Random Ravings of Warcraft

Wednesdays, bloody wednesdays

2008-11-19T10:53:00.008+01:00

It's wednesday, and here in Europe that means it's "scheduled maintenance" from 05:00 to 11:00 CET.

If you have a day off, that means you can sleep late :P
Or as I'm doing right now, write some text while you're waiting for the servers to kick into life again. And a long wait it is indeed.

So, yesterday I got tired of having to break open my current mouse, replacing the duct tape and paper I keep stuffed under the buttons to ensure the buttons still "click", and ordered myself a new sword. Sword? well, see for yourself:

It's a Logitech G5 laser mouse. With a cord yes.
If you think "wireless" is cool or (omg) believe sales drivel spoon fed to you because it's "a useful thing of the current age", then you're obviously a gullible casual gamer, or simply forced to play on such crap because you're not using your own computer. Batteries suck, avoid them like a plague. Anyhow, It's been ordered last night, and I've gotten confirmation that it's been mailed and due to arrive tomorrow. Total cost: 34,95 Euros, ex 4,95 E shipping.

What a long strange trip it's been

Christmas soon, so we can get started on the second part of that achievement. Keep in mind the final reward is a proto-drake of 310% flight speed. Much like the gladiator's drakes and ashes of al'ar.

There's a quest in the howling fjord which allows you to ride one of the beasts for a quest, as a teaser I guess. Somehow I managed to stay mounted on my raptor while doing that, so that made some interesting screenies. It also gives a nice perspective on the SIZE of that thing. It's huge!

The expansion is great, leveling goes steady (mailman was a bastard and delivered it a bit late though) If you haven't already gotten it, be sure you do. There's grizzly bears fishing for salmon, herds of animals going around, animals fighting each other for territory, new models and so much more. But that's not all! I'll let a few screenshots speak for themselves.

I've been an Iron Dwarf:

Ridden a storm giant. See that small green thing on top of his head?
That's me glaives mon:

I've been a zombie, again:

And taken on a rather unceremonial flight as a zombie:

Dalaran is quite a sight:

So, currently level 77 and able to fly again!
A word of warning though, while it's tempting to immediately start flying everywhere and obtaining the World Explorer achievement. Don't. Seriously DO NOT get that achievement yet. There's a very annoying bug with it, which causes the tabard to be mailed to you every single time you change zones. Some guild members have complained about having as many as 100+ of the tabards in their mailbox, with no sign of the steady stream slowing down. So seriously, do NOT get that achievement yet. Hopefully blizzard will fix it soon.

Onward to 78 today!

ps: Extended maintenance until 13:00.... bloody french!
ps2: Extended until 15:00 ... /sigh

Critter Visitsplosion

2008-11-12T09:12:00.008+01:00

Well, it looks like we got a post linked on WowInsider, which caused a slight,,, somewhat large...,, err. Alright let's face it this blog in it's current form was not build to support the sudden appearance of about 28K more visitors than usual in such a short time.

I suspect in part I should thank mania for the spike, as the Wowinsider scouts picked up the link trough her blog.

Here's what I woke up to this morning :

Normally we're at around 1-2K views in a day. So we've just been hit by about a month worth of traffic, in the time of less than 12 hours. It's only reasonable to see the web server give a little hiccup at that. I've had the issue before, and took some measures to ensure it's not as likely to cause trouble in the future. But apparently the measures were only a half fix. The CSS trick seems to have worked and the site loads fine for the most part. You'll just notice that there's a couple of images that will refuse to load.

Well, it's a good thing the site gets stressed so and then, it forces me to think of a way to make it more efficient in the future. Let's see how soon the images come back up and we'll work from there.

Poll

Another poll reached it's ending date, and as such we'll be starting a new one. Not without posting the results of the previous one however.

What do you feel as being the most enjoyed play style?

DPS - 75 (41%)

Melee - 61 (33%)

Tank - 40 (21%)

Caster - 38 (20%)

Healer - 37 (20%)

Ranged - 30 (16%)

Physcal - 14 (7%)

Since the blog audience has a slightly larger number of rogues, and focuses for some parts on DPS I guess the results were fairly predictable. The total number of votes on that poll could have been higher though.

Since WotLK will be releasing at 00.01 tomorrow (tonight), I'm wondering where you've ordered your CD / DVD. You can leave that here in the comments here if you wish though. The poll the next few weeks is a bit more straightforward :
* Did you get your WotLK box on time?

Mine is currently in the mail, slooowwwwly making it's way to my house.

WotLK - Boost your XP advantage

2008-11-11T14:07:00.012+01:00

When the expansion starts (less than two days from now !!), you'll either want to dive straight into the new content or finish up your old content. Depending how well Blizzard's account server holds out *cough*. To get yourself a head-start however you could gather up and complete some quests, even daily quests and turn these in as soon as your level cap is increased.

25 quests can be a lot of XP quite quickly. If you're racing for the first zones, (and there will be many who are) then you'll want every edge you can get. WowWiki has a decent list of available daily quests. Be sure to empty your quest log before starting, and pick up as many as you can. Try to avoid the ones which give low cash and XP as a reward.

Then, park yourself in Ogri'la and await thursday's arrival.
Now, the servers come up, you've upgraded your account and you can complete the quests in the following order :

The first three quests : bombing, banish more demons and the wrangling quest.

Hearth to Shattrath and you can turn in seven: Intercepting the mana cells, sunfury attack plans, multiphase survey, the daily heroic, normal daily dungeon, daily pvp and for great honor.

Go to SSO Island and turn in another seven quests here : Open for Business, Disrupt the Greengill Coast, Ata'mal Armaments, Don't Stop Now, Crush the Dawnblade, Know Your Ley Lines, The Battle Must Go On

Use BT necklace (If you have one), to go to netherwing island (otherwise use the scroll from the "know your leylines quest" and here you can turn in another nine quests : The Deadliest Trap Ever Laid, Disrupting the Twilight Portal, The Booterang, Dragons are the Least of Our Problems, Picking up the Pieces, The Not-So-Friendly Skies, A Slow Death, Netherwing Crystals and one of the gathering quests if able.

Fly to terrokar : Turn in the bombing quest.

After that you should head back to shattrath and take the portal to whichever city has the zeppelin or boat for your faction. With minimum travel you should be one of the few people on the island to reach level 71. Not good enough? Alright, then have a grab at this leveling guide to get you trough 70-80 even faster!

As you can see however, that's a grand total of 25 quests exactly. There are plenty more quests, some pay more, some less. Group quests and raid quests especially should be savored. Just don't go out of your way to turn them in and most certainly don't waste any time completing them on the actual patch day. After all, you want to start with Northrend as soon as possible.

Low xp quests : Avoid these if your quest log is full.

Relic's emanations.

Fishing / cooking quest

Further conversions

Keeping the Enemy at Bay

Arm the wards

The Air Strikes Must Continue

WotLK vs Madonna

2008-11-07T16:27:00.010+01:00

The numbers game

The 13'th of november 2008 World of Warcraft - Wrath of the Lich King will go live around the world. The game we play with over 11 Million other players.

But, even while it's currently the largest MMO in the world (and likely to stay that way for a while yet) The amount of attention it gets in the media is quite sparse. Why though? At the clock of midnight 12-13 november a large number of stores worldwide will be opening their doors to begin the sale of this latest expansion. It is expected to sell several million copies within the first week of time. Several million, times ~30 euros per sold copy, makes for several tens of millions of cash flowing from our pockets into that of Blizzard. And that's just one week.

Blizzard released WoW at 23 November 2004 to the USA and 11 Februari 2005 in Europe and other countries. 11 January 2007 there were 8 Million players, and at 22 Januari 2008 there were 10 Million players worldwide, currently 11 million. This Chart shows the growth rate of the game we play. As you can see it's just shot trough the roof unlike any other MMOC out there. What makes it so successful? How does "one" game company manage to make a game so large that you can get over 11 million game subscriptions running across the planet?

WoW and the media

A game unlike any seen before, with a number of followers larger than some of the states in the USA. And yet, how often do you see or hear anything about it in the newspaper, discovery channel, general news? Never if at all. If I hadn't told my parents I was playing it they would probably have never heard of it. And when you "do" see it linked in some way trough the odd link on BBC it's because some chinese guy stabbed a fellow player to death for hacking his account.

Is that how we want people to see our game? Something that creates so much violence among players that we're willing to go out there and stab each other to death? I don't think so. Yet that's the only news "worthy" of being shared with the world aparently. Addicts dying of thirst because of a game addiction, addicts killing each other, addicts dying of sleep depravation, addicts running into a school and shooting up their class mates out of sheer frustration.

That is not our game. Yet the media seems to want to make us believe so. Well, for any concerned parents, I suggest you buy the game yourself and try it out yourself before letting your kid play. You'll see the game itself is quite harmless. Perhaps you'll even be able to enjoy playing the game together as several people I know have and do.

Freaks?

What makes a WoW player a WoW player? Dressing up like it's some halloween party? No. With a a large enough fanbase you'll see people like that for really just about anything. Dressing up as your favourite characters isn't just something that's done for games. And certainly not just for WoW. Mind if I show you this link? Indeed, Starwars. If you don't know what that is.. what rock have you been living under all these years?

Startrek has the same freaks. Though fanatics or devotees would probably be a better term. Movies such as predator and alien have people create costumes just as well. Even sick freaks (and in this case it's allowed) dress themselves up like power rangers or teletubbies.....

No, dressing up like freaks is not something the average wow player does. Not even Medieval reenactments like those. No, the average wow player is either a kid who does school at regular times and plays 4-5 hours when school is finished. Or a regular working person you'd never have expected it of playing from 9-12 after dinner. There's even a youtube video of a guy playing wow while he's working at the stock market. (can't find that link right now sorry)

World of Warcraft is everywhere, yet at the same time, it's being kept quiet like it's something secret and personal. Like it's something to be ashamed of.

Bigger than?

More of the numbers.

As the subject of this post gave a hint, madonna. Personally I don't like the frigid old corpse, so she's the perfect target to use in this post. Reasons? Well she's done some anti piracy stunts and is actively opposed to P2P sharing of her creations even though she's a millionaire a few times over already and doesn't even make more than 2% per sale. Robbie williams (even though I don't like his music) Is an active supporter of P2P and sharing his music. It's free advertising guys, anyone enjoying the crap you probably didn't even write yourself is going to buy that CD anyway, anyone who doesn't simply won't. But that's another story.

Since starting in 1982 the old crone (M) has sold over 250 million albums and 150 million singles. I've never bought a music CD in my life, ever, and never will (Music radio for the win) so I'm not sure what the exact price on an average single or album is. Though I'm quite sure it's outrageous.

The apple iTunes store sells most songs under a single dollar. And according to cd-universe her albums are switching owners for about 8-15 dollars.

So let's see, old ugly hag sales:
250 mil albums * 13$ : 3.250.000.000
150 mil singles * 1$ : 150.000.000

Blizzard, World of warcraft sales:
6 mil Original CDs * 30€ : 180.000.000
11 mil TBC CDs * 30€ : 330.000.000
11 mil WotLK CDs * 30€ : 330.000.000

4 years * 11 million users * 12 months * 14€ : 7.392.000.000 isn't quite accurate as it starts low, then goes high. So we'll take the median which is ~3.696.000.000

Total profits from sales:
* M : 3.400.000.000 $
* B : 4.536.000.000 € - converted: 5.795.647.200 $

Now, that's not including the concerts that M has given, or the profits she gets whenever a radio station runs her crap, or any profits off movies and other fees she'll get for doing absolutely nothing. But still. Based on pure sales along blizzard is leading by a none too shabby 2.395 million $ for World of Warcraft alone.

Now, take into account that it took the old hag 26 "years" to produce those sales, while blizzard has been producing World of Warcraft for only "4". So, is World of Warcraft is bigger than Madonna? I'd think so yes, and still growing.

World of Warcraft. What's your game?

--
The above article was inspired by Tweakers.net (Dutch)

Search and Find

2008-11-03T09:44:00.016+01:00

You've explored all of azeroth and all of outland. You've done 2200+ quests and are aching to start on Northrend to get your loremaster's colors. You got your albino drake and skunk pet, a few dozen factions exalted, you've even completed every dungeon in lands old and new. But still the 13th of november is a way off.

What to do?
Well, let's find some critters to love!

Note that you can even /love dead critters. (you sicko)
So if you 'accidently' right click one....

To all the squirrels

I've Loved Before. 21 Critters to be found in varied locations. Some of these are in Northrend but this way you can get started ahead of everyone else. Most of the list can be found on the aforementioned page on wowhead, but here's a more complete overview :

Cat : Eversong Woods, Silvermoon City, Elwynn Forest

Chicken : Westfall, Hillsbrad Foothills, Elwynn Forest, Arathi Basin, Duskwood, Tirisfal Glades, Shattrath City, The Barrens, Azuremyst Isle, Dustwallow Marsh, Redridge Mountains

Crab : The Steamvault, Dragonblight, Ghostlands

Cow : Elwynn Forest, Hillsbrad Foothills, Arathi Highlands, Westfall

Deer : Elwynn Forest, Darnassus, Teldrassil, Moonglade, Ashenvale, Blade's Edge Mountains, Alterac Mountains, Azuremyst Isle, Darkshore, Stonetalon Mountains, Western Plaguelands, Westfall, Moonglade, Dire maul

Ewe : Shattrath City

Frog : Maraudon, The Slave Pens, The Steamvault, Zangarmarsh, Ghostlands, Dire maul

Fawn : Elwynn Forest

Gazelle : The Barrens

Hare : Durotar

Parrot : Un'Goro Crater

Prairie Dog : The Barrens, Nagrand, Mulgore, Arathi Highlands, Westfall

Rabbit : Dun Morogh, Elwynn Forest, Scarlet Monastery, Moonglade, Redridge mountains

Ram : Loch modan, Wetlands

Sheep : Elwynn Forest, Redridge Mountains, Loch Modan, Hillsbrad Foothills, Alterac Mountains, Westfall

Swine : Durotar, The Barrens

Skunk : Terokkar Forest, Bloodmyst Isle, Azuremyst Isle.

Squirrel : Darnassus, Ashenvale, Dire Maul, Magisters' Terrace, Zul'Aman, Moonglade

Toad : Black Temple, The Steamvault, The Underbog, Darnassus, Un'Goro Crater, Wetlands, Swamp of Sorrows, Ghostlands

WotLK critters

Borean Frog : Borean tundra

Steam Frog : Borean tundra

If you find any of the above critters in other locations, just leave a comment to this post.

First

2008-11-01T12:16:00.005+01:00

Don't you just hate it when people do that?

Ya know "first!", first page, first after blue, first on second page, first on third page, first post. Seriously, get a life you sad excuse of pixelated retardism. Luckily any such behaviour is rewarded with a ban on the EJ forums as well as the MMOC forums. It's sad that blizzard isn't doing the same yet.

At any rate, it's the "first" of the month.
November, 12 days until WotLK! As well as a new month to pick up your consortium gems. Free gems are always good, even if they're no longer as valuable as they used to be.

Brains?

2008-10-28T22:24:00.010+01:00

Well, no more brains, the event is over, a cure was found, the infection will no longer spread. A shame really, even with all the stupid crying and cursing from people who just haven't got a clue on how to entertain themselves if they got itching powder in their panties,,, it was fun. You weren't safe anywhere, even Shattrath City. Heck, "especially not" in Shattrath.

Lets just say it was very entertaining. Who knows when / if / ever we'll be able to do this again. Sure it's annoying if your battlemaster, banker or flightmaster is dead just when you were planning to use it. But seriously, 90 seconds isn't that long to wait for a respawn.

You can still get brains to still your hunger, but it won't ever be the same for a while. I suspect many will have a more lingering thought on where to go afk now. Will a zombie bite me here? What was that sound?

Headless

Aside zombies, it's halloween. With the violet proto-drake (310% speed) looming large in everyone's mind we've gone around and gathered some people together, brought a warlock and about 10-12 alts and did some repeated headless horseman pounding. The end result was quite funny. Sadly a number of corpses did despawn, but everyone got their heads and pets in the end. Not a single mount sadly...

Bucket

Could somebody please tell that bloody walrus that I found the bucket?

I've been using it to collect all the QQ tears of nerfed retribution paladins and AFK players that I've zombiefied or killed at the bank, flightmaster, etc. Even managed to put out some fires with it in brill, imagine that.

Poll end

What sort of music do you listen to when playing wow?
It appears rock is quite popular among the readers. The default ingame music is used still more than I thought it would be. Trance scores high, along with players multitasking wow + TV. Rythm n bass, classic and modern are low low down the bottom as I figured they would be. Who seriously listens to classical music while you're pounding in heads in PvP, or getting shafted by a big dragon? o_O

Rock - 55 (50%)

Ingame music - 35 (32%)

None / Other - 28 (25%)

Trance - 20 (18%)

TV - 18 (16%)

Radio - 10 (9%)

House - 8 (7%)

Dance - 7 (6%)

Classic - 3 (2%)

R 'n B - 3 (2%)

Modern - 2 (1%)

New poll is up. Brains?

Inscription 1-350 Guide

2008-10-25T23:59:00.006+02:00

By the time you're reading this you've probably already got Inscription maxed. But perhaps not, and there's always alts. Pictures are coming, as are itemlinks, but I didn't want to withhold this post from you much longer than needed. So enjoy what's here so far.

Both my mage and druid had 375 mining skill, and since scribes can create some nice bind on pickup offhands I figured it'd be a good idea to make my mage a scribe as well. So, he dropped mining and got to work.

There's a whee whole bunch of inscription guides out there already, but most of them seem to be copying each other. Then again, the skill remains the same and levels rather predictably no matter how you look at it, it's just a matter of putting the wording differently. I'll list some you can read at the bottom of the page.

The first thing you'll learn when you take on Inscription is:
* Milling. This is used much in the same way as jewelcrafters use prospecting. It destroys 5 herbs and gives you some common and rare pigments in return.
* Ivory Ink. The basis for your low level skills.
* Scroll of Spirit
* Scroll of Intellect
* Scroll of Stamina

Need herbs? Scroll down to the bottom for the herb routes.

Trainers

Orgrimmar, Undercity, Thunderbluff, Stormwind, Ironforge, etc etc. All the mrjor cities have a trainer. Not shattrath though. Just go to UC or SW and ask a guard for the exact location.

The outland trainer can be found in Honor Hold or Thrallmar.

Skill 1-75

Rank-1 Herbs : Peacebloom, Silverleaf, Earthroot
Herbs milled : 360. You only "need" about 120-130, but read on.
Pigments received : 156 Alabaster Pigment

Skill level 1-35

An average of 2 pigments per herb. Cheap as hell though.

Create 18 Ivory ink, this should put you to ~17-18 skill.
Next, use those 18 Ivory ink in combination with 18 Light parchment and create Scroll of stamina, intellect or spirit.

This should put you straight to 35-36 skill.

Skill level 35-75

If you accidently made some extra Ivory ink, just make some more scrolls as they shouldn't turn green until 40.

Next, make all the moonglow ink you can. Since at 75 you'll get the skill called "Minor Inscription Research". You'll be using that skill once every ~20 hours to learn new minor glyphs.

I converted all the pigments I milled into Moonglow ink. If you're in a hurry to raise your skill to 75, you can make armor vellum up to 75 easily. This will require an estimate of 20-22 of your precious moonglow ink however. (I had 60 to spare)

Once you've converted all the Alabaster pigments into moonglow ink you'll be sitting at around 72-73 skill. Just make 2-3 armor vellum to get to 75.

Skill level 75-100

Rank-2 Herbs : Briarthorn, Bruiseweed, Mageroyal, Stranglekelp, Swiftthistle
Herbs milled : 80
Pigments received : 40 Dusky pigment, 9 Verdant pigment

Skill level 75-80

Once you hit 75, start off the first point to 76 by diong "Minor Inscription Research". Next, you can still make armor vellum which should be good up to 87, but you don't want to waste any Moonglow ink if you can help it. The research doesn't turn yellow until 125, but due to the long cooldown you'd be testing your own patience quite a bit. If you're a brother or sister of ebenezer scrooge though, don't let me stop you.

Current skill: 76

Make 20 Midnight ink. If you're lucky you get to 80 skill now, otherwise just create an extra 1-2 armor vellum, they're cheap.

80-85

Grab 5 more Light parchment, talk to the trainer, and you'll receive your first few glyphs to make. The best thing to do here is to make 1-2 of each of them so you have more chance to sell some of these. Don't worry too much about making a profit, it all depends on your market.

85-90

Under the assumtion that you managed to score some verdant pigment earlier, be sure to make as many of the Hunter's Ink as you can. It turns green at 90, so it probably won't carry you much further than that. If you didn't then don't worry, just make some more of the same glyphs.

90-100

Now that you're at 90, learn some new glyphs (again), and you'll notice the materials are still the same. Blizzard didn't really bother to make these glyphs too varied it seems. But that's not our current concern.

Grab another 10 Light parchment and make a mix of 10 of the glyphs you just learned. You should be 100 without any trouble.

Skill level 100-150

Rank-3 Herbs : Grave Moss, Kingsblood, Liferoot, Wild Steelbloom.
Herbs milled : 180
Pigments received : 102 Golden Pigment, 17 Burnt Pigment

Now things will start picking up a bit faster. In cost that is.

100-105

Make Lion's Ink out of the Golden Pigments since you'll need these later. I made only 15 here initially as I ran out of herbs to do more, but farmed some more later and created the rest.

105-115

Maul, Hammer of Justice, and Ice armor are still yellow and only cost one midnight ink and one light parchment. I still had a load of rank-2 herbs (mageroyal etc) so went ahead and grinded those into another : 15 Dusky pigment, 4 verdant pigment. I converted the verdant pigment into hunter's ink for later use. And made another 6 glyphs of the ones just mentioned. This should save some higher end herbs later.

Funny enough, I had "yet more" herbs able to produce dusky pigment. No point in wasting good materials right? The Mysterious Tarot, which requires one Hunter's Ink and a Midnight Ink each will get you from 110 to 125. It really depends how many Verdant pigment you managed to convert earlier. Let's assume you have enough materials for 10.

Alternatively it would take about 9 of the following glyphs : Psychic scream and Lightning shield to get those 5 skill points to 115.

And for another alternative, you could make glyphs of Eviscerate, Fade, Fire Nova Totem, Health Funnel, Holy Light and Rending to go from 105-115 instead. This would cost you 10 Lion's ink and some Common Parchment. Which equares to a few silver in paper and 20 Golden Pigment. (About 40 milled herbs)

But, as you'll find when raising Inscription, more than one road leads from Rome.

115-120

I farmed herbs this week and used "Minor Inscription Research" meanwhile to get from 115-120. Saves me some lion's ink. You probably are eager to continue however, and thus will be spending 5 Lion's ink to make one of the following Glyphs:
* Glyph of Arcane Missiles
* Glyph of Aspect of the Monkey
* Glyph of Healing Touch

Each should cost you no more than one ink and a common parchment.

Els Professions has a pretty nice list in that regard.

Alternatively, you should still have those "Hunter's Ink" that was mentioned before. These, in combination with a Midnight ink will get you from 110-125 with ease before turning yellow and won't turn green until 137. Be sure to use these before then as they really haven't got much other purpose. For the sake of this guide we'll assume you got 5 ready.

120-125

Mysterious Tarot. These will produce the cards : Ace / Two / Three of Rogues. These can be turned in later for junk greens of little concern. I had enough ink (20) to easily get to 137 from here on, but we'll assume you don't.

125-140

Dawnstar ink. Not amazingly useful for anything other than more tarot cards, but if you have "Burnt Pigments" (and I know you do) then making these should be able to provide you with another 5 skill points. If you don't get to 130 on these, just make a few "Glyph of Fear".

130-135 : Glyph of Blink x5
135-140 : Glyph of Lay on Hands x5

140-150

Strange Tarot. Assuming you've been able to get at least 20 dawnstar ink, these are the best way to level. Keep in mind you'll also need 1 Lion's ink per card. So 10 in total. After that the skill will turn yellow and though it'll probably still provide you with skill after, it's probably easier to switch to the next type of herb. These are useable until they turn green at 162.

If you don't have that many, you can always make one of these glyphs to get from 140-145 first.
* Glyph of Imp
* Glyph of Lightning Bolt
* Glyph of Sunder Armor

Skill 150-200

Rank-4 Herbs : Goldthorn, Fadeleaf, khadgar's whisper, wintersbite.
Herbs milled : 200
Pigments received : 113 Emerald Pigment, 16 Indigo Pigment

Things should be looking pretty much the same from this point on. Make 5 glyphs, visit the trainer, make 5 glyphs, visit the trainer, make inks as soon as you can, finish up with some rare inks before they no longer give skill.

As such, I'm going to start compressing the self explanatory bits a little.

150-175

Making Jadefire Ink should be able to get you to 154-155. You'll need about 55 in total. You can finish off with a "Glyph of Multi-Shot" if it didn't.

155-160 : Glyph of Evocation x5
160-165 : Glyph of Renew x5
165-170 : Glyph of Shadow Bolt x5
170-175 : Glyph of Overpower x5, or Scroll of Strength III

175-190

Royal ink. It's always a bit tricky to get skill with green recipes, but you should be able to get at least 2-3 skill points this way.

Afterwards, "make Scroll of Agility III" until 183 skill. It'll turn yellow at 180 but should provide you with a few more skill points midway.

And, followed by two "Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain" to reach skill 185.

185-190 : Glyph of Frost Shock x5

190-200

Arcane Tarots depending how many Royal Ink you got. If you got enough to make 8, then make 2x Glyph of Revenge first, so the 8 tarots should put you on 200. If you got 7, then make 3 glyphs first.

Skill 200-250

Rank-5 Herbs : Arthas' Tears, Blindweed, Firebloom, Ghost Mushroom, Gromsblood, Purple Lotus, Sungrass
Herbs milled : 200
Pigments received : 102 Violet Pigment, 16 Ruby Pigment

200-225

Start by converting your Violet pigments into Celestial Ink. This should get you to 205 without too much effort. If for whatever reason you didn't just make some extra "Armor Vellum II".

205-210 : Armor Vellum II x5
210-215 : Glyph of Sinister Strike x5. These will sell like hot-cakes so if you have plenty of materials feel free to make some extra of these while they're yellow.
215-220 : Glyph of Healing Stream Totem x5
220-225 : Glyph of Barbaric Insults x5

225-230

Fiery Ink. I had 16 Pigments, so ended up with 16 inks. You're quite likely to reach 230 with just making these inks, but if for whatever reason you can't, just create some "Scroll of Agility IV" until you do.

230-235 : Glyph of Dispel Magic x5
235-23x : Depending how many Fiery Ink you got make a few : Glyph of Slice and Dice. They sell easily and are good profit.

235-250

Time to make use of those Fiery ink. "Weapon Vellum II" 14-15x depending how many inks you managed to get. The weapon vellum recipe will turn green at 255 skill, so even if you got more than 15 you "could" in theory still make a few extra.

Heck, if you still have 20+ Celestial ink and don't feel like saving them you could simply start off with making some Glyphs of slice and dice before making the armor vellum. Good profit in those.

However, you will get free skill points from the next ink, so don't go above 250 skill just yet.

Skill 250-300

Rank-6 Herbs : Dreamfoil, Golden Sansam, Icecap, Mountain Silversage, Plaguebloom.
Herbs milled : 150
Pigments received : 73 Silvery Pigment, 6 Sapphire Pigment

250-275

Start off with the obvious. Make Shimmering Ink from the Silvery Pigments and you should be at 255 skill. If not, you can make a "Scroll of Stamina V" to get there. I started off with 36 inks.

255-260 : Scroll of Spirit V x5
260-265 : Glyph of Shred x5
265-270 : Glyph of Bone Shield x5
270-275 : Glyph of Frost Strike x5

275-285

Ink of the Sky, make all you can, for some reason this one starts at orange and continues to do so for a while. I only had 6, so 6 skill points.

281-285 : Glyph of mana gem x4
285-288 : Glyph of Execution x3
288-290 : Glyph of Sprint x2 (Or just 2 more Execution)

That's all you'll be using the Pre-TBC herbs for. You can thank your kind trainer from Undercity or wherever and it's time to head to Outland. Head for a trip to the nearest bank and grab some herbs along.

Skill 290-350

Rank-7 Herbs (Outland) : Ancient Lichen, Dreaming Glory, Felweed, Mana Thistle, Netherbloom, Nightmare Vine, Ragveil, Terocone.
Herbs milled : 290
Pigments received : 145 Nether Pigment, 18 Ebon Pigment. A bit more than needed, but you'll be using these to get to 375 eventually.

290-300

Give a friendly Scribe about 50 herbs and ask him to make you 10 Ethereal ink then return the remaining pigments. (I've included these into milled herbs total) I doubt it's intended by blizzard but

You'll find the Master Inscription trainer in either the Tower above Thrallmar right next to the enchanting trainer, or if you're Alliance you can find one at the mage tower in Honor Hold.

290-295 : Scroll of Stamina VI x5
295-300 : Scroll of Spirit VI x5

300-325

Ethereal ink, you'll be making a good lot so should have no problem reaching 305.

305-310 : Glyph of Feint x5
310-315 : Glyph of Rune Tap x5
315-320 : Glyph of Rapid Fire x5
320-325 : Glyph of Sweeping Strikes x5

325-350

Darkflame Ink. I made 16 here, and managed to get to 329. You might not have as much Ebon pigment. Create 1-2x Glyph of Mage armor to get to 330.

330-335 : Glyph of Windfury Weapon x5
335-340 : Glyph of Arcane Power x5
340-345 : Glyph of Death Strike x5
345-350 : Glyph of Whirlwind x5

Skill 350

OK, you're 350, now what?
Well, you can make all the known patterns in the game as of 3.0.2. More will be added by blizzard at a later time, and though you can get your skill up to 360 or theoretically even 375, there's just not any point in doing so until WotLK is actually released and you can visit the new trainers in Northrend.

Herb routes

Lets assume you have a 375+ herbalist already, preferably a druid (flight form rocks for farming herbs). Be sure to install the following addons:
* Routes. This will draw a route on your map with the shortest path to all the herbs in the zone. Can be filtered and customized fully.
* Gathermate. This is your basic gathering database.
* Mapster. This will allow you to customize the routes more easily, get it.

Rank-1 herbs : Inscription 1-75

Peacebloom, Silverleaf, and Earthroot

Durotar, or just about any other level 5-10 zone.

Rank-2 herbs : Inscription 75-100

Briarthorn, Bruiseweed, Mageroyal, Stranglekelp, Swiftthistle

The barrens. You really don't want to be anywhere else for collecting these.

Rank-3 herbs : Inscription 100-150

Grave Moss, Kingsblood, Liferoot, Wild Steelbloom.

Stranglethorn Vale contains Kingsblood, Liferoot, Wild Steelbloom and an abundance of Rank-4 herbs which you'll also need later.

Rank-4 herbs : Inscription 150-200

Goldthorn, Fadeleaf, khadgar's whisper, wintersbite.

Stranglethorn Vale, you really wouldn't want to be anywhere else. You'll not receive any Wintersbite there but the other herbs are available in abundance.

Rank-5 herbs : Inscription 200-250

Arthas' Tears, Blindweed, Firebloom, Ghost Mushroom, Gromsblood, Purple Lotus, Sungrass

Firebloom and purple lotus spawn in good numbers in Tanaris, which is right next to Un'goro where you'll find Rank 6 herbs. Gromsblood could be farmed in the blasted lands and Felwood is also a good alternative as you'll find severa; Rank-6 Herbs there.

Rank-6 herbs : Inscription 250-300

Dreamfoil, Golden Sansam, Icecap, Mountain Silversage, Plaguebloom.

You'll receive a good number of Dreamfoil and Golden Sansam while farming Rank-7 herbs in Hellfire peninsula, however if you want to speed things up a bit then un'goro is a pretty good place to be.

Rank-7 herbs : Inscription 300-350+

Ancient Lichen, Dreaming Glory, Felweed, Mana Thistle, Netherbloom, Nightmare Vine, Ragveil, Terocone.

More Guides

Inscription:
* Wowwiki - Inscription
* Els Professions
* Inscription guide
* Wow professions

Braaaaains

2008-10-23T22:58:00.006+02:00

There's a Zombie infestation / Scourge plague spreading across the lands currently. Be sure to join in and eat some brains ;)

Also, there's some information on 3.0.3 which may be of interest to some rogues.

Fan of knifes "might" be put on a 10 second cooldown instead of 30. If we're lucky.

exposed

Blizzard is also still very much delusional as to the workings of expose armor.... Yes it's a great buff, but no we're not going to use it much. 5 combo points guys, "5" combo points. Combine that with the option to put talent points in it to increase the duration and you're still looking at a shit ability.

Here's what I want to see:
* Expose Weakness
* Cost : 20 energy
* Stacks up to 5 times

No cooldown, no finisher, no combo points needed, nothing. Just put it on par with sunder armor, and make it into an equal ability. STOP WASTING OUR COMBO POINTS! It really can't be that hard to realize. We'll gladly provide the raid with a buff if there's no warrior. But using that ability as a finisher is a no-go.

You can even add an "improved" talent for it into one of the talent trees (subtlety perhaps?) that provides us with an instant attack that increases the stack of expose armor. Just like Devastate. Ok, I know it's totally un-original but it'd work just perfectly.

Lightning Reflexes

The ball's still out, and there's nobody wanting to replace it. Indeed, still no word on what the replacement talent will be. So for the meantime we're stuck with a junk talent in a tree that's currently weaker than assassination. And Blizzard is very much aware of it. They just don't have an idea how to fix it yet.

So here's a thought:
* Lightning reflexes, now : 5/5 gives 5% dodge.
* Lightning reflexes, maybe? : 3/3 gives 6% haste.

Works great with sword specialization and gives the combat tree the much needed DPS boost compared to assassination. They could even just nerf assassination, but somehow I doubt that's on the menu. It's not like there's not already plenty of talent points to spend on the 4th tier. Perhaps move it to the third tier so we don't have to waste a point into Endurance for the +2% stamina. Or add something else on the 7th tier so we don't have to waste yet another fluff point. Or tier 9, it's not like unfair advantage is going to be any kind of advantage for raiders. And then I haven't even started on the pitiful junk talent that's called "killing spree".

Why is it bad? It disables your autoattacks.

My weapons, hasted and affected by Slice and Dice were already hitting the target quite rapidly. (2.0 and 0.5) 2 Minute cooldown? I believe the actual end result is less than a 0.5% increase in your total overall DPS. That's just sad.

Look at the hunter talent for exotic pets. A pet is about 30% of a hunter's total DPS, and exotic pets are meant to do about 10% more than a regular pet's dps. So you're looking at a rough estimate of 3% DPS increase. Nothing wrong with that, but it does put the rogue 51 pt talent to shame.

Now if you'll excuse me. I have some towns to infect.

/BrAaAaAaaAAaaaiiinsss

Update: As there's a lot of zombie hate and lovin' going around, phase 2 has started and there's a useful thread on the wow forums to provide you with some more zombie information. In short, quit crying about getting killed go find more zombies and organize yourself better.

Deathcharger's Reigns droprate increased from 1-5000 to 1-100. If you're hard set on getting one, it should be a lot easier now.

A quicky on 3.0.3

2008-10-19T18:41:00.007+02:00

Patch 3.0.3 is currently on the test servers as you can see here as well.

Some of the main highlights include :
* RET PALADINS ARE GETTING NERFED!!!! HA!!

That is all...

Well, no. There's more, but that one line just made my day. :P

Rogue Glyphs

Some new, some old, some changed.

Vigor. A major glyph that gives you 10 max energy. It's quite nice for grinding and pvp.

Rupture, got nerfed a little. Instead of 5 sec it's now 4 sec.

Sinister strike, got a 10% buff and is now 50% chance to add a combo point on crit.

Shiv, has been removed. Probably because blizzard found out that shiv rogues were doing more DPS than plain combat rogues. About 200 DPS worth. Playstyle not intended, glyph removed. Boo.

Sprint, now gives an extra 30% speed at the cost of 5 sec duration less. Instead of the old -60 sec cooldown. Sprint is now a 3 min cd on it's own already, so you're fine.

Not only did the shiv glyph get removed, they nerfed combat potency as well.

Combat Potency now proc from your off-hand melee autoattacks. (Old - off-hand melee attacks)

Druids and Inscription

I got my druid to 70, and finally managed to get his epic flight form today. He's been running around the barrens, stonetalon and stranglethorn picking up herbs to raise his skill and indirectly raising my mage's Inscription. I'm working on the inscription "guide" as he goes up. At around 115 skill now. You'll need to have a bit of patience for that one.

3.0 and your addons

2008-10-16T09:20:00.006+02:00

Egads, the addon list is flooded with red, and my interface is a loading horror. It was to be expected of course, but to make matters worse, the WoW Ace team has discontinued their WinAceUpdater. See their announcement here. It was announced a long time hence already, but It's still a bastard trick to do it on patch day.

It's understandable to some degree though, several million people were using the tool, and the cost of keeping the servers up and running during heavy load (such as patch days) was no longer being balanced by the meagre income from the advertisements. Some of you may know, they've been working with the curse team for a good while already, mainly being helped with bandwidth.

But, as of this week there's no way back to the old WAU. Instead you'll now receive an error in your WAU client and log files that will inform you to go and visit this link and download the Curse Client. There's plenty of people who will, I'm sure. But personally I really can't be bothered with curse. Aside the fact that I've once again forgotten my username and password on that site.... The site layout is horrible beyond belief. I could list a number of things that could be improved, but I'd just be helping them in the end. The older layout from a year or 2 was better, get a clue guys, and kill the need to do "everything". Focus on WoW.

On top of that... The curse client needs you to log in. Didn't I just say I forgot my username and password? Of course I could recover them, easily enough, but why on earth do you persist in having people log in to update something as simplistic as addons? It wasn't needed before, it should certainly not be needed today.

Salvation

Fear not, as there are alternatives. Or at least one so far that I could find. The program goes by the name of WoW Matrix and supports over 1500 individual addons, including most of the ones that the old WAU used to support. Isn't that great? It even supports Vista (ugh /spit), which is something the curse client doesn't.

I've managed to install it and update most of the addons I got running. A few things came to my attention.

Ace 2 is going away, all hail Ace 3

Bartender 3 doesn't work anymore, all hail Bartender 4! Even though it took me the better part of the evening to re-configure. /sigh

Prat 2 no longer functions, all hail Prat 3!

Onebag, Onebank, Fizzwidget's disenchant predictor and several others don't work yet, but the addon creators will fix these soon (tm) / hopefully.

Plenty of addon updates will be coming to your wow client the next few weeks surely. What will you be using to get them? Manually update 100+ addons? HAH! I think not.

Don't freak out!

2008-10-15T11:22:00.004+02:00

Your mount isn't gone, but until this bug is fixed you won't be able to use it either.

The reason to this, appears to be a rather odd interface bug in the new mount system.

It's apparently a "view issue" only, but you'll want to be careful either way.
If you've already clicked your mounts to add them to the new interface, just relog to get an updated list, press Shift+P to view your mount tab and don't freak out if it's still empty. The issue will hopefully be fixed soon (tm).

Blue posts

Blue posts: here.

Greetings all —

We are fully aware of the situation regarding a number of players not seeing their newly learned Mount and Vanity Pet “spells” and are currently monitoring the issue. This appears to simply be a display issue and it is likely that it will resolve itself in a matter of hours; please be prepared for realm restarts to address any possible issues.

We ask that you wait approximately 24 hours to see if the issue corrects itself before submitting an in-game petition regarding the matter. If after that time you are still unable to use your mount or vanity pet, please submit a petition and our staff will investigate the issue for you.

Updates regarding the matter will be provided as necessary.

--

As I mentioned in the original post, this issue appears to be a simple display issue where the character has actually learned the ability, but it is not showing in the Pet/Mount tab.

Again, please give things some time to settle, and if you still do not have the Mount and/or Pet in the appropriate tab, please contact our in-game support staff and we'll investigate the issue for you. Please allow approximately 24 hours to pass to see if the issue alleviates itself for you.

In short, don't get a heart attack just yet.

Patch 3.0.2 released!

2008-10-14T16:34:00.005+02:00

14 Oct for the USA, 15 Oct for Euro.
MMOC has a nice post with most of the details.

C-c-c-changes

Lots of changes since it's the pre-wotlk patch.

Inscription is available and can be trained up to 375

Achievements added.

Glyph slots open. You'll have access to 2 major and 3 minor Glyphs at level 70. Be sure to find a friendly neighbourhood Scribe to make you some candy! For a lists of known glyphs you can look at that same post on MMOC.

Two new arenas. Orgrimmar and Dalaran. No new battlegrounds yet.

Barbershops, stormwind harbor, new flight towers outside UC and Orgrimmar, caverns of time layout changed.

Tier 4-5 titles can no longer be obtained, as is the ability to get the Zul'Aman bear. Naxxramas is removed, as is the option to complete the legendary Atiesh quest chain.

Improved shadows engine. Can take up quite a bit of processor speed though.

Bag space! Minipets, mounts, and tokens of any and all kinds have gotten absorbed into the User Interface.

Debuff stacking changed, lots of buffs now affecting the entire raid, spell damage and healing merged, as are crit, hit and most haste effects.

And more, so much more. Lots of class changes, most of which you should have already seen by now.

Alt-o-rama

My druid finally made it to 70, and is currently working on the swift flying form chain. Part 15 of the chain now. It's been well interesting so far, but way too much flying about. He's got mining and skinning maxed at the moment, but with WotLK being practically "here", it's time for him to drop skinning and pick up herbalism. For a while at any rate.

My mage is currently the only other character of mine with a mining pick, and then there's my hunter who's running about with a skinning knife and a leatherworker's needle. Plus three more level 70s with maxed professions. Choices need to be made as there's a new profession available. Inscription.

Likely I'll drop mining on the mage and pick up inscription since the profession can create BoP caster offhands aside the other stuff. Drop skinning on the druid since my hunter already has that as well and he's a leatherworker anyway. Skinning is nice while levelling, but after that it becomes fairly redundant.

I'll keep most professions on my main the way they are (engineer, enchanter) until level 80 probably, as the total number of changes to professions do not appear to be finished yet. You'll recall there were some stat bonusses to be had specifically for each profession. Such as sockets for blacksmiths, ring enchants for enchanters, gems for jewelcrafters, glove and boot enchants for engineers, shoulder enchant and possibly an extra glyph slot for scribes, wrist enchant and drums for leatherworkers, and finally a cloak enchant for tailors. *phew* At any rate, we'll see where that goes.

Inscription leveling guide. I'd have done it today, but you're going to have to wait a bit longer for this one. I'll definitely get around to it soon though, as I plan to make use of it myself as well ;)

If anyone has links to share, feel free to drop them in the comments box as I'm keeping an eye on that one.

Patch mirrors

Since the patch is a whooping ~900-1600 MB (for the EU anyway), you'll probably want to be using some form of mirror to download the thing. Thanks to a frequently updated page on WoW Wiki which I've helped start, you should have no trouble finding the exact mirror you're looking for. In case wowwiki is overloaded though... which does happen so and then. You can always have a poke at a.wirebrain instead.