Soloing instances

I just recently switched to enchanting (from leatherworking) so that I can farm instances and DE the items to sell. It's actually pretty fun.

My best luck so far has been in SM. I ran every wing and made probably 150g - 175g. I just run in, aggro everything with demoralizing shout and group them all up and whirlwind/cleave/sweeping strikes them to death. I got 2 blue BOE twink items that netted 100g together. Be careful in one of the wings (can't remember) but they disarm you. So bring dual weild weapons just in case. I just about died once!

Last night I did BRD and did the Shadowforge key quest to make farming that much easier. Tonight I'm going to try a full emporer run and see how that works. Most of the videos I've seen have been fury warriors, but I think since I have all the Vindicators, S1/S3 gear I should be ok as arms/fury.

If not, I'll save up the honor for a better main hand or run a herioc or two and do Fury.

I'd like to try Scholo, but not sure if it is worth it. May be fun just to see if I can. I miss soloing UD Strat with my Pally. I still think Pallies are the best solo pve class when facing challenges. It may take all night but you can just about down anything!

Warrior pvp - how to kick the shit out of every class

I'm not a 2000 rated, S3 warrior. I'm not writing this because I think I'm awesome. It is just my thoughts and preferences. I thought I would make a list of the tactics I use against each class while playing my warrior.

This is mostly a 1 on 1 scenario in bgs. Not duels or arena.

Gear: Get Glad set so you have reduced cd on intercept ASAP.

Talents: Imp. Overpower and Imp. Intercept are must haves. Second Wind is a must. It will out dps most pally's stuns and will save your butt numerous times. I do 41/20/0 for arenas and 33/28/0 for bgs and pve. I found that in arenas against resilience heavy targets I wasn't generating enough rage. ER solved that for me. For PVE imp slam is a huge dps increase along with Flurry.


Tips and tricks

Hunters:

• Spam charge before their pet gets to you. Usually lag will be in your favor on this one, but sometimes not. If you don't get it off, try to get in range to piercing howl.
• If you have to intercept but try and wait for when they are really far away.
• Fear pet
• A good hunter is hard, but easily taken down if you stay in battle stance and spamstring.
• Learn to mouse turn. They love to jump through you and wingclip. If you mouse turn you are right on their ass and they don't know what to do.
• I actually have the hardest time agains Marksman because they like to trap and kite. BM just doesn't do the damage to me like Marksman. Plus that scatter they do is ruff.

Warriors:

• If you can watch them first to see if they have Second Wind, then remember because you don't want to charge them if they have it.
• Switch to Def stance for their initial charge if they do. Disarm.
• If you get Disarmed, disarm right back. If he dodges or parries, warstomp or fear to get him off you.
• Hamstring but don't spamstring.
• Thunderclap, demo shout.
• Stay in battle stance unless you have to get out. Improved overpower.
• See who has best gear :)

Rogues

• Pretty easy fight, stay in battle stance or switch when he dodges for imp overpower.
• Keep hamstring and Rend on at all times. Spam Rend!
• Most of them are cheat death these days so be patient and don't blow your wad early.
• When he's at 2% and cheating death, put up fresh Rend, Hamstring and here's the fun part: WALK AWAY. They'll usually die from the Rend, if not it is demoralizing to them because you just ignored him and he won't try you solo again. He will be pissed and will try and gang up on you later but that is better than him on your healers or locks.
• If there's healers around intercept them.

Mages

• If they are frost, tough fight. If they are fire, charge in and destroy them. Fire mages are the squishiest caster in the game and also capable of doing massive dps if left alone. They are my first target of choice in a group.
• Charge in you're going to get frost nova'ed. Resist the urge to trinket or switch to zerker stance for intercept. Instead, put on a shield and reflect their first frostbolt. Since you have SW, you'll have plenty of rage for a reflect plus enough to switch to zerker and intercept.
• Usually they will blink after your charge. This is a good thing. If not they'll do it after you intercept (bad thing). If you got the reflect off their shield should be down or close to it. MS, WW, whatever. They'll be halfway or more depending on HP/gear.
• If they blink out of your intercept you have to hope you are lucky enough to get within range to piercing howl. This is where I wish Booming Voice worked on Piercing Howl.
• The rest of the fight is kind of the same if they aren't dead yet. Use your trinket on second nova and hope they don't just kite you around. The 5 second reduction in intercept from Glad gear is a life saver here and gives you a chance.
• Mage is a 50/50 fight depending on their skill. A skilled frost mage will always beat you.
• If you are in a group setting and see a mage blink, intercept and kill em - that's their one trick pony. They'll nova you but since you've got crap beating on you it will break fast.

Paladins

• Ret Pallys have killer burst. Wait till after their hands are shiny (vindication = +15% dmg) to switch to zerker stance. They are kind of kiteable too so don't worry about spamstring and intercepting every chance you get. This also gets you out of their consecration. Use your trinket for their hammer of justice.
• Holy: stay in zerker stance and pummel their heals.
• Prot: don't even fight them just ignore them and find another target lol. They are beasts and it will be a 10 minute fight. If you have to, just fight away in battle stance - they will dodge a bit. They don't do much damage so don't zerker and add 10% to it.
• Watch for the reckoning icon and mouse turn or run away if they have it. Even if they catch you it means they had to use blessing of freedom and that's better than might. After they catch you it will have run the timer down. From exp on my pally Reckoning procs every fight.
• All: when they bubble mouse turn and run away to bandage. If you're lucky you'll get out of combat and can even eat.
• All: if they pop their wings, run away or fear. They don't have a snare so kite them like you get kited all the time.

Druids

• Restro: keep MS up and wait for a buddy. You can kill them but it takes forever. Just keep rend and ms up you'll make it out alive sooner or later.
• Balance: cake. Just mow them over. They'll usually try and root, run away. SW keeps you with tons of rage and heals.
• Feral kitty: see rogue above, same principal pretty easy but they can hit pretty hard.
• Feral bear: don't even mess with it. Their dps is minimal but melee hit for like 200. You'll be there all day and they'll probably beat you. Get a caster to mow them down.

Warlocks

• I find locks super easy but I read posts that others have problems with them. Locks are my first target to charge in a group after fire mages. Even with SL they are pretty squishy.
• Charge in, hamstring thunderclap if they have felguard. Switch to zerker, rage and kill
• Pummel their SHADOW tree. Not their fire tree. Don't pummel immolate. Wait to pummel fear or shadow bolt.
• You will usually kill them and have to switch to defensive stance then shout commanding shout to live through the duration of their dots. Because of fear nerfs they have damn good dps for instant cast dots. Smart ones will burn a shard and shadowburn you at the beginning.
• Their pets are pretty squishy. If you see a felguard at half health you can two shot him. They only have about 4-5k health.
• One shot imp if they have him attack but if he's on passive he can't be hurt. 1-2 shot the succy. If they have felhound check to see if they are SL. If they are SL kill the hound, the debuff isn't that bad and doesn't scale. Try and fear the lock first or run around so he can't cast a shadow bolt behind him. Intercept while you're doing it. If a SL lock doesn't have a pet they are like a mage with low dps, no shield and no CC.
• Destro locks are cake, but they WILL get a free shadow bolt on you so be prepared for great burst.

Shaman

• I haven't fought too many b/c I'm Horde so there isn't as many.
• Only thing I can say is to pummel and spamstring.
• Elemental: pummel their dmg spells not their heals. You'r MS should take care of that.
• Enhancement: ehh, wannabe warrior. Mow him down and stun/CC him to lower his dps.
• Restro: Hang in there you may win depending on gear but they have fast heals and will drive you nuts just standing there while the spam heal themselves.

Priests

• I forgot priests, will update later :)

I guess that's it. I'm not a god nor do I think I know everything. If you're new to the Warrior class I hope you learned something. If you have anything to add feel free to leave a comment.

AFK Pally

Ok this was a strange event yesterday. I had been playing WSG all day and had noticed a pally on the alliance team every few games. He was obviously botting and was constantly just standing in their flag room.

I killed him the first few times before I realized he wasn't going to fight back and I proceeded to just run right past him and take the flag. This went on all day. I probably played 5 games with him throughout the day, always the same thing.

He was a leecher or afker. Or was he? The funny and weird thing is, one game I was in a battle with a rogue and a druid, who were also defending the alliance flag room. I had killed the druid and was almost ready to kill the rogue, my hp almost gone when BAMM!!! the afk pally freaking lay on hands the rogue.

The rogue had vanished right before the LoH so it took a bit to come back, meanwhile I began to beat on the pally - he was still afk and just standing there. Well here come the rogue again after he realized he was LoH'd and killed me.

The pally never moved, never did anything all day but freaking LoH the rogue. I still lol when I think about it. Had he just come back to check on his computer? Was he alt tab? I'll never know...

Weekend WoW

So I probably played too much this weekend. I got over 20k honor on Saturday and Sunday. I'll get my Vindicator's boots today after work which leaves only my helm to round out my full epic gear. My warrior has only been 70 for less than a month so this is a great accomplishment, although I did have 60,000 honor saved from the 69 bracket.

I think I'll get the s1 helm next. I hate to buy the s1 stuff for honor since I can just replace it, but I have extra honor so might as well upgrade. I'm saving arena points for my s2 weapon. We've had real problems in the arena. We can't get above 1700 (1650 my best). So I don't think I'll be able to get the rating for s3 weapon. We just never seem to have the right combination on our teams. Plus our guild has 1 mage (not on my team). Our class makeup just isn't good enough.

$200,000 arena competition

I just read about the $200,000 arena competition on IGN. It says you can create a character with epic gear and compete against your region, then onto the finals to compete for grand champion.

This is a great concept. Being able to narrow the gear gap and focus on skill will truly be a godsend. I wish they had done 5v5 instead of 3v3. I still think 5v5 is the best and most balanced arena bracket. I think there will be too many Rogue Priest Mage and Druid Pally Warrior teams in 3v3 competition.

I will definately be trying this one out! Hope to see you all there.

Blizzcast late coming out

I've been waiting for the new episode of Blizzcast (#2) for a while now and they are late getting it out. The first was published around the 9th of last month. I wasn't too impressed with the first one - just marketing fluff.

I think this is a good chance for Blizzard to communicate real issues and talk about future development. I hope they crank up the quality for the next episode.

Welfare blueish epics

Tobold and some others have recently been talking about the devaulation of epics and the welfare epics being purchased more easily with honor. I really don't understand why this is such a big deal for people. The "epics" aren't that good, granted they are better than the 5-man blues you can get but they are mediocre at best.

I think the problem is that Blizzard left the items at epic quality. I'm not an expert with the item values, but perhaps they could start to cycle items. Meaning once new items are introduced into the game that are even more epic than current epics, the old epics fall of the chart and become blues. This would keep everyone happy while at the same time allow for more competition and narrow the gear gap.

MMOG Love

Since Valentine's Day is around the corner I thought I would touch on a subject that has me interested a bit lately. Love and relationships in the online gaming community.

Now everyone gets to know their fellow games over the course of gameplay. I myself have played with some people for 3 years or more. You aren't just playing the game, there is alot of times spent chatting or talking over vent. You come to learn alot about your guildmates and friends. I can tell you how many kids some have, their names and even the ages!

This leads me to wonder if you can actually fall in love with someone without any physical contact and only through digital communication. How much of a relationship revolves around physical contact? In my guild there are two girls. Both have partners in our guild. However, neither of the two couples have ever met in real life! They call each other pet names like baby and honey in vent and chat. Is this just a cute way of interacting with each other or can love possibly exist in this manner?

The romantic in me would like to think it's possible to fall in love with someone through gaming. Hell, you can really get to know someone over the course of 3 years. Practically though, I think it could be really tough. I think a relationship grows through real life problems. In an MMOG, life is peachy. Granted, you may lose a BG or not get a boss down, but there are not any real life events. I think it sounds wonderful but once you add real obstacles in the mix can it really stand?

Noggenfogger Madness

First post! I figured I'd leave my mark on the WoW community and hope that some people find my thoughts provoking, entertaining or at least read this shit every now and then.

I play a 70 Tauren warrior on a RP server as my main. I also have a 70 lock and 70 pally on the alliance side on a PVP server. I live for pvp but enjoy questing, groups, raiding, and a little RP on the side. Just when it is fun and amusing. I've been playing for about a 2 years before the Burning Crusade expansion, not sure how long that is but it seems like a while. I've had brief on/off periods and none of my toons are all that geared up because I can never decide on one and stick with it. However, I think this warrior may be it for awhile. I really like playing him.

Now, on to the title of the blog. I just love Noggenfogger. My guild and I have been buying 100's of the stuff and drink it in bg's or when pveing. It's a drastic change on my Tauren to shrink down into the skeleton. I feel so light on my feet!

One gripe I have is that my favorite effect of Noggenfogger is the shrink "you feel smaller" buff. I drank over 20 last night and never got it. I have a suggestion for Blizzard: make the effects toggle or at least the chance of each effect to be the same percentage to proc. Nothing beats freaking out a Night elf as a teeny tiny Tauren. They act like they're in shock and most can't seem to click on me or something because I just run around and destroy. Maybe they think I'm some pet or something.

The other night, we were in Warsong and a fellow Tauren had some enlarge potions. If you didn't know before, you can stack the growth potions with the bg buffs that increase your size. Let me just tell you he was huge! I have some screenies at home I'll post later. It was one of the best time's I've had in a while playing.