Testing the Robot

Or The post in which I do not make dirty jokes about robots...

A couple weeks ago raiders at Eff were asked to submit their upgrade list to assist with raid scheduling. This was an interesting exercise for me... Of course, I have gear lists. But the lists I usually make are lists of all possible upgrades. So for glove upgrades I had Grips of the Failed Immortals, Hands of the Twilight Council, Flamebloom Gloves, and Shadowflame Handwraps.

I needed a way to narrow down the list of not just gloves, but all of my pieces to just one upgrade for each. Well, the message included this:

"Use Ask Mr Robot if you want to figure it out fast and loose."

Huh. I've heard of Mr. Robot before, but I've never used it. What's this Robot all about anyway?

Turns out, he's about OPTIMIZATION. One of my favorite topics as a computer scientist. My favorite feature, let me show it to you:



It will generate a Best-In-Slot list for any level of gear (level 85 and up) that you're looking at. Until just two weeks ago, that would have been Pre-Raid for me. I ran the crap out of the trolls dungeons until they gave up significant 353 caster cloth. Except for the very first night, these went smoothly enough. It helps to have people along who have done them as raids.

...

Plz can haz Karazhan 5-man?

...

Anyway.

The other options are pretty neat too. I usually tell it to ignore expensive enchants, because... y'know, I'm not rolling in Maelstrom Crystals.

Actually, I tell it to ignore most other things except the Darkmoon Cards. I might see if I can put a Volcano Deck together. Not that I'm in need of gold sinks or anything. I am in need of better trinkets.

According to Mr. Robot, I am in need of a lot of things. My optimize screen is a study in failed (according to Mr. Robot) reforging and enchanting.



I was rather put out by this. Suboptimal? Le angst! I mean, I followed all the appropriate rules of reforging for warlocks. Maybe not the enchanting so much... I generally just use what's available at the time. Still! I'm totally awesome! ...right?

Well... no.

My dps is not what it could be. So let's see if this Mr. Robot guy can help me out.

The Setup

The only buffs that I tested with are the ones that I can provide myself. Also left out: Flask of the Draconic Mind and Severed Sagefish Head.



The Control

See below, to the best of my ability, my standing dps at its maximum. Just me and my imp against the world.



My dps epeen, is it big enough? I'm afraid its not big enough.

The Test

This section is not worthy of a screenshot. You don't need to see me hanging out with the Reforging guy or mindlessly rearranging the enchanting mats I've been hoarding since before the server transfer. Promise.

The Results

After blindly following the mandates of Mr. Robot:



Some Conclusions

Ok, so 700 points of dps increase is not the epic conclusion I had hoped for. Regardless, it is an improvement. For a few seconds, I was definitely afraid I wouldn't see any improvement at all - or worse, a decrease in dps.

It also wasn't the easy fix I could have hoped for. I'll need to research other avenues to determine why my dps isn't meeting my own, possibly delusional standards.

One thing I totally loved though? Thanks to Mr. Robot I'm no longer over the hit cap. I'm a smidgen under it, actually. So close to the hit-cap I can not only taste it - I could have it for breakfast if I wanted to. All with the advantage of no wasted stat points.

Further Research?

The only point of contention I might have is the call for a wrath enchant. I can't wrap my brain around 28 spellpower trumping 50 haste. I mean, I love haste.

Despite the fact that I know haste balancing is kind of delicate with plateaus that must be observed, its difficult for me to accept that sometimes less haste is the way to go. When the numbers back it up, though, I have to concede.

Verdict

The final step, of course, is seeing if I can bring this improvement to life in a raid situation. Until I can do that, there's no saying for sure whether this wasn't just a (highly entertaining) waste of time.

I think Mr. Robot has done all right by my warlock. I look forward to further testing.

Raiding Bicycles

Or The post in which I search for normalcy.

So, since the last set of posts clearly did not do its job of restarting a normal blogging schedule, here is my next attempt. Some background information will be necessary as a lot has changed since The Elephant.

In the real life arena, Sen and I succeeded at house buying. Last weekend we moved most of our large furniture. And got the internet set up. That was super important. The cats love being in the new house where they can run around and look out a bunch of windows and just generally aren't cooped up in one room. Troy has taken a liking to sitting on my desk - usually in front of my computer screen. And as he's the fluffier of the two, he takes up the entire screen and I can't see anything.

I see this causing problems in future raids.

Speaking of raids, I was actually able to get my warlock "raid-ready". With the end of the spring semester came two weeks of not having to go to campus in order to get my work done - in turn leading to excessive hours spent in Azeroth.

The summer semester starts on Monday, so my time will start being limited again.

So, it's a good thing I joined a guild that has a relatively relaxed attendance policy.

That's right. I joined a new guild.

No, it's not Soulfire like I thought it might be. Which is a good thing, but that's a whole other story.

I not only left Memento, I left Hydraxis altogether.

It was, to me, kind of a big freaking deal. I've server-changed only one other time - and that was to leave a PVP server that I hated with a fiery passion. As fail as Hydraxis tended to be in the raiding department, I would never have left if it wasn't for a simple event hosted by Alas at Eff the Ineffable.

The Fishoree - as it went on my calendar - was a blast. I checked with Alas for what kind of classes the Eff team might need for raiding. I transferred my warlock a week later after making sure Takk, Mord, and Ann were all well aware of my intentions.

You see, Eff is an officer-less guild. You may remember from The Elephant what we were trying to make Memento before it fell apart. No officers - no Council - decisions made by the guild as a whole. Of course I was drawn to Eff like a moth to flame. It's everything I wanted Memento to become.

I've been trying to get back to a regular raid schedule with Eff. Takk made the transfer as well, so I have the best of both worlds - familiar faces and new friends.

So... the point of this post: raiding is not like riding a bicycle.

Once you've mastered the bicycle it essentially never changes. It's always two wheels connected in-line with a seat and some handlebars. Sometimes the front wheel is bigger, sometimes the back wheel is bigger, sometimes the tires are thicker, or the seat is different - whatever, you can still ride it. Because its a bicycle and your body remembers what to do with it.

Such is not the case with raiding. At least not for me.

Its true that the overall mechanics haven't changed - stand in good, stay out of bad, dps the bad guy at appropriate times - my body just does not remember what to do with them.

Without constant practice, you start to lose both the reaction time and the muscle memory associated with a raid situation. You know that when an angry yellow circle appears under your group it's time to gtfo - but it takes an extra second to reach for your movement controls and actually start to gtfo.

Furthermore, a warlock has several methods for moving and continuing to do damage. From the perspective of a Destruction Warlock, I have Conflagrate, Fel Flame, Corruption, and Bane of Doom. It doesn't make for the best dps, but it's better than nothing. But it only works if your brain processes fast enough to use these spells OR if your muscle memory is so good (or has had enough practice - repetition is the key to all things memory related) that you reach automatically for the movement spells while moving.

At the moment neither of these applies to me.

To an extent, the repetition necessary to achieve an appropriate level of muscle memory and reaction time can be fabricated. That's why they added training dummies, after all. They're good for more than just mastering your standing rotation - though they are excellent for that. You can also use them to judge your burst moments - if you unload everything at one time how much damage can you actually do? You can use them to judge your white damage, your dot damage, your moving damage. I'm sure other classes have discovered other uses for them as well.

Of course, to judge your moving damage on a training dummy YOU have to be the one doing all the moving. To face off against a moving target, I recommend Glop, Son of Glop. You have chase after Glop in order to be in range to do moving damage and you need to move continually while Glop is standing still in order to avoid mushroom damage. The only thing its lacking is puddles of good to stand in.

Still, nothing quite compares to a true raid environment. Eff farms on Tuesday nights and Progresses on Friday and Saturday. While it's been a great deal of fun, I don't think I've been able to show my best stuff. Frankly, I'm out of shape. So here's to hoping it won't be too long before I feel comfortable again in the raiding environment.

Raiding is not like riding a bicycle. But it's worth the effort.

A Shaman, adrift

Hello. My name is Mara, and I'm an altoholic.

With the advent of Cataclysm and the departure of almost everyone from Memento Mori, I have been spending more time with my alts. The new expansion introduced a multitude of new quests and revamped areas to explore. Therefore, in my limited free time, I have been off... y'know... exploring them.


Meet Ellannii, an eager young shaman of the Alliance. Her early levels were spent among the other fortunate survivors on Azuremyst and Bloodmyst Isles. She enjoys studying the floral life of Azeroth and the various ways in which they can be combined to strengthen herself and her allies.

Deathwing's resurgence into the world coincided with Ellannii's departure from her people's new homeland. She journeyed to Stormwind to assist with the Elemental Invasion and made her oath to Alliance.


Since then, she has earnestly served the Alliance in the Western and Eastern Plaguelands, the Badlands, and the Blasted Lands.

Now, however, her faith in the Alliance is fading.

King Varian Wrynn has called for all able bodied adventures to travel through the Dark Portal and assist those remaining in their never ending fight against the Outlands' demonic denizens.

As in all her previous missions, Ellannii responded instantly. On recommendation, she purchased a gryphon and learned how to ride it. She was told the Outlands are a dangerous place to be without an agile and airborne method of transportation. Despite preferring to keep her hooves firmly on the ground, Ellanni bought Kirna.


Proud and ambitious, Ellannii stepped through the Dark Portal with Kirna at her side... and into hell.

Over and over again Ellannii shook her head, trying to relieve herself of the sound of tortured screaming. Long minutes passed with Kirna standing placidly at her side, before Ellannii realized the screaming was in her head.

In her head and in the earth surrounding her.

Ellannii had been told that her people's home world was broken. But the knowledge that Dreanor was a tortured and devastated world could not compare with the screaming, agonizing reality.

As the screaming continued, Ellannii shook her head a final time and retreated back through the Dark Portal. The relative silence of the earth in the Blasted Lands was a blessed relief. Shaken and weary, Ellannii and Kirna set off for Stormwind to tender their regretful resignation to the King. As far as the little shaman was concerned, the Legion could have the remnants of Dreanor. She was never going back there.

A.D. Temple's Azeroth: Dustwallow Marsh

My journey, dear friends, begins in the noble city of Theramore.



Theramore is often thought of as a military outpost and is sometime referred to as Theramore Keep. It is true that Theramore is a well fortified island, strategically placed to monitor the desserts and marshes that the Horde sometimes call home.

The militaristic nature of Theramore extends back to its creation. Lady Jaina Proudmoore established the Keep with several military companies prior to the invasion of the Burning Legion. To this day, it remains the Alliance's strongest outpost in Southern Kalimdor.

The recent unpleasantness in Northrend led to the absence of the city's leader for an extended period of time. However, the people of Theramore are both loyal and industrious and, rather than the city falling into disarray without it's Lady, it has seen great growth.



The people of Theramore have been extending their Highway through the marsh, allowing people safe travel through this otherwise dangerous location. The marsh's stinking bogs and unfriendly denizens have claimed many an unwary traveler. Those that stick to the provided highway, now can be reasonably assured of safe passage.



The arrival of the Aspect of Death has done little to daunt the spirit of Theramore. Dustwallow Marsh was largely - but not completed - unaffected by the Aspect's re-entrance into Azeroth.



The changes in Theramore and Dustwallow Marsh are political in nature. With Thrall's departure from his position as Warchief - indeed his departure from Azeroth for awhile - has led to a resurgence anti-Horde feeling in Dustwallow Marsh. The uneasy alliance maintained by Lady Proudmoore and Thrall has been dissolved. Furthermore, the Grimtotems - a clan of of the tauren - have recently been exiled from their traditional home. Distinguished by their black and white markings, they have begun to settle - and cause problems - in Dustwallow Marsh.



Visitors of Dustwallow Marsh may begin, as I did, in Theramore on the island off the eastern coast. Alternatively, Mudsprocket still welcomes visitors from both the Horde and the Alliance in the southern region of the marsh. The Horde outpost in the area remains - visitors may find Brackenwall Village in the Northwest region of Dustwallow Marsh.

Brave Adventurers may be interested in visiting the Wyrmbog - the former home of Onyxia, the black broodmother. The Stonemaul ruins may provide visitors with some insight into the violent culture of the Ogre's. Or, history buffs may find Alcaz Island - the former prison of King Varian Wrynn - to be most interesting

---

Sources:
The comic image at the beginning, the maps, and the image of Alcaz Island are from WoW Wiki and may be found in the following articles:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Theramore
http://www.wowwiki.com/Dustwallow_Marsh
http://www.wowwiki.com/Alcaz_Island

Information for this post was found in the above articles, the novel The Shattering, and BradyGames' World of Warcraft: Cataclysm game guide.

The remaining images come to you from my screenshot gallery.

The Elephant

Or The Post that Hopefully Allows me to Revive From my Two-Month Funk

First, a quote from Wikipedia: "Elephant in the room is an English idiom for an obvious truth that is being ignored or goes unaddressed. The idiomatic expression also applies to an obvious problem or risk no one wants to discuss.[1]

It is based on the idea that an elephant in a room would be impossible to overlook; thus, people in the room who pretend the elephant is not there have chosen to concern themselves with tangential or small and irrelevant issues rather than deal with the looming big one."

When I last posted, Memento was looking forward to a guild-wide meeting to determine our path for Cataclysm.

My Elephant - the topic I have, thus far, been unable to discuss is the fact that Memento is no more.

There's more to it than that, of course.

We discussed a lot of things during our meeting. Everyone was there, which impressed me. Takk, Mord, Hippy, Ann, Militia, Batra, Sen, and myself. We talked about what we had and what we wanted.

At the time we all wanted the same thing. Sitting on the bleeding edge of a new expansion gave every one the bug for progression raiding. So we compared schedules and made decisions. Wednesday nights and Saturday afternoons were to be for progression raiding. For three weeks, those time slots would be used for running heroics and gearing up. For learning how to work as a team in the big new world that is Cataclysm heroics.

Sen, being a full time engineer, decided to step down from his position as GM. The group chose a replacement... me.

I didn't mind the responsibility. Memento being a small guild, we made a few more changes. We ditched the officers idea and moved forward with our "open-forum" idea. Mord agreed to continue his role as Raid Leader and Militia volunteered to be the Recruitment Guy. I made us a new website and we were all ready to move forward.

Or so I thought.

We floundered through those first three weeks. Most nights we were forced to split up into who was eligible for heroics and who was not. I healed some normal dungeons those week - Disc felt pretty weak at the time.

Then a new, insidious idea began to spread through our happy-meal-sized guild. It would be so much easier to join the progession party if we were not actually a happy-meal-sized guild. But! Instead of recruiting... let's just join a different, bigger guild.

The idea did - and does - cut me like a knife.

But these were my guildies now and I had a responsibility to them. If, in the three week span since our last meeting, they had changed their minds about recruiting for Memento and preferred to raid in a larger, more established environment then that was what we would do.

We had a second guild meeting and decided to look for a new home.

There were some possibilities right off the bat. Militia has always raided on the side with Kaizen and we thought, for awhile, that they might be interested in "absorbing" our little guild.

But... I guess... people weren't willing to wait.

Hippy and Batra, whose attendance was always a little iffy, disappeared entirely.

Militia transferred his characters out of the guild and over to Kaizen without telling anyone.

Mord announced to me - over realID, one day - how totally relieved he was to not be the raid leader anymore. That being free of the responsibility had lifted a huge weight off his shoulders. He, too, had left the guild without telling anyone.

...

Let me go on record for saying it's not okay to leave a guild without notice. You may not want to give them your reason - and most of the time, you don't have to. You do have to say something.

It's not okay to ninja-quit.

It's not okay. It fucking hurts.

...

Time and a shift in priorities has done much to restore my equilibrium on the matter.

Mord went on to join Soulfire Tribe - a guild that successfully runs 25 man raids, 4 nights a week.

Ann joined him soon after - something I expected. As an engaged couple who has been raiding together for awhile, little else would make sense.

Soulfire has extended the invitation to the rest of us still dithering about in Memento. All three of us: Takk, Sen and myself.

I encouraged Takk to take the offer, even as I knew that Sen and I probably wouldn't. Memento has been our home a lot longer than its been a raiding guild, so we're comfortable in the small environment. Even if it's now a home for lost alts - its still ours.

...

I got a new job. The local university lost a visiting professor three weeks into the semester and needed a replacement in a hurry. I met all the necessary requirements. I jumped on it. I now attempt to teach 130 students the ins and outs of Object Oriented Software Development.

Sen and I are attempting to buy a house. I know that no one has ever said that buying a house is an easy thing to accomplish, but they certainly don't tell you that it's rather like playing dodgeball with screwdrivers.

Getting approved for our loan has added a whole new level of stress to our lives. Sen has since turned off his wow account. He has a major engineering exam in April, but he does plan on returning to the game "when things settle down again".

...

I've encouraged Takk to join Soulfire again, since spending time in our dieing guild doesn't get him any closer to his goal of raiding. He's loyal and stubborn and has stuck it out with us thus far. I suspect I will be moving my warlock to Soulfire with Takk soon.

'Ware. Here there be rambling.

I could have gone with The post wherein I muse about the cyclical nature of life, the universe, and everything but I thought it might be too long.

Today is, in fact, my blogoversary. Its hard to believe that its been a full year since I first starting posting in my tiny corner of the blogosphere. OP was a little different then. A bit more... orange. I went purple in October. At that time I was raiding mostly on my priest and orange is just not a priestly color. I think purple suits both priests and warlocks, which is why I kept it for my links when I went black in December.

A year ago, OP stood as much for "over powered" (which warlocks always are, of course) as it did for opportunity. I like to play up to the stereotypical things said about warlocks. Most importantly, we hate rogues. I learned that ages ago on Arthas, a PVP server. Secondly, we do not get along with mages. We view them as weaklings - glass canons who have no way to escape a beating if something gets close enough to them. They view us as power-hungry and sloppy - snatching at any glimmer of power and prestige. We fight over gear - especially now that mages and warlocks are the only classes that need +hit cloth armor.

Finally, we are the unquestioned gods of caster dps. Even when we're not.

More recently, I have tried to lessen the focus on warlocks. I plan to raid on my priest and, while my warlock will still have plenty to do, OP is about all of my experiences and opportunities in WoW. See wat i did ther?

Even though Cataclysm has been out for nearly a month now, I think everyone is still adapting to the changes. The dungeons are harder. Crowd Control is a requirement, rather than a nice bonus or a neat trick. AOE has all but disappeared in the standard dungeon environment.

This being the New Year, we are surrounded on all sides by change. Perversely, I am flummoxed by the things that haven't changed.

A full year has passed since I was celebrating reaching level 80 on my warlock. Now level 80 is only a milestone in the sense that, after you reach it, you only have 5 more levels to go. I didn't have a lot of spare gold floating around, so I was carefully searching out each drop from the dungeons and trying to get enough emblems of triumph together for any new pieces. I was trying to make sure I leveled my Enchanting high enough to be useful for a raider and I had some help getting enough Dream Shards to collect the high-level patterns.

We took an extremely ragtag pug into Naxxramas and, while it wasn't a complete fiasco, it certainly had its moments of terrible noobness.

Now, I do have some spare gold floating around but it usually gets spent on leveling my Jewelcrafting. I am still carefully searching out each drop I can get from the normal dungeons. I am herding together all the justice points I can for other items. I am rep-grinding with Therazane and Hyjal. I am doing everything I was a year ago.

Our bouts of noobness currently occur in dungeons, but we may get up to some raids in the near future. One can only hope.

A year ago I was getting started on a new project. The "Mara will has a Healer" project. I leveled a dwarf priest, spending most of my time after level 40 in a Random Dungeon learning the fine art of Disco.

Now I'm considering a new project... perhaps several new projects. I haven't ruled out a "Mara will has a Tank" project, though I'm not sure its in the best interest of my blood pressure. I'm still warming up A. D. Temple's Azeroth. Its a struggle to determine where to start, but I think I've got a handle on that now. It will be... an interesting trip to say the least.

A year ago we were fumbling with the idea of a raiding guild. That hasn't changed at all. We gained and lost members. We made great progress at the end. Our triumphs as a guild are a great treasure. Memento is due for that guild-wide meeting to discuss our future plans tomorrow. There's plenty to improve upon, I think. I believe (hope?) we will continue to fight the good fight.

Here's to another year! May all your mobs be weak and all your drops be epic.

Things are Shiny

I had to wait a couple of days to start Cataclysm, so this marks MY FIRST WEEK in the new expansion. Of course, I'm having an absolute blast. With this also being the end of the semester - also the end of school, period, for awhile - I can drag the fiance back into Azeroth with me. He's not quite as excited as I am, but that doesn't mean we haven't had tons of fun.

This post is broken up into sections, mostly for my own wandering train of thought.

-Mara and Sen are Coming Down the Mountain
-Aioka is Sinking into Vashj'ir
-Under Construction
-Blog Woes
-A. D. Temple's Azeroth

-Mara and Sen are Coming Down the Mountain

My fiance plays an Arcane Mage, Senach. I like to say its proof that Mages and Warlocks can get along... sometimes. Leveling as two casters might sound like a goofy, inefficient idea but we've had 80 (now 82) levels of practice.

I level almost exclusively as Demonology. So we have Flaag, my mighty felguard, to do some tanking if we run into trouble. Sen cranks out the big numbers so things die quickly. I supply the slow damage for adds or extra mobs and the healing for the tank.

Occasionally, if we come up against a "Kill X number of mobs", we'll split up and each tackle half the group separately. Usually, though, we prefer to kill things and experience the quests together.

However, that didn't stop Sen from continuing on while Mara played with some new friends:

Sooooo Cute!

What have they been feeding you?

He does tricks!

I am NOT rubbing that belly!

We did catch up shortly after that to check this place out:



-Aioka is Sinking into Vashj'ir

Meanwhile, Aioka was leveling through the aquarium underwater world of Vashj'ir. In some ways, its a complete nightmare. Full 3D environments and I don't always mix well. Occasionally, when something is attacking me from afar I just have to sit and eat the first bolts of damage just to see where they are coming from.

On the other hand, I think the storyline in Vashj'ir is better than Mount Hyjal. It has great continuity through each of the three sections of Vashj'ir, its deeply engaging, and it actually creates a world where you care about the NPCs around you.

The most common complaint about Vashj'ir that I've heard is that there are too many gathering quests. I can understand the frustration. Having Aioka out on her own means I don't have to share gathering quests with anyone else. And the only one that I found was truly terrible was Fish Lure.

My biggest complaint about Vashj'ir is that, if you're strictly following the storyline, you won't hit the Throne of Tides until the very end. It's extremely impactful that way, but a little less on exposure to the new dungeons.

My first group in the Throne of Tides was worth the wait. Our tank was level 80 and extremely squishy, but the druid healer was on the ball. Most of the time. I went in as a DPS and I am actually more scared now to try healing that I was before. I ran out of mana faster than the healer did. Very frightening. But my Hymn of Hope saw some use. I used my bubble when I thought it might be useful. And I used bandages and health potions on myself to ease the healer's mind.

Didn't stop the squishy tank from dying a lot. But between me, a hunter, and a shaman we were able to bounce aggro around enough to keep all of from eating big damage and the healer kept us alive long enough to kill things.

On trash, its kind of insignificant.

On a boss, its a trip and a half. On one boss, the tank went down at 70%. We dps bounced it around until 4%. Our totally awesome druid healer took it down the rest of the way. It was amazing. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything quite like it.

-Under Construction

Some of you might have noticed that this is OP's second major make-over this year. Memento's guild site is under similar construction. We've been trying to get things shaped up for the new expansion. Not that we're anywhere near raiding, yet, but I've think we've got several things to decide on and hammer out before we're ready to tackle anything.

Memento essentially floundered its way through Wrath. Never having a complete 10-man group it was difficult (at best) to accomplish things. For some reason or another, none of our recruits really hung around very long and I think this is something the guild needs to discuss. Being as small as we are, I think we can arrange an all-guild meeting to discuss where we want to go and what we want to be doing.

Additionally, with most of our members in college, it's difficult to determine a night and time where everyone is available. I'm trying to find out at the moment how many nights a week everyone is interested in raiding. It seems obvious to be that our once-a-week attempts at ICC were fairly ineffective. Now, however, several of members have graduated and have their evenings free. Hopefully, we can find more than one night that fits into everyone's schedule.

Memento's distribution of responsibilities is almost nonexistent. Our GM is mostly hands off and everything goes through the Council. As a single body, the Council is expected to accomplish or delegate anything that needs to be done. However, Council members are pretty lax in both identifying things that need to be accomplished and... accomplishing them.

I took it upon myself (maybe rightly, maybe wrongly) to make changes to the Guild Website. Frankly, I think it looked terrible and the forum system is a bit unwieldy (my fault, since I designed it the first time) and Ann and I were just generally dissatisfied with it.

As far as that goes, Ann and I weren't totally sure we'd be sticking with wowstead. If you have a suggestion for a new/different/better guild website provider I would be delighted to hear it.

-Blog Woes

Closer to home, we have the updates here. I think that my dissatisfaction with how my blog looks has a lot to do with my... not knowing what I want to do with it. OP started with a specific purpose - to talk about how I, being level capped for the first time, was handling the multi-faceted beast that is raiding. That was almost a year ago.

Now, I can talk about being level capped for the second time. I could talk about my happy-meal-sized guild and how it handles the transition from Wrath raiding to Cataclysm raiding. I can talk about having a priest as my primary raider. I can talk about Marariel and her adventures in solo'ing/duo'ing content.

I could branch out some with some projects. I could level some tanks and/or some more healers and see where that takes me. I could include some story/fanfiction elements.

My demonology guide was well received. I could scour the internet resources and put together a few more.

What would you like to see?

-A. D. Temple's Azeroth

My first project that I would like to introduce is called A. D. Temple's Azeroth. A. D. Temple is a renown historian from the story I occasionally get to work on. He travels the world investigating historical sites, writes books about the ancient gods and goddesses, and provides assistance to a particular team of cartographers, mostly just for fun.

What I'd like to do is a profile of each zone in Azeroth. I plan to talk about its history, its recent changes (omg, cataclysm), its settlements and people. I have no idea if other people will find this interesting or not. At the least it will be interesting for me and I hope to learn a lot about the world we all (virtually) live in.

At the End of an Era

If I were starting a wow account for the first time, with all the information I know now, I wonder if I would have picked the same class/race combination to start with.

This thought strikes me from time to time. On the whole, I think the answer is no. As much as I enjoy playing my warlock, it's not what I would now recommend for my younger self if I could step back in time and advise myself on what my first character should be. I would have told my younger self, "Listen. You're going to have a lot of alts. A lot, a lot of alts. And what you will learn to call altoholism, is really just another way for you to say 'sometimes I get bored'. Save yourself some grief and start with a hybrid class." Regardless of the fact that my younger self would not have understood much of that.

This is not to say that there is no value in altoholism. My discovery of hybrid classes has not made me any less likely to create new characters (of both the hybrid and the pure variety). I would like to acknowledge that my use of the word 'altoholism' - sometimes I get bored - may not be the same as another usage or even the generally accepted use of the term. Perhaps it is simply that my use of the term 'altoholism' is lacking in definition.

It would also have been nice for someone to discuss with younger-me the Tank-Healer-DPS triangle. I doubt very much that I would have found the idea of a tank very appealing. But I might have thought that picking a class that could dps and heal would be beneficial. Having the option to switch later if I didn't enjoy my current role should have been a powerful motivator in picking a class.

Why wasn't it?

As much as these thoughts occasionally plague me, I would not actually trade my warlock or my first leveling experience for anything else. If I were given the option to do it all over again (three years ago, of course) I wouldn't take it. I learned and leveled at the pace that I learned and leveled at and that's all it is.

It does, however, generate some other interesting questions.

Does caster dps feel natural to me because my first character was a caster? Or was my first character a caster because caster dps feels natural to me?

I've always favored the mage stereotype in video games. Disciples, Lords of Magic, Final Fantasy... whatever it was, if I played it I played a caster. It wasn't uncommon for me to dabble in the dark side even then. My first character that I ever played in a tabletop RPG was a "Dark Cleric". I'm not sure such a thing even existed at the time, but my DM assisted me in putting a "dark" twist on each of my spells. Grant Life became Steal Life, Cure Poison became Poison, you get the idea.

So, perhaps a warlock was not such an impetuous choice for a first character after all.

Which makes my decisions for Cataclysm that much more difficult.

I'm extremely proud of what I've accomplished with my warlock this expansion. Marariel killed the Lich King. The dungeons I wasn't able to see while leveling - namely everything but Scholomance, Hellfire Ramparts, and the Northrend Dungeons - Marariel solo'ed. It may have been out of order timewise, but after hitting 80 Marariel visisted Karazhan, the Black Temple, and Magtheridon's Lair. Marariel befriended the Netherwing dragonflight. Marariel became an Ambassador of the Alliance.

In many ways, Marariel will always be my main.

But in a week's time, it won't be Marariel powering through the levels to 85. It won't be Marariel racing through the dungeons and quests to start the next gearing race. It won't be Marariel farming loot, experience, and reputation to get ready for raiding all over again.

Marariel will be taking it slow. Exploring a shattered world takes time. The fact that Marariel leveled and learned slowly in the beginning is not something to look back on with regret, but rather a learning experience for the future. Everything I learned about warlocks in that way I learned by doing. Not by reading the forums, Elitist Jerks, or any other guide. I'm looking forward to getting that experience back.

As for rushing towards the level cap, the heroic dungeons, and the shiny new raids - there's an alt for that. Aioka will be running the race - questing as shadow and queueing as discipline - to, hopefully, be in place as a healer whenever Memento is ready to start raiding again.

I know a lot of people are switching their mains for Cataclysm. I am... reluctant to call it that. Warlockery is near and dear to my heart and being a Shadow Priest is not always comparable. However, as I evaluate my experiences I am starting to recognize that flexibility in raiding is important to me. I want that.

Cataclysm is here. Whatever it is that you want, pursue it with everything you have.

Good luck.

I'll see you on the other side.

Azeroth, Burning

The cinematic for Cataclysm is really very good. It leaves no doubt in your mind that the Earthwarder is extremely angry and that all of Azeroth will feel his wrath. It's also easy to tell that he's probably insane. He not only allows, but requires that goblins force huge plates of Adamantite deep into his skin - they are practically molten when the anchoring spikes are driven in.

Deathwing screams his agony and all of the earth screams with him.

It shudders and quakes - sinking here and rising there - throwing waves as high as mountains about like toys. The great constructs of the mortal races - dams, docks, statues, cities are casually tossed aside.

It made for another day when I wasn't quite sure I wanted to log in. The story, of course, is as deep and intriguing as ever. And of course I want to be a part of it. But I wasn't quite done with the last part of it. I didn't get a chance to finish the quests in the elemental invasion. Frankly, I don't have time to play wow at the moment (expect sporadic updates between here and the new year). So, of course, it is this moment that carries all the change and transition, fascination and wonder, of the new world.

I hate feeling like I am missing something.

I am probably more connected to Azeroth than my characters are.

Azeroth has been my home for several years now. And while I would have cringed at the thought of questing through Darkshore for a third time, I'm not sure I wanted it to change. Azeroth is my escape. If reading is your escape, I would liken it to arriving home one evening to find a new book of your favourite series sitting next to your armchair, but the one you were currently in the middle of is nowhere to be found. You're quite sure that the new will be just as good as - if not better - than the last, but it doesn't change the fact that you weren't done with the last one.

Of course, if I apply that analogy to Icecrown Citadel then I cheerfully skipped ahead and read chapter 12 - the last chapter - while neglecting chapters 9, 10, and 11 simply because I didn't have time.

The epilogue was worth it.

The cinematic that plays after you defeat Arthas is everything I dreamed it could be and more. You see, I had never watched it before. I didn't seek it out online and I avoided that fountain in the center of Dalaran like the plague. It was the center of all evil and my life would surely be shattered if I accidentally clicked on it.

But I wanted to see it.

So, two weeks ago there were a whopping four raiders online for our regularly slotted raid night. Raider attendance has been slipping for awhile now. With the imminent approach of Deathwing (now arrived) people are... less interested in ICC than ever.

When Mord pointed out that there was group in Dalaran pugging for LK only raid, I told him hop on that. Of the four of us: Takk, Mord, Ann, and myself none of us were Kingslayers. Only one of us had experienced the fight before. My sum experience with the Lich King fight was Kae's Strategy comic: here.

The organizing guild, Crucible, had no problems with that. They have three dedicated raiders in their guild and they'd been pugging the LK fight for weeks. I am in awe of their tenacity. Pugging is frequently an agonizing, soul-sucking adventure. I can't imagine doing it against the LK with any group other than the one we put together.

I don't know how they did it, but Crucible found other dedicated non-kingslayers who were patient enough to wipe to the Lich King for hours and intelligent enough to regroup and improve over almost every attempt.

I was explicit in telling the Raid Leader that I had never experienced this fight before and he didn't care. I tell you, my awe knows no bounds. He explained it patiently before we got started. I took notes, dammit. (I might even still have them, though they pretty much amount to: 'Stack for Val'kyrs, spread for defiles' and 'Val'kyrs > Raging Spirits > Vile Spirits > LK'.)

I started this adventure in my destruction spec and kept it the entire time. I picked up Aftermath, Glyph of Demonic Circle, and three stacks of Frostweave Nets for the Val'kyrs. I was going to do the best damn job my little warlock could do.

On many of the attempts I was top damage. *squee*

It's no secret that raid awareness is key for this fight. Awareness and a healthy dollop of luck. We picked up phase one fairly easily. The tanks didn't seem to have any trouble and we moved Necrotic Plague like pros. The raid leader was a priest who also took over plague duty and called out names every time someone needed to move to the adds. It was... new, different, and singularly awesome. I'm accustomed, as I think most are now, to the raid leader also being the tank. I think it's a good thing when that doesn't always have to be the case.

It's not the phases that are the interesting parts of this fight, in my opinion. It's the transitions. I learned so much about my class and my spec during the transitions that I don't think I can even put into words. Certainly, you can go and read about warlock abilities, tricks, and tips. That doesn't - can't - give you the intuition for: Well, we're running into the center now and there is one Raging Spirit still alive. I got all the orbs down, so we're clear on that front. I should Shadowflame this Raging Spirit while we're moving. Definitely some Soulburn+Soulfire if it's still alive. If we're still moving, I can Death Coil, refresh DoTs(Corruption first, then Bane of Doom), or Life Tap. Cool, it's dead, lets play with the Lich King now. Alright stay together for the Val'kyr. Defile is coming; spread, spread, spread! Silly paladin, stop running the same direction as me! We're supposed to be spreading!

And this is intuition that I was certainly not in possession of the first few hours of wiping to the Lich King. It was painstakingly developed over a sum of ten hours of straight wiping to the Lich King. According to Ann's Fish Feast supply, we made a total of 40 attempts.

I'm a little flummoxed here. Having lived through it, I can tell you that 40 attempts in ten hours is a long, miserable adventure and its easy to get discouraged. On the other hand, Crucible had been trying for weeks with upwards of 200 attempts for this seemingly impossible kill. Guilds who downed the Lich King while the content was fresh made more attempts than we did as well.

We did it over three nights in one week. Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday. We changed out some tanks and dps along the way. Militia joined us. Mord skipped a night. Takk tanked the Lick King. I tanked the Lick King - accidentally. Crucible was simply awesome and I think those of us at Memento are practically salivating at the chance to build a cooperative raid team out of our two guilds.

I would like to say that I remember each attempt with perfect clarity, but it would be a lie. I remember that in the first few attempts I was petrified of being the One Who Screwed Up and wiped the attempt for everyone else. I eventually took over Orbs duty during transitions 1.5 and 2.5. In the midst of all the chaos and adds and nonsense I found it... soothing.

Of course, the attempts in which Orbs blew half the raid off the side of the platform it really was my fault and I was the One Who Screwed Up and wiped the attempt for everyone else. But no one seemed to mind too much. I made my (very embarrassed) apologies and we went on with the next attempt.

I do remember the last attempt with perfect clarity. Or rather, as much clarity as a confusing mess of not being able to tell who is still alive and how much health does the LK have left and OMG SOOOOOOO CLOSE affords. I remember everything seemed to flow perfectly. DPS was blistering high. We didn't carry any Raging Spirits through the transitions. Cooldowns were blown at appropriate times. Val'kyrs went down like nobody's business. Defiles were well placed. Vile Spirits - the hardest part of the fight for us to learn, as we spent the least amount of time with them - were not permitted to explode on anyone. And no healers were summoned into Frostmourne.

HOWEVER, a tank bit the dust at about 13%. I know that Ann and I had the same reaction: SPAM EVERYTHING. It doesn't matter what spell it is as long as it does damage and lots of it. As if we could single-handedly push the Lich King through his last 3%.

And I remember thinking, when I finally died, 'Damn that was a close attempt! We were ALMOST there.' And then the cheers started up on vent. We weren't almost there, we were there.

Terenas Menethil would like to Resurrect you.

Hell yeah, Terenas can resurrect me.

The last fight with the Lich King was leisurely after that. I took my time casting my spells. I think I might have been in shock. And I waited for the King to fall.

As I said, the final cinematic is beautiful... I knew who the Burning Man was. That much had been leaked to me, despite my desire to not know. I knew of the Immolated Champion. I knew his sacrifices.

I didn't know his sacrifices weren't quite over.

And so, it seems, all new eras are begun in fire and flame.

Kingslayer

The Lich King wouldn't show me how to summon Val'kyrs. So I killed him.

The Frozen Throne

Dear Mr. Lich King,

Let me start by saying what an honor it was to dirt nap in your presence last night. I have been studying the arts of DoTs and Minion Management for some time now, but phase one truly showed me that I have much to learn. The way you summoned those ghouls to beat on our offtank was an inspiration! And that Necrotic Plague was beautiful to behold. I hope that one day my DoTs will jump to other targets rather than merely being dispelled. Dispellable DoTs are clearly for the weak!

Of course, your diseases and defiles aren't the only things to admire about you, Kingsley. You have a way with dark minions that I would desperately like to imitate. Sure, yours are undead and mine are demons, but I think we can work something out. I did hear you were looking for a second in command. You don't have to bother torturing those silly paladins. I'm right here.

If you could just show me how to summon the Valkyrs to cart away my enemies I would be forever in your debt.

Yours sincerely,
Marariel

---

I pledge allegiance... to the scourge.


This guy has got it going on!


I'm just... so proud of my king.

Throwing Hard Tricks

Last night's raid was an interesting experiment in testing our own limitations. Once again I got to take Mara to kill stuff in the face. Sometimes... when Empowered Imp procs and I get a free, instant-cast Soul Fire all I can think to myself is TROGDOR! Burninating all the peoples! And the Trogdor comes in the night!

We steamrolled through the Lower Spire, which has become fairly commonplace for most raids, I think. I spent some time as Destro and some time as Demo and I haven't really been able to determine a difference in dps yet. Destro is predicted to do about 2k more dps (though, presumably, at the highest gear levels), but both specs seem to be about equal to me.

We were able to visit Heroic Lootship. I didn't notice much a difference between it and regular Lootship, except that it lasted longer. And gave better loot. Not being on the healing team, I don't know if either of our Holy Priests played chicken, but I assume they did not.

I guess this isn't being totally fair to the heroic lootship - we did wipe horribly the first time. Mord was trying to glitch Saurfang and ... missed, I guess.

But the second time the glitch was successful. I got to go over to the other ship and BURNINATE things. Totally fun. Those guys at the back of the ships are called Kor'kron Rocketeers and there's two of them. So I burninated one and Takk was all like 'rawr-ninja-rogue-attack' on the other. Stuff died quickly. But, I did notice (unless its a sad RNG thing) that you can't get Empowered Imp procs on the other ship. While, there's nothing in the tooltips or on wowhead that suggests a limited range, I would still assume its a distance thing.

We had with us a baby Boomkin that hit 80 a couple days ago. Andu has been leveling with us for awhile now and I think its particularly interesting to revisit the boss strategies before each fight from the perspective of having never done it before. Really, it wasn't that long ago for most of us and its just interesting to think about your own growth as a raider and a member of a team.

We were kinda mean to Andu. After the Lower Spire we went to visit the Crimson Halls. I really (really really really) wanted us to be successful here. My priest has seen the Crimson Halls twice, but this was my warlock's first visit.

And we wiped. Hard. Several times against the Blood Prince Council. I did get to try to tank Keleseth. Once. Apparently I sucked too hard to try again. And its killing me because I keep thinking about things I could have done better/differently.

The basic idea is: get threat on Keleseth, stay out of melee range, get dark nuclei, keep threat on Keleseth, win.

Helpful spells: Demon Armor, Shadow Ward

Get threat: Empowered Soul Fire (Instant cast), Empowered Searing Pain. (Guaranteed to crit, with +50% crit on Searing Pain for 6 seconds)
There are some suggestions that a warlock's usual rotation generates quite enough threat to keep Keleseth entertained. But otherwise, Searing Pain should do the trick.

Stay out of melee range: Demonic Circle
In general, Keleseth will not move into melee range to attack. He stays at range. However, if you approach him whether purposefully or accidentally, he will probably one-shot you.

Get dark nuclei: Target nuclei, cast Corruption. Using a dot has the advantage of: if someone else accidentally does damage to it, the next tick of the dot will reset its aggro to you. The disadvantage is, of course, the nuclei may die. The part where this starts to break down is now I'm targeted on a dark nuclei and NOW I CAN'T FIND KELESETH.

Lesson 1: Create a Focus for Keleseth.

Keep threat on Keleseth: Searing Pain. Empowered Searing Pain when possible. The problem with this is that, even if you're not retarded like me and can switch targets efficiently, switching between dark nuclei and running around to get in range of dark nuclei and Keleseth affects the amount of time you can spam Searing Pain.

Lesson 2: Get help. When a dark nuclei spawns in nowhereville, have them call it out so you can find it. Even better, have them bring it into range of you, so you can grab it off them. Obviously, this may not be feasible if its on another tank or a healer.

We were eventually successful. At the end, Mord tanked Keleseth and the other paladin tank who was running with us took Taldaram and Valanar. It would have been nice to see the Wand of Ruby Claret, but I'm not devastated that it didn't show up.

But then... we... stopped. To be fair it was getting late and people needed to leave and stuff. But... but... I need to see the Blood Queen on my warlock.

I was a little sad, but we're going to try and pick it up again next week. Our visiting pally tank and holy priest are from Militia's other guild, so it seems they're free on Wednesday nights. Maybe we can make some good progression again and start maybe, hopefully taking a peek at the Lich King.

In case the announcement got skipped at some point: this is Beating your head against a Brick Wall: Hard Mode.

You Can Has Demons

At raid last night I (finally!) got to bring my warlock back to ICC to burn stuff in the face. It was seriously fun, totally awesome, and I loved it. It's no secret that I enjoy being dps, sitting in the back, nailing that rotation (excuse me, priority list), and watching the big numbers fly. In celebration, today's post is a guide to Demonology Warlocking in the 4.0.

Because this turned out way longer than I expected, here are some breakers:
Other Guides
The Spec
The Glyphs
The Priority
The Stats, Reforing, and Gems

Don't Panic
You'll have to imagine these letters are large and friendly.

I know rolling a warlock can be a daunting idea. We're powerful casters with intimidating minions and a snappy fashion sense. Don't Panic. There are number of warlocks who are more than willing to help out fledgling power-seekers. (You should stay away from the one's who aren't willing, though, they can be mean.) Here we're going to talk Demonology - the unquestioned master of minions.

As a demonologist you will get an exclusive minion - the fearsome felguard. At lower levels he's a fairly capable tank (though in some situations you will still want your blueberry Voidwalker) and at higher levels he provides some serious melee damage (feel free to take him to dungeons instead of rogues). You will also get an increased chance to create mini-minions from your Bane of Doom spell and a longer duration on your demon guardians. YOU are the pimp of the demon world - rolling with an entire possy of minions. You can even BE a demon, that's how cool you are.

These Aren't the Information You're Looking For
As stated, this all about Demonology. You may want to visit some other guides to get quality information about Destruction or Afflication warlocking. Don't worry. I'll still be here when you decide Demonology is right for you.

Affliction
Poneria over at Fel Concentration and Fulguralis at Killing 'em Slowly had a great discussion about Affliction PvE in the 4.0. Read Ful's post here and Pone's response here.

Destruction
Cynwise at Cynwise's Battlefiend Manual has a fantastic post about Destruction PvE. Find it here.

Growing Up Demo
This guide is aimed at a level 80 warlock in the pre-Cataclysm 4.0. If you're just getting started in the wide world of warlockery, Abi over at Kungaloosh is starting a series of posts about leveling Demo.
Levels 1-10
Levels 10-20

Cata; lol wut?
Abi also has a post about what we can expect the Demonology spec to look like at 85. Find that post here.

Give it all to me in a picture
Here.

If all you want is basic, distilled information above is the link to my own Demonology build and glyph set. It serves me well.

Lets Break it Down
The link above is not the only way to build a demonologist, so let's start with a break down of the talent tree.

Tier 1
Demonic Embrace: Increases Stamina by 4%/7%/10%. Not a necessary talent for PvE builds, but you may want to spend some of your floater points here.
Dark Arts: Increases damage done by your minion. Necessary. Actually, every warlock spec should put some amount of talent points in this talent. As a demonologist, you will want all of them.
Fel Synergy: A 50%/100% chance to heal your pet each time you do damage. Arguably necessary. Most healers will not be paying attention to your minion and in most boss fights some mechanic or another will lead to your minion taking damage. With 2 points here, you won't have to pay attention to it either.

In a nutshell: Put 3 points in Dark Arts and 2 points in Fel Synergy. Revisit Demonic Embrace if you have floater points later.

Tier 2
Demonic Rebirth: If your minion dies, you can resummon at 50%/100% reduced cast time. Arguably necessary. The only other way to get an instant-cast demon is to spend a Soul Shard. During a boss fight, you should have more interesting things to spend shards on.
Mana Feed: You get mana when your minion crits. Necessary. Since they've changed Glyph of Life Tap (it no longer grants a spell power bonus), it's nice to have ways other than Life Tap to regain mana.
Demonic Aegis: Increases the effects of Demon Armor and Fel Armor. Necessary. You should always be using an Armor, so this talent will always be doing something for you.
Master Summoner: Reduces the mana cost of summoning a minion by 50%/100%. Not necessary.

In a nutshell: Put 2 points in Mana Feed, 2 points in Demonic Aegis, and 2 points in Demonic Rebirth. Revisit Master Summoner if you have floater points later and want to. Personally, I like the Demonic Rebirth/Master Summoner combination. Then, if your demon dies, recasting is not only instant its also mana-free.

Tier 3
Impending Doom: Increases the chance Bane of Doom will summon an Ebon Imp by 10%/20%/30%. Also gives Shadowbolt, Incinerate, and Hand of Gul'dan a 5%/10%/15% chance to reduce the cooldown on Metamorphosis. Necessary. More Ebon Imps = More Damage. Reducing the cooldown on demon form is nice too, especially when the three spells listed are Demonology's primary fillers.
Demonic Empowerment: Does something PvP related to your minion. Not necessary - skip this point.
Improved Health Funnel: Increases health granted to your minion via Health Funnel and decreases the amount of health donated by you. Not necessary - skip this point.

In a nutshell: Put 3 points in Impending Doom. Put 1 point in Demonic Embrace or Master Summoner.

Tier 4
Molten Core: Gives you a 2%/4%/6% chance to gain the Molten Core effect when Immolate deals damage which will empower 3 Incinerates or Soul Fires. Necessary. This used to be when Corruption dealt damage, but has been changed to Immolate.
Hand of Gul'dan: New damage dealing spell. Increases chance targets within 4 yards will be critically hit. Necessary.
Aura of Foreboding: Roots enemies in 4 yard radius around Hand of Gul'dan. Not necessary.

In a nutshell: Put 3 Points in Molten Core and 1 Point in Hand of Gul'dan. I would recommend putting 1 point in Aura of Foreboding. The root could be useful, but I wouldn't spend the extra point in increasing the effect by 1 second. Alternatively, put 1 point in Demonic Embrace or Master Summoner.

Tier 5
Ancient Grimoire: Increases the duration of your guardians. Necessary.
Inferno: Increases the radius of Hellfire and allows channeling while moving. Lolworthy, but necessary for moving down the path.
Decimation: Reduces cast time of Soul Fire by 20%/40% when target is below 25% health. Necessary.

In a nutshell: Put 2 points in Ancient Grimoire, 1 point in Inferno, and 2 points in Decimation.

Tier 6
Cremation: Gives Hand of Gul'dan a 50%/100% chance to refresh Immolate. Necessary. If you can time it right, you only need to cast Immolate once per fight. Then, you can refresh with a spell that also does damage.
Demonic Pact: Increases your spell damage by 2% and the raid's spell power by 10%. Necessary. Additional spell damage and spell power is win.

In a nutshell: Put 2 points in Cremation and 1 point in Demonic Pact. Put the 2 floater points in whatever talents make you smile.

Tier 7
Metamorphosis: Transforms you into a demon. Necessary. This is what we came here for, after all.

The extras
At level 80 you have 5 additional talent points to spend. The Tier 1 talents of the other two trees both have extremely useful talents and you could arguably take any combination of those talents that you want. I personally like the ones from the Destruction tree.

Bane: Reduces the cast time of Shadowbolt and Immolate by .1/.3/.5 seconds. I like this one because I like to cast faster. With Shadowbolt being our filler spell, casting it quicker is always a good plan.
Shadow and Flame: Increases the damage of Shadowbolt and Incinerate and has a 33%/66%/100% chance to cause Improved Shadowbolt debuff. The most popular demonology builds put only 2 points in this talent. However, by doing that, we are relying on a Fire Mage to ensure the 5% crit debuff is on the target OR putting our faith in RNG that 66% is enough of a chance. If you never run with a Fire Mage, you may want to put all 3 points in here.
Doom and Gloom: Increases the crit chance of Bane of Doom by 4%/8%.
Improved Corruption: Increases the damage dealt by Corruption by 4%/8%/12%. All specs are also using corruption at the moment for a net DPS increase. Spending points here will make that dps increase even higher.

Prime Glyphs
Glyph of Metamorphosis: Increases the amount of time you spend as a demon.
Glyph of Immolate: Increases the damage of your primary dot.
Glyph of Incinerate: Increases the damage done by incinerate.
Glyph of Felguard: Increases the damage done by your Felguard's Legion Strike.

The first two are necessary. Of the last two, the Elistist Jerks suggest using the Incinerate glyph for higher dps. I would argue that this dps increase is dependent on your Molten Core procs, so your mileage may vary.

Major Glyphs
Glyph of Shadow Bolt: Decreases the mana cost of Shadowbolt.
Glyph of Life Tap: Decreases the global cooldown on Life Tap.
Glyph of Fear: Causes the target of your fear to tremble in place.
Glyph of Demonic Circle: Decreases the cooldown on Demonic Circle.

The first one is necessary. Again, Shadowbolt is the filler spell for Demonologists, so requiring less mana to cast it is extremely helpful. Glyph of Life Tap is another recommendation from the Elitist Jerks - it would allow you to cast it multiple times in a row which may not endear you to your healer(s). Poneria made a great argument for Glyph of Fear. It causes your target to stay in one place instead of running around and aggroing the entire instance. In a PvE situation, this gives warlocks a more reliable CC. Personally, I like Glyph of Demonic Circle. It lets you teleport to your circle more often, which is useful when Valkyrs are trying to drop you off the side of ICC or when Sindragosa is pulling you to her.

Minor Glyphs
None of these are necessary. Amuse yourself with whatever strikes your fancy. I personally like Glyph of Souls for reducing the mana cost of Ritual of Souls, Glyph of Unending Breath for increased swim speed, and Glyph of Kilrogg for maximum kicks and giggles with the Eye of Kilrogg.

The Priority
Now that I've tossed around terms like 'filler spell' and 'primary dot', lets talk about what that means. WoW has moved away from things that resemble hard rotations and into a world of 'priority casting'. This means, you should case whatever spell or ability is the MOST IMPORTANT and move down the line to the next most important spell until you get to some thing that isn't so important but since you should be casting something you cast it (that's your filler).

Metamorphosis
Immolate
Hand of Gul'dan
Bane of Doom
Corruption
*Immolation Aura
*Shadowflame
Decimation + Soul Fire
Molten Core + Incinerate
Soulburn + Soul Fire
Shadow Bolt

*These spells require you to be in melee range. I don't like to be there, so I usually leave them out of my priority. They will increase your dps, but please look out for cleave and other melee nasties.

What does this all mean? Well, you should start by using Metamorphosis whenever it is off cooldown. It increases your damage by 20% for 36 seconds(glyphed). Then, you should ensure that Immolate is always on your target. Then, you should use Hand of Gul'dan if its off cooldown. Then, Bane of Doom and then Corruption. You don't have to worry about clipping your dots anymore, so you can recast your dots before they fall off. However, casting them too often will lead to a net dps loss. I would recommend recasting them about 1-2 seconds before they fall off for Bane of Doom and Corruption. Immolate should be refreshed through the use of Hand of Gul'dan.

Decimation appears when you hit a target with less than 25% health. At this point, Soul Fire becomes a much quicker cast and that should be the only direct damage spell you cast (continue to cast Bane of Doom, Corruption, Hand, and Metamorphosis as necessary). If Molten Core appears on top of Decimation, continue to cast Soul Fire.

Molten Core appears whenever it feels like it. At this point you should cast three Incinerates.

If all your dots are up and neither Decimation nor Molten Core are up, burn a Soul Shard for Soulburn. This will allow you to cast one instant Soul Fire. (I have Soulburn and Soul Fire macro'd together for this purpose.) Soulburn has a cooldown of 45 seconds, so when its on cooldown cast Shadowbolt.

Clear as mud, right? I recommend practicing on a target dummy to really get a feel for how this all fits together. It can take some work to learn the priority and figure out when its best to cast or recast your dots. I mentioned that its possible to cast Immolate only once per fight and keep it up with Hand of Gul'dan. It is possible. However, it involves casting Hand of Gul'dan almost as soon as it goes off cooldown every time. And, unfortunately, a certain amount of Haste rating is necessary.

The Stats
Prior to the patch a demonology warlock wanted all the spell power they could get their hands on. Essentially, this hasn't changed. What has changed is that spell power will no longer be available on armor and that intellect will directly affect spell power.

So let's just stack intellect! Not so fast, there. Demonology warlocks now heavily rely on the "right" amount of haste.

From the Elitist Jerks:
"There is not an optimal amount of haste so much as particular thresholds for Demo locks to avoid. The first, as Warlocomotif mentioned, is at 10% haste. If you have 9.99% haste, your Immolate will last 13.64 sec, which can make it difficult or impossible to refresh with HoG. ... Here is a list of the thresholds to avoid as Demo locks. Note that you are safe if your haste is equal to or greater than one of these thresholds, but you should try to gain (or possibly lose) haste if your haste is slightly lower than any of these numbers:" 10%, 30% 50%.

Also, don't forget that all casters now have to reach the 17% hit cap on their own (unless they're a Draenei).

So your stat priority looks like this:
Hit (17%) > Haste (10%, 30%, 50%) > Intellect > Spell Power = Mastery

Whats this mastery business? Mastery is a passive bonus you can learn at level 80. For demonologists, this gives us a straight 12% bonus to damage done by our minions and by us in demon form. Then, each point of mastery increases this bonus by 1.5% However, mastery isn't going to start showing up on gear until Cataclysm. The only way to get it now is to reforge your gear.

Reforging
Reforging lets you take 40% of a secondary stat and turn it into a different secondary stat. To get some practice, find your nearest reforger and reforge all of your gear with spirit on it. You don't need spirit at all anymore, so anything you reforge it into will be better than spirit.

The Elitist Jerks recommend starting with Hit and I agree for the most part. You may want to first check that your meta gem is activated (remember that the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond - which you should be using - requires 2 blue gems to activate). The only useful blue gems are now Rigid Majestic Zircon and Veiled Dreadstone. I would recommend grabbing two Veiled Dreadstones and try to match +9 or +7 Spell Power socket bonuses. Then, take your spirit and reforge it into hit until you get 17%. After that, turn it into haste wherever possible and mastery otherwise. You may also consider reforging crit into haste or mastery.

Since I touched on the subject of gems, I want to finish that thought. Brilliant Cardinal Rubies and Reckless Ametrines are your best friends. Veiled Dreadstones are generally only useful for activating your meta, getting to the hit cap, or matching socket bonuses for obsessive/compulsive people. (I'm not taking a dig at people with OCD - I cringe every time I put a gem in the wrong color socket.)

The Squishy Deathknight

Alternative Title: Outdated post is outdated.

I want to try tanking. I've mentioned this before, but it's been a couple weeks now so I thought it might warrant repeating. I have a damage dealer and a healer and now I would like to have a tank.

So I dusted off my Death Knight. And I know - I know - that DK tanks can be a total nightmare for a healer. I remember that from leveling Aioka; I had some truly terrible pug DK tanks.

Regardless, my DK is a level 63 and my next highest crunchy character is a level 36 and I'm lazy. More than that, I've been reserving the level 36 (my paladin) to level with my friend's rogue.

When I started with Feight (oh way back when) I started spec'ing her as blood. I remember doing some of the quests in Silithus and having a blast with the Dancing Rune Weapon. And the creepy little blood worms were actually a plus too. I was always amused when they popped up.

But, I decided that if Feight was going to be a tank prior to the next big patch she needed to be Frost. And I know each DK tree can "technically" be a tank - Takk, especially, is a really good Blood tank - but Frost is recommended for a leveling tank.

So I went out and I did it. I found a nice leveling build and guide and spent the money to respec and to get the glyphs that were deemed necessary.

And then... rather than jump into the random dungeon finder, I went back out to solo quest. Damn, I'm a wuss.

Let me just tell you, solo questing as a Frost tank sucks. I died all the time. And, while it was probably a good opportunity to learn how to manage my tanking cooldowns, I got tired of it very quickly.

I complained a little about it in guild. I mean, really now, I'm a Death Knight. I was one of the Lich King's chosen. I'm invincible. ... Right?

Takk did have some sage advice: "Well, at some point you have to stop expecting to solo group quests."

Huh? But I'm a Death Knight.

Regardless, a proper crunchy should have an offspec, right? I mailed Feight some gold for a dual spec, but rather than go back to my blood dps spec I picked up unholy. Unholy uses diseases (i.e. DoTs) and a pet (the permanent ghoul) to lay waste to enemies. Look! I'm a warlock in plate!

So, I've done some more dungeons since then. As Unholy. (Still a wuss.) I've tried to get all the nooby DK things out of my system like using Death Grip on mobs. "I r not the tank. I do not get to grip things unless the tank asks me to." Repeat as necessary.

Aaaaand.... entering a dungeon with my ghoul on aggressive. Or, using Death Coil on a completely untapped pack because I had the Runic Power and wasn't paying enough attention to which group we were attacking. Lord, I felt like a proper Deathtard.

My biggest problem is probably that, because I'm crunchy I have an automatic "protect the squishies" complex. If something is attacking the healer, I MUST get its attention so that the healer will not take a dirt nap. To be fair, this is not completely unlike my reaction when on Mara. Better the warlock die than the healer. Except. Don't tell any other warlock I said that. Ever.

But now, its even worse. When the tank takes a dirt nap, I start thinking: I wear plate! I can tank the rest of this group down! Which has yet to succeed. I did remember to switch on Frost Presence though. ... Or maybe that was the problem.

Takk was super awesome in giving me advice about rotations and stuff. I was like "Halp, I have only two AoEs, my AoE dps will be teh SUCK." And Takk was all like "Lawl, my unholy AoE dps is the shiznit, here is how to do it gud." And I was all like "That sounds super complicated, how will I ever succeeeeeed?"

Or... you know... something like that.

Of course, here we are one week later and patch 4.0.1 has dropped and this is all completely beside the point. But its about the journey, amirite?

It was better not knowing

As I'm sure everyone is aware, the huge patch dropped on Tuesday. Last night's raid was a bit lolful as a result, but overall successful. I wasn't sure if I was going to make it, because this week is incredibly hectic. And when it started to look like I might be able to make I planed to go on my priest. I knew precisely what I wanted out of my Discipline spec and the mechanics haven't changed overmuch - just my efficiency with them.

Not that I don't know precisely what I want out of Mara's specs. I just want considerably more time to spend analyzing her gear and rotation before jumping into a raid. A weekend project, perhaps.

However, in the realm of honesty, that's not the only reason I wasn't ready to log on to Mara. I got wind of a terrible tragedy earlier in the week. My demons have gone missing... to be replaced by impostors... and I didn't want to face that.

I read an interesting short story last week about two people who get caught in a Time Loop. They are forced to repeat the same day over and over again. The physics of this (theoretical or invented, I'm not completely sure having not done any research) is quite intriguing. The Time Loop is centralized to their neighborhood. That is, the rest of the world is moving on quite normally but their neighborhood is isolated and forced into an infinitely repeating loop of one Thursday.

This starts to cause a build up of entropy and heat and things start to break down. Things don't really fall apart... they just disappear. Small things first - like papers, pens, etc. Then books, chairs. Eventually walls. There are holes in things. But not like holes you can see through or put a finger through... holes in the reality.

Then the same thing starts to happen to people. And the main character starts dreading waking up each Thursday morning. Because he doesn't know what will be different. What will be missing today? Who will be missing today?

The reason this story is so compelling - quite apart from the interesting physics and the suspenseful and evoking storyline - is that is exactly how I felt when I found out the demon names had been reset.

I didn't want to log in and discover my companions of several years were now gone. I didn't want to be another warlock posting in the lost and found:

"Have you seen my Flaag? He's a cantankerous dude with a huge axe, but he's been protecting me from Big and Scaries for 30 levels now."

"Missing: one dutiful felhunter named Shaan. Tries to eat Ice Barriers off me when I poke Sindragosa with a stick. Cannot finish ICC without him."

Its really very hard to explain, but this has devastated warlocks. The good news is the demon names will revert to what they were before the patch on the next maintenance day. The impostors are temporary.

I still don't know which of my demons are currently taking a vacation, but its a huge relief to know they will be coming home on Tuesday. It was better not knowing who was missing. It will be easier to face the impostors knowing that my minions will be back soon.

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Sidetrip

Sorry, ICC is closed for renovations. No admittance.

Or, it could be and I wouldn't know the difference. Raid last night started auspiciously with our raid leader informing us that he was sick and would not be able to play. Puts us down either a tank or a healer right off the bat and is particularly inconvenient seeing as we... you know... rely on his leadership, being a raid leader and all.

I'm afraid you get a rather one-dimensional view of my fellow raiders when stories are told this way. Because Mord is also an incredibly sweet and supportive guy and signs off with things like "please don't hate me for not coming". So it sucks that he's ill on personal level; not a "dangit, now I can't raid" level.

The sad truth is, however, that raid night tends to fall apart when he's not there. This is probably not a healthy place for our guild to be in.

We thought we might tag along with Militia's other guild, because a couple of us had an ICC-lockout that had only Sindy and Arthas left to face. That had the potential to be awesome! Except that they weren't planning on sending invites until 10, whereas I usually pass out in front of my computer around 11/11:30. Sleep. It is important.

It later turned out that they went off to do Ulduar Hard Modes instead, anyway. To be fair, this is also something I would like to do. Though it looks about as unlikely as fighting Arthas.

Dru found out we weren't planning on tackling ICC right away and bailed to play on another character. This was rather disappointing to me on several levels. At the time we were still planning on getting a group together either to wipe against Sindragosa for a few hours or to start a fresh run.

I think this took the last bit of wind out of our sails. I spent some time following a stupid orc around while he throws stuff at me. This doesn't go so well for me. I hate that stupid quest.

"Prepare a funereal pyre! Marariel has challenged Skyshatter!"

I have nothing to say to you, Skyshatter. I hope you die.

And it sucks because this quest nets you a whopping 1000 reputation with the Netherwing. I need... less than that to hit exalted. I've done all my dailies for today and the only thing stopping me from getting my new shiny RIGHT NOW is a stupid orc with a totally unfair 310% flying speed. Haxx.

It's obviously time to do something else in wow. So, at my insistence suggestion, we took everyone who was online to the Molten Core.

That's right. Good old Molten Core. The instance that took 40 level 60 players days to down. It's good for 11 bosses of varying (though seemingly simple) mechanics. At level 80, four people can take a leisurely (though lengthy) tour through the underground lava pits that house one of the elemental planes most fearsome denizens. Ragnaros.

This is largely the reason I wanted to make sure that MC is something I got done before the expansion hits. I don't know if it has been confirmed or not, but there's good reason to believe that Ragnaros will be packing it up and heading back home. Where he will magically gain 25 levels, a crapton of health and probably new and unique abilities with which to smash raids in the face.

The Eye of Divinity dropped from the Majordomo. This is one of the key ingredients to the Benediction staff and starts the beginning of a beautiful and sad quest. If you have to opportunity, I highly recommend taking your priest to complete this quest.

Other residents of the Core were kind enough to drop pieces of the Felheart Raiment. To be honest, I'm probably unreasonably excited about this. Especially since my bank is already cluttered with old quest items, cloth, enchanting mats, a set of Tier 9, and some handy off pieces (just in case). To add a set of Tier 1 (especially if I collected all 8 pieces) is a tad silly.

But, you know what? I am a tad silly. And I wanted it. I look lovely, right?


I also picked up a matching sword.


And Enchant Weapon: Spellpower. Actually useful for BoA items.


I find it amusing that the human character models look so terribly benign even with giant horns coming out of their heads. "Would you mind awfully if I stacked a few DOTs on you before applying my Shadowbolt to your face?"

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