This week I am on the road for work. So I am having a few days of long meetings, bad food and hotel Internet.
When you’re staying at an airport hotel, London Heathrow in this case, you realize there really isn’t much to do. The hotel bar is entertaining for a little while, but since I hardly drink when I am at home, I don’t see a reason to start when I am on the road.
Luckily I packed my Blizzard authenticator before rushing out, so after doing some work-related emails, I fired up WoW. Looking at the price Marriott dares to ask for 24 hours of wireless Internet, I should have a solid data pipeline which will give me 2 ms latency. The reality was of course totally different. The connection felt somewhat like two tin cans and a bit of string.
With all the settings on minimum, I had a playable client and a group invitation soon followed. (I forgot to mention, last night was our Naxxramas 25 follow-up night).
These were not optimal conditions to try out my new dual spec. Yes, I folded and am now dual specialized in BM and Survival. Out with the old shot rotation macros, in with the shiny new abilities; Black Arrow and Explosive Shot.
We started off on the construct quarter and quickly blew through Patchwerk and Grobbulous. When we hit Gluth, I started to notice slight lag, more guests playing WoW?
Then came Thaddius, a complete pain in the behind. Not because of the difficulty but mainly, I couldn’t stay online. The third disconnect killed me and I had to look on whilst the guild killed Thaddius. He was nice enough to drop a T7.5 token I could use and my guild was nice enough to let me have it.
Next up was the partially finished Military Wing. Gothik was the first to get some attention. As soon as things got hectic, my connection went down the drain again, but I didn’t die and I managed to actually add some dps. The four horsemen was a repeat of the above. Didn’t die, did some DPS, logged back in twice.
Next was our first encounter – on 25 man – with Sapphiron. Before calling it a day we had 4 tries at him, each time getting him quite close to dropping.
Apart from the semi-regular disconnects, it was quite ok to play through the hotel wireless. I think 5 or 10 man instances really would not have been a problem, trying the 25 mans was pushing it a bit.
How my survival spec performed? I have no clue. The connection was just too unreliable to judge it.
Well, after work I’ll be heading back to the hotel and going for the Argent Tournament dailies again, my tank-a-troll wants a new axe!
This Sunday at midnight, Noblegarden started. Normally this event would be held at easter, but this it was delayed due to the release of patch 3.1.
With the Violet Proto-Drake being quite high on my wish list, I started Sunday morning, promptly at midnight. The next day I managed to finish the event and snap up my “the Noble” title!
The whole event revolves around an egg hunt. All starter areas will have hidden eggs during the event. For us Horde this means we can go to:
Falconwing Square (Silvermoon)
Brill (Undercity)
Razor Hill (Orgrimmar)
Bloodhoof Village (Thunder Bluff)
I went to Falconwing Square and found a corner where 5 spawns were within reach. I never moved an inch. (It’s the alcove next to the doorway leading to the class trainers). The brightly colored eggs you pick up contain either a chocolate (99%) or one of the special items you need for other achievements (1%). Since I didn’t get all items to drop, I had to collect 175 eggs before I had everything I needed. This might seem like a lot, but I think I was pretty lucky.
Below find a summary of things to do and items to collect. Most items can also be bought from the vendor near the daily quest giver. This quest is optional and not needed for the title.
I Found One! – Just pick up one of the eggs and this achievement is yours.
Chocoholic – The second part of a meta achievement, you need to eat 100 Noblegarden Chocolates. No way around it, start picking up those eggs.
Desert Rose – Plant a flower in The Badlands, Desolace, Silithus, Tanaris and Thousand Needles. This one requires the Spring Robes, just fly from FP to FP, no need to find a special location, arrive, use the robe, move on to the next.
Blushing Bride – Whilst wearing the tuxedo, kiss someone wearing the Elegant Dress. Simple really, trade the dress to your target, make her (or him!) wear it and throw them a /kiss.
Hard Boiled – Whilst transformed into a rabbit, lay an egg near Golakka Hotsprings in Un’Goro Crater. Since you cannot transform yourself, someone else has to do it. Team up for this one and complete at the same time as Desert Rose, this should save you some time.
Spring Fling – Find love for your Spring Rabbit in Bloodhoof Village, Falconwing Square, Brill and Razor Hill. This one is quite simple, have the pet out and look for someone who also has a pet out.
Noble Garden – Hide a Brightly Colored Egg in Silvermoon. This one is quite easy, buy the Noblegarden Egg for 5 chocolates and place it anywhere inside Silvermoon.
Shake your Bunny-Maker – Use the Spring Flowers to put bunny ears on a female of each race. The best place to complete it is, without a doubt, Dalaran. Be prepared to invest a little time, the cooldown on the Spring Flowers is five minutes. Another thing to note, the targetted female cannot have bunny ears at that time or it won’t count. (Of course, I found that out the hard way).
There you go, do all this and you’ll be sporting a new title, “the Noble”, and you’ll be one step closer to that Violet Proto-Drake.
Have fun!
If not all needed items drop whilst you are gathering the eggs, below is a price list of all the items needed to complete the seasonal event.
With the release of patch 3.1, things that I have been thinking about have become actual questions to be answered. Not game-breaking issues, but they are things that each guild has to decide upon. I’d appreciate your feedback on these subjects.
Issue number 1: How do you select your progression team?
A new content patch is a big thing to happen. Not only for a player, but also for a guild. Every player will be eager to see the new content. Basically, as soon as the first raid is posted, all the players that are raiding will sign up.
This leads to the question: Who to take along? Do you head over to be.imba or wow-heroes and just pick the best geared in your guild?
Personally, I think the things that create a valuable raid member are not expressed in item levels. A person decked out in Naxx 25 epics that doesn’t know how to perform without dying at every sneeze is not as valuable as the one in heroic epics that is able to stay on his or her feet and gives a constant and consistent performance.
Now, that sentence was way too long. Let’s summarize: Performance is more important than gear. I’d say that would be my number one priority in selecting a team.
Number two would have to be punctuality. Let’s face it, a lot of us have families and jobs, the time you have available to play is limited. If you agree to start a raid at 22:00, it should start at 22:00.
Number three, closely tied to number one: Preparation. There really is no excuse for arriving in the wrong spec, with broken gear and no consumeables. It shows a lack of respect for your fellow raiders.
Of course, it’s not all that black and white, if you’re late because of real life issues, no sweat, the virtual world should not dominate the real world. Do try to let people know on time though, so they can try to replace you if needed.
I guess you could call this the three P’s of raiding:
Performance
Preparation
Punctuality
In my opinion those three words are the things that are important in selections and give your raid the biggest chance of being successful. What do you think?
Issue number 2: Which spec is main spec for loot distribution?
Patch 3.1 has brought something great, dual talent specialization. For a moderate price, you can have the luxury of being versatile. You can be the off-tank that heals when no off-tank is needed, or the healer that nukes when less healers are required.
Great concept, but how do you handle this when the boss drops and it is time to divide the spoils? Do your players have to declare their “main” spec before the raid starts? Is the spec they used for that encounter the “main”? Or, are they both considered equally?
Right now, I don’t have a clue on how to handle this. I am leaning towards having players declare a main spec and sticking with that for the duration of the raid. I think that would be the best way to ensure your teams are equipped for the role they mostly fulfill. This would also avoid the dilution that equal value specs in loot distribution would cause.
To start things off, here is a link to the official 3.1 patch notes.
Today also marks the release of the 3.1.1 minor release, the bugfixes included in this are incorporated in the patch notes above.
So, what are the major changes?
Ulduar Raid
The biggest addition implemented in 3.1 has to be the Ulduar raid. Unfortunately I haven’t been there yet, so I can’t post any experiences right now. However, as you can see in the official trailer that is at the top of this post, it sure looks spectacular.
General Changes
The Dual Talent Specialization System has been implemented, for a fee of 1000 gold, characters of at least level 40 can unlock a second talent set. In addition a talent preview feature has been added to the interface options. Turn it on so you can avoid having to pay to undo your mistakes.
This second talent set has its own glyphs. A wonderful addition to the game, no longer do players have to go to their class trainer and pay for a talent reset, you can now switch at any time, provided you are not in combat.
This system was somewhat bugged at release of 3.1 and caused my warrior to sometimes forget a few talents when switching spec.
The Argent Tournament has pitched up its tents in Icecrown. This permanent ingame event has a whole slew of achievements and gives players new ways to gain reputation with their factions.
The cooldown on your Hearthstone has been reduced from 1 hour to 30 minutes. At the same time, the ninja-hearth feature has been fixed. Dropping from group in an instance now sends you to the nearest graveyard instead of your hearth location.
All dungeons and raids have had in game maps added to them. No longer do you need to rely on third party maps to find your way through.
Mounts can now swim, no longer you will be dismounted when your mount enters the water.
Hunter
Ammunition now stacks per 1000. In addition the quiver haste bonus has been integrated into the Hunter’s Auto Shot. A very nice change which enables you to equip an additional bag. Of course, you’d better not run out of ammo during a raid now, a frostweave bag can hold a smashing 20.000 arrows.
Aspect of the Pack has been changed to a raid wide buff. I think this change was long overdue. Just make sure you turn it off before combat starts, a stunned tank is not a good idea.
Call Stabled Pet is a new ability which can be obtained through the class trainer. No longer will you have to run to a stable master to switch pets! The ability has a 30 minute cooldown, not an issue. I love this change, no longer will you need to bring a temporary pet when trying to find that rare spawn.
Several other changes have been made to the Hunter class, please refer to the patch notes for those.
Alchemy
Flask duration has been lowered from 2 hours to 1 hour. To compensate, the recipes now create two flasks and excisting flasks have been converted to a mixture which will generate two new flasks.
Alchemist Caches have been added to drop occasionally from Ulduar bosses. These can only be seen and looted by players with at least 425 skill in Alchemy.
Several other changes have been made to the Alchemist profession, please refer to the patch notes for those.
Blacksmithing
The Titansteel Spellblade has been added to the Blacksmithing trainers. This is an epic caster dagger.
The bosses of Ulduar will occasionally drop Epic Blacksmithing Plans. These plans are BoE, so they can be traded.
Several other changes have been made to the Blacksmithing profession, please refer to the patch notes for those.
Cooking
All skill levels are now trainable from the NPCs. This means that people who went for the “Bloodsail Admiral” title will finally be able to level their cooking skill past 225.
Apart from the above change, several others were made; please refer to the patch notes for those.
First Aid
All skill levels are now trainable from the NPCs. Although I thought the “Triage” quest was fun and sort of a rite of passage, this change is quite welcome, I am sure.
Fishing
A new and (very) rare mount has been added, it can be fished up from any Northrend pool. What are we talking about? The Sea Turtle! If you are serious about obtaining this mount, expect to spend a lot of time staring at the bobber. In my opinion, the pools near the icebergs in the Frozen Sea south of Borean Tundra are the best spots to start. The amount of pools there is just amazing.
All skill levels are now available from NPCs. The “Angler Extreme” quest is a thing of the past.
Nat Pagle’s Extreme Angler FC-5000 has had its fishing bonus lowered to 20 from 25. If you completed “Angler Extreme”, you can pick up a replacement, Nat’s Lucky Fishing Pole, from Nat in Dustwallow Marsh. Otherwise the quest will reward that fishing rod.
You can now fish anywhere, regardless of skill. Where you normally got a “Your fish got away!” message, you will now fish up junk instead.
Quests
Horde characters can now pick up the “CLUCK!” quest from chickens. So, if you are desperate for a chicken pet, there’s no longer a need to use creative ways to obtain one.
Conclusion
As you can see patch 3.1 has added a lot of content. I hope you’re enjoying it as much as I am. So, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to take my new turtle mount out for a stroll.
Samsara has been clearing Naxxramas for a while now, but every time real-life came between finishing Naxxramas and me. Tonight I finally saw Sapphiron and Kel’Thuzad hit the deck.
Naxxramas 10 - Cleared
Although I know, I am by no means “fast” in getting this achievement, I am still quite pleased with it. And to close this subject, here’s a shot of me in my new living room. Needs a bit of cleaning and a lick of paint, but I am sure it’ll turn out great.
Thrashalot claims the Throne (tm)
As you might have noticed, the armory hasn’t been updating for about a week now. This is always a sure way to tell something is going to happen with the server. Again this time. Tomorrow, patch 3.1 will hit the live servers. I’ll try to write an update about that when I get my hands on the proper patch notes. (I apologize for not writing much lately, been quite busy in my job and my spare time went into pure gaming).
On another note, my warrior alt, Trueganja, is now at 440/450 Blacksmithing, so if you are on Lightbringer and you need an epic made, look me up.
When you start out with heroics and raids it’s very tempting to become a recount junkie. After all, if you do massive DPS, you are doing your job, right?
Well, partially, there’s a lot more to doing your job as DPS , especially for a hunter, than dishing out hurt. Vaadren wrote an excellent post about this subject. You can find it at: Someone Post Meters.
He pretty much sums up my feelings on the subject.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update. The main reason: I was pushing my warrior alt through Northrend as fast as I could.
Last weekend, whilst questing in Zuldrak, I managed to hit 80 on Trueganja. It took 9 days and 12 hours of /played total. Which, for me, is a huge upgrade over my first character that reached 80.
Trueganja hits level 80
With level 80 comes the process of gearing up for heroic tanking. I managed to swindle someone out of 10 Titansteel bars to have some tanking gear made. (Thanks Langdon!)
After this and several enchants, I’ll hit 535 defense as soon as that last point of defense skill finally pops. Jay! Heroics here I come.
Yesterday I ran my second instance as a tank. The (guild) team we got together did not really have a preference, so my suggestion to go to Utgarde Keep was readily accepted.
After the quite intense experience in The Nexus at level 70, Utgarde Keep seemed a lot more relaxed with some better gear and at level 74.
Starting out cautiously, we picked up speed and ripped through the trash mobs leading to Prince Keleseth. The dragon pens was quite fun to go through, I’d charge the dragon and then turn him around so the breath attack would only hit me, constantly checking if my threat was higher than the two higher level DPS we had brought.
Skarvald and Dalronn were up next. We decided to burn down the caster first and follow up with Skarvald. Again not much trouble here.
I was a bit worried about Ingvar, whilst leveling my hunter I’ve seen how hard he can hit. I was prepared though and every Smash I ran through him, phase 1 of the fight was over before I truly realized it.
Of course, phase 2 is the pinch hitter here. Ingvar hits a lot harder, his Smash is now called Dark Smash (or MAC truck, whichever you prefer). Again I managed to think about running through him and Ingvar dropped to the floor. He was nice enough to hand me his Monolithic Cleaver.
Besides raiding with my hunter, I’ll continue working on the warrior, I am having too much fun not to. I want a second go at Keristrasza, first because she killed me on our earlier meeting and second because I finally picked up all the dungeon missions for The Nexus.
