Sometime between 75 and 80 I switched to a Fire-based Frostfire build, the idea being to help us in questing and 2-3 man quests. Frostfire is a fairly interesting spell, which on the surface seems pretty subpar. On the surface, the spell doesn't seem that great--yay, a spell for fire/frost mage to use when their main nuke is worthless. It's in the details where Frostfire starts to get useful and interesting.
The trick with Frostfire is that it benefits from ALL effects that affect Frost AND Fire. So, for example, Frostfire can benefit from both Ice Shards (+100% to base Crit Damage), AND Ignite (40% Crit Damage dot). It can benefit from Frost Slow, and Freezes; AND Fire Stuns. And it benefits from +Hit, +Crit, and +damage bonuses from BOTH categories. This makes the build extremely interesting.
For leveling, I went with a mostly fire build. My Level 80 build looked pretty much like a strait 0/53/18 Fire build, with Ice Shards; and taking all Freezes, Stuns, and slowing effects I could. It was pretty effectively...with this build, if I crit I pretty much could kill the mob with 1-2 spells, long before it reached me. And if I didn't crit, I still had a 10% chance of a freeze, and an ADDITIONAL 10% chance of a stun hitting. In some cases, the mob would die before even managing to move from it's origional position; and the effect carries over fairly well into 5-mans. Plus, you still end up with Combustion, Dragons Breath, and Blast Wave for crowd control which is good enough for questing most of the time.
So far the build has worked pretty well. Frostfire is HEAVILY dependant on crit rate, and that's the main issue I have with it right now. My crit rating has tanked at 80, down 18% almost, and that's mostly just a stat-drop; I haven't made that back anywhere else. Of course, I haven't really gotten much in the way of 80 gear yet so things will only go up from here.
With that in mind, Frostfire has still proven useful and viable. With a crit rate of 25%, I'm hitting on average 2300-2600 on a non-crit; 6.5k on a crit + 40%. In 5-mans I'm generally hitting 7-8k on crits. That's not bad, seeing how right now Fireball's biggest benefit right now would be 500 points more non-crit damage and 2k less crits.
Of course, my Frostfire build is still more for questing than anything else. And I haven't picked up the Glyphs that will help yet--namely Frostfire Glyph, and Molten Armor Glyph. Those 2 will help significantly.
There is another Frostfire build option that I'm considering, one that is more of a true hybrid elemental spec. That has some definite advantages right now--in 5 man it ensures a higher base crit rating, and allows for more crits in general; with the loss of instant-pyroblasts and other useful fire stats. I might be trying that build out soon, and if I do I'll post something about it here.
Showing posts with label World of Warcraft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World of Warcraft. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Level 80 Post Mortem
I have a confession to make. I had fully planned on blogging on my experiences to 80 in Northrend, but it simply didn't happen. There are a few reasons for this. One is simply laziness. The other, however, is the fast pace and relatively mechanical way in which I leveled to 80 which just made it less fun to write about.
I'm not saying I didn't have fun leveling. In fact it was a blast. But the process in which I did it (duoing with another mage), and the pace made it hard to keep track of everything without taking notes and that would have slowed me down significantly.
In the end, I made 80 in 11 days...1 day longer than Burning Crusade where it took 10 days to get to 70. However, 3 of those days I didn't even log in, so by game time we were significantly faster this time through. For those counting, we did Borean Tundra - Dragon Blight - Howling Fjord - Grizzily Hills, the Basin, and hit 70 in Zul Drak. We aren't actually done yet...we won't be 'done' until we've completed all of the zones...so we still have Storm Peaks and Icecrown to go but those we will do a bit later.
During the questing I only replaced one piece of gear--a epic trinket with a simple green trinket that has 44 INT and 55 Spell Power. There were a couple of other pieces I kept as well, including a back-piece which is clearly better than what I'm currently wearing but am not b/c I would loose too much crit. There might be a few more options in the final two zones, but I'm not sure about that yet.
Of course, I've now moved on to 5-mans and hopefully 10 mans will be an option soon. Naxx is certainly a starter zone, which IMO is a good thing. My guild has already run 2 runs (I was not one of the 'chosen' few that got to go--like all guilds this one has an 'in crowd' and I, being relatively new, am NOT in that category. Not a big deal, b/c 25- man is still where it is at, but it still shows some of the more obvious flaws in the guild structure that could come back to haunt them. It certainly hurt my first guild--caused it to crash and burn, so we'll see.
I'm not saying I didn't have fun leveling. In fact it was a blast. But the process in which I did it (duoing with another mage), and the pace made it hard to keep track of everything without taking notes and that would have slowed me down significantly.
In the end, I made 80 in 11 days...1 day longer than Burning Crusade where it took 10 days to get to 70. However, 3 of those days I didn't even log in, so by game time we were significantly faster this time through. For those counting, we did Borean Tundra - Dragon Blight - Howling Fjord - Grizzily Hills, the Basin, and hit 70 in Zul Drak. We aren't actually done yet...we won't be 'done' until we've completed all of the zones...so we still have Storm Peaks and Icecrown to go but those we will do a bit later.
During the questing I only replaced one piece of gear--a epic trinket with a simple green trinket that has 44 INT and 55 Spell Power. There were a couple of other pieces I kept as well, including a back-piece which is clearly better than what I'm currently wearing but am not b/c I would loose too much crit. There might be a few more options in the final two zones, but I'm not sure about that yet.
Of course, I've now moved on to 5-mans and hopefully 10 mans will be an option soon. Naxx is certainly a starter zone, which IMO is a good thing. My guild has already run 2 runs (I was not one of the 'chosen' few that got to go--like all guilds this one has an 'in crowd' and I, being relatively new, am NOT in that category. Not a big deal, b/c 25- man is still where it is at, but it still shows some of the more obvious flaws in the guild structure that could come back to haunt them. It certainly hurt my first guild--caused it to crash and burn, so we'll see.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sunwell Part 2
Well, some good news. A friend of mine got in the guild. He's been stuck in limbo since my old guild broke up. And with Wrath approaching he was very worried that he wouldn't get to see Illidan die. And while he did get into the guild, he did not actually get a raiding spot. However, despite that he got into a BT run this week and not only managed to see Council and Illidan die, but he also got T6 Legs and Chest. In 1 night he pretty much caught up to me gear-wise.
Last night the guild went back into Sunwell to work on the Eredar Twins. And while so far I've liked the fights in BC, Eredar Twins is easily the worst in the whole game right now, supplanting Leo for the worst-designed boss spot. Why is it so bad? It's mostly a matter of raid positioning being terrible; combustion insta-killing the raid, LOS issues, and massive raid wide damage. Combusion is definitely the most annoying ability I've seen in a while. It's living bomb, or Solarian, with no warning and only 3 seconds to react to it before killing everyone.
Eredar Twins fell fairly quickly. They don't have many HP, and Combusion is only an issue through Phase 1. So then we went onto M'uru. M'uru was probably the hardest fight in BC before the nerf, but we managed to figure out a strategy in about 2 hours. I'm not going to say that this fight is trivial...but if you've got good tanks and DPS and can coordinate well, this fight isn't too bad right now. I'm actually surprised that we got past it actually. Like Eredar, when things go south in this fight they do so with quickly. Things can go from OK to dead raid in about 5 seconds; and even with the nerf everyone needs to be on their toes.
Unfortunately last night also was one of the first times I've been so far down on the DPS chart. Eredar Twins, well, I was just playing uber-conservative, and kept falling off the ledge because I just couldn't get any LOS. But M'uru doesn't really seem suited for mage DPS. Oh well, I'll just have to work better next time.
We did go ahead and make one pull on Kil'Jaeden (sp?)...1 pull, no strategy = 70% before we wiped. That encounter truely looks...epic, something that was missing from the Illidan fight honestly. I'm really looking forward to more time with KJ tonight. There is even a chance we'll get him which would be awesome.
Last night the guild went back into Sunwell to work on the Eredar Twins. And while so far I've liked the fights in BC, Eredar Twins is easily the worst in the whole game right now, supplanting Leo for the worst-designed boss spot. Why is it so bad? It's mostly a matter of raid positioning being terrible; combustion insta-killing the raid, LOS issues, and massive raid wide damage. Combusion is definitely the most annoying ability I've seen in a while. It's living bomb, or Solarian, with no warning and only 3 seconds to react to it before killing everyone.
Eredar Twins fell fairly quickly. They don't have many HP, and Combusion is only an issue through Phase 1. So then we went onto M'uru. M'uru was probably the hardest fight in BC before the nerf, but we managed to figure out a strategy in about 2 hours. I'm not going to say that this fight is trivial...but if you've got good tanks and DPS and can coordinate well, this fight isn't too bad right now. I'm actually surprised that we got past it actually. Like Eredar, when things go south in this fight they do so with quickly. Things can go from OK to dead raid in about 5 seconds; and even with the nerf everyone needs to be on their toes.
Unfortunately last night also was one of the first times I've been so far down on the DPS chart. Eredar Twins, well, I was just playing uber-conservative, and kept falling off the ledge because I just couldn't get any LOS. But M'uru doesn't really seem suited for mage DPS. Oh well, I'll just have to work better next time.
We did go ahead and make one pull on Kil'Jaeden (sp?)...1 pull, no strategy = 70% before we wiped. That encounter truely looks...epic, something that was missing from the Illidan fight honestly. I'm really looking forward to more time with KJ tonight. There is even a chance we'll get him which would be awesome.
Monday, October 20, 2008
This Week in WOW
I have a confession to make. Friday night's non-scheduled raid of BWL and AQ40 was some of the most fun I've had in a game for a long time. Virtually all of that content was new and interesting, and AQ40 especially had some very interesting visuals and encounters which made it a great trip. I made a fool of myself a few times, unfortunately, but it wouldn't be a true raid if I didn't do something like that at least once!
My impressions of BWL was that it was too much like the other black rock instances. It's a zone mostly filled with boss fights, and relatively small amounts of trash--though I'm not 100% sure that I liked the boss to trash ratio. There were still a few unusually long sections that just weren't needed.
AQ40, however, was just about perfect. There was a lot of variety, and a lot of bosses. And it had some interesting trash sections. The only problems with the zone was it's confusing layout and large size--but honestly that added to it's charm. And I've heard lots about the C'thun fight...and it's everything I thought it would be. Easily the best, and most internally consistant end-raid boss in the game right now. (Though right now it's a bit buggy).
Otherwise, Blizzard is still suffering from server stability isues and big ones at that. No raid happened last night due to all instances being down (and people were getting kicked of regularly with bad lag times and other issues. Population levels are high on the server, but not THAT high, so I'm definitely worried about whatever problems they've introduced into the system. I don't think this is just a matter of load. And if it is, things are going to be damned painful when Wrath comes out.
My impressions of BWL was that it was too much like the other black rock instances. It's a zone mostly filled with boss fights, and relatively small amounts of trash--though I'm not 100% sure that I liked the boss to trash ratio. There were still a few unusually long sections that just weren't needed.
AQ40, however, was just about perfect. There was a lot of variety, and a lot of bosses. And it had some interesting trash sections. The only problems with the zone was it's confusing layout and large size--but honestly that added to it's charm. And I've heard lots about the C'thun fight...and it's everything I thought it would be. Easily the best, and most internally consistant end-raid boss in the game right now. (Though right now it's a bit buggy).
Otherwise, Blizzard is still suffering from server stability isues and big ones at that. No raid happened last night due to all instances being down (and people were getting kicked of regularly with bad lag times and other issues. Population levels are high on the server, but not THAT high, so I'm definitely worried about whatever problems they've introduced into the system. I don't think this is just a matter of load. And if it is, things are going to be damned painful when Wrath comes out.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Mage Builds!
Oh, I almost forgot. With patch 3.0.2 comes the new talent trees. And with that I had to make some choices. Fire, Arcane, or Frost.
Well, with my new T6 pieces Arcane looses some of it's luster (especially with the changes to AB and the nerfing of 2-piece T5). And to me it seemed a simple choice considering that we got new Fireball and Frostbolt spells (and a new Arcane Missile, but that doesn't cover it).
So the choice was between Fire and Frost. And since I'm fire right now I decided to stick with it for the start. And that left me with some difficult choices. The two obvious ones were 11/50/0, or 0/50/11. At 70, you just don't have enough talents to hit everything, so no matter what you do you have to make some concessions.
It really came down to the choice of IV + Elemental Precision vs. Focus Magic + Arcane Concentration (hmm, I think that's wrong, but I can't look it up right now)
Now, IV is a great talent, an awesome addition to the mage class. And obviously Elemental Precision is extremely important (still annoyed they moved that to T2). But Fire now completely relies on crit rating for high damage output. Without it, the new Fire tree isn't that much better than the old one. Or to put it another way, in my short tests on the targets in IF yesterday, my fire DPS was sustaining about 1200 when I wasn't getting double crits, but was sustaining 1800 when I could.
If this works out, I might not switch to frost until Wrath hits. I'm almost certainly going to spec Frost for leveling (the spec kicks ass for leveling, and will do so even more with the WE for extra mana regen).
Not sure what to think about Arcane yet, so for the moment I'm avoiding it though that may not last long. I'm personally interested in what they do with that spec. The Devs have said they intend to do something with it, so hopefully they can fix some of it's current problems. As it is, I think Arcane is just too situational and reactionary to be fun over a long fight even if I could keep up in DPS with it.
Now IV is a great talent, but Fire now really relies on crits for it's damage output, so to me Focus Magic still made more sense.
So, I specced 11/50/0
Well, with my new T6 pieces Arcane looses some of it's luster (especially with the changes to AB and the nerfing of 2-piece T5). And to me it seemed a simple choice considering that we got new Fireball and Frostbolt spells (and a new Arcane Missile, but that doesn't cover it).
So the choice was between Fire and Frost. And since I'm fire right now I decided to stick with it for the start. And that left me with some difficult choices. The two obvious ones were 11/50/0, or 0/50/11. At 70, you just don't have enough talents to hit everything, so no matter what you do you have to make some concessions.
It really came down to the choice of IV + Elemental Precision vs. Focus Magic + Arcane Concentration (hmm, I think that's wrong, but I can't look it up right now)
Now, IV is a great talent, an awesome addition to the mage class. And obviously Elemental Precision is extremely important (still annoyed they moved that to T2). But Fire now completely relies on crit rating for high damage output. Without it, the new Fire tree isn't that much better than the old one. Or to put it another way, in my short tests on the targets in IF yesterday, my fire DPS was sustaining about 1200 when I wasn't getting double crits, but was sustaining 1800 when I could.
If this works out, I might not switch to frost until Wrath hits. I'm almost certainly going to spec Frost for leveling (the spec kicks ass for leveling, and will do so even more with the WE for extra mana regen).
Not sure what to think about Arcane yet, so for the moment I'm avoiding it though that may not last long. I'm personally interested in what they do with that spec. The Devs have said they intend to do something with it, so hopefully they can fix some of it's current problems. As it is, I think Arcane is just too situational and reactionary to be fun over a long fight even if I could keep up in DPS with it.
Now IV is a great talent, but Fire now really relies on crits for it's damage output, so to me Focus Magic still made more sense.
So, I specced 11/50/0
Patch Day 1 & 2!
Well, I haven't been blogging lots (this is still just for fun). And my interest in WOW has been rising again with the release of the new patch, which I knew would happen. So far it's been an interesting experience.
Patch Day 1
The install went pretty well, but I'm running Vista and it re-installed the entire WOW app to the \public folder...wierd, but interesting.
After the install...my server was down. In fact it was down until about 11 PM that night (though interestingly SOME people were able to get online, for me the server never even appeared in the list for me to choose it. I spent a little time puttering around on a scrub character on another server just to check out the new Stormwind, but other than that I had a lot of fun watching Iron Man on BD!
Patch Day 2
I was really hoping that we'd raid last night. And so after I get home the first thing I do is try to get online. World Server Down! Yeah. Apparently Outlands, and Eastern Kingdoms were down most of yesterday. Kalimdor was still up, and eventually Eastern Kingdoms too, but Outlands didn't come back online until after 8:30. So, no raid. Well, I did manage to get into the final stages of an MC run which was interesting. The frost mage that went sustained 8000 DPS on Ragnaros and even though I was fire-specced with 11/50/0 I was critting him for 10k (apparently Rag takes double damage vs. frost?)
After that, I was going to spend some time on my Horde mage, but ended up getting on my 62 Druid instead when Outlands came back online after being down 8 hours. The leveling speed is definitely faster, and I managed to make 63 pretty quickly compared to what it used to take. My Feral Kitty's DPS was also much higher by about 100 DPS. Managed to pick up a few useful quest pieces too with some Hit on it, so my hit rating is now sitting at 64.
Tonight, hopefully the guild will actually raid. I want to get some practice with the new spec, and see how I perform. I also want to see if the BC raid nerf actually speeds up the runs, or if it really is just necessary to make it through the raids now.
Patch Day 1
The install went pretty well, but I'm running Vista and it re-installed the entire WOW app to the \public folder...wierd, but interesting.
After the install...my server was down. In fact it was down until about 11 PM that night (though interestingly SOME people were able to get online, for me the server never even appeared in the list for me to choose it. I spent a little time puttering around on a scrub character on another server just to check out the new Stormwind, but other than that I had a lot of fun watching Iron Man on BD!
Patch Day 2
I was really hoping that we'd raid last night. And so after I get home the first thing I do is try to get online. World Server Down! Yeah. Apparently Outlands, and Eastern Kingdoms were down most of yesterday. Kalimdor was still up, and eventually Eastern Kingdoms too, but Outlands didn't come back online until after 8:30. So, no raid. Well, I did manage to get into the final stages of an MC run which was interesting. The frost mage that went sustained 8000 DPS on Ragnaros and even though I was fire-specced with 11/50/0 I was critting him for 10k (apparently Rag takes double damage vs. frost?)
After that, I was going to spend some time on my Horde mage, but ended up getting on my 62 Druid instead when Outlands came back online after being down 8 hours. The leveling speed is definitely faster, and I managed to make 63 pretty quickly compared to what it used to take. My Feral Kitty's DPS was also much higher by about 100 DPS. Managed to pick up a few useful quest pieces too with some Hit on it, so my hit rating is now sitting at 64.
Tonight, hopefully the guild will actually raid. I want to get some practice with the new spec, and see how I perform. I also want to see if the BC raid nerf actually speeds up the runs, or if it really is just necessary to make it through the raids now.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
The Raiding Game
So far the new guild I am in has it's ups and downs. I still have no official status with the guild = bad...but I've pretty much made it into every guild run since that first week = good...but they've been having tons of problems getting people to show up to raids = bad...but they don't seem to be suffering from the rampant angst that had plagued my previous guild during bad times.
Obviously, with WOTLK right around the corner now raiding interest in dropping. And for this guild, who is nowhere close to finishing Sunwell, I think the reality of it has sunk in. It's bound to happen to most guilds (in fact I was expecting and predicting it), though it might have hit this guild a bit earlier due to loosing 2 full weeks back to back due to other issues and the hurricane.
Still, last night they did raid and they did reasonably well. They have obviously tried to adjust; they are letting people bring their alts to the main raids now to try to keep interest up and it looks like they are going to try switching a few nights that are more friendly. We'll see what happens. I'm still hopeful I'll get a chance to get 4-piece T6 soon but I'm not going to hold my breath. At this point, killing Illidan is all I really care about. T6 chest would be sweet--I'd rather get that than even legs at this point just so I can look different. Thoughout all of BC I've been stuck in red or orange gear and it's time for something different.
So based on what I heard last night they are raiding again tonight (trying different days). We'll see what happens--usually when my old guild tried to switch days it just meant even fewer people showed up. And with more people playing alts, my chances of gear scaps drops even farther.
Obviously, with WOTLK right around the corner now raiding interest in dropping. And for this guild, who is nowhere close to finishing Sunwell, I think the reality of it has sunk in. It's bound to happen to most guilds (in fact I was expecting and predicting it), though it might have hit this guild a bit earlier due to loosing 2 full weeks back to back due to other issues and the hurricane.
Still, last night they did raid and they did reasonably well. They have obviously tried to adjust; they are letting people bring their alts to the main raids now to try to keep interest up and it looks like they are going to try switching a few nights that are more friendly. We'll see what happens. I'm still hopeful I'll get a chance to get 4-piece T6 soon but I'm not going to hold my breath. At this point, killing Illidan is all I really care about. T6 chest would be sweet--I'd rather get that than even legs at this point just so I can look different. Thoughout all of BC I've been stuck in red or orange gear and it's time for something different.
So based on what I heard last night they are raiding again tonight (trying different days). We'll see what happens--usually when my old guild tried to switch days it just meant even fewer people showed up. And with more people playing alts, my chances of gear scaps drops even farther.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Random Musing
Well, I am now a level 53 druid. 5 levels until I can move on to Burning Crusade content. I'm much farther along that I would normally be with a character at this point. I have yet to step foot in Western or Eastern Plaguelands, Felwood, Winterspring, or Silithus. I haven't even finished all of the Un'goro Crater quests (though I am close). If all goes well, I should be 60, or at least close to 60 by next week. One small hiccup though is that my mining/herbalism skills are pretty low. Especially mining...I'm going to have to spend some time just grinding that. Especially since in Un'goro I was running across tons of thorium veins that I coulnd't mine which was annoying the crap out of me.
And I did manage to get a guild invite. Not as a raider though so I'm a sad panda. I'm not even sure I was invited as a backup. I'm still hoping I'll get a few chances to raid, but I'm guessing it's not going to happen quickly. I did manage to get a big benefit out of dual-boxing though, something I had not originally thought of or intended. Last night I was able to chill with Mal patiently waiting for an offer to join in if they had room; while in reality I was grinding hard with my druid.
I was also a bit surprised listening to their raid...they were very quiet. Now in Nerfed we were pretty strict about talking in vent, but we did allow light chat between pulls. This group was virtually silent. Also, there raid leader (also the guild leader) seemed to follow my general belief when it came to raid leading...only talk when you have something meaningful to say. Our raid leaders were very chatty in comparison, calling out every single thing while I generally preferred to call out the important stuff and leave the obvious stuff for everyone to be smart enough to know what to do without having to be told every pull.
And I did manage to get a guild invite. Not as a raider though so I'm a sad panda. I'm not even sure I was invited as a backup. I'm still hoping I'll get a few chances to raid, but I'm guessing it's not going to happen quickly. I did manage to get a big benefit out of dual-boxing though, something I had not originally thought of or intended. Last night I was able to chill with Mal patiently waiting for an offer to join in if they had room; while in reality I was grinding hard with my druid.
I was also a bit surprised listening to their raid...they were very quiet. Now in Nerfed we were pretty strict about talking in vent, but we did allow light chat between pulls. This group was virtually silent. Also, there raid leader (also the guild leader) seemed to follow my general belief when it came to raid leading...only talk when you have something meaningful to say. Our raid leaders were very chatty in comparison, calling out every single thing while I generally preferred to call out the important stuff and leave the obvious stuff for everyone to be smart enough to know what to do without having to be told every pull.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Tailoring or Inscription
Ever since I started playing WOW, my Mage (my first character) has been an Enchanting/Tailor. Now, Enchanting has generally paid off for me, though I've never been one to try to sell enchants. And in BC Tailoring was awesome...at least until I got into T5 and then any use for it disappeared.
The truth is, while the Spellfire Set + Spellstrike Set provided me early T4.5 gear...allowing me a very heafty DPS bonus...my other mage friend who was not an enchanter or tailor was always close to me...the truth is while Spellfire was a very good DPS set, it sacrificed all survivability for it. I remember the days of T4 and early T5 where no matter what I did I would die simply because of the lack of hit points. The sets were just too specialized.
Today, Tailoring has no real benefit for me. I have no access to the Sunwell patterns (though I'd love the chest piece)...and other Sunwell gear is almost as good.
But still, the real reason to keep Tailoring would be Wrath. And it's not just what gear is available in tailoring...it's what -exclusive- gear is in tailoring that defines what professions to take or keep. So far, Tailoring seems to have 1 exclusive that I've seen so far--and that are Back-enhancer that restores mana occassionally on cast spells.
Now, I've also been considering Inscription. Inscription looks to have some fairly interesting benefits in general...but what does it bring to the table exclusively? So far it looks like the only exclusive benefit to Inscription is that you get another free inscription slot.
So, 1 free Inscription Slot vs. Cloak-Enhancer + Possible Gear?
Depending on how good Inscription looks, so far it's looking like Tailoring is going to be the best bet here...at least at first. However, it really depends on how good that extra inscription slot is.
The truth is, while the Spellfire Set + Spellstrike Set provided me early T4.5 gear...allowing me a very heafty DPS bonus...my other mage friend who was not an enchanter or tailor was always close to me...the truth is while Spellfire was a very good DPS set, it sacrificed all survivability for it. I remember the days of T4 and early T5 where no matter what I did I would die simply because of the lack of hit points. The sets were just too specialized.
Today, Tailoring has no real benefit for me. I have no access to the Sunwell patterns (though I'd love the chest piece)...and other Sunwell gear is almost as good.
But still, the real reason to keep Tailoring would be Wrath. And it's not just what gear is available in tailoring...it's what -exclusive- gear is in tailoring that defines what professions to take or keep. So far, Tailoring seems to have 1 exclusive that I've seen so far--and that are Back-enhancer that restores mana occassionally on cast spells.
Now, I've also been considering Inscription. Inscription looks to have some fairly interesting benefits in general...but what does it bring to the table exclusively? So far it looks like the only exclusive benefit to Inscription is that you get another free inscription slot.
So, 1 free Inscription Slot vs. Cloak-Enhancer + Possible Gear?
Depending on how good Inscription looks, so far it's looking like Tailoring is going to be the best bet here...at least at first. However, it really depends on how good that extra inscription slot is.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Playing Alts in WOW
You know it's interesting how the game experience in WOW changes outside of a raiding guild. I've learned to be somewhat orderly in regards to my play time, mostly due to the limited amount of time I have to play and the large amount of time required to raid. But with the raiding game pretty much taken out of the picture for the moment, I find myself still planning ahead.
First, I've been leveling a druid alt. Now that's not really a change for me. I've always had alts...I like variety and diversions, which helps keep my interest. This time I did something that at one time I swore not to do (and I feel bad about it), but I bought another account. I did it for several reasons. First, I didn't want to delete any of my existing characters (which I have 10). Second, I wanted to be able to dual-box 5-man instances while leveling. I figured that way I'd still be able to keep my horde characters in case I ever switched sides, and level grinding would be easier with extra gear.
Now, less than 2 weeks later I'm level 41 (almost 42). I've run many of the low-level instances at least 2-3 times; and I've ended up with tons of crap to sell. Not only has leveling been easier, but I've made a ton of money for my druid...900g, and only 50g of that was seed money. You'd be surprised how many low-level green items will sell if you don't hyper-inflate the process like so many seem to like. I'll put up some random l23 sword up for 1G, when everyone else puts them up for 5, 10, or even 50!?!?! gold, and still make a decent profit out of it. Plus I guess I've been lucky when it comes to blue drops; I've had several which have sold for over 100, one that sold for 200, and 4-5 that sold for 40-60g.
One other thing I did with my Druid was to make her a gatherer. Mining/Herbalist to be specific. Now mining doesn't necessarily give me all that much, but it does let me stock up on valuable materials that I might need for an alt jewelcrafter or smith (DK?) and herbalism lets me prep for Wrath by collecting low/mid/high level herbs for Inscription. I'm considering just leaving druid as a pure gatherer alt, doing the epic flight-form quest, and using her to collect materials later. That would give me the option of dropping tailoring on my Mage and taking Inscription instead (which I'm actually leaning towards).
Of course, tailoring might end up being as good as it was in BC, but I doubt it. Sure Tailoring turned into an invaluable skill at 70 pre T5; but it really left me without many options in T4 for quite some time (and even T5 until I got the 2-piece bonus, which took forever).
So, while I'm no longer planning for item upgrades and watching DKP, or planning to sneak in 1-2 hours of alt-time between raids, I'm still planning but it's all focused on the next expansion.
First, I've been leveling a druid alt. Now that's not really a change for me. I've always had alts...I like variety and diversions, which helps keep my interest. This time I did something that at one time I swore not to do (and I feel bad about it), but I bought another account. I did it for several reasons. First, I didn't want to delete any of my existing characters (which I have 10). Second, I wanted to be able to dual-box 5-man instances while leveling. I figured that way I'd still be able to keep my horde characters in case I ever switched sides, and level grinding would be easier with extra gear.
Now, less than 2 weeks later I'm level 41 (almost 42). I've run many of the low-level instances at least 2-3 times; and I've ended up with tons of crap to sell. Not only has leveling been easier, but I've made a ton of money for my druid...900g, and only 50g of that was seed money. You'd be surprised how many low-level green items will sell if you don't hyper-inflate the process like so many seem to like. I'll put up some random l23 sword up for 1G, when everyone else puts them up for 5, 10, or even 50!?!?! gold, and still make a decent profit out of it. Plus I guess I've been lucky when it comes to blue drops; I've had several which have sold for over 100, one that sold for 200, and 4-5 that sold for 40-60g.
One other thing I did with my Druid was to make her a gatherer. Mining/Herbalist to be specific. Now mining doesn't necessarily give me all that much, but it does let me stock up on valuable materials that I might need for an alt jewelcrafter or smith (DK?) and herbalism lets me prep for Wrath by collecting low/mid/high level herbs for Inscription. I'm considering just leaving druid as a pure gatherer alt, doing the epic flight-form quest, and using her to collect materials later. That would give me the option of dropping tailoring on my Mage and taking Inscription instead (which I'm actually leaning towards).
Of course, tailoring might end up being as good as it was in BC, but I doubt it. Sure Tailoring turned into an invaluable skill at 70 pre T5; but it really left me without many options in T4 for quite some time (and even T5 until I got the 2-piece bonus, which took forever).
So, while I'm no longer planning for item upgrades and watching DKP, or planning to sneak in 1-2 hours of alt-time between raids, I'm still planning but it's all focused on the next expansion.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Guild Woes
Just recently the WOW guild my mage was in broke up rather suddenly. I've been in a raiding guild since the week I hit 60 back in the day, and really it's been something of a shock to suddenly find myself guildless and without many prospects. Malygos just doesn't have a very active high-end raiding community, and coupled with me being a Mage and no one seems to want one I'm kinda stuck.
For now I'm kinda chilling. I've got a Shaman which is 68 that I'm going to get to 70 and I've started on druid too. Honestly it's been better to do that than to stay on my main, with an empty guild channel and no one on Vent to talk to. Leveling alts, at least, is by it's very nature a more solo experience and the lack of anything else isn't quite so obvious.
Hopefully I'll have a chance to get back into raiding soon, at least by the time WOTLK comes out.
(boy, this post turned into something completely different than what I wanted...oh well)
For now I'm kinda chilling. I've got a Shaman which is 68 that I'm going to get to 70 and I've started on druid too. Honestly it's been better to do that than to stay on my main, with an empty guild channel and no one on Vent to talk to. Leveling alts, at least, is by it's very nature a more solo experience and the lack of anything else isn't quite so obvious.
Hopefully I'll have a chance to get back into raiding soon, at least by the time WOTLK comes out.
(boy, this post turned into something completely different than what I wanted...oh well)
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