Twenty five rhymes

And now, in the spirit of "twenty-five things," twenty-five rhymes with (and including) my name.

Myze is wise,
and never lies;
Has pretty eyes
and giant thighs.

She goes and flies
into the skies,
And fall, she tries;
Goes splat and dies.

"QQ," she cries,
On guild relies:
They're such nice guys.
"Come rez, allies."

One comes, complies;
Starts cast, and sighs.
Expects no prize,
No cakes, no pies.

And now she'll rise
From her demise,
Say her goodbyes,
"Thanks," a surprise.

Restocks supplies
To raid, reprise.
Dons a disguise,
Becomes bear size.

Turning "The Safety Dance" Into "The Safety Stand There Not Really Watching The Fight And Spamming All Your Nukes... Thing"

Raid progress is going slow but the raid nights themselves are going fast. Last night we cleared Archavon and got 2 Abyss Shards. Then we went over to Sartharion. We attempted the fight with one drake up, but the adds were too heavy. I also think we left the wrong drake up. However, our DPS isn't quite up to snuff, so we downed the drake and then took on Sartharion. On to Naxx, we cleared the Spider Wing and did the Plague Wing again.

On Heigan we used the safe spot cheese, which made the fight go much faster and the achievement trivial. On Loatheb, Falcon was specced Circle of Healing and it made the fight stupid easy. Circle of Healing should be nerfed. Oh wait...

We finally defeated Patchwerk, even though he enraged. Our Warrior was MTing and he was able to absorb the full brunt of the attack for the 20 seconds or so of enrage he had to endure. Patchwerk dropped total crap.

On to Grobbulus, we got several good attempts in, but didn't quite down him. There seems to be a communication breakdown somewhere in where the injected players should drop the poison clouds. Once we get that down, the fight should be easy. I have confidence we will down it the next night we try it.

I got a couple of upgrades from Naxx last night, by the way. Amulet of Autopsy replacing Amulet of Wills, and Leggings of Discord replacing Chain Gang Legguards. Dropping a bit of Stamina for Agility, but when you have 40k health raid buffed you can pretty easily afford to do so.

@Kralnor: My staff is a good one, too

So the other night we go into Naxx, ready to tear up. Oddly enough, the trash on the Military Quarter respawned even though we downed Razuvious. Oh well, we were headed to the Plague Quarter anyway to get to Noth. But those gargoyles were tough! We could do the other pulls fine, but the gargoyles were crazy! Somewhere in the middle of it, Ousted Bead Necklace dropped, which went to our priest healer. We decided to give up on the gargoyles after several attempts so we went to the Abomination Quarter to try our hand at Patchwerk. The first pull seemed a little off... we wiped on it once, then downed it and pulled some slime. About this point, our Druid healer says "It's on heroic!" Clearing heroic Naxx trash isn't too bad for our first week in Naxx. Ah well. Out we go and into normal Naxx.

The trash became a breeze. We got to Noth and one-shot him on our first time seeing him, and then Heigan... was a little different. We got him down, just a little after our normal stop time. He dropped Staff of the Plague Beast for me, so I was pretty pleased. It's actually the first bit of tank gear that dropped for our guild out of Naxx.

I've been picking up on tanking in 5 mans. You can't just go in tanking like you did in BC, not as a Druid anyway. You have to pretty much spam Maul and Swipe. That's really all you need, but you need to pick up aggro on all the mobs pretty quickly. Bosses are pretty much the same as before.

Oh, and I finally got enough emblems for my T7 chestpiece, which is the first thing I saved up for. I might get the tanking necklace next. I'm not sure. I'll figure it out later, I guess...

I wish Swipe did 4 times the threat and was on a 6 second cooldown

I was sick yesterday. I didn't feel like blogging the rest of the week. I don't blog on weekends anyway, so the sickness didn't really change that. It did make me contemplate not going to work today, in which case this post might not exist.

I believe I already mentioned I hit 80. A day later, I was in a PuG for a heroic. There was a good tank. Unguilded. I let the run carry through, a little bumpy, but not too bad. Certainly not the tank's fault. I topped the DPS charts, though, and as a tank-specced Druid, this concerns me. But nonetheless, I was happy with myself for beating what must have been a retarded hunter (Seriously, my hunter did as much DPS last time she was in an instance, and she was 70 at the time.) Also I think there was a rogue, but rogues are still figuring out how to do good DPS again, it seems (hint: pad your DPS with Fan of Knives on the big pulls.)

Anyway, where was I? Tank. Good. Unguilded. Like any guild leader cat Druid with a shortage of tanks, I waited until the right moment and then I pounced. I bypassed the application process for this one because I had just seen her play, and I was impressed. She knew her stuff. I daresay, she may even be a better tank than I, but only because she knows all the new content.

We almost have a big enough crew to run Naxx, but I've given the guild until the 18th to work on leveling and gear. That's also plenty of time for me to put writeups of the boss strategies on our guild website.

I've leveled Miyra to 71, but I'm not feeling as enthused about her right now. Maybe it's because I feel out of touch with my guild while I'm on her. As sort of a switch up, I got on my pally, respecced her Ret, and sailed off to Northrend, but not after buying Axe skill so that I could use my Arcanite Ripper. So, armed with only a weapon that I barely know how to equip, let alone use, I go into battle with Northrend mobs. And it works! The little Ret Pally quickly jumps from 1 weapon skill, tearing through mobs without much of a problem.

Now, the only thing I need to change is I need to pick up Seal of Command. I've been using Seal of the Martyr, which is a lot more DPS (my glyphs are spent on Protection) but I can't stand the downtime it generates.

I'm looking forward to getting my Pally up to 80. I can't stand how much AoE tanking needs to be done, spending every GCD on swipe instead of something cooler. I miss the brainless exercise that is Pally tanking (at least when compared to Druid tanking.)

SPOILER: Blantant Guild Promotion contained within! Will it end well?

I dinged 80 last night. I took a screenshot, but I had no inclination of posting it, as it was last night at 1:30 AM. So no screenshot for you. I will describe it though:

"I'm standing in the cave of The Bone Witch. There is a flashy yellow light looming around me, in the shape of a double helix, though it may not be readily apparent. At the bottom of the screen, you find a little box that appears as though it's trying to be shiny. It contains the phrases 'Achievement Earned' and 'Level 80.' There is a quest up on the screen, 'Find the Ancient Hero.' This quest is ready to be accepted by my character. The experience bar is gone, but the reputation bar hasn't moved to compensate."

It's not quite a thousand words, but you see one level 80 screenshot, you've pretty much seen them all.

The other thing I did before I went to bed is that I crafted my Trollwoven Spaulders. They aren't the prettiest to look at, unless you're only looking at the tooltip, in which case they are quite sexy. I'll probably get to test them out in a heroic tonight, the guild only has six 80s so Naxx will have to wait for now.

Blatant Guild Promotion

Speaking of which, if you are on Sisters of Elune alliance side or would like to maybe transfer to tank for a guild with a good but rather perverse group of people, drop me a line, or go to the guild website.

I haven't said anything about the upcoming armor change, so here goes: I approve. Rawr tells me my armor as current will go up about 4000 points. So it's a nice boost. As a 10-man raider, I don't think I should have to put up with things like Defender's Code being so unbalancing.

That's all for now!

As a Druid of Cenarius, I'm obliged to morally object to this post. My real thoughts? Animals: tasty AND fashionable!

I'm sitting at the eve of 79, with just 2 bars to go. Hitting 79 tonight will be easy, but 80 is probably tomorrow at best. There are a few 80s in guild already but not enough to farm heroics, so I'm working to get there. By the time I do hit 80 we will have enough to do heroics until we start farming Naxx. I'm not sure when to start on Naxx though, if I should wait until we comprise a majority of the run (say about 8 slots or so) or if I should allow my officers time to level (they are sitting at 73 at the moment.) Tough decisions, no?

Anyway, I've spent the past few bars grinding on mobs in Sholazar Basin for skins to make my Eviscerator's set and I thought now would be a good time to share how I leveled/plan to level my leatherworking from 375:



375-390: Frostscale Shoulders, Iceborne Boots, or Nerubian Belt. All of these are 10 leather. Just make whatever sells best. If you're selling to the vendor, then make the shoulders.

390-395: Any of Frostscale Boots, Frostscale Gloves, Iceborne Shoulderpads, Nerubian Boots, Nerubian Shoulders. The highest vending item is the Nerubian Shoulders.

395-400: Any of Arctic Wristguards, Frostscale Bracers, Iceborne Wristguards, Nerubian Bracers. Highest vendor value is the Frostscale Bracers

At this point you can now make Fur Linings. These are great as one Arctic Fur (~40 gold on my server) is one point of Leatherworking until 425. Also, at this point, all orange recipes require Heavy Borean Leather or something more exotic.

400-405: Nerubian Leg Armor. This sells nicely on the Auction House. You could also try to Emboss your legs for points using the Reinforcements instead. In fact, I would do it anyway, since the mats are easy to come by (especially if you've run any Dragonblight instances) and the result is an epic level enchant.

405-410: At this point I would recommend making your Dark pieces, as they are likely upgrades if you meet the requirements and can actually use leatherworking gear. Personally, I made my Dark Arctic Chestpiece and 2 sets of Dark Arctic Leggings, one for DPS and one for tanking. Make a couple more to sell (Dark Frostscale Leggings, Dark Iceborne Leggings, Dark Nerubian Leggings are the cheapest to make) and you should be set.

410-415: The only guaranteed points here are Fur Linings. Buying the Fur and reenchanting your bracers may be the most economical way to level at this point.

415-420: Pack of Endless Pockets. If you are revered with Kalu'ak, make yourself a Trapper's Traveling Pack.

420-425: At this point you should be able to learn some of the recipes sold by the Fur & Leather Trader in Dalaran. Learn the ones appropriate to your class and spec, make them, and emboss the bracers you just made. For example, I made the Eviscerator's Bindings, Facemask, and Chestguard (the shoulders weren't enough of an upgrade.) I then embossed the Bindings with +90 Stamina, as I use them for tanking. These items are pretty well sought after, so if you don't get any benefit, I would recommend buying one pattern and selling 5 of it. The Wristguards are the cheapset to make.

425 and further: At this point I would finish out the rest of your set, or make the epic leg armor kits. Again, chitin is pretty easy to come by, and Arctic Furs are common enough as to be fairly inexpensive on the AH. I would recommend making Frosthide Leg Armors and selling them. When you hit 440, you can learn any recipe currently in the game, so I wouldn't worry too much about hitting 450.



I had a guildie place an order for an entire set of Eviscerator's yesterday, which I'm happy to report got my Leatherworking to 433. Now I just need to finish my set (or at least the ones that are upgrades) and then start selling those armor kits!

The only bad thing is that all the fur you're using for crafting the kits can also be bought for more recipes.

That's all for now.

I don't even want to hear them try to pronounce "Goethe." Or "Eia" for that matter.

Not much to say on the WoW front, except that we got our first 80 in guild. I kinda thought I would be a little closer, if not there by now, but I haven't been taking the time to play. This has allowed my wife to catch up and even surpass me slightly so we can quest together again.

I've played a little on my hunter, and she's doing alright. Didn't break into 71 yet; she's still just a fun little diversion when I can't play Myze. Such is the life of the hunter, the perennial alt. I guess everyone has one, no?

My paladin, Eia, is currently hanging out in Ironforge, doing AH runs for Myze and just hanging out for whenever I need to meet someone in Azeroth.

I went through the intro questline for my death knight, Goethe. Very fast leveling, especially with all the rested she had built up. One thing I don't like about death knights is that the diversity of the attacks seem artificially forced. I'm also concerned about if you can skip one of the opening quests and be gimped for the remainder of your characters life. But I didn't personally miss anything, so I haven't looked into whether this is actually possible.

I'm currently listening to the Twisted Nether podcast, where I am apparently a winner for guessing that the Nano Rhino is a good reminder to work on NaNoWriMo.

As an aside, I started with the conviction to do NaNo, but gave up pretty much before I started (there were some personal issues involved.) But I'm still on the mailing lists. Now the mascot for the DFW area is NaNo Rhinos. So I sort of cheated, because I knew instantly that it's a bad pun (the best kind.) Incidentally, I pronounce the last part as Re-mo, rather than Wry-mo. So I probably would never have come up with it on my own.

Back to the death knight quest line, I will join those around me that recommend you at least do it. Such wonderful storytelling. As the game has only been out a couple of weeks, I will refrain from spoiling directly here, but my favorite moments were A Special Surprise and Where Kings Walk. Except that I didn't know that king Wrynn had moved back to the Keep from the harbor.

I haven't really talked about the death knight herself, so here goes. I chose Night Elf for Shadowmeld. I figure every class without healing ability should have some kind of way to drop combat. This is probably why my hunter is higher than my rogue (shorter cooldown) and why my warrior is way down the totem pole. I made her look just like Myze, only with the different face that allows for the funky color skin. So she looks very similar to her. Until Blizzard lets me tank in caster form, it will have to suffice.

Vehicles are bugged. I've had more than one instance where the action bar didn't show up when mounted. To dismount, you have to exit the game and come back in. And sometimes when you dismount, your player frame isn't there. Maybe I'm alone in my troubles. But they are fun, so it's not to hard to ignore the glitches, but it is something I've had to deal with. There's a quest in Howling Fjord involving a vehicle that's incredibly buggy, to the point that you probably won't be able to complete it. I wasn't.



Finally got to the end of the podcast...

Gah! They cannot pronounce my name! No one can! I'll add "Myzie" to the list of incorrect pronunciations. Others include "Maze" and "Mizz." When it was spelled "Myse" I've had it pronounced "Mice." I probably have the simplest-yet-hardest to pronounce name in WoW. For the record: "Myze" rhymes with "Eyes." Never forget it. As to the other info, yes, I am a guy, and I have 2 Collector's Editions so I'm glad to be getting a different card.

That's it for now, off to go do some work or lunch or something.

Drinking for Two

Last night I went through the two Dragonblight instances, AZ-Nub, and Old Kingdom for the first time. This is the third time tanking in Wrath, and I think I've learned something very important.

Starting with Rage is a huge boon. My current spec drops 2 points of Furor for Improved Mark of the Wild. This is good for soloing. This is fine for Cat DPS, where lag renders some of Furor's full bonus useless. For bears, this is damn near unacceptable.

Now, sure it may be fine for some people. But the groups that I lead are firecrackers. They go for the throat straight out of the gate, and if I'm to feel like a real tank (that is, actually have aggro) I need rage. And I need it NOW. I miss the 10 points at the start of Enrage. When I can't get that, and Furor doesn't pop, I'm screwed for rage. Sure I could sit there and keep shifting until it procs, and I've done that before, but I've had situations where I've shifted six times without a proc (supposedly a 0.4% chance of happening, but statistics is a poor model for randomness in a short term, particularly pseudorandomness,) all while the rest of the group is waiting for the pull.



That said, I'm going back to 5/5 Furor and also dropping Infected Wounds for Intensity. At least at the stage I'm in, threat generation is much more important than the mitigation provided by Infected Wounds, and in raids, it should be even less important as I have a Warrior there to Thunderclap. Also, I'm moving away from Shredding Attacks (which has seen little to no play at this point, oh how I'll miss thee...) and filling out the rest of Rend and Tear. The resultant spec should be satisfactory soloing, and much better in tanking.

The Big Bear Butt was right. My initial gut instinct was right (though I don't think I ever gave it words.) Intensity is huge. Very important for those first few seconds, especially if you have DPS who are above the curve (my Ret Pally is simply amazing, even for a Ret Pally.) Maybe I wouldn't need it so much if I weren't four levels below the hunter. Maybe I wouldn't need it so much if my Ret Pally, who's six levels below the hunter easily out-DPSes him. I'm okay with that though. I just want my Intensity back.

I'm not a Freud to grow up, I'll always be Jung at heart.

I hit 74 last night. You saw it coming.

I discovered upon a couple of interesting applications in the blagoblag that analyze the author of a blog. Typealyzer tells you where the author fits in the Myers-Briggs Socionics model of personality. Most of the authors I read are ESTP like myself (according to the analyzer, I always thought of myself as more of an INTJ.) There are a couple of ISTPs, and I found one INTP, but for the most part, WoW bloggers are in the same mold in the eyes of the Typealyzer.

There is also an area that shows what parts of your brain are in use while writing. Here's my chart:



The other one is the GenderAnalyzer, according to which I have a 91% chance to be a man, but also, according to the GenderAnalyzer, 4Haelz (66%), Unbearably HoT (87%) and Resto4Life (79%) are authored by men as well. To be fair, the most recent post on Resto4Life was written by Currant rather than Phaelia.

What does this mean? Well the first thought to pop in my head was that women are deceptive little creatures, and writing in such a way to convey a sense of manliness in order to be deceptive (I think deception is an end for women, rather than a means. This could prove false in the long run.)

The next thought is that typical gamer behavior is commonly associated with male behavior. This is a decent theory, as most of the attention in gaming is garnered by men (or boys, as the case may be.)

Finally, I think I've concluded that while it is a fun little tool, the GenderAnalyzer is mostly crap. My sample size is too small to really make this claim, but thankfully, they have a handy little poll on the page: "Did GenderAnalyzer give the correct result for your blog?" Out of a sample size of 11,104, 5204 (47%) were incorrectly analyzed. With numbers like that, a coin flip is almost as good, and if you slant it slightly toward men (as I'm guessing that a slight majority of bloggers are men,) you can probably get similar or better results.

However, I like the Typealyzer, and I encourage bloggers to put up a copy of your type analysis and your thoughts on the results.

Tenacity pets are overrated as tanks, apparently.

After some unsuccessful questing the hour after release, I logged on after work yesterday with about half a bar toward 71 and little rested experience. I finished about four hours later with about 5 and a half bars toward 72. I'm not the farthest along in my guild, but I am trying to get there at a reasonable pace. If I didn't go to work today, I could be the first Druid on my server to 80 (Yeah, we're kinda slow.) Last I looked the highest character on the server is a 74 Mage.

There's already at least one 80 in Europe. Crazy people over there.

I did actually consider skipping work to try to be the first Druid on my server to 80, but after they got rid of the titles, there's no real reason to do so, other than the pressure of getting two other characters to 80 and raid ready as soon as possible.

Also, I did decline a guild run to the Nexus, which I think was a mistake, but I hadn't gotten any quests for the instance yet and I wanted to wait until I did. The group fell apart because the closest thing they had to a tank was an underlevel Gorilladin. Next time I get asked, I'm going.

I got off WoW at about 11:00, but I stayed up to 4:30 building my new home theater PC. I decided to go with Ubuntu and MythTV, rather than a Windows-based solution. The problem was that I couldn't get Ubuntu to work properly, kept getting "Failed to initialize HAL!" Eventually I decided to put Windows on, but that REALLY didn't work out. Apparently XP Media Center needs to be activated before you log on the first time, but Windows can't interface with the PC's ethernet port without installing the drivers. Back to Ubuntu. I fell asleep during the install, but I finished it all up after waking up this morning. No HAL errors anymore! Before I left for work, I set it to download updates and drivers.

That covers my night pretty well, so I'll leave it at that. I plan on hitting 72 tonight, running an instance, and getting my home theater properly configured. I don't watch cable, so the PC is pretty much there as an HD input for my TV (it's running DVI to an HDMI port on the TV.) It was pretty cheap to put together. If you have an HDTV and no sources of HD input yet (maybe you just upgraded your TV,) consider building (not buying) your own home theater solution. It's well worth it.

Paladins are simply GUIs for your /castrandom macros

Two days ago, Rohan wrote "[...]it's very annoying to link to someone, and then have them stop posting a little while later."

Fine, fine, I get the picture.

I've had things to say, but I'm still at the point where writing doesn't come naturally to me. I spend a lot time reading blogs, maybe too much, so I figure, maybe I could write this now and THEN start reading for the day. This writing thing just isn't natural for me. This is going to be a random ride.


Does anyone else think of Big Bear Butt when the see the Better Business Bureau logo?
Granted, I don't know what he has to do with a torch. But how many of you are going to think of it now? My place of work is accredited by the Big Bear Butt. Is yours?

My Druid, Myze, has tanked her last instance until Wrath, possibly until 80. She is now specced for Cat (for the most part, it's just the more cat-focused part of my 80 tanking tree.) I was supposed to tank with her in ZA last night, but my baby had other plans. She wasn't feeling well so I took the night off to tend to her. My guild then ran around like a headless chicken, screaming how they didn't want to do ZA without their familiar bear tank. (I should mention at this point that I'm the only person in guild whose main is a tank.) Anyway, they finally manage to get off the ground, for the most part on time. And you know what? They did just as well, if not better than when I went with them the last couple times. Of course I wasn't the only regular who wasn't there, so it's not entirely me holding them back. Actually to be honest, we usually get the first three chests and then go leisurely through the rest of the instance. They actually pushed for Lynx's chest, which I think contributed to them finishing about 15 minutes earlier than expected. Again, they did a good job, and I was proud of them all, and I let them know that.

Miyra, my troll hunter, who has her hunter license suspended by BRK due to a lack of scope on her ranged weapon, is finally doing well. First off, why no scope? Well, it's because I spent the longest time ignoring all enchants and anything else unnecessary for my epic flier. If I needed gems, I'd buy them from the vendor. Her gear languished for quite a while, as I couldn't get her into a guild with a foothold in Kara. Until the invasion event. I managed to get all four of the Blessed pieces for her in one night, basically through my magnificent luck. I also pugged a really unsuccessful Kara that night. We had a good tank up to Curator, but she had to leave, but replaced herself with a tank she "could not vouch for." A tank with 10007 health. He was awful. He actually ditched the run before anyone else.

My hunter's gear is terrible, but still, she lead in DPS that night. And the Heroic MgT I ran the next night. And the Gruul's I ran after the MgT. Over a T5-geared, fully enchanted Rogue. Beast Master Hunters rock, I guess. Actually, she also kept damage over another Beast Master Hunter in Kara last Saturday, who was better geared than I. But it was very slim, a difference of ~50,000 damage for the whole night. The deciding factor? I had a Devilsaur, and he had a Cat. He also probably used Volley too much.

I do want to mention something about heroic Magister's Terrace. I know it doesn't really matter anymore, but on the second boss, Vexallus, pets are REALLY good as soaking pure energy. Just make a macro that says "/petattack [target=Pure Energy]" and spam it the whole fight. Resume normal DPS on Vexallus. WIN!

My Pally, Eia, the third planned 80, is almost fully epicced out, not that it really matters too much. I'm pretty sure I'm going Ret with her to level, in which case, she'll be in greens and blues. I'm still not sure if it's the right way to go, though I know if I stay Prot, Sanctuary is definitely the leveling Blessing due to the mana return on mitigated hits. I would be happy if, on our final trek through Karazhan tomorrow, both Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch and the T4 headpiece dropped. Then I would have 2 characters in all purple. (5 if you count Myze's 4 possible specs and the associated sets I have for them.) Again, though, doesn't really matter as Thursday will start the fast and furious race to 80.

So there you have it. I've been playing, I haven't been in a rut. I'm not about to emo quit the game or anything like that. I'm just lying in wait, and trying to avoid getting in over my head thoerycrafting. There shall be more to come as I level my characters. Maybe I'll have something new to share. Maybe I'll be able to earn my Hunter license, but I doubt it. The only scopes they ever put up on the AH are the Crude and Standard ones. And if I'm already leading in damage in every group I'm in, are those really worth the money and effort? At least I got my quiver.

The new DPS and Glyphs

DPS is going to change. No longer can you simply Mangle and then Shred to maybe 4 points, maybe 5 points. All of a sudden Rake is quite viable. And Tiger's Fury means something! Not that you'll have to dredge it out of your spellbooks; it's instant, no cast, no global cooldown. Just macro it to your favorite ability (or all of them!) and you'll have it up as often as is relevant to you. Obviously you don't quite want to do that if you're taking King of the Jungle, what with all that wasted energy, but I'm not so I probably will for a while at least.

A good post about the new DPS cycle is over at Of Teeth and Claws, so I won't try to repeat all of it. Basically, our DPS cycle becomes more of a priority list. The simplified version:

1. Tiger's Fury
2. Mangle
3. Savage Roar (on more than 2 points only)
4. Rip (on 5 points only)
5. Rake
6. Shred

Basically you want all buffs and debuffs up, and if they are (or on cooldown in Tiger's Fury's case,) Shred. The start of your rotation should look like this:

Tiger's Fury + Mangle (macro'd!)
Savage Roar (only if Mangle crit)
Rake
Savage Roar (only if Mangle didn't crit)
Shred to 5 points
Rip

Obviously without Savage Roar before level 75. They should call it Hack and Slash to match the rhythm of Slice and Dice, but whatever.

I ran some DPS tests with a rotation similar to this and found I was doing about 940 DPS, which is a solid improvement despite no longer having Omen of Clarity at my disposal. I no longer expect to be both my guild's top tank and DPS. That's fine with me.

With the patch a lot of other preparation needs to be made. For example, I need to back up my macros because they will be hosted server side now, and I don't want the patch to destroy them. I have also updated my loot lists for my Druid and Hunter, based on new spreadsheets and Toskk's updated method. I still have to figure out what I want to do with my Paladin, and there's no time left! Oh well, at least I have all my talents figured out, that's good enough for now.

One other thing to look at is Glyphs. Being Druids, we really don't have as many glyphs that directly affect us as other classes do. This makes glyph selection considerably easier for us. Our glyphs:

Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration
Glyph of Maul
Glyph of Rake
Glyph of Rip
Glyph of Shred

I intend to take the Maul and Rip glyphs, with intentions to take the Mangle one later on at 80. This is because I believe the other effects are not meant for PvE (Shred) or useless (Rake) or redundant (Growl, assuming it's still affected by hit rating and expertise.) In any case, I think the effects of these glyphs are just more useful in general, since I plan on being flexible enough to be a good DPS. As for the minor glyphs, I plan on going with Challenging Roar, though if something better comes along, it's the first to go, Thorns so that I may actually start using the spell, and Unburdened Rebirth, because it's the best thing to happen to Rebirth since the cooldown was lowered.

Those are my plans for tomorrow (though I guess it's now today, I started writing this at work, but now I'm at home with finally a peaceful moment to myself.) Maybe tomorrow I'll make up some statistics and use them to prove that Eclipse is the central defining talent for Moonkin. You have been warned.

Been awhile

Wow, this spot has been empty for about a month! Not a good start, but I have to get back into it. I'm letting my 17 subscribers down!

My Paladin is on the cusp of level 70. I took her into Kara anyway, where absolutely no Plate dropped, but I did get a healing Libram off of Opera and my T4 gloves off of Curator. I'm specced Ret right now, to aid in leveling. I expect to be 70 before Saturday night. My wife is leveling her as we speak (She's so nice!) When I hit 70, I will start tanking Karazhan on her, and work on her gear. Fortunately we have a good Pally that can tank the harder fights until I get up there.

I've been on the PTR, just messing around, and I say I approve. Berserk is probably the coolest thing to happen to bear form, being able to spam Mangle on three target is just pure awesome. I haven't really been able to test the DPS of Cat form yet, but it looks promising. For reference, my build on the PTR. I will talk about it in a little bit.

I did happen to spec balance for a little bit, and I'm impressed with how well I've been able to do. It hasn't really gone much beyond the Ogres above Shattrath, but even the elites up there were pushovers. I'm happy that wrath will mean only one set of caster gear, though I doubt I could responsibly reduce my tank and DPS sets to one set. There will be overlap, though. (There kind of is right now, I have the Gauntlets of Malorne in both sets, and two differently gemmed and enchanted Stag-Helms of Malorne. But as far as caster stuff goes, for all I care it's all one set. I'm sure some Boomkins and Treefolk will disagree with me.

My PTR set consisted of a mix between my current healing and balance gear, and I topped out with 980 spellpower, which I don't think is bad at all. Wrath was critting for 2k, but I wasn't really impressed with Starfire cast time/damage ratio compared to Wrath. For reference, I used a balance build similar to the one posted on Gray Matter recently (under the heading My Mock Raid Build.) Basically I took the same balance tree then started going up restoration.

As far as Savant goes, we're chugging along. We had a really good week where we cleared Karazhan, then went on to kill Akil'zon and Nalorakk in ZA. I've finally got off my ass and made a website for Savant, but I'm sure the use of it will be slow for a while. I think it will basically be a forum to discuss happenings and random crap and nothing more. Which is fine by me. I'm using MyGuildHost because they are the same folks that run our vent, UGT Servers. The Vent servers are reliable, and the web hosting is pretty good. If you want to get something usable up right away, it's very easy using their platform. But if you want to customize it, you may be frustrated at your limitations, especially if you do web development for a living. =~_n= All in all, it's good enough that I don't have any major complaints, just some bug reports to file with them (the Guild code that lets a member skip approval doesn't seem to work right now.)

Now, about the Feral build. I may be naive, but I'm hoping for a build that still allows me to be good DPS and good Tanking, with a leaning toward Tanking. To that end, I believe I have the important talents for tanking, or will take them before 80. I also try to maximize DPS per talent point where I can. From my previous build, I'm going to take Omen of Clarity at 71 (for leveling, yeah!) and then Predatory Instincts, Feral Instinct, and King of the Jungle. This is deeper into Feral than I expected to go, but I believe it is best.

The biggest thing I miss out on is Intensity (Master Shapeshifter will always be seen as a 5 point talent to me, and thus not worth the points, since Natural Shapeshifter is all but useless in PvE, especially with the downfall of Powershifting.) To me, Intesity was the only thing that let me heal instances in my Feral Spec. Now, I will have no mana regen, and therefore cannot possibly keep up with my meager mana bar. But that's okay, you don't go Feral to heal. Oh yeah, Enrage won't generate the extra 10 rage, but I don't think that will be an issue.

I don't think there's been anything in that tree that hasn't been touched on by other bloggers, and I don't really have a perspective on it since I'm not in the beta. But if you look to my blogroll, you will see the best of what I read regularly. And there you will find all the theorycraft your heart desires.

Druid DPS in Karazhan

Another Karazhan report, this time powered by WoWWebStats.

WWS Parse

WWS is a wonderful tool, and pretty easy to use. If you haven't tried it yet, I suggest you do.

Now looking at this report, I think I should make it clear that Savant could care less about trash. That is to say, performance can only truly be measured in boss fights. Why is this? Because trash mobs are too easy. Once you get it down, it's just a matter of clearing it to get to the boss. It doesn't matter if you're first in DPS when you're fifth when everyone else starts trying.

Now, this may be the reason why we only got to Curator, but I feel it is necessary to allow for AFKs when it doesn't hurt the raid. Not to mention I require them myself. As a side note, a player abusing this policy is hurting the raid, so that's not allowed.

This time I did not tank. I was going to have Anberlin and Besideme tank, since Besideme showed up as Protection spec from a run the night before. However, when we came to look for a pug, I picked up a good tank by the name of Pinchy and made Besideme respec to Retribution. So our tanks this time were known, trusted individuals, unlike when I pugged the Warrior and Pally last week.

I pride myself on being the best Druid I can be. That's why when I look at the report for "all bosses" I can't help but feel bad I'm in second on DPS. I know the reason why: I died on Attumen. Without that death, or at least if it weren't so early, I would have surpassed my peers. Not that that is my goal, but I figure if I'm beating everyone else, I'm doing all right.

Though to be honest, I think we all put together a nice shiny run, and I have the WWS to prove it.

We started out as a seven man run, with Andreya joining in the middle of Attumen trash. We actually did wipe on the trash, so we took the opportunity to summon him from a flight to Duskwood. For some reason it takes us a little bit to get warmed up. However we clear through the trash and get to Midnight. Anberlin makes the pull and Pinchy is supposed to pick up Attumen. But, when Attumen comes out, he heads over to Nodin, and kills him. I try to pick him up but I forget that I'm still in cat form and thus die a swift death. I think he took out Smidgie shortly thereafter. So that left us with 1 healer, 2 tanks, 2 DPS, and the longest Attumen fight I've ever witnessed. Made worse by the fact that I was watching from the floor.

By the time we got to Moroes, our other Retribution Paladin has come in and started kicking ass. now to be honest, Argeryth is a bit below the rest of the DPS, but that's because the rest of the DPS are above the curve, in my opinion. He just represents the average Karazhan raider.

Moroes presents us with Women and Warriors. The trash dies pretty quick and we clean up Moroes with no problems. As always, I lead in damage and not in DPS. I always wonder to myself (and sometimes out loud) if our mages just can't start DPS earlier. But they do pretty well as is and they are still better than most DPS on their gear level.

On to Maiden. We actually wiped with about 5000 health left on Maiden the first time because there were not enough HoT's on the tank during Repentance. I ask our Druid what was going on with the healing, and he pretty quickly admitted things were not as they should be, and he didn't keep enough HoTs up. I am astonished to find out later that he only used Lifebloom for both fights.

On the second fight, we finish without a hitch, a full minute faster than we spent on the fight before. I somehow pump out more than 1000 DPS. I rejoice. Andreya swapped out for Tencice, his Warlock main, which was very useful when we added our tenth member, a healer named Cae.

When we did opera we were dismayed to find out that it was the Wizard of Oz. Now Wizard of Oz is probably the easiest fight for Opera, but we've faced it every time we've done Opera so far, except twice when it was Big Bad Wolf. So every time we go in, we hope for Romulo and Julianne, just for something we haven't done before.

Nightbane is always fun. There's usually a healer dying or something like that when the adds appear. This time, however, everything went smoothly. Pinchy had a couple of issues with positioning Nightbane, as the report indicates, with pulled off a flawless victory.

Curator is truly where Warlocks shine. Typically, when I'm tanking Curator, I bolt tank in cat form and in DPS gear, with Salv up (trust me, I need it.) Last week, when I did that, I probably did about 1200 DPS for the whole fight. This week, I'm chasing flares and "only" doing 988 DPS. Meanwhile, our resident Warlock goes "Curse of Doom" for 26664 and shoots 1000 DPS above everyone else. Cheater.

Last night went smooth, and I encourage every raid that is missing members to just plug on and see how far you can get. Not everyone is as well geared for what we are doing as Savant is, but still, it's better to try and fail than not to try at all. Unless you already failed to the point of frustration. Then you could probably use a break.

Automated Character Ratings

Character rating sites such as Be Imba and WoW Heroes provide a benchmark for your character, or any character you desire. You tell it who to look at, and it will give you a rating of how good that character's gear is. Does this have any value besides bragging about the size of your score? Well, sure, but they are not equal.

For the more casual player, these sites will give you information that can help you improve your character. So let's see what kind of information shows up.


This is the screen showing Be Imba's analysis of Myze's tanking gear. As you can see, it is in "Top Shape." All the items are level 70, There are no inappropriate gems or enchants. I'm even just ever so slighty uncrittable, showing I've made the most of the rest of my gear. In a typical Karazhan run I have about 20K health and 35K armor, just below the armor cap. So I would say I'm doing pretty well for myself, and Be Imba seems to agree. It places my gear upgrades as coming out of SSC and TK, and my performance level to be that of a Druid who's seen about half of Hyjal and Black Temple. The one thing that bothers me about this is that it suspects that my talent build is suited for PvP best (though I have no Nature's Grasp or Swiftshifting or other related talents) and then grinding second (if that were my goal, I'd definitely have Savage Fury instead of Shredding Attacks.) No, I am 100% Raid PvE and thus I think there is something amiss with this algorithm. This could cause someone to change a perfectly good build in favor of a subpar one. But this is a minor quibble. A more major one is the wait times incurred when processing the reports. This site takes forever. But it's pretty accruate.


This is WoW Heroes report. The interface is cleaner, there seems to be more information out in the open, and it's much more colorful overall. Of course, most of it is information you'll get from the Armory. You can see a rather cryptic gear score at the top which is shown the be a composite of gear + enchants. It also seems to think I'm not BT material. Folks, I've been in Black Temple, I'm more than capable of keeping up with the rest of the guys. This is misleading, and if a guild leader tries to use this as an excuse to exclude you from a run, go find a new guild.

The "value" for each item is merely the iLvl, I don't see what that has to do with the quality of the item. There are certainly higher ilvl items than Band of the Swift Paw, but none are better for tanking. I also don't appreciate the fact that my enchantment choices are "subpar" though "upgrading" them would result in crittability and ultimately serve as a liability. However, the fact that it does try to point the user in a better direction by suggesting enchants is welcome, even if it's wrong in my (admittedly corner) case.

The usefulness of these tools is limited, but it does help keep a guild leader abreast of members that are lagging behind in gear. For example, I've looked over the scores of my guild in both utilities, and my healers are most consistently at the bottom of the list. I will likely offer guildance on gearing to them, but I don't believe in forcing my members to use outside resources, so I will have to live with how they gear. Fortunately, they all seem to care about their performance, and have already spotted their own room for improvement. So I will wait.

All in all, these tools provide a quick summary of a characters projected effectiveness. Be Imba is more accurate than WoW Heroes, which is easier to read and much faster to generate a report. In either case, take the information given with a little grain of salt. Use your own judgement and tools more specific to the job. I recommend Rawr for feral Druids, though I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the other modules. Try it.

Contact Myze

Myze can be contacted through email at

carroll {dot} david {dot} s {at} gmail {dot} com

About Me

So I heard a while ago that Blizzard was going to release another game, and I was hoping that it was Starcraft 2. Not that I played the original Starcraft very much. I'm not terribly good at RTS's. They don't engage me. But still, Starcraft 2 seemed like it would be a good idea.

The announcement came, and it was for a game called World of Warcraft. What the hell? An MMO, like Everquest? Everquest sucked. I didn't like that, I clearly won't like this. Oh well, move on with my life.

That said, when World of Warcraft did come out all of my friends got into it pretty heavily. And my computer could run the game very well. So I didn't play very much. But my foray into the world of Druiding came before I even considered playing the game.

My friend Ryan had a couple of higher level (mid-30s) characters, and one of them was a Druid. Now, the Warcraft Movies was just blooming but there were a couple of standout movies he had collected. One of which was by a fellow named Rubix.

I don't know if you know who Rubix is, but he was basically the master of PvP Druiding. He also had a nice collection of PvE stunts in his video. This was what impressed me. I knew nothing about the game, but I knew that this was what I wanted to be. The Druid. Druids never struck me as particularly cool, but this one was different. Shifting into forms was all right. It was the versatility. Knowing that there was no situtation that would leave me dumbfounded and unable to act.

I got a test account and rolled a Druid on Silver Hand, the server my friends were playing on. That character got to 24 or so. But this game wasn't too bad. Much better than Everquest.

I eventually deleted that character, as I had rolled another Druid on a Different Server my friends were playing on. This one was a female by the name of Myze. Now that's a little different. But I do like the way the women look better I guess. Though I had never made a female character. I'm not particularly feminine. But I didn't want a character that would look silly in Cenarion.

This character had a lot of promise, saw a lot of play, and eventually hit level 60. I had made some friends along the way. I had gotten my girlfriend, Falcon, into the game. She rolled a priest. She was also a little lower than us, so we didn't find too much time to play together.

Burning Crusade came out. Leveling to 70 on a PvP server sucked, so Falcon (now my wife) and I moved to a normal RP server, Sisters of Elune.

Fast forward to the present. Falcon and I have been through a few guilds, including the most progressed guild on the server. In almost every case, we have left due to something about the guild we didn't like. I started Savant to see if a guild run the way I wanted could feasibly work. And does it work? I'll let you know.