Weblog
Mar 11, 01:51 PM: Raid Tip: Rain of Fire (AOE Damage)
A little known fact is that if you are taking damage from an AOE*, like Rain of Fire, if you physically move out of the area being affected by the spell you stop taking damage almost immediately. As illustrated above our little raider turns his frown upside-down just by moving out of the rain of fire.
*AOE or Area of Effect: Many spells instead of targeting an individual target an area and do damage to everyone in that area regardless of how many people are in that area. So if 5 people are in the AOE 5 people will all take damage.
Alternate/Blizzard instructions
fire = bad
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Dec 5, 02:25 AM: Games
Sorry for the lag of updates but if you miss me that much you should just call! I had a nice turkey day, we played games after dinner. We played a little mad gab then opened a brand new Scategories game. My Dad used the wrong list for one round but still did pretty well with the answers. In my free time I’ve been playing a bunch of the little browser games on facebook. Look me up to see what I’m playing.
I’ll try to post more before the holidays. The boots in my last post are on sale! (hint hint hint)
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Sep 24, 07:13 AM: Pitt Burger the Paladin
I have been working on a history for my Warcraft character Pitt. It has a long way to go but I wanted to post some of what I already have. Details about the first and second wars still need to be fleshed out and I have not started the third war or any of the recent history. This is probably less than half the story. Your feedback is welcome.
Pitt Burger is a mountain dwarf born in Ironforge about 40 years before the first war. He is the head of Dom Ursus, one of the oldest houses of Ironforge. Dom Ursus loosely means “House of the Bear”, sometimes also called the Father Bear Clan. Dom Ursus is a clan of merchants not warriors. Most of the family fortune has been made in the gathering and sale of raw materials especially ore, stone, and leather but they have also produced some of the finest crafts men of dwarf legend.
Like most dwarves Pitt is driven to create but in the field, especially at war, this can be very hard to do. He loves to cook and cooking provides a short term outlet for his creative inspirations as well as the practical applications. But he’s also frustrated by how quickly meals are finished and their impact rarely last past the next one. Although he has taken up many hobbies and earned a large personal fortune none of it compares to making a mark on metal for all eternity. The day Pitt is no longer able to strike his hammer to the anvil will most likely be the day he passes from this world.
Pitt really enjoys smithing and will work tirelessly for hours on end. He never intended to fight for a living, he has never seen the “sport” in combat, and had always intended to be a craftsman and take over as head of his clan from his father. Pitt was still an apprentice blacksmith when the first war broke out. Dwarves believe that you learn a craft from the most basic elements up. For blacksmith this means you first learn to mine and smelt the ore before you can learn to shape the metal. Although Most of his time was had spent mining in the Dun Morogh and Loch Modan areas he had already become quite skilled at shaping metal and had a natural talent for armor construction.
His young wife was killed in the first weeks of the first war. When word reached Pitt he enlisted immediately. Because war broke out they never actually had a wedding ceremony. She worked in a traveling carnival, this is how they met. Her carnival came to Loch Modan every spring. The first year he noticed her they never even spoke but each day Pitt would go to watch her work. The second year Pitt mustered his (drunken) courage and introduced himself. On the third year he asked for her hand in marriage and presented her with a plain mithril band he had crafted. They would have been married on their fourth meeting if not for the Horde. Because he will never love another as he did her he considers them to be “married” from the moment they met.
In the second war he was separated from the rest of the dwarves and Ironforge. Pitt was stationed at the Stonewrought Dam when the second war began. He did battle with the first waves of Horde in the Valley of the Kings. Outnumbered, the dwarves sealed the South Gate Pass and ordered the remained troops to the North gate Pass. Pitt deliberately stayed in the battle rather than seek the safety of Ironforge. Pitt knew the mountain would soon be sealed and the Dwarves would be cut off from the rest of the Alliance. Ignoring his orders Pitt made his way back to the Dam with a few others. Eventually the Dam fell as well and in the final moments of the battle Pitt was knocked back over the edge of the Dam and fell into the wetlands. His paladin abilities saved him from the fall. He made his way to the then deserted Grim Batol. Once recovered and reenergized he continued to move north and eventually arrived at Aerie Peak
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Sep 1, 01:43 PM: Raiding 101: Tank Line
This is my latest post from the Silvermoon Guardian website. I post 2 kinds of these “instructional” post on the guild site. Most are “Raid Tips” which are satirical overly simple instructions like my back up post. The other are “Raiding 101”, these are relatively serious, although I try to keep some humor, and are things that a new raider might not know.
Common to all raids is the idea that no one moves ahead of the tanks. Please observe the image above.
- The arrow is indicating the direction the raid is headed.
- The skull and X are the Main tank (skull) and the off tank (X) as those are usually how their targets are marked.
- The red zone is off limits, you should never be in the red.
- The yellow zone is a caution zone, you should not be in the yellow unless you have a good reason i.e. you are the 3rd tank, 4th tank, etc., you are a hunter that has been assigned a mis-direct, melee DPS.
- The green zone is where you are supposed to be, period.
This is as simple as I can think to make it. You might ask…
“What if there is only one tank?” That doesn’t really change anything, in the diagram ignore the X, slide skull down about 3 squares, and keep your ass in the green!
“Are there any exception to this rule?” Short answer, NO! Long version, yes there might be but you need to ask your raid leader. If you have not asked you raid leader on the night of the raid in question, even if you have been given an exception before, you should stay out of the red until your raid leader says otherwise.
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Aug 17, 11:03 PM: Raid Tip: Back Up
Occasionally in raid you will be given the command to “back up”. Backing up is a maneuver designed to protect you and the rest of your raid. Most commonly it is used to prevent an event or encounter from beginning before the entire group is ready, sometimes to avoid an event or encounter altogether.
The standard “back up” will have 1 or 2 steps depending on what you are doing when the command is given (i.e. moving or standing still). For our example let’s assume you are moving, the more complicated of the two starting positions. If you can master the ‘Moving to backing up’ maneuver the ‘standing still to backing up’ maneuver will be a cinch!
In the image above in phase #1 you can see our happy little raider moving forward* when the raid leader instructs him to “back up!” To do this the happy little raider will need to transition from phase #1 to phase #2 to phase #3. Below are 2 easy steps to do just that!
Step #1: Stop moving. When the happy little raider stops moving forward he immediately finds himself in phase #2. This is exactly what is supposed to happen; it’s designed into the game. If you’ve executed the stop correctly you should find yourself in phase #2 every time. It’s a good idea to practice this a few times before you get into a raid situation.
Step #2: Move back**. By moving back the happy little raider finds himself in phase #3 and has successfully executed the “back up” maneuver! As you can see in the image above in phase #3 the happy little raider is moving in the opposite direction he was original moving and is very happy.
In the event that you are already in phase #2 when the “back up” command is given, proceed directly to Step #2.
*Forward – a progressive motion deeper into an instance, towards danger.
**Back – a regressive motion over previously covered area, away from danger.
Also see my raid tips on Stacking and Rain of Fire.
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Aug 8, 11:25 AM: Three House Puzzle
I was doing some puzzles online and I cam across this one. So here is how it works, you have 3 houses that all want to be connected to the three utilities (gas, water, electricity). Very easy but the trick is you can not have any of the lines cross. You can easily do this with pen and paper or if you want to do it digitally just click on the image above to go the the puzzles home page.
OK, so i got frustrated with it and looked up the solution. Here is an excellent explanation on youtube.
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Jul 6, 11:43 AM: Fake E-mail Warning
I got a phony email this morning that World of Warcrft players need to watch out for.
—-
Greetings, and thank you for being a subscriber of World Of Warcraft.
As you may have heard, we are planning to release a new expansion sometime in 2009, We plan to call it World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.
We are planning on making alot of changes to the game and already our developers have started working on the new expansion.
Cataclysm will be announced at Blizzcon ’09, until then we cannot release much more information.
However, we are opening up an alpha test realm and while we cannot tell you much more, we can say we would like to invite you to alpha test World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.
Obviously we can’t let you on until after we’ve finished making the alpha version, and announced it at blizzcon.
We are opening up 500 slots for the alpha test of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.
250 of those slots will be rewarded on a “first-come first-served” basis.
The other 250 will be randomly decided, and rewarded.
You can register at the following link; [deleted]
As we only have 500 slots available, if you are chosen, we will contact you with further information.
You can apply with either your world of warcraft account or your battle.net account.
Thank you for your time and attention to this matter, and your continued interest in World of Warcraft.
Sincerely,
Account Administration
bq. Blizzard Entertainment
—-
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Jun 30, 09:15 AM: D&D Pod cast
This is great! Wizards that now make ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ invited some web-comic guys in to play the 4th edition D&D game. It’s the writer and artist from Penny Arcaded and Scott Kurtz the creator of PvP. for their second session not only did they record it and break it up for a pod cast but the guys invite Wil Wheaton of Star Trek Infamy to join them.
Language warning! There is a bunch of cursing here but it’s all in good fun.
Part #1
Part #2
Part #3
Part #4
Part #5
Part #6
Part #7
Part #8
I’ve only listened to the first part so far but it’s pretty good from a gamer geek stand point. The old D&D books always had a sample play section where they would script out what the Dungeon Master and players say and do through and encounter. That was always my favorite part to read and this is very similar.
Update
Oop! OK, so the links above are the first session (no Wil Wheaton). Below is the second session which I think only part one is out so far. This is the one I listened to; it’s about a half hour long. I’ll probably post updates after to or 3 new episodes get posted.
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Jun 25, 12:36 PM: Today's Big Thing
My friend Judson showed me this one, it is super cool and the gaming application are staggering. As much as i like gaming right now I am incredibly excited about the “next generation.
The video comes from Today’s BIG Thing whic is a pretty cool website. If you have some time to kill brouse around. they post new stuff every day.
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Jun 22, 07:43 AM: PTR Patch 3.2.0 (Paladins)
Paladins
- Blessing of Sanctuary: This blessing now also increases stamina by 10%. This effect is not cumulative with Blessing of Kings. Pitt says: This is a nice change for pally tanks, now your max health will remain the same whether you have kings up or not.
- Charger: Can now be learned at level 40.
- Exorcism: Now has a 1.5 second cast time, but can once again be used on players. Pitt says: This sux! It will still be a good single target pull but it will be next to useless in combat. This is the pvper’s fault.
- Hand of Reckoning: Redesigned. Now does damage only when the target does not currently have the caster targeted, but damage done increased to 50% of attack power, occurring after the taunt effect is applied. Pitt says: no real change here.
- Judgement of Light: Now heals for 2% of the attacker’s maximum health instead of a variable amount based on the spell power and attack power of the judging paladin.
- Lay on Hands: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 10/20% instead of increasing the target’s armor. Pitt says: This should actually read Improved Lay on Hands. It is a nice change, direct damage reduction over the increase in armor.
- Righteous Fury: No longer has a duration or mana cost, remaining until cancelled or death. Also cancelled when a Paladin activates a different talent specialization. Pitt says: Um, ok? Was this a problem for someone?
- Sacred Shield: When a paladin casts Flash of Light on a target with this buff, they also now place a heal-over-time effect on the target, healing that target for 100% of the Flash of Light amount over 12 seconds.
- Seal of Blood: This ability has been removed.
- Seal of the Martyr: This ability has been removed.
- Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption: These seals have been redesigned to deal substantially more damage. Now, once a paladin has 5 copies of the debuff from these seals on his or her target, on each swing the paladin will deal 33% weapon damage as Holy, with critical strikes dealing double damage.
- Shield of Righteousness: Now deals 100% of shield block value as damage instead of 130%. Pitt says: Boo! Boo… Wait, with the change in the block bonuses this might not effect over all damage but until I see actual numbers, BOO!
- Warhorse: Can now be learned at level 20.
- Talents
- Holy
- Beacon of Light: The healing amount on the Beacon of Light target is now based on the total healing done (including over-healing) instead of the effective healing done. Radius increased to 60 yards. Multiple Paladins can now have this active on the same target. Buff indicating a player is within range of the Beacon target is no longer displayed. Pitt says: Wow big upgrade this will make holy pallys happy.
- Divine Intellect: This talent now gives 2/4/6/8/10% increased intellect instead of 3/6/9/12/15%. Pitt says: Kiss your mana goodbye.
- Illumination: This talent now returns 30% of the mana cost of the spell instead of 60%. Pitt says: Once upon a time this actually returned 100% of the mana but a couple of nerfs later we are down to 30%. I wonder if they will get rid of this one altogether someday?
- Protection
- Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Currently, any damage taken by the paladin while at 35% health or below is reduced. Instead, any attack that would reduce the paladin to 35% health or below has its damage reduced. In addition, once every 2 minutes an attack that would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead set the paladin’s health to 10/20/30% of maximum. Pitt says: Ok it’s a lot of math but trust me this is much much better. With the high numbers we use in the end game fights this talent was pretty much useless but now it should do what it was originally intended to.
- Retribution
- Art of War: Now only applies to melee critical hits, but will make your next Flash of Light or Exorcism instant.
- Crusader Strike: Damage reduced to 75% weapon damage to match the new 4-second cooldown.
- Seal of Command: Redesigned. This seal now deals 36% weapon damage on every swing, and deals substantially less judgement damage.
- Vindication: Redesigned. Now lowers target attack power, is consistent and does not stack with Demoralizing Shout.
- Holy
Items: General
• Block Value: The amount of bonus block value on all items has been doubled. This does not affect the base block value on shields or block value derived from strength.
• On-Use Block Value Items: All items and set bonuses that trigger temporary increases to block value have been modified. Instead of increasing their block value amount by 100% like other items, they have all had their effect durations doubled. This applies to Glyph of Deflection, Gnomeregan Autoblocker, Coren’s Lucky Coin, Lavanthor’s Talisman, Libram of Obstruction, Tome of the Lightbringer, Libram of the Sacred Shield, the tier-8 paladin Shield of Righteousness bonus, the tier-5 paladin Holy Shield bonus, and the tier-5 warrior Shield Block bonus.
