The Alt-force is strong in this one

My friends usually make fun on the fact that I do have tons of characters 70-80. You could say I like leveling more then I enjoy raiding. Anyho, yesterday I began project druid.

A good friend of mine finally decided to make his return to WoW and wanted me to RAF with him. We made a druid and a warrior and began our journey to 80 on Draenor yesterday.

We didn’t play that long and we logged out at 15 or so I think. Shouldn’t take that long to level up, especially when we can tank/heal. I do have two-three druids already at 70+ but I rather level with a friend then transfer.

Living with the Dungeon Finder

My Warlock has only been doing instances through the Dungeon Finder tool. The more I use it, the more I like it. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: It’s awesome!

Downside?
Yes people leave, yes some people suck, yes some people “ninja” loot, yes some people are just plain assholes, drama queens and divas.

Upside?
In my experiance atleast 50% of the time you will get a good group (doing heroics). Just expect people to roll on gear you want, even if they’re the tank and you’re healer. Need on the stuff you need.

So far I’m up to +250 emblems, full T9 and I still need to replace my blue boots. You can find my profile here. I started to buy some twink gear yesterday. Might level a druid or shaman and just level by doing dungeons as a healer. We’ll see.

Status update

Recapture of Gnomeregan before expansion?
Link here. About damn time for those pesky gnomes that nobody wants around.

Frozen Orbs gonna get needed all the time!
Are you like me and doing random dungeons all the time? Yeah you should probably take a look at this then. In patch 3.3.3 you will be able to buy other stuff with the frozen orb. Expect everyone to need on them, so get a good supply now!

• Frozo the Renowned has moved into the Dalaran Magus Commerce Exchange and will be trading your Frozen Orbs for various other trade goods.

• Crusader Orb (6)
• Runed Orb (4)
• Eternal Fire
• Eternal Earth
• Eternal Water
• Eternal Air
• Eternal Life
• Eternal Shadow
• Frost Lotus
• Pattern: Frosty Flying Carpet [Tailors Only] (6)

Lastly, remember to read the patch notes from 3.3.3 on the PTR!
Which you can do here.

Gear grinding

So I’ve been 80 for a couple of days now. Today I got the achievement for the Northrend Dungeon Hero and I’m pretty close to getting my third T9 piece. It’s silly easy to gear up now. Most pugs you get at this stage is ridiculously over geared for every heroic.

Even so, I am having fun. Just the fact that I can quest (for cash) and que for dungeons is a super nice feature. Was quite a while since I enjoyed WoW like I do now.

Ding 80

After doing a couple of instances yesterday, I finally dinged 80 and got the [Northrend Dungeonmaster] achievement. Finally time to gear up!
Luckily for me I have met an instance friend on Draenor that I have been running normals with, now I just need to find a healer and maybe a tank.

Anyways, I signed up for a couple of normal Trial of the Champion runs and look and behold:

[Belt of the Churning Blaze]
[Bindings of the Wicked]
[The Confessor’s Binding]
[Mantle of Inconsolable Fear]
[Abyssal Rune]

I just need two more items from there now, the leggings from second boss (Paletress or Eadric) and the ring from Eadric.

Preview of new Battle.net service

Seems the new Battle.net service that Blizzard will provide us might be pretty sweet.

Battle.net is about to undergo the greatest update in its long and storied history as one of the world’s most successful online gaming services.

Fully integrated, user-friendly, and fast, the all-new Battle.net makes it easy to find and play games, opening the world of online gaming to generations of players. In the 14 years since the original Battle.net’s launch, the service has seen tremendous growth both in terms of features and active players. Currently, there are more than 12 million active accounts on Battle.net worldwide.

This raises an interesting question. If the original Battle.net was so successful, why change it? Updating a service like Battle.net is a hugely complex undertaking. Are there really that many new features that Blizzard Entertainment could offer that would deliver a world-class online gaming experience to its community?

In one word: Yes.

The list of past innovations integrated into the legacy Battle.net service is long and varied — the introduction of competitive ladders, server-hosted games, online-stored characters, automated matchmaking, and more. But with the release of StarCraft II, Battle.net will evolve into an even more powerful and advanced online game service that will power all Blizzard Entertainment titles moving forward.

The final metamorphosis has only just begun….

The Always-Connected Experience
In the past, Battle.net was presented as a multiplayer option off to the side, off of the main menu of Blizzard Entertainment titles. That is all changing. With the new Battle.net experience, the service and the game are now interwoven into one experience. Whether you are in single-player or multiplayer StarCraft II, you are always connected, and enjoy a bevy of new and enhanced functionality.

Battle.net and StarCraft II are designed to be seamlessly connected. That means even if you’re playing solo you will still view the latest news, receive game and content updates, and be able to see your friends’ status and chat with them. But this new interconnectivity between the game and the service goes even deeper than that. Now, each player will create a StarCraft II Battle.net character. This character serves as your single persistent identity across the service. Everything you do in the game — win/loss record, achievements, unlockable rewards, friends list, and more — will be saved to your character profile for you and your friends to see. Even your save game progress in the campaign can be synched to Battle.net. Say you upgrade your computer and re-install the game; once you connect to Battle.net, you can continue the campaign right where you left off. This is especially useful if you play on more than one computer, because all your data will be carried over for you via Battle.net.

Competitive Arena For Everyone
One of the biggest improvements that the new Battle.net service brings to StarCraft II is smarter and more accurate matchmaking. While the legacy Battle.net service had good matchmaking, the standard experience for new players was usually a series of crushing defeats against seasoned Battle.net veterans until they either left or developed the skills necessary to thrive in Battle.net’s competitive environment.

The new Battle.net matchmaking service will measure player skill more accurately than ever before, making online competitive play more accessible for a wider audience. What’s more, we are introducing an all-new Battle.net Leagues and Ladders System to the service. After using the auto-matchmaking system a few times, Battle.net will automatically slot you into a league and division that best suits your skill level. Our goal here is to encourage local competition by finding you a neighborhood of 100 players of equal skill against whom you will be ranked. This will make ranked online play much more enjoyable and give everyone a realistic chance to win their division.

Beyond ranked matches, Battle.net will also make it much easier to compete by offering a number of other game modes. Custom games will of course make their return, but there will also be a slew of new, casual-friendly game modes such as the Practice League, Co-op Versus AI (players versus the computer), Challenges, and more.

Connecting The Blizzard Community
Battle.net’s social networking and communication capabilities will be some of the service’s biggest new features. This new social backbone for the entire service will seamlessly integrate friends lists, matchmaking, messaging, and more. Text and voice chat are now seamlessly interwoven into and out of the game, enabling communication whether you are in Battle.net or in-game playing StarCraft II. And as is the case with previous Blizzard Entertainment titles, you can form friendships with other characters on Battle.net while preserving your anonymity.

With the new Battle.net, we’re also introducing an entirely new concept called Real ID. With the Real ID feature, you are able to send invites and form friendships on Battle.net with your real-life friends and family. Real ID friends are mutual, which means that both sides need to agree to the friend request. Forming Real ID friends comes with its benefits. You will see your Real ID friends by their real name, along with any character they are logged in as. You will also be able to get rich presence information about what they are doing, send broadcast messages, and communicate cross-game between StarCraft II, Battle.net, and World of Warcraft.

And of course, Real ID is totally optional. By enabling this, you can set up your Blizzard Entertainment social network, communicate and play games, and best of all, carry your network forward to future Blizzard Entertainment titles.

Mods and Community-Created Content
With a community as dedicated and as creative as that of our players, the abundance of exceptional community-created mods is no surprise. When the legacy Battle.net service introduced support for user-created mods such as DotA, Tower Defense, and many others, these user-created game types became immensely popular. But while Battle.net supported mods at a basic level, integration with tools and the mod community wasn’t where it needed to be for a game releasing in 2010.

The new Battle.net service will see some major improvements in this area. StarCraft II will include a full-featured content-creation toolkit — the same tools used by the StarCraft II design team to create the single-player campaign. To fully harness the community’s mapmaking prowess, Battle.net will introduce a feature called Map Publishing. Map Publishing will let users upload their maps to the service and share them with the rest of the community immediately on the service. This also ties in with the goal of making Battle.net an always-connected experience — you can publish, browse, and download maps directly via the Battle.net client. Finding games based on specific mods will also be much easier with our all-new custom game system, placing the full breadth of the modding community’s efforts at your fingertips.

Sometime after the release of StarCraft II, modders will have access to an even more advanced means of sharing their work via Battle.net with the StarCraft II Marketplace. With the StarCraft II Marketplace, players will be able to browse, download, rate, comment on, and even buy mods if their creators choose to put a price tag on their work. We strongly believe that providing content creators with the option of being compensated for their work will lead to some truly amazing projects; having a budget will give modders much more freedom to explore and fully realize all their ideas. This in turn will lead to a bigger selection of mods and a greater variety of content on Battle.net.

Source

The Journey so far

My warlock dinged 79 yesterday and I logged out at like 79,4 or so. Over all, it’s gone pretty quick to level this warlock. I really owe the dungeon tool to that. What an awesome concept!

I thought I should write a few points about my journey and give some advice to people who’s doing the instances through the tool.

Things You Should Know While Using the Dungeon Tool
1. Don’t be suprised if the healer rolls for dps/tank gear or the tank rolls for dps/healer gear (if class allows). That’s just how it goes with this system. Lots of people with the option to both tank, heal or dps will que for all three roles. I don’t see anything wrong with rolling for loot. Just expect it and don’t whine about it.

2. I’ve heard several “rumors” that everyone is a bad player who uses the dungeon finder – it’s simply not true. I’ve been in really kick ass groups, but I have also been in horrible groups. I’d say it’s a 40% chance that you get a good group.

3. Morons.. Yeah they are however everywhere. The guy who wants to spam chat with bad jokes, the guy who wants everyone in the group to tell him how good he is and so on. Expect to see lots of these. There’s still very friendly people around, but there’s usually one-two morons per three-four groups.

4. Drama queens, usually a tank or a healer. Once they start whining either will leave. More of a fact than anything else.

More Positive Stuff Please! (Sorry, here it comes!)

5. The experiance is fantastic when you do random dungeons. Just que up and quest a while, take a break, do the instance and resume the questing. At 79 I am currently questing in Grizzly Hills (just started) and I have finished Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord and Dragonblight. So far I own 3,700 gold, but keep in mind that I spent 1,000 gold on Cold Weather Flying. So epic flying will be mine soon 😀

6. Loot! While it’s not the most important thing, you will get decked out in blue instance gear. I think I have like one green on my warlock.

7. You also get a chance to meet new people from your server. I have already met two very cool guys from my server that has offered to run random dungeons with me.

The journey so far has been fun. I am kinda looking forward to dinging 80 and starting to gear up on heroics. After doing all northrend quests with five characters at once, I can say that playing just one feels like heaven 🙂

What’s wrong with Shamans today?

I’m not sure if it’s just on my battlegroup, but I have lately noticed that 9/10 shamans suck, and you might ask why.. I’ll tell you why:

1. Almost none use totems – Why you ask? Well, most of the time it’s “unefficient”
2. Never use water shield and don’t bring water
3. Act like morons

My last example is kinda funny. We were doing VH and one of the dps drops after second portal. This new shaman joins in and starts
writing in caps, apparently he’s in panic that he cant get in. So I tell him like I tell any other noob, that he should TALK to the guy outside the door
to get a port in.

My favourite shaman continues to write in caps, demanding that we answer his questions… everyone ignores him and continues to clear VH portals.
The shaman goes into a fat kid nerd rage and starts calling everyone noob, refuses to dps and basically just sits through the instance. We clear it
and then leave. Just kind sad that you can’t kick people in VH due to combat.

So if you find yourself in a group with this guy, expect to be entertained..he is after all 26! 😀

Warlock Northrend Instance Gear Introduction

Since I have just dinged lvl 68 and Northrend has opened up for me, there’s some basic stuff I would like to know. Like first off, what kind of gear can I expect to find in Utgarde Keep and the Nexus, since those will be my two primary pug dungeons with the new dungeon finder tool.

Keep in mind this is not warlock loot per se, but everything is a fucking upgrade at this point 🙂

Normal instance gear Utgarde Keep
Reinforced Velvet Helm (48 sta, 49 int, 43 spi, 51 spell power – Drops from Prince Keleseth 28%)
Skein Woven Mantle (33 sta, 41 int, 30 spell power, 15 mp5 – Drops from trash 2%)
Keleseth’s Blade of Evocation (60,7 dps, 24 int, 31 spi, 233 spell power – Drops from Prince Keleseth 29%)
Shroud of Resurrection (28 sta, 29 int, 44 spell power, 19 mp5 – Drops from Gortok Palehoof 25%)

Normal instance gear The Nexus
Attuned Crystalline Boots (31 sta, 41 int, 31 spi, 37 spell power – Drops off Keristrasza 30%)
Wand of Shimmering Scales (187 dps, 21 haste 26 spell power – Drops from Grand Magus Telestra 29%)
Band of Glittering Permafrost (25 sta, 33 int, 26 spell power, 10 mp5 – Drops from Keristrasza 30%)
Tome of the Lore Keepers (25 sta, 32 int, 23 spi, 26 spell power – Drops from Anomalus 29%)

Warlock focus

Since I’m not playing my five paladins now, I will change the focus onto warlocks and general wow stuff (as RAF for example). Expect to see warlock gear guide 70-80, BiS at 80 and other things 🙂