The Backstory: WoW in 2010

With 2010 drawing to an end I thought I'd take a look back at the year's highs and lows. From changing guilds, to killing the Lich King suffering ISP issues and more guild drama 2010 has bee a strange year. I have had great times and bad times, happy days and sad days but I've never regretted anything I have done and have become better as a person out of game as well as in game because of it.

Cataclysm: Making Gold With Maelstrom Crystals

Making gold in Cataclysm has not been hard you herb, mine or skin and post your daily gatherings on the AH right? Sure its one way and I did this on day 1 and made a lot of gold in the process. But I'm not one for stating the obvious.

Great success has also been had with Netherweave Bags, my poor old mage has been crafting literally hundreds of bags to keep up with the increased demand over the holiday period and at 7g profit per bag its a handsome profit. My scribe too has found excellent sales with glyphs  of around 2,000g per day. But the best ROI (both gold and time) has been something different and rather unexpected.

I took 50 Volatile Life, 12 Cinderbloom, 12 Azshara's Veil and 12 Heartblossom and ended up with 3000g profit but to take advantage you must be an alchemist and an enchanter.

Cataclysm: My Views on Healing

Cork, our resto druid in Halls of Origination, yes they let me DPS sometimes too

Blizzard seem to have the healing thing rightish but not perfect, The main flaw is my heal size compared to tank health pool and the damage coming in, it simply is not in balance. Lets define a few things here. 

Blizzards goal: Healing should not be a spamfest but rather a triage approach;

Tank HP: 150,000

Stad Boss damage: 25,000 every 2 seconds

Heal = my econo heal: 8,000 every 2.3 seconds

Flash Heal = my fast heal: 17,000 every 1.4 seconds

Greater Heal = my big heal: 22,000 every 2.3 seconds

Renew = my HoT: 3,000 every 3 secondsm

Power Word: Shield: absorbs 10,000 damage every 15 seconds;

Prayer of Mending: a heal in advance approx 5,000 every 6 seconds

To cope with the incoming damage there are 3 choices:

1) Keep my renew, PW: Shield and PoM up on the tank and pray the tank avoids 2 of every 3 boss attacks and spam my heal;

2) Keep my renew, PW: Shield and PoM up on the tank and pray the tank avoids 2 of every 3 boss attacks and my hit the tank with a Greater Heal when his HP needs topping up;

3) Keep my renew, PW: Shield and PoM up on the tank, spam my heal and throw in a Flash Heal or Greater Heal depending on the speed I need to play catch up;

All 3 are viable solutions but they all rely on DPS either not taking damage or applying self heals and either the tank avoiding a lot of damage and applying some self heals and if 3 is applied I end up out of mana real quick and even using potions, the Hymn of Hope and Shadowfiend really provide very little returns. Although I did /cheer when the mana regen hotfix got applied on December 15th and it did make a noticeable difference.

The big point for me though is that I am having to throw out a heal every Global Cooldown (GCD) which goes against the Blizzard goal. To add to the frustration any movement I need to make is a huge risk as it is a few GCDs without heals going out to either the tank or the DPS and either the fight mechanics are designed really intelligently or I'm on the end of bad luck as the times I always need to move are those clutch situations where I really need to be casting big heals.

The major plus point for me is that I have become a better healer and begun to blow cooldowns Pain Suppression, Divine Hymn and Hymn of Hope much more freely than ever before. Well I was always liberal in my use of pain suppression but never the hymns.

Also, the guys from SKF have begun to realise that I will let them die if it is a choice between them or the tank and have begun to move faster from the fires or using any self heal abilities. 2 weeks ago I was offended when Dixxie, my pally tank (yes he belongs to me not the guild) was healing himself with his Word of Glory as I took it as a failure on my part, now I love it and treat it as an intelligent "oh shit" feature.

All told the new heroics are just that, heroic. They are really like 5 man raids and for that Blizzard must be applauded. The players that want to get better will get better by running these heroics and those that QQ about them being to tough, to long and needing too much strategy will either quit or just get by running normals until their gear is maxed out with 333 loot, rep rewards upto 359 and all the heroic badge gear their class can get from Justice Points that they are able to pug heroics at a reasonable pace. 

Finally a plea to Blizzard, please, please, please do not nerf these heroics not now, not ever. Infact, when the next tier of raiding comes out could you buff them so the mobs hit a little harder and have more HP so we don't start over gearing them.

Cataclysm: 3 Weeks In

Go me, I did ding 85 and yes I still had my T10 robes (although all other epics had gone /cry)

Well the first 3 weeks of Cataclysm have passed and it is really about time I started to talk about it I guess. I have been very busy playing and have had some time off work but now the main buzz has settled.

I did not do the mad zerg to 85 many friends and guildies did, day 1 was spent farming ore and herbs on my druid to fund my profession levelling and I managed to get him to 82 just doing the farming piece. Days 2 and 3 were spent gathering, levelling professions and levelling Evlyxx through quests and dungeons. Healing the Throne of the Tides and Blackrock Caverns present no real challenge but they did show signs of advanced strategy and that is only good for us all.

Happy Christmas

Not very Christmasy I know but they make such a nice couple

A very quick post this fine Christmas morning to wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

I'd also like to offer my apologies for lack of posts since early December with work and Cataclysm filling most of my free time I have neglected things a lot. Over the next few weeks I'll be bringing all the updates that I should have posted then and more.

Have fun and don't eat too much turkey or drink to much wine.

Evlyxx.

Server Last: All about Beer Kill the Lich King.

Tonight the boys and girls from All about Beer, the guild of friends that I house my 'lock with managed to kill the Lich King. Sure, to many this is no real achievement, but for a small group of very casual folks its a big deal and it was done in gear that would qualify us as a strict 10 man group and many people don't get to do that.

Cataclysm: Use Herbalist's Gloves to Boost Your Herbalism.

Just a real quick blog post to help you folks get a head start on levelling herbalism in Cataclysm. Deep in Ashenvale is a quest that opens up a vendor that sell the only armour that adds +5 to your herbalism skill. Combined with Enchant Gloves - Advanced Herbalism this can add upto 10 herbalism skill points meaning no more passing herbs that would normally be a few skill points out of reach. These all stack and for our Tauren friends can be very powerful. The pattern is an Alliance only vendor so can be a really good seller on the neutral AH.

Addon: Power Auras

Power Auras was created to provide visual warnings when you gain very shorts buffs or debuffs, it allows you to draw in the centre of the screen around your character and is very customizable with many built in visual effects. Since its launch it has evolved and can now track

• Buffs/Debuffs (whatever their name)
• Debuff Types (like Magic, Curse, Poison, Disease, Silence, Stun, Crowd Control etc)
• Combo points
• Harmful area spells
• Weapon enchants
• Health
• Mana
• Rage, Runic Power or Energy thresholds
• Action cool-downs
• Aggro, PvP status
• Stance, Shape-shift form or Aura

TL; DR - its a personalised buff/debuff centre that can also help you track cooldowns to keep you alive amd maximise your DPS/TPS/HPS.

You can download it from:
Power Auras @ Curse.com
Power Auras @ WoWInterface.com