchant] -- Mmmm. Head enchant with spell damage. That's what we're talking about. + Spell Hit too, which is that elusive stat that no one ever remembers to stack until they find it on something they liked for another reason. This is a good one to work towards, especially when you consider your other options.

Shattered Sun Offensive [SSO] (revered) - Archmage's Guile [sword] -- This is a nicer version of the sword below with a sweet +130 spell damage. Grind, grind, grind and get those daily quests in. This sword will be yours! The stam is less than the below Keeper's sword, but you also have the +crit on this one. It's certainly not a bad choice by any means.

Keepers of Time (revered) - Continuum Blade [sword] -- This is definitely something you can and should get. The sword + off-hand combo is almost always better for the Afflic. lock, and this one is pretty easily accessible with a few CoT and BM runs under your belt. You'll also snag some nice gear by doing the instances anyway. Do it! +121 spell damage is what you are getting from most blue staves, and that's without an off-hand. The +hit instead of crit on this sword makes it a nice option for locks as opposed to the above sword, plus the considerably more substantial +stam. You might find yourself making a choice here. Which instances do you like running more?

Good to work towards along the way

There are some items that really are nice things to grab until you have to replace them. I picked up a lot of these items as I was finishing off my level 70 and early on in the end game game. (redundant, I know. It's redundant). There's some good stuff, but you're probably going to replace a lot of it with quest rewards and instance drops.

Honor Hold (honored) - Sage's Band [ring] -- As soon as you have the rep, get this. It's better than the rings you crossed over with and it'll last you a while. It's a nice ring. +18 spell damage is nothing to sneeze at and there's nothing wrong with having one piece that does not help your stam. Int gives you mana too... and mana you don't have to tap for. So, no biggie. Get it, love it, replace it once you can.

Aldor (honored) - Anchorite's Robes [chest] -- I picked these up pretty soon after I dinged 70 on my lock. They are nice robes and are a good stand in until you get the Robe of Oblivion.

Sporeggar (honored) - Muck-Covered Drape [back] -- Isn't this curious? If you are having trouble pulling agro off your tank in groups... 1) have your tank gear up. 2) play smart. 3) get this cape... hey... threat reduction: why not. If you've got nothing better to stack.

Scryer (revered) - Scryer's Bloodgem [trinket] -- +150 spell damage on use is good and it gives you some +spell hit. Why not. If you are going there to get the ring, get this along the way.

Sha'tar (revered) - Xiri's Gift [trinket] -- Here's your standard +150 spell damage use trinket. The thing with this one is though, that it increases Spell Crit passively. That's not entirely helpful to us, so if you remember to pop that trinket a lot, then awesome. Get this to upgrade from your +120 or whatever spell damage on use trinket... but I might pass on this one.

Mmmm... Alright... worth the effort? maybe...

Other items might be worth it if you really want this for the particular look or you think it'll be better in the long run and you are grinding the rep anyway. However... I wouldn't go for these explicitly if I were you. You're going to be able to do better for the most part with less effort than it would take to get you these, so consider your options before you choose to grind faction x just for one of these rewards:

Aldor (revered) - Auchenai Staff [two-hand] -- magey staff, +121 spell damage. You have better options.

Aldor (exalted) - Medallion of the Lightbearer [neck] -- magey/healy necklace. Okay if you haven't found something better, but there are better things.

SSO (revered) - Glyph of the Gladiator [head enchant] -- Sure... If you PvP, get this. the +20 stam and the resil bonus is really nice for that. You need to not get critted and you need to not get killed because you have no health, so stack stam and resil. Totally worth it for that reason. Put this on your PvP helm and put the Glyph of Power on your PvE one.

Sha'tari Skyguard (revered) - Skywitch's Drape [back] -- +30 spell damage is nice, and the reduction of falling speed on use is interesting. = mage slow fall, so if you have a mage alt and want the effect, get it. + int only makes me a sad panda though.

Ogri'la (revered) - Cerulean Crystal Rod [wand] -- This is fine. Damage is okay, Stats are okay, pick it up if you are going there anyway and it's better than what you have. I consider it a side step to the Shadow Labs Wand of the Netherwing that everyone seems to get when they run that instance. The Int and Stam are nice if you feel like your mana pool is suffering but you'll loose a little health and a little +dmg for that bonus.

Kurenai (exalted) - Cloak of the Ancient Spirits [back] -- Magey cloak. Heavier on int and it gives you the MP5 stat. That's what life tap is for.

So...

So, if you want to grind some rep, that's where I'd do it. Take a look at the list, see what quests seem doable to you and what is worth the effort and then make a break for exalted. You'll mostly be getting accessories through this method. Your main pieces are coming from PvP or PvE settings. These grinds should just be in addition to what you are already working on to get your gear. You'll be epiced out in no time... and/or a lot of time because it takes forever to hit exalted. Good luck peeps!

If you want to find more information on how to gain rep with any of these factions, check out wowwiki's entries on the following:

Cenarion Expedition, Honor Hold, Kurenai, Ogri'la, Sporeggar, The Consortium, Shattered Sun Offensive, The Aldor, The Scryers, The Sha'tar, The Keepers of Time

GUEST POST: Haru's Paladin Plans

I welcome to my blog our guest poster and owner of 4 level 70s, Haruka. His main is a paladin and he has some opinions he drafted up about different builds. Between using them live and playing around on the test server, he feels he's tried out just about every combination of talents, (which we all know is mathematically improbable... letting that fly though, Haru). Here's his guide to help you figure out what kind of paladin you should be if you like to do x.

Thanks Haru!

"Healadin" - BUILDLINK

Description- for the paladin that wants to heal and nothing else. This build offers the fastest biggest heals with the highest mana efficiency and best buffs for the group.

Gear- healadin's rely on critical hits with spells (in conjunction with blessing of light) to make their healing the most efficient in the game. Bonus healing is boosted substantially through the "holy guidance" talent and thus int is very important. At earlier levels and to a certain extent at end game supplementing lower level armor pieces is the best way to go.

Stat priority list - +healing, Int, spell crit rating, Stam, mana/5sec, spirit, defense, strength, agil, AP (attack power), melee crit rating

Playstyle- Blessing of wisdom almost exclusively (only using salv when needed). High armor allows the healer to get into the mix and judge beneficial seals (such as wisdom and light) on the mob. Easily functional in 5man normal mode through end game raid content. Not a reaction healer but a preemptive healer; spamming flash of light, mostly.

"Shockadin" - BUILDLINK

Description- solid healing with reliable if mana-intense burst damage at your command. This build can get in there and help out the dps while buffing the group for maximum efficiency and when the going gets rough has solid healing to help the group out.

Gear- spelldamage, spelldamage, spelldamage. Almost every ounce of a shockadin's dps is derived from spell damage. Everything from consecration and seal of righteousness through holy shock is affected by it. Holy guidance helps out a lot with this and by shirking the top point in the holy tree it allows the pally to gain sanctity aura from retribution raising that holy damage another 10%. Stength is all but useless in this build and you will want to use a caster weapon (even with its lower dps) for the boost in spell damage.

Stat priority list- +spelldamage, Int, Stam, spell crit rating, mana/5sec, strength, agil, AP, melee crit, spirit.

Playstyle- Blessing of wisdom is your friend! Because this is not a tanking focused build you won't be getting the hits/getting healed thus you aren't getting the mana from spiritual attunement which makes mana inefficiency a big draw back for this build. That being said you can turn out some really respectable damage for non-raid length battles. Haru's holy shocks with a similar build regularly crit around 1200 and bear in mind that I can have a 220/tick consecrate 250 perstrike righteousness + 850 non crit judgment every 8-10 seconds on top of it. And it would even be 10% higher thanks to sanctity aura from the retribution tree. Get in there and judge seal of the crusader (which thanks to your spec grants 3% additional crit to everyone melee or caster) and fire up righteousness and shock and judge everytime you can. Combine that with the ability to throw big mana efficient heals when the situation demands it and this becomes a versitle damage/off-healing build.

"Haru's Tanking Shockadin" - BUILDLINK

Description - Similar in most ways to the prior build but exchanging a lower damage output for more threat/tanking survivability. Improved righteous fury means every 10 holy damage you deal is perceived as 19 which means even at 3rd on the damage charts the perceived threat puts you at number one at no problem :). The big issues it presents is that without delving deeper into the protection tree you can't get the stamina/mitigation required to do tanking beyond the 5 man normal mode instances.

Gear- gear presents the other problem for this build. Ideally you'd need gear which has high stam, intellect, spelldamage, and also gives defense rating, dodge+parry rating. It is a hard balance to find as the majority of the pieces you have access to are lower stam or warrior pieces which have stats like strength/agil/AP which have little to no function for this build. As with the Shockadin build a spell damage weapon is the optimal choice as with some boosted spell damage there you can afford a few warrior pieces in other areas. Mana tick is less important since as long as you are getting healed you won't have to worry about mana.

Stat priority list- Stam, spell damage, Int, defense, dodge, parry, block, spell crit, strength, AP, agil, melee crit . . .

Playstyle- tanking as a shockadin demands you frontload your threat at the beginning of the fight. Pull with Holy Shock and have a seal of righteousness ready to judge immediately on that mob or the secondary target. Reposition as you can away from CC so that you can consecrate without fear and judge and shock every time the cooldown is up. about 3/4 through the first target switch to the second to start building threat on it. Because the your healthpool is a little smaller you will be required to heal yourself periodically during fights with harder hitting bosses and so you will need to have concentration aura on to avoid loosing cast times on those heals.

"Tankadin" - BUILDLINK

Description - The tanking paladin thrives where other tanking classes falter, tanking several mobs simultaneously. This build offers you 16% boosted stamina avenger's shield for a pull as well as holy shield and reckoning for added threat generation. While healing is still possible it is stripped to its bare bones in order to pick up increased parry rating and reduced judgement cooldown in retribution.

Gear- Focus on getting spell damage gear with high stam. Without having holy guidance to boost your spell damage int becomes less of a priority. You will need a good caster weapon to help with your threat. Once again warrior gear is less useful and itemization which focuses on what we need is harder to come by, but a select few warrior plate pieces can be used to help bring up your mitigation and stam.

Stat priority list- Stam, spell damage, defense, Int, dodge, parry, block, spell crit, strength, AP, agil, melee crit . . .

Playstyle- Playing this build is drastically different than playing haru's old tanking build. Threat for pally tanks depends on holy damage (physical damage accounts for so little that if you could avoid strength/AP/melee crit completely it wouldn't affect your tanking at all), and as a proto specced pally Holy Shield is how you get that threat. In general it benefits this build to fight more than one mob at a time so pull with avenger's shield (it will hit up to 3) and judge your main target with seal of the crusader. Pop holy shield and seal of vindication and consecrate liberally. Make your party wait for a 2 stack of vindication before going to town and then you play the watch the cooldowns game: holyshield, judge, vindication, consecrate, and repeat. Because you have more than one target on you reckoning will proc a lot giving every you extra attacks, and helping your threat. The drawback to this type of tanking is that because your high threat move (holy shield) results from the monster attacking you not vice versa you can be up shit creak if you loose aggro or if your party is a little over zealous at the start of a fight.

"Retrib (Retnoob)" - BUILDLINK

Description - DPS? as a paladin? SURE :D WHY NOT!!! This tree has seen a lot of love in the last half a year from patches and itemization. Roo and I fought a duo of retrib pallies in the arena last week and were convinced that one of them was a rogue . . . yeah its pretty respectable damage. Healing aint this builds forte but there is nothing to stop it from lending a hand here in and there. The 41 point talent has added benefit in that it refreshes all judgements on that target, and when I say all I mean the judgements of any other pally that might be judging on it. This means if you have a healing pally with you who has run in and judged wisdom on the target to help the group regen mana, YOU can keep it and your own seal up for the entire fight through crusader strike where it would have only gotten 10 seconds of life otherwise. Also the improved sanctity aura and seal of the crusader make give added group functionality with 2% increased damage and 3% crit.

Gear- Get yourself a slow (3.0 second or higher) 2H weapon, and stack strength and melee crit. A handfull of pally specific pieces and dps warrior gear will suit you fine with this build.

Stat priority list- Strength, Int, Stam, Melee crit, mana/5, spell damage, AP, spell crit, spirit

Playstyle- Bless yourself with Might, and be sure righteous fury is OFF. Run in and judge improved crusader, open up seal of command, crusader strike and judge every time they are up. Consecrate isn't mana efficient when not getting spam healed and your lack of spell damage gear will make it a poor return on investment. Heal your friends when they need it and intercept the baddies on the way to your squishy compadres with your taunt or a well timed blessing of protection.

-- "Pallies is domination. It's making people think that for that precise moment in time there is only one way, one judgement. Yours." -Uther Lightbringer

Those are some boots!

Were we all to be so lucky as this Level 69 Warlock that I came across one day in Stormwind waiting to PvPee... Check out those greeny boots. Missing decimal anyone?

+44881 Stamina
+29918 Intellect
+35005 Spell Damage and Healing

I've been looking for a pair of those on AH ever since and have yet to find one... I wonder why. I think this lock would be the first player to raid BT in greens, or at least in this green.

Obviously it's just a glitch we hope... but if not, then word up to this dude. Lucky gnome.