It’s Always Me Alone in the End

A long, long time ago, a friend of mine got me into WoW. He rolled a mage, and so I followed suit. Originally, we had intended to play together, but he already had something like a 20 level head start on me.

I was supposed to quickly close this gap, instead I fell in love with PvP and spent months at 29, 39, 49, etc, rather than leveling.

We occasionally would try out alts, again with the intention of playing together, but those never lasted for one reason or another. Either playing a warrior was too boring for one of us, or the other would “accidentally” level ten times; so on and so forth.

We never got a chance to avidly play together until we hit end-game. Which didn’t last long, as aforementioned friend quit the game.

He’s back, now. Thanks to Death Knights starting at 55 and me possessing 5 alts within the 59-70 range, we played together. Freakin’ all the time. Nearly every day since February we’ve spent something like 2-8 hours doing stuff in WoW together.

To an unknowing outsider, we probably look like a gay married couple that never argues for no adequately explained reason.

Problem is, neither of us are really capable of playing at all on our own anymore.

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Arena Transcripts

“What do we got?”

“Warlock and a shammy. Shammy is… enhancement? No, has a shield. Not resto. Elemental.”

“Ah. Warlock then?”

“It’ll be an easier kill, he isn’t sporting soul link.”

“Gotcha. Going after the lock!”

“He’s… Bloodlust, oh no…”

“I’m dead.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“What happened!?”

“Behold, the Bloodlust zerg. We basically completely failed to bring our mace and got raped.”

“How… how could we die so fast?!”

“I’m guessing this 4k Chain Lightning mighta had something to do with it.”

“Needz more resilience.”

-=-

“Alright. Hunter and a… dunno. Stealthed.”

“Druid?”

“No Mark, probably a rogue. Wh- Hunter just disappeared?”

“Ah. Night elf. Shadowmeld.”

“Ahh. Kitty!”

“Kill it!”

“Kitty is dead! Yay!”

“Yay!”

“Hunter inc! Is that a… warrior? Yeah, it’s a warrior.”

“Bah, I hate Mortal Str- HOLY CRAP THAT IS NOT A WARRIOR OH GOD OH GOD HOLY CRAAAAP.”

“Damnit.”

“No! S’ok! I bubbled with 162 hitpoints left. We’re good! How’s the hunter?”

“Dead now.”

“Excellent. So that totally wasn’t a warrior.”

“I gathered that from your frantic screaming.”

-=-

“I really hate Ring of Valor.”

“Yeah. Me too. The pillars are such cheap whores.”

“Have we even won here yet?”

“Yeah. Once. Something like 8 losses, though.”

“Poop.”

“Yes. Want to buy reliable humping poles.”

“Warrior Paladin. Kill the paladin?”

“Obviously.”

…

“I don’t think this warrior knows where the hamstring button is.”

-=-

“I see a Death Knight and… nothing. Druid?”

“No mark, probably a rogue.”

“Could be. Or a clev-Death Knight is comin-SAPPED.”

“Aaand, stunlocked.”

“Damn, you’re dying fast. Alright, I… am frozen. And now I’m blind. And now you’re dead.”

“Yep. Damn CC chains.”

“In retrospect, I probably should have bubbled.”

“YOU *&!^@ &*^@ MUNCHING &*@!”

-=-

“Priest aaand… hunter. Discipline, probably. Don’t let yourself get dragged out into the open, that’s what the hunter wants. Stay close to walls and LOS.”

“Hunter first.”

“Pull back, you’re out in the open. Yeah, see, force ‘im to come to us. Feared, trinket.”

“I love being undead.”

“Shut ut up, you. Pull back here.”

“Heh, fight reset.”

“Coming down.”

*Minutes pass*

“Damn, got pulled into the open again. What kinda hunter was that?”

“Survival. Explosive Shot is the stuff of nightmares. S’alright. It’s late, you’re tired, I’m just going to use this opportunity to practice pillar humping. It is our first night after all.”

*Is at 10% mana and 30% HP*

“Heehee. They’re using slash pity on you!”

“Around and around we go!”

“Are you just kiting them around in circles?”

“… Yes.”

*Minutes pass*

“I can’t believe I’m still alive.”

“Why is the hunter not doing any… the hunter disconnected!”

“Did he?!”

“He was jus’ standing there, now he’s gone!”

“Hahaha! Just me and the priest then?”

“Ayep!”

“Pillar humping for the win!”

“Dude, you’re nearly back to full health and mana!”

“Let’s just say that Replenishment is awesome. Oh, he’s drinking! There will be none of that!”

“No, dude, stay outta combat and rez me!”

“… yeah, that would definitely be the far more intelligent thing to do.”

*Casts Redepmtion, Holy Light, Flash of Light.*

“Two against one. Here he comes!”

“Baaaaahahaha! Look at ‘im run!”

“Kill him! Kill him! Aahahaha!”

*Priest dies*

“There is no way that was fair.”

“Oh man. How long did that take? Ahaha! Nearly fifteen minutes!”

“Guy’s probably pissed as hell.”

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Ranting about Pirating

This is a very long post with very strong and unwavering opinions. It has nothing to do with WoW. Read at your own risk.

So.

Some of you are probably aware that there was a trial involving some of the people behind The Pirate Bay. These people were convicted, fined $900k, and are to serve a year in prison for their despicable crimes.

Yes, you read right. Providing the means with which to pirate files is a crime worse than rape.

To summarize in a quick and dirty fashion: “the industry” (essentially the companies and other businesses) for music, games, TV, movies, etc, don’t respond well to seeing their product distributed to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, for absolutely free.

So they try to stop it. Branding the people behind it as criminals, and trying them as such, all in a vain effort to preserve their own paycheques.

And vain it is.

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A Glimpse of the Bacon Judging

So there’s this show on TV called “24”. It’s wrapping up it’s 7th season, so if you wanted to see one of the freshest and most entertaining shows in the past decade or two, you’re too late. But I digress, as usual.

24 has a catch phrase. Y’see, the gimmick of the show is that it plays out in real time. 24 hours, and there’s this malign clock constantly ticking throughout the entire show. The clock is everywhere. It is always there, mercilessly recording the passage of time, counting down to a major character’s death more often than anything else.

Every episode, at least one character will say “we’re running out of time” or “we’re out of time” or some variant thereof. Sometimes they’ll say “you’re” or “almost”, but the phrase is basically always the same.

As a family, we began to ritualistically watch the show starting in season 2. It got to the point where we would all cheer whenever the catch phrase was spoken.

And then… we began noticing the phrase elsewhere. In fact, everywhere. It’s to the point now where it’s nearly impossible to watch anything that does not include the phrase “running out of time”.

Take, for instance, a recent experiment where we collected a random plethora of TV shows and movies that have nothing at all to do with 24.

We watched Zoolander, for instance, a highly odd comedy about mildly insane morons. The catch phrase in question was used twice.

A coincidence? I think not.

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Pointing the Spotlight Outwards

A little girl with cancer

As with all things logical, we start in a place of utter despair and sadness.

There exists a little girl named Eleanor Sultan. She is five. She is also dying.

I won’t go into too many details, because there is a far better and more emotional post here over at Skeleton Jack.

Suffice to say, she has a 40% chance of survival if the planets align correctly, and Skeleton Jack is hosting quite the raffle in order to raise some cash. All the details are in the same post.

But anyway, for the gold mongers among you, this is the rundown:

Donate $10, you get a raffle ticket. Donate $50, you get six of ’em. Donate $100, you get 14.

The award of the raffle depends on how much is donated. As of this writing, $2500 has already been donated, 10000 is currently up for grabs with the raffle, and that is only increasing.

Comedic Relief

In a classic Shakespearian move, it’s time for the comedic relief.

If you haven’t yet, WoW Relief is an awesome and extremely well done blog and you should go read it. Like right now.

Then add it to your feed burner. Or bookmark it if you’re still living in the caveman age of internet browsing.

I keed, I keed.

But seriously, the site is awesome.

It’s got numerous and excellent articles, stories that range from the hilarious to the heartbreaking, and most importantly, an interview with the hunter heart throb herself, Pike.

The site has a month of excellent blogging under it’s belt now, I don’t expect this to change any time soon. Here’s to a year of writing, you crazy dancing pirates.

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Raiding as Frost

Common Spec

18/0/53 is the best spec for frost mages. There is some variation, though with a spec that requires a minimum of 50 points in one tree and 18 points in another, there isn’t a lot of wiggle room.

Most mages in earlier gear levels will put three points into Brain Freeze for the extra damage that provides for them. Some invest in Ice Barrier, some in Blizzard talents… generally, whatever you wish to have.

See my detailed guides to specific talent trees for further information to choose your talents.

Abbreviations

BF – Brain Freeze, a talented proc that gives you a free fireball.

FoF – Fingers of Frost, a talented proc that allows to to treat any target as frozen.

FrB – Frostbolt. FB typically stands for Fireball, so I’m using FrB (pronounced “furbie”) until someone tells me what it’s supposed to be.

IL – Ice Lance.

IV – Icy Veins.

WE – Water Elemental, your little personal squirtle.

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Raiding as Arcane

Common Spec

57/3/11 is, by far, the favored spec for arcane mages. There are some variations in the arcane tree, based on personal style and taste.

Where those final points are spent vary from mage to mage and what they deem to be the best options for themselves. Ones concerned about pushback invest in Arcane Stability, ones that cannot depend on a slow from a tank pick up Slow, some pick up Magic Attunement for the extra range, some fill out Student of the Mind…

You get the idea.

See my detailed guides to specific talent trees for further information to choose your talents.

Abbreviations

AB – Arcane Blast, your bread and butter nuke.

ABarr – Arcane Barrage, the end tree talent.

AM – Arcane Missiles, Captain Pew Pew himself.

AP – Arcane Power, a talented cooldown vastly increasing your damage dealt in exchange for a higher mana cost.

IV – Icy Veins.

MB – Missile Barrage, a talented proc that greatly reduces the cast time of AM.

MBAM – An Arcane Missiles casted under the effects of Missile Barrage.

PoM – Presence of Mind, a talented cooldown allowing you to make your next spell instant.

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Make Mistakes You Don’t Regret

Renovations are underway here on this fine blog.

See that “Critical” section? Everything on there is in the process of being finalized for Wrath. Work has been going on for some time to get them all up to snuff.

A fair amount of them will likely be reposted. As many of them from the TBC era, leaving them and their comments as is is likely to be extremely confusing.

The new guide to fire raiding just went live, and frost/arcane should be heading up very soon.

Then, I still have to add like a bajillion glyphs to the glyphs guide, update the “gearing up for 70 80 PvP” thing in time for S6…

And so forth.

I’m also trying to keep the guides shorter. I tend to be long-winded and wordy; though nowhere near the level of other bloggers, it’s still something I’d like to cut down.

So anyway. That’s what I’m doing here. Maybe I’ll have time to actually post some original content, though probably not. Such is the price of relevancy!

Though there are still those other guides I’ve had requests for that I should probably add…

Jeez, at this rate I should go work for Brady Games. I already have the embarrasing typo thing down pat.

*EDIT*

Just updated the Glyph post for 3.1. See, look how busy I am!

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Raiding as Fire/Frostfire

Common specs

Fire: Something along the lines of 18/53/0.

You need 18 points in the arcane tree (deep enough for 3/3 Torment the Weak) and 51 points in the fire tree (for Living Bomb). The details are largely up to you. Some mages skip Imp. Scorch, some mages get 2/3 in Arcane Meditation for a 20/51/0 build.

Frostfire: Something along the lines of 0/53/18.

Again, the details are largely up to you. Living Bomb is needed, and you also need to get Ice Shards from the frost tree. Getting Piercing Ice, Icy Veins and Frost Channeling is also highly recommended.

See my detailed guides to specific talent trees for further information to choose your talents.

For both specs, Combustion is a very useless cooldown. Highly recommended to not take it.

Abbreviations

FFB – Frostfire Bolt, compare FB for Fireball.

HS – Hot Streak, that proc that gives you an instant Pyroblast.

LB – Living Bomb, the end tree talent for fire.

Spell Rotation

Fire and Frostfire mages have essentially identical spell rotations. Just replace the word “nuke” with Fireball for Fire mages, and Frostfire Bolt for Frostfire mages.

As with most casters in today’s world… of warcraft, fire/frostfire mages do not have a proper spell rotation, merely spell priorities. These are those:

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One Day I Hope to be Popular Enough to Sell Out

As many of you are most certainly aware, there’s this fancy book thing about Arthas coming out in the near future. Krizzly wrote a rather surreal poem about it.

Big Bear has already posted his review and run through his contest. So I’m going to be fashionably late and do pretty much the same thing, only starting now instead of… well, earlier. That’s what “late” means. The fashion part comes from this ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS scarf I’m wearing.

Natch, I’ll be posting a review, too, but I kinda sorta need to read the book first.

I haven’t gotten it yet, but I have to say, I’m actually kinda excited. I haven’t been this excited to read a book since Timothy Zahn finally finished his Conqueror’s trilogy (now only $6.99 on Amazon!)

Book? You haven’t heard? Allow me to enlighten you.

Christie Golden likes to write nerd fiction. Well, maybe she does. I’ve never actually asked her. I mean, maybe she likes writing toaster manuals, but she sure likes to write about Star Trek and Warcraft.

She uses words like “spiffy”; I can only assume a toaster manual writer would never use words as exciting as “spiffy”.

Wouldn’t it be totally awesome though, if you were reading the manual to, say, a dish washer, and it said something like “plug in your absolutely spiffy new dish washer”?

I seriously need to lay off the Java Nuts.

Back to geek books.

I mean, she’s already written two books set in the Warcraft universe (Rise of the Horde and Lord of the Clans, now available at a bookstore near you! Probably!), and is also helming a trilogy of Starcraft books. Oh yeah, she writes Star Wars, too.

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