Wow, it's been a while...

I haven't done any blogging in a while... and now, I'm starting to think about doing it again... maybe I will?  who knows...

Merry Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas Eve!

Patch 4.0.1...

I'm still playing WoW... I just have horrible habits when it comes to blogging.

So, this week I took my old alliance Druid out of mothballs and started trying to re-learn how to play one. I played a horde feral Druid through BC, but I haven't touched this particular toon since before I went over to the horde side... He's level 79, by still wearing questing greens and blues.

So, the first thing I had to do was to load my old Druid and save his Macaroon configuration to a profile so that I could load I on thus alliance Druid. Which, of course leads me to talking about macaroon.

Ads

Oh lovely... I sign up for Google Adsense, and the first thing I get is gold seller ads... I will figure out how to block those particular ads asap... Sigh.


- Posted on the run (iPhone)

WTF?

I haven't posted here in like forever.

Sorry 'bout that.

I'm just messing around today. You can ignore this. LOL.

New Blog Site

I've started another blog. It's about dealing with technical issues at home.

More specifically, it's targeted at those poor suckers who end up becoming the tech guy in the family because they know the most about computers and technical stuff, even if they don't know everything.

I can't tell you how many times per week I get summoned to fix my wife's computer, or my son's computer, or grandma's cell phone, or grandpa's stereo receiver, or the playstation or this or that...

So, I've decided to chronicle my experiences online for others who end up being the go-to guy in the family - either with consent, or against their will. It happens. And we're expected to know IT ALL.

If that's you, or if you know someone like this, come visit Home Tech Lab

More about the cheaping of WoW Raid Content

Ok, so I just wrote about the change to them Emblem/Badges system that we’ll be seeing in patch 3.2. Now, let’s take a look at the possible philosophy behind these changes.

Blizzard pays a lot of artists to create art and “content” for WoW. They spent a lot of money building Naxxramas. So, what’s the problem? Well, back in the day, a tiny percentage of players ever got to SEE the inside of Naxxramas. That’s a shame, especially when you consider that the best raiding guilds all said that Naxxramas was, at the time, the best instance that Blizzard had ever created!

This, I’m sure, did not please blizzard. Their best work, that which they were most proud of, and so few got to see it. When Blizzard released the Burning Crusade, complete with Karazhan, they saw the numbers eventually come up much more – I think I remember hearing that at least 50% of all accounts had toons that had been inside Karazhan. This is all because Karazhan was the first raid instance in BC, and it was the first raid instance that could be raided in SMALL groups, and eventually became puggable.

So, if you’re blizzard, and you want people to see your best work, you start to think maybe you could get more people to see Naxxramas if it was the first raid instance in the new expansion, and if it could be raided in small groups. Voila, behold Wrath of the Lich King.

So, now a huge amount of players have already seen Naxxramas. The plan worked, brilliantly, I must say.

But now, history is repeating itself. Now the best guilds all say that Sunwell Plateau is the best instance Blizzard ever made. There seems to be a pattern forming here – the most powerful, dangerous, and difficult instances seem to be the ones that the best guilds like the most. At the end of the era of Burning Crusade, Blizzard severely nerfed almost every raid boss. At the time, there were many reasons to do this – Talents were being changed, player mechanics were being revamped, and lots of other things were all happening at the same time…

But, Blizzard’s biggest concern is that if people didn’t get to see the Tier 6 and Tier 6.5 instances before Wrath came out, they might never get to see them. Case in point – I’ve never seen the inside of Sunwell Plateau myself, and I don’t expect to see it unless I pug an achievement whoring group to go see it. I will never get to experience the instance with a group of level 70 players all geared with loot from MH and BT.

So, they nerfed stuff. And more people got to see it. Because it was easier to do. The money they spent MAKING Sunwell was better invested because it entertained more players.

So, now we’re at the end of Wrath.

[needle scratches across the record like nails on a chalkboard]

WTF? Seriously?? WTF? We’re not at the end of Wrath. They haven’t even announced the next expansion yet!!??! They haven’t even announced Ice Crown Citadel yet.

WTF is going on here? It looks like Blizzard has started nerfing the raid instances again. But, this time, they’re doing it from the inside out. Instead of making the bosses have less HP, they’re giving the players more power for free. Seriously, it’s too soon, and this is the wrong way to do it.

They’re making it so that players can acquire tier 8.5 2pc set bonuses by simply running heroic instances. Dear God, WHY??!? The problem here is that as players collect more emblems of conquest, they buy tier 8.5 gear, and they clear out heroic dungeons even faster. You don’t need that kind of gear in those dungeons. You can run those heroics in the blues that drop from the non-heroic versions of those same dungeons. Hell, you can run Naxxramas in leveling greens. The first guild that cleared Naxxramas did it 3 days after Wrath was released, so you can bet they were wearing very little heroic dungeon gear when they did it. And that was before any nerfs to it.

I can understand the philosophy of blizzard wanting people to see their content, and thus making it easier for players to gather the gear to be powerful enough to go see it… But this is simply the wrong way to do it. Go nerf the bosses HP again. Go nerf the damage again. Go add more powerful gear to the bosses… But for GOD’S SAKE, Don’t make it so players can SKIP the content entirely! that’s NOT how you get players to SEE the content you paid to build.

The way this is going, players will be able to hit 80, run a half-dozen or more 5-man heroics every night, never step foot into Naxx - OR ULDUAR for that matter - and walk right into Argent Coliseum with level appropriate gear, and about as much skill as an over-toasted s’more marshmallow.

WTF? Seriously, WTF??!!!?!?1?

Badges? we don’t need no stinking Badges (‘cuz we have free emblems now)

So, Blizzard has announced the following in patch 3.2:

Emblem System Changes

• Both the 10 and 25 player instances of the Crusaders' Coliseum drop a new Emblem of Triumph.
• Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism.
• The Heroic dungeon daily quest will now reward 2 Emblems of Triumph and the normal daily dungeon quest will reward 1 Emblem of Triumph.
• The existing achievements to collect 1, 25, 50, etc. Emblems of Heroism, Valor, and Conquest have been converted to Feats of Strength since Heroism and Valor Emblems are no longer attainable.
• New achievements have been added to collect various amounts of any combination of emblems.

… and thus began the Armageddon. World ends at 10, Film at 11!

WTF? Seriously, WTF?

Ok, when I first heard about this, it was from my favorite talk-show host TotalBiscuit just completely loosing his cool over this. And I can see why!

So, today, Ulduar drops the best loot in the game, and you can get Emblems of Conquest only by doing Ulduar on 25 man mode. These emblems can be used to purchase T8.5 equivalent gear, INCLUDING two actual pieces of tier 8.5 (Head and chest, at 58 emblems each). You can’t get this stuff from Naxx, or even from 10 man Ulduar – it has to be Ulduar 25 man.

Now, technically, you can get these Emblems of Conquest fairly easily, because almost any group can down Flame Leviathan. It doesn’t take any special raid composition to down FL, since it’s all vehicle combat with a few players launched from catapults (and that’s even optional). The only thing that matters at all is the iLvl of the gear of the players riding the vehicles. You don’t even need to be buffed.

So, these emblems are easy to get from at least one boss. It can be argued that XT-002 has been nerfed so much that he also hands these emblems out like candy. But, there’s still a pretty steep limit to the number of emblems that your average Dumbshit can collect in a given week.

Enter patch 3.2.

So, now in this forthcoming patch, Emblems of Conquest will LITERALLY Drop like candy. Players can get Emblems of Conquest from damn near ANY level 80 boss. All bosses in Naxxramas in either 10 or 25 man mode will drop Conquest emblems, each of Sartharian’s drakes, Malygos.. Hell, even Archavon The Loot Piñata will drop these things. It’s absurd. But it’s not the worst part.

Here’s the worst part: This includes ALL of the Northrend dungeons on Heroic mode. Every boss.

So, how many emblems can you farm in a week? The total count is staggering.

What can you BUY with those? Let’s take a look. The most notable thing to me is the tier gear. You can buy 8.5 Chest and 8.5 helm tokens with these emblems. And, since they’re down-gradable freely to emblems of Valor (and heroism), you can also just walk in and buy 7.5 Shoulders and 7.5 Legs. These are significant because this means anyone who simply runs Heroic 5 mans can walk in and buy the 2pc bonus for tier 8 and the 2pc bonus for tier 7…

I might be able to accept that if it took a while… but it won’t. ANY dip-shit can farm up these emblems in MASSIVE numbers every day.

In addition to these pieces of Tier-Gear, Ass-Hats will be able to buy just about every other gear slot worth of purple gear, all at iLvl 226 or 213. That includes Deadly PvP gear as well as raiding gear.

Ok, so I lied. The above wasn’t the worst part. Here’s the real worst part.

Emblems of Conquest will no longer be the top-tier emblem. There will be a new emblem of Triumph that will only drop from this new raid instance and can be used to purchase tier 9 level gear. So, all that t8.5 loot candy being gobbled up by fuck-tards will still be inferior to the gear being collected by the most elite of raiders, right?? right?

WRONG.

Players will be able to acquire Emblems of Triumph by completing the Daily Heroic and Daily Dungeon quests. Not just emblems of Conquest… the new emblems. The Highest Level emblems that are currency for the highest level gear – players can start acquiring these emblems as soon as they are high enough level to start doing the daily dungeon quests for Northrend. They don’t even have to be level 80!!!

WTF? Seriously, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You can collect 3 of these every day by doing the two daily dungeon quests. 21 in a week. Currency for the NEWEST, HIGHEST tier level gear in the game, without ever stepping foot into a raid instance.

WHY BLIZZARD? WHY???????

Note: Please understand that my concern is NOT casual players. I know you don’t have time to play in a raid. But, honestly you do. You can PUG Sartharion in less time than it takes to run a 5 man. As long as you can get out of the fire. My concern, when I say things like Fuck-tards and Ass-hats are the morons who can’t raid – not because they don’t have time, but because they suck at playing sooo badly, that every raid leader either kicks them from the raid or even refuses to invite to raid because of their reputation for being unable to not stand in the fire, or to move away from others when their screen is flashing and alarms are blaring that they are about to explode and kill everyone. These are the Dip-Shits about which I am concerned.

Argent Coliseum – Loot design

So, I’m hearing about the new raid instance in the 3.2 patch that is forthcoming, and the loot system is going to be interesting.

There will be 10 and 25 man versions, and for the first time there will be “Heroic” versions of Both 10 and 25 man raids.  In the past, the 25 man version of a raid instance was said to be the “heroic version of the 10 man”. 

With Ulduar, they introduced the concept of (officially) Hard Modes.  We had already seen Hard Modes with Sartharion, but it wasn’t really official other than a few extra bits of loot and the special mount drop.  In Ulduar, we have official hard modes where killing a boss on hard mode activates an additional loot table that contains items that cannot be acquired any other way than doing the hard mode for that boss.  This is what makes these hard modes “official” to me.

To activate these “hard modes”, raid groups would have to do various things to switch the fight into hard mode.  Some were very easy and obvious, like the giant red button behind Mimiron that says “NO NOT PUSH THIS BUTTON” – If you push it BEFORE you aggro the boss, you’re in Hard Mode.  Other hard modes are more tricky to activate, like XT-002 where you have to “Kill the heart” in 30 seconds or less to activate XT’s hard mode.  Once you do that, the fight mechanics change and it’s health resets. For Thorim, you need to reach him before Sif leaves to activate his hard mode.   Finally, some “hard modes” aren’t really even modes.  Hodir’s hard mode is just killing him faster.  There’s nothing special that happens when you switch on hard mode, because technically when you do it, the boss just died.  In other words, some guilds will start doing Hodir on “hard mode” by accident as they get more efficient at completing the encounter.

So, in the Argent Coliseum, I think what they are doing is now using the “Heroic Mode” Switch to activate the hard modes.  this means there will be a regular and heroic version of the 10 man.  There’s never been a heroic 10 man before.  There’s also never been a "non-heroic” version of a 25 man before.  So, now, the new question is – how do we tell an instance that we want 10 man heroic mode?  Does it switch from 10 man to 25 man if an 11th person steps through the door?  or will there be some new switch to throw?

One good thing I have heard is that all guilds will be forced to complete a raid on normal mode before they can attempt to jump to hard modes.  I’m not sure how they plan to enforce this… Does everyone in the raid need to have a “I completed normal mode” achievement before they can switch on heroic mode?  What happens if the raid is already in there, and they need to swap out someone who hasn’t completed it?  I suspect it will reject them at the door just like what happens when someone who is not in a raid group tries to zone into a raid instance.

So, now let’s talk about the loot in this new “Heroic 10-man” mode.  Loot in the normal 10 and 25 man raids sound like it will work as it always has in the past.  It’s the heroic(hard) modes that will work differently.  I’m not clear on this, but it sounds like the heroic modes will drop loot like on normal, and there will be a new “Tribute System” that will drop additional loot based on “number of attempts”.

This Tribute system will work like this… When a guild starts doing the raid on heroic Mode, there will be a counter that counts how many times the raid wipes.  It will probably be more like a counter that counts how many times the boss is aggroed.  If that’s the case, guilds will probably get especially pissed off at rogues, hunters, or mages who try to cheat death and end up re-aggroing the boss after everyone else has died, because it will eat an extra attempt count.

So, the instance will count how many attempts are required to kill a boss, and if the boss is killed within an acceptable number of attempts, there will be a “Crusader’s Tribute” cache added to the base loot, probably just like the “Cache” chests offered by many of the bosses in Ulduar.  Blizzard seems to like these chests, but they are a pain in the ass for raiders who want to click the corpse to see the loot before bidding DKP.  My guild always links the loot in chat, but it’s easier to see them directly, if you ask me.

The loot found in the Tribute will be adjusted based on the number of attempts used to defeat the boss.  Clearly the best loot will be found if the raid “one-shots” the boss, but it’s not clear on how the loot will degrade when more attempts are taken.  Will the iLvl go down?  or perhaps there will be a few pieces of loot and pieces will be taken away as more failures occur?  or perhaps a combination of lowering iLvl and count.  I’m not sure yet how it will work, but I’m looking forward to finding out in person! (in toon? heh)

Hahaha... Ok, I admit, I enjoyed this:

Pure Unfiltered WIN

The following video is made of Pure Win. Discretion is advised.



I hope she wins WoW Idol 2009!

You've gotta get some Glowies!

So, I'm playing with another addon. This one is called Power Auras. This addon kicks some ass!

So, what this addon does is put little blinky/flashy icons or emblems on your screen when you proc a buff... Or if your mana gets low... Or if you're missing a buff that you should have.

I play an Arcane Mage, so today I'm going to tell you how to set up Power Auras to show you when you have 3 stacks of the Arcane Blast debuff. When you see this indicator, then you'll know it's time to cast Arcane Missiles or Arcane Barrage (or, if you're dumping, you'll know your blasts are costing the maximum amount of mana)

I'll assume you can get the addon installed. If you can't do that, then see my other posts about how to install an addon (have I written one yet? I'll have to go check :P hahaha)

Now, log into game, and type /powa to bring up the config window.

Remind me to find a good image hosting site so i can actually stick pictures in here.

The effect we're going to create is relevant only to mages, so let's create this in the "Character effects" section. Click on "Page 1" , then click the red button labeled "New"

A new window pops up called Effects Editor.

The top half controls what the glowy/blinky/flashing effect will be. You can choose from a ton of differnet "textures", and each can be any color you choose(or randomize!). You can stretch the shape, and you can reposition the glowy anywhere on the screen. The slider knobs for position X and Y seem to only let you drag the glowy a little bit, but if you let go, the slider will snap back to center so you can drag the glowy further if you wish. Tooltips appear over every option so it's easy to explore and experiment.

The default options are fine for our first glowy, though I would change the color from white to something else (I picked yellow). There's a little white square below the test texture, and if you click it, you can change the color. Texture: 1 is fine to start with.

Now go down the the bottom half of the Effect Editor. There's 4 tabs. Click the first tab to control what effect actually causes the glowy to show up on screen.

Set the Drop-down box to "Debuff". Set Stacks to "=3" In the text field below the dropdown, type in "Arcane Blast". That's all we need to create a glowy for a debuff. You could create similar glowy's for debuffs like "Positive Charge" and "Negative Charge" on thaddius with giant arrows that point left or right (depending on how your raid does it :P )

Next, choose the Animation tab. This tab lets you make the glowy actually do more than just sit there, and this is what makes this addon so cool - the point of these glowies is to grab your attention, and this addon lets you make each glowy do different dances on the screen to get your attention. For now, set Begin Animation to "Zoom In", End Animation to "Zoom Out", Main Animation to "Static" and Secondary Animation to "Shrinking". You can leave the rest alone.

That's all we need for this glowy. Now, close the Effect Editor by clicking the [X] in the corner, or just hit your escape key to close everything. Your glowy is now ready for use. Go nuke something 3 times with Arcane Blast and you'll see the glowy!

These glowys can be so effective that they start to look like the game's built in graphics effects. It's important to remember that these effects will only appear on your screen - other players won't see them. I mention this because it's easy to create glowy's that look like the real thing - like creating a bubble glowy for a Paladin that reminds you that you have Hand of Protection on, even though it doesn't really look like a bubble anymore. (Silly Blizzard, now my paladin named Bubblewrap doesn't make as much sense :P)

There you go. Tune in next time when I tell you how to do something else cool with an addon.

Using the Nostromo N52te for World of Warcraft

People often ask me how I have my Nostromo configured for WoW.

OK, maybe "often" is an exaggeration. ...and now that I think about it, "People" is an exaggeration too. To be honest, I think one person asked me about it once. But, someone did ask, so here goes.


Here is how I set up my Nostromo N52te for World of Warcraft.

The N52 has 14 "keyboard" type buttons, and several other buttons of various styles, all designed to fit your hand WELL.

I set the top top rows (buttons 01 thru 10) to copy "Single Key" of the number keys 1-0 across the top of the keyboard.

11 is "Alt"
12 is "Shift"
13 is "Tab", which is Target next Enemy In wow (default setting)
14 is Q, which I have mapped to Jump in wow.
15, the lower thumb button, is mapped to Space bar on the keyboard, which is mapped to auto-run in wow.

The 4-way thumb "hat" button is mapped to run forward, run backwards, strafe left, and strafe right. I don't have ANY turn buttons in my setup, since I use mouselook to turn.

I don't really ever use the little round "upper thumb button" above the directional, or the scroll wheel.

Lastly, the little switch on the bottom, I usually keep it set to OFF, because the blue glow lights up the whole room at night. Hmm.. Maybe I should set that to ON, since last night I nearly tripped and fell on the floor because of a stray network cable. Perhaps I'll rethink that setting.

:)

DETECT Female Dwarf Macro!

Update: I'm sorry guys. The below macro is too long for the built-in macro system. It works GREAT with Macaroon! though, so check that out.

/run local r,m,f={Dwarf=1},"mouseover",SmM or CreateFrame("Frame","SmM")f:SetScript("OnEvent",function() if UnitSex(m)==3 and r[UnitRace(m)] and UnitLevel(m)>17 then print(UnitName(m).." is a "..UnitRace(m));PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Character\\PlayerRoars\\CharacterRoarsDwarfFemale.wav") end end) f:RegisterEvent("UPDATE_MOUSEOVER_UNIT")

This variation should fit the usual macro editor - it just won't play a sound.

/run local r,m,f={Dwarf=1},"mouseover",SmM or CreateFrame("Frame","SmM")f:SetScript("OnEvent",function() if UnitSex(m)==3 and r[UnitRace(m)] and UnitLevel(m)>17 then print(UnitName(m).." is "..UnitRace(m)) end end) f:RegisterEvent("UPDATE_MOUSEOVER_UNIT")

Now just stand somewhere and position your mouse somewhere they have to cross.. like a laser beam in a convenience store!

Trimble

Vampiric Touch - Is it worth it? (to ME?) - Yeah, kinda is.

I've gone back to Vampiric Touch.

I took it again just to check it out, I am sorely disappointed by it's mana return amount. It gives .25% max mana per second... So, 4 seconds for 1% of your mana... and it lasts 15 seconds... So, that's just under 4% of your maximum mana regenerated over 15 seconds. That kinda sucks, if you ask me.

To add insult to injury, Vampiric Touch no longer STACKS on multiple mobs, AND it no longer does the mana return on it's OWN... What you do is cast Vampiric Touch on the target, then you have to hit it with a Mind Blast while it's affected by Vampiric Touch. WTF? You can cast Vampiric Touch all you want, since it has no cooldown (beyond GCD), but you can only Mind Blast once every 5.5-8 seconds. So, it puts an artificial cap on how often you can activate the mana return. But that wouldn't matter anyway, since because it's a mana regen BUFF called Replenishment, you can only have it once anyway. Gone are the days of casting VT-SW:P combos on as many mobs as possible to get lots of regen going. Now it's just one at a time.

My initial reaction to VT, as you can see above, is that it sucked. But I wanted to test it out for it's damage. It's a 1.5 second cast DOT that does reasonable damage. What I didn't notice before is that they slashed it's mana cost almost by half. It used to cost me 300+ mana to cast, and now it's just over 200, and I'm several levels higher now. Also, because it's a 1.5 second cast, that means it goes very well with either SW:P or VE in a cast sequence/spell rotation so that you can land both at the same time. So, I've decided to use VT as my opening blast, followed by either SW:P or VE depending on if I want DPS or Heals.

Here's my priest spell rotation for DPS that I'm currently using:

Vampiric Touch - 1.5 second precast time
Shadow Word: Pain - as soon as VT hits, so they hit at the same time.
1.5 second global cooldown - I can move during this time to try to get some distance
Mind Blast - 1.5 second precast time - gotta stand still now
Mind Flay - As soon as MB fires, MF starts instantly after MB.

Note that because VT and SW:P are dots, they haven't started ticking yet. They both take 3 seconds for their first damage tick to go off.. so, they each tick at the same time as Mind Blast and Mind Flay starts.. that means when I start attacking, I get 3 seconds of NO damage based threat. At 3 seconds, I hit like a truck with 3 damage sources at once, and MF starts it's first tick one second later, so it can be easy to pull a mob off a tank if they haven't built their threat yet. Be Aware.

I'll MF again after the first runs out, and follow that up with another Mind Blast. The second Mind Blast is done before VT wears off, so it restarts the Replenishment buff. Also, but this time, almost any even-con level mob is about to die, the second MB usually finishes them off.

Also note that with the Pain and Suffering talent, I don't ever have to recast SW:P. I have a 66% chance to restart SW:P every time my MF hits, so it gets restarted plenty.

If I feel I need some extra punch, I'll add Devouring Plague in, but since I almost never take damage, I usually keep it in reserve.

The macro I use for all of this also checks for Shadowform. If I'm not in Shadowform, it shifts me before it starts attacking.

Here's the macro for all this:

#showtooltip
/castsequence [noform] Shadowform; [nochanneling] reset=target/combat/12 Vampiric Touch, Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Blast, Mind Flay, Mind Flay, Mind Blast, Mind Flay, Mind Flay, Mind Blast, Mind Flay, Mind Flay
#show Mind Flay

Note that in a long fight, I'll do the rotation by hand to skip SW:P, since I only ever have to cast it once.

Priest Progress...

My priest has made it to 58 and has stepped through the portal!

OK, to be fair, I've been bound in Shattrath since 50 or so to save on travel time in the old world... But 58 is the first level you can officially start questing in Outlands, so it marks the transition to UBERLEETNESS in free gear!

So, I should have blogged about it when it happened, but I didn't because I was busy playing :P sorry.

So, now I'm 61 already. :P When I got to Outlands, I made it a point to look up all the gear I could get at 58 from quests, and I went right for those quests directly. within an hour or two, I had replaced at least half of my gear with new Outlands gear, each of which is roughly as powerful as the kind of gear we used to get from Molten Core. Woot!

My plan for leveling is this: Each level, I'm researching spellpower gear available via quests, and if it's better than what I'm wearing, I go after those quests. Those quests that only grant gold or experience are being saved until after the item quests are out of the way. With the change to the experience requirements from 60-70 that was put in in 3.0.2, I found I don't have to do anywhere near the number of quests I had to do the last time through outlands. That's a nice change. Also, getting the gear first increases my power and makes doing every other quest easier.

So, for those wondering, here's how I look up this gear:

Go to WowHead.com
Select Database > Items
Click Create a Filter
Select Usable by: Priest
Select Required level 58 - 58
select filter: Added in the Burning Crusade: Yes
Add another filter
select filter: Rewarded by a quest: Yes
change Yes to "Alliance" or "Horde"
Add another filter
select filter: Spell damage item: Yes
click Apply filter

This filter shows 12 items, each of which is available the moment you step through the portal at 58. Save a shortcut to this page, and each level, change the 58-58 to 59-59 and so on to see the new stuff. Other classes will need to adjust the filters a little, but that's how it's done.

I'm also running instances when I get a chance. I've found that the spellpower gear gives me the ability to heal in an instance as shadow spec with very little problem - Renew and VE:Mind Flay spam is enough to do the main healing job, with the occasional Greater Heal when the tank decides to pull big groups (frequently, LOL)

Another thing I've found is that using Outfitter, my Heal, Mana, and DPS sets have converged. It's all the same gear now in Outlands with very little exceptions. This means that as a priest, I basically no longer need to maintain multiple sets to fulfill all my different roles. One set can do it all. GO SPELLPOWER! Woot!

Mount Macros in 3.0.2

People are looking for a working Mount Macro.

Here is what I've learned.

1) Mounts are now learned as spells, and the first time you use the "reigns of" item, it gets consumed and goes into your spell book (sorta, it's actually on your character window in the "pet" tab.)

2) The NAME of the spell isn't the same as the name of the item you used to click on. So, if you had "Reigns of the..." in your macro, you'll need to change it to the proper name.

3) To get the proper name, you can shift-click the mount icon in the pets tab while the macro window is open (and the cursor is flashing in it). It will auto-type the correct name for you.

4) For now, you MUST LOG OUT AND LOG BACK IN before it will work in a macro. I hope they fix this problem, but for now, just do this.

5) It doesn't matter if you use /cast or /use in your macro - they've always been secretly interchangeable. /use takes up one less character in your macros :P

I hope this helps those of you looking for information. Took me a little while to figure it out.

How to Clique

I know people are interested in Clique. It's one of my favorite Addon's for WoW, especially for any class that needs to cast anything on party members. That means ANY HEALER or DECURSER,or BUFFER. Priests, Druids, Shaman, Paladins, Mage, Warlock. There's not much here for warriors, rogues, or hunters, but even they can find uses for it.

So, again, here's what Clique is: Clique is an addon that lets you define "click casting" for the unit frames on your screen. Here's more:

If you play a healer with no addons, you probably play like this: When someone needs to be healed, you click their health bar to select them, or you press F1-F5 to select them. This sets them as your target. Then, you click an action bar button that has a heal spell on it; or you press the keyboard hotkey that has a heal on it, and your character begins to cast a heal.

Alternatively, you might have nothing targeted, or the monster targeted, and then either click an action bar button, or press the hotkey for an action bar button with a heal spell on it. This causes your pointer to glow white, which means it's looking for a valid heal target. Then, you click on a party member's health bar, or press F1-F5. This method only works if you don't have the auto self-cast function activated, otherwise you end up healing yourself.

If you're very creative, you might have created macros that let you cast a specific heal spell if you click the action bar button normally, but something like Remove Curse if you happen to be holding down CTRL or ALT when you click it.

So, What if simply CLICKING on your party member's health bar while holding down CTRL or ALT would tell the game that you want to cast Remove Curse? What if Shift-Right-Clicking on their health bar would tell the game that you want to cast your BIG heal on them - all without having to click an action bar button at all (or it's hotkey?) THAT is the ESSENCE of "Click Casting". (Mechanically, Click Casting works the same as hitting a spell action button to get a "spell seeking cursor" and then clicking on the target. It just works faster, and you still don't loose your current target, and it gets around auto-self-cast settings)

Clique is an addon that lets you ELEGANTLY setup those click-casting definitions. It provides a clean interface to view the click-casting definitions that you've set up, and a perfect gesture for actually setting them up.

So, when you install Clique, it adds a new tab to your spellbook. Open your spellbook and look for the white rabbit tab as the last tab in your spellbook. Click that, and it opens the Clique window.

The first time you open the Clique window, you are greeted by a message explaining how this works. At the top is a Click Set: dropdown, and at the bottom are a few extra buttons that I'll talk about in a bit.

To create a click cast definition, all you have to do is actually perform the gesture you want to use - directly on the spell button in the spell book. For exaple, if you want to be able to cast Flash Heal on someone when you shift-click (left click) on their health bar, then you would go to your HOLY tab in your spellbook, find Flash Heal, hold down shift, and then left click on the Flash Heal button in the spellbook.

Once you have defined a click cast definition, the Clique window updates to become a list of your click cast definitions. This makes it easy to look-up the list if you forget - just open the spellbook and click the rabbit to see the list. Be aware that anytime the list is open, it's in define mode, so if you click any spells while it's open, it thinks you're trying to define a click-cast. Close Clique's window if you need to click on a spell for some other reason (like to drag it to your action bar)

An important thing to understand is that Clique will define the click cast as the specific rank of the spell you clicked to define it - even once you learn higher ranks. To tell clique that you want to always use the highest rank of a spell when you click cast, then here's what you do: Click the click cast definition in the click window (the border of the tile lights up yellow when it's selected). Then, click the Max button at the bottom. You will see the "(Rank x)" text disappear off the tile to let you know that it will now try to cast the highest rank of that spell available.

To change the mouse button or modifiers that you want to hold down when clicking for a click cast defintion, you just select the defintion as above, then click the Edit button at the bottom. The custom window comes up, and you will see a button with the current mouse button assignment on it. To change the buttons, just hover your mouse pointer over that button, hold down the keyboard modifier buttons that you'd rather use, and then press the mouse button that you'd rather use, and it changes. Click save to finish.

To remove a click cast definition that you don't want, select the Click Cast definition and the click the delete button.

Those other buttons at the bottom are for more advanced setup. The Profiles button is for helping you copy entire Clique setups from one character to another (useful if you have more than one of the same class on your account). The Frames button lets you select exactly which healthbars Clique works with. "Out of the box", it works with pretty much ANYTHING, so you might want to turn some off if you have special needs. Finally, the Custom button lets you create specialized click cast defintions.

Here's an example of a custom definition that you might want to know about: I like to heal by simply right-clicking on someone's health bar. When I set up a click cast defintion for Right-Mouse-Button without any keyboard modifiers, it will ruin the "Pop-Up Menu" that you usually see when you right click on someone's health bar. That's the menu that you use to set someone else as the group leader, or even to LEAVE A GROUP(right click your own health bar). So, for me, I always define one extra click-cast defintion to bring up that menu when I hold down ALT and SHIFT and then right click their health bar. To do this, I click Custom, the select "Show Menu" at the bottom of the custom list, then hodl down Alt and Shift, and right-click the button next to the question mark icon. Then click Save. Now I can still get to that menu.

Lastly, that "Click Set" dropdown at the top... Click Cast defintions can be sensitive to the type of unit that the healthbar you're clicking on belongs to. By that I mean it can tell the difference between a friend or an enemy(it also knows when you're out of combat). You can create different click casts for the same mouse-button-modifier combinations depending on if the healthbar is for friend or foe - for example, a druid could set Right-Click to be Rejuvenation for a friend, and Moonfire for an enemy. Personally, I never use that feature because I exclusively hotkey keyboard actions intended for myself or my target - I only use click casting to cast spells on my group or raid members. But, the feature is there if you want it.

For me, Click casting makes up one third of the critical triad of techniques that I use to play. Clique is the one single addon that makes it possible, so it's an addon I wouldn't want to play without. The other techniques that I use are Mouselook/Hotkeys, and Mouseover Macros, both of which I've talked about before and will probably cover again.

So, that's Clique in a nutshell. It's a tool that lets you create those click cast definitions, and it works with almost any unit frame or raid frames addon out there. It provides a nice quick-reference list to look at when you need it, and it stays quietly out of the way while you're playing. I'd also like to mention that it's written by one of the foremost EXPERTS on World of Warcraft add-ons / Mods - Cladhaire. He's brilliant. Go Him!

Thanks for reading!

Vampiric Embrace nerfed into the dirt

I'd been using a combination of Renew and Vampiric Embrace to do the majority of my healing in 5 man groups. It's been working well.

...However, I just read that Blizzard intends to SEVERELY nerf VE for group members. Down from 25% of my damage to 5%. That SUCKS. It would be nice if they could shore it up by making some of the Holy talents bolster VE for those of us that go Hybrid.

Added: I've been mulling it over... I'm always shielded while I'm soloing, so I don't really take any damage. If I did, VE doesn't do enough to make it worth casting over renew and another shield anyway... so, if it doesn't heal my group mates, what the hell is it good for now?

Stormwind Harbor

So, I wandered over to have a look at this new harbor behind Stormwind.

WOW. The architects worked overtime on this one! If you haven't taken the time to go look at it, you should, it's beautiful. It's probably waaaay more than was needed for just a boat dock function, because it's huge. I'm not sure if dueling is allowed in that space, but it probably should be, since there is so much space.

Load in an alliance toon, and go have a look!

Finally checking out the patch!

So, I've finally got time to try to really log into the game. First things first, it's time to check out my addons.

My own addon work perfectly. Mouse Look Lock, which you can get over at WoWInterface.Com is working fine. Always has. lol.

So, I've been going through all my addons, one at a time, enabling just one, and logging in looking for errors. Geez, almost everything is broken. Looks like they made some changes to dropdown boxes in the UI, so any addon that uses them is borked until those addon authors get off their asses and fix them.

Some notable addons that still seem to work, at least in my very basic tests so far:
AllPlayed
Aperature
Auditor2 (and it's fubar plugin)
Fubar2 (textures don't work?)
AuldLangSyne
Binding Reminder
Carbonite Quest (these guys are on the ball for such a complex addon!)
Clique (seems to be ok)
CooldownTimers 2 (one of my favorites!)
Leeroy (lol, yes, there' an addon for that)
Proximo
Scrolling combat Text (just the basic, SCTD seems broken)
SRaidFrames (seems to be ok)

that's about it, out of my set. I guess it's time to start reviewing addons again. I used to dig into new addons all the time. I guess I'll be posting about addons I like :)

Weird...

So, I loaded WoW after the patch ran. The servers are still down, but what was interesting is that the patch seems to have reset my client so that it decided to replay the BC cinematic. Then, afterward, it showed the WotLK login screen.

Whoa.

MouseLook - Now called "Mouse Look Lock"

I've tested my own addon, MouseLook to make sure it works with Wrath of the Lich King. As such, it will also work with today's patch, 3.0.2.

Please note that I have change it's name to "Mouse Look Lock" because there is an Ace2 mod that decided to call itself Mouselook, and I don't want the Ace Updater deleting my add-on.

Here's a direct link to get it from WoW Interface: CLICKY! You can find it's page here.

I can't play the game without this. I won't buy Warhammer because it doesn't have this.

WoWInterface.com

It looks like WoWInterface.Com isn't yet under it's usual deluge of hits because they haven't put up their usual SUPER ULTRA MEGA LOW BANDWIDTH site yet.

If you're quick, you may be able to start grabbing some updates.

My suggestion - go there and mark your favorites. They send out an email with a direct download link in it when an addon is updated, this helps get around the site when it's SLAMMED.

Thinking of...

While I'm at it, I thought I'd mention that I'm thinking about writing a full article on doing some cool stuff with Ventrilo, like how to play sound effects(drop-ins) and music, how to morph your voice, how to get cool phonetics when you log in, how to use multiple sound cards, how to search for your friends and buddies, etc. Any interest? I'll watch how many times this post gets hit by Google.