Elemental Shaman Mechanics: The Hit Cap

  With dual spec functionality on the very near horizon, most of us who play Resto Shamans are going to be collecting some DPS gear. In the interest of keeping gear as homogeneous as possible (and, partly due to playstyle preference), I’m intending to make my specs Restoration and Elemental.

  An unfortunate reality of the Elemental spec is the absolute lack of any mail gear with spellpower *and* hit rating on it. In fact, only 8 such pieces exist in the game with an iLevel of 200 or more – and 3 of them are upgraded Tier versions of 3 of the others. With the Elemental Hit Cap at a staggering 368 (assuming non-Draenei, and 3% hit from talents), it can be fairly daunting to try to reach this number and make yourself a viable raider.

  So, in the interest of disseminating information, here are some gear targets that you can go after in order to reach the Hit Cap. I’ll try to stay to mail if possible, but downgrading to leather (or even cloth) may well be a necessity in order to make it happen.

Head:

• Titan Forged Mail Helm of Dominance - 44 +hit (red socket) – one of the 8 illustrious mail pieces. Has a Meta socket as well, so this makes it fairly attractive. The lack of haste / crit is a deficiency, though.
• Hat of Wintry Doom – 44 +hit (red socket) - Easily crafted, also has a Meta socket. Disappointing stats otherwise, though.
• The Argent Skullcap – 61 +hit – Cloth again, and a quest reward. Overall, not too bad.

Neck(assuming Malygos quest rewards n/a):

• Necklace of Taldaram – 43 +hit – Easy to obtain from Heroic Old Kingdom.
• Chain of Latent Energies- 34 +hit – BOE trash drop from Naxx, usually around on the AH for about 1700-2500. Fairly solid piece that will likely remain in your set after other others are replaced.
• Circle of Arcane Streams - 31 +hit – The only difficulty in obtaining this is that it drops from OS-10, and that’s only around once a week. Superior in some ways to the Chain of Latent Energies as it has +crit instead of +haste.

Shoulder:

• T7 / T7.5 Shoulder - 32/37 +hit (red socket) – As a mail piece with potential set bonuses and hit rating, these should be a priority item.
• Mantle of the Corrupted - 37 +hit – Good luck prying this away from a Warlock, Mage or Shadow Priest; you’re better off staying with the Tier set.

Back:

• Dark Soldier Cape / Cape of Seething Steam- 29 +hit – Absolutely identical items. Surprisingly, there is not one epic cloak – outside of PvP rewards – with +hit.

Chest:

• Heigan’s Putrid Vestments- 49 +hit (yellow / blue sockets) – Should be relatively easy to get from Naxx-25 as they get passed on a lot.
• Water-Drenched Robe – 62 +hit (red / blue sockets / +6 hit bonus) – An acceptable stopgap for the slot, though the lack of auxiliary stats outside of hit / spellpower hurts.

Wrist:

• Bindings of the Expansive Mind - 28 +hit – Another item that the clothies won’t be surrendering anytime soon as they’re best in slot for most cloth DPS.
• Bands of Mutual Respect - 0 +hit (blue socket) – Best in slot mail caster bracer, at least you can socket some spell hit out of them.

Gloves:

• T7 / T7.5 Gloves – 38/44 +hit (yellow socket / +4 hit bonus) – Another high priority item as they are again well represented in all of the desirable qualities.
• Gloves of Grandeur - 38 +hit – Might be more readily available than a lot of cloth pieces as most clothies are using Tier gloves.
• Corpse Scarab Handguards - 0 +hit (yellow socket) – More of a stopgap piece due to the socket and enchantability in case you don’t have the tier gear.

Waist:

• Plush Sash of Guzbah - 33 +hit (yellow socket / +4 hit bonus) – More or less an essential piece in reaching the cap for now as you won’t lose too much else in auxiliary stats, and with an Eternal Belt Buckle, you can reach a staggering 69 +hit with it, and it’s easy to obtain.
• Belt of Blasting - 23 +hit (yellow / blue sockets) – Yeah, it’s level 70… but there are really that few options. In fact, Monsoon Belt (2 less on +hit) isn’t so bad either.

Legs:

• T7 / T7.5 Legs - 37/42 +hit (yellow / blue socket / +6 hit bonus) – Once again, a priority target, unless you want to use cloth.
• Leggings of Atrophy - 50 +hit – Pretty Shaman-friendly stats, other than being cloth and drop off Anub’Rekhan-25 so attainability is not very difficult.

Feet:

• Titan Forged Sabatons of Dominance - 36 +hit (yellow socket) – Surprisingly, a pretty attractive option given the lack of available equipment.
• Sabatons of Firmament - 0 +hit (yellow socket) – Very nice, but as they drop from Sartharion +2 drakes, you’re probably capped if you get them anyhow.
• Eruption-Scarred Boots - 0 +hit (blue socket) – At least there’s a socket, and the rest of the stats are great. If you can make up the numbers from other slots, these are the most likely (and possibly best, within realistic obtainability parameters) option.
• Windshear Boots - 18 +hit – Dumb as it may seem, the fact that this Gruul drop is still a competitive +hit option for this slot is indicative of the lack of available hit gear.

Ring:

• Signet of the Malevolent - 49 +hit – Believe it or not, this is the only epic level 80 ring in the game with +hit. As such, it should be a priority target, though you’ll face a lot of competition from other casters.
• Ring of Northern Tears – 31 +hit (blue socket / +4 hit bonus) – Realistically, not a bad piece but it has no attribute stats to it.

Trinket:

• Dying Curse - 71 +hit – Another piece that every caster in Naxx-25 is going to roll, but it goes a long ways towards making up the necessary number without sacrificing effectiveness.
• Mark of the War Prisoner – 71 +hit – Fairly easy to obtain, and a decent on-use number to it. A near-necessary entry-level piece.
• Rune of Infinite Power – 55 +hit – Easy to get, but you should try to rotate this out in favor of a better item as soon as possible – though it will help you to get the cap early in your effort.
• Battlemaster’s Accuracy - 95 +hit – Highest bonus of any trinket, though adds almost nothing else via the on-use ability outside of PvP.

Weapon:

• Haunting Call - 45 +hit – Trash drop in Naxx-25. Despite the presence of Spirit on the item, it’s a good piece to use.
• Flameheart Spell Scalpel- 34 +hit – As a Kirin Tor rep item, this one should be available to almost anyone. Overall, not a bad piece in the slightest.

Shield:

• Not a single caster shield has +hit on it – unless you want to do something like use the Enamelled Disc of Mojo to socket +16 hit, which is a weak option.

Offhand:

• Ward of the Violet Citadel - 38 +hit – Not a bad item statistically, but for the fact that you’ll cut your armor in half.
• Surplus Limb - 32 +hit – Similar to above, but not as optimal for an Elemental build, and more difficult to obtain.

Enchanting:

  Some ground can be made up here. Icewalker will add +12 hit and +12 critical strike to boots and is a must-have. Similarly, unless you’ve attained the rating elsewhere and can afford to use the +spellpower enchant and remain capped, Precision on your gloves is also worth +20 hit. While your weapon may be enchanted with accuracy, it is not economical to do so as the +50 / 63 spellpower enchants offer more return.

Gemming for Hit:

• Yellow Socket – Rigid Autumn’s Glow (+16 hit)
• Red Socket – Veiled Monarch Topaz (+9 Spell Damage / +8 Hit)
• Blue Socket – Lambent Forest Emerald (+8 Hit / +3 MP5) or Vivid Forest Emerald (+8 hit / +12 Stamina)

Always determine if the offsocket bonus is worthwhile. Stamina or MP5 bonuses may not be worth using a +8 hit gem over the +16 one, while it is frequently better to adhere to the socket bonus when stats like spell power or critical strike rating are involved.

  So, there’s a basic list. It is by no means complete – there are certainly other items – but it’s a good starting point for where to look when trying to reach the magic 368.

The Week in Review

  Had another solid week of raiding this last week. Ribeye went for day #2 of the Guild Naxx-10 run which still had 3/4 Construct and all of Military left up; cleared everything but Kel’Thuzad before we ran out of time to finish out the remainder (due in large part to some Internet connection issues with several players that caused DC’s at bad times).  Unfortunately for me, nothing dropped that I could use. Some Resto pieces, but we were running with double Trees for healing, so I couldn’t just ninja the scraps! Still, its a few badges, and he was certainly survivable enough for the content. One little bit of awesomeness to pass on that I implemented and may help any OTs out there, though. For the Grobbulus fight, as the OT, it’s your job to grab the Fallout Slimes and drag them away from the action so that they can be burned down by Ranged DPS. I made a simple one-step macro for this:

• /tar fallout
• /cast growl

…and yay for seamless tanking pickups. Substitute your taunt of choice for growl, of course – but it made things even easier, and much more rapid for locating / acquiring the mob. A few seconds’ savings = less nature AOE pulse on melee = less strain on healing = profit.

  Manchego, on the other hand, got into 3 nights’ worth of Naxx-25 this week with <Anathema>. In case I never explained it before, their loot system is not DKP based, and the functionality (it’s a very good system, IMHO) goes like this:

  (Item) drops. All players are allowed a /need roll (Master Looter, of course) if the item is an upgrade for their main spec. Once rolls are complete, (Item) goes to the highest roller, with one important stipulation: highest roll does not win if they have a higher amount of loot won for the week’s run. Any previous “need” wins count as one win, and any night you missed means a one item penalty is assessed. Thus, if you win one thing on night number one, and skip night #2, you’d enter night #3 with a 2-item tally for purposes of deciding loot. As such, division is more or less even while still placing a focus on upgrading main specs.

  If nobody rolls “need”, the item is up for a “greed” roll. Anyone may roll this for offspec, and wins do not count against your total. It’s a great way to prevent sharding as well, since there isn’t a penalty. I have a wicked Enhancement mace in the bank now as a result, though I don’t know that I’ll ever spec it.

  Anyhow, night #1 went smoothly. Blew through Obsidian Sanctum, just killing the drakes and Sarth singly to get it over quickly. I lost a roll on the Illustration of the Dragon Soul (lame!), but that’s alright. What was a bit of a clunker was, no Shaman gloves for another week. Maybe this week.

  After OS was cleared, we moved on to night #1 of Naxx-25. In the interests of getting some volume out of the way, we just cleared Spider + Plague. Easy sailing all of the way through; people are even starting to get the Heigan dance (only one death!). Unfortunately for me, there was hardly anything Shaman-worthy that dropped. Given that I actually *have* most of the stuff that I’d be wanting off these bosses, so that’s a part of it too… but nobody was giving up the mail.

  As a brief aside here, 5 times through these 2 wings – still no drops for Shield of Assimilation or Quivering Tunic,  and only one each of Corpse Scarab Handguards, Wraith Strike, Legguards of the Undisturbed, Eruption Scarred Boots and Helm of Pilgrimage. RNG pwnd.

  Anyhow, for the first (and only) time so far, the Forethought Talisman did drop. Every healer rolled it, and the winning roll was a 37. Yes, you read that correctly, 4 people couldn’t beat 37. So I still continue to rock the Cannoneer’s Morale for lack of a better option…

  Loatheb was a mixed blessing. Both drops of the shoulder tokens were the “Warrior-Hunter-Shaman” variety; as I had mine already from the previous week, I didn’t roll. Both Shamans present did, and both won. Good for them, and good for me – no other loot dropped, so I zeroed the night but I’m still riding at 0 loot won.

  It’s a long wait for Saturday when we go back for night #2, and I was fairly chomping at the bit to get it all banged out so that we could spend day 3 working on Kel’Thuzad. Funny thing about plans, though – they just never quite seem to work out. We had a bit of a tank shortage for some reason, only 2 ‘true’ tanks, and one DK who specced into it but (since he was usually DPS) did so with slightly lesser gear than one would expect from a Naxx-25 tank. With that, we headed to Patchwerk; I was admittedly ambivalent about things, given we really only had one HS tank – but we smoked him in a great one shot, all three tanks made it through just fine. This does, by the way, help reinforce my “DK’s are hax” theory. After that, we moved on to Razuvious, as we’d only have 2 tanks at some point during the run. One-shot again, and the Bands of Mutual Respect dropped. I let the Elemental Shammy have ‘em, as mine (Bindings of the Decrepit) are better for healing anyhow, though I do want to collect both someday. Other Shammy was not present, so I’m up 2-0 on the Shaman scoreboard. On to Gothik…

  …Where everything just went to pieces. We had Dead Side adds bug through the wall to Live Side, a mass disconnect of like 5-6 people at once – pretty much every manner of ill. On friggin Gothik. After about 3-4 wipes, we backtracked to Grobbulus and waxed him so that we could feel good about ourselves, and then tried Gluth. Amazingly, everything seemed to go wrong *again* and we couldn’t get him down. After 3 or so tries, we just called it for the night and went home. Exhausting night is exhausting.

  I was kind of down about things at this point, since we still had 4 bosses to clear before Sapph, and I really wanted some time to work on Kel’Thuzad. Proving that nothing in the game makes sense anymore, though – we blew through those 4 bosses on night 3, with a single hiccup – wiping on Thaddius with him at 1.2 million health- to blemish the night. I think I was to blame for that, I was kind of late on the first Polarity Shift and, though I made it through, I might have had a hand in killing a couple three peeps. I lost my charge icon in the Raid Frames later and died a lonely death, too – I never die on this fight, unless its a wipe – and just can’t help but think “it’s your fault, doofus”. 1.2 Million.

  At any rate, still had the issue of nothing dropping. I was hoping for the Helm of Unleashed Energy off Gothik, and that smilin’ bastard got the last laugh again by not dropping it. Nothing off Gluth or Thaddius either – but the Horsemen *did* drop the 7.5 Shaman chest token, and my zero-loot, welfare case status allowed me to claim that. Sweet!

  By the time we got to Sapph, people were starting to drop. A Druid Healer left, but I was able to pull one from my own guild to take his place, and we one shotted Ol’ Frosty. Loot dilemma here, though as he dropped Ceaseless Pity. This is a damn sexy neck if I do say so, and I’d love to have it. However, we’re also about to face off against LootPinata’Thuzad – and though we’ve never dropped him (and thus I might come up empty), I’m still sitting at a single win for the week. I decided to roll the bones (heh heh) and wait it out. Neck went on a “need” roll, no chance to try for greed, but that’s ok.

  So, Kel’Thuzad. We’d gotten to him late in last week’s effort, and only three tries worth of attempts which really didn’t get that close. People had seen his 25-man tricks now, though, so we had that in our corner. *cross fingers, hope for the best*

  Well, attempt #1 went swimmingly – right up until he hit the Frost Tomb thing on one of the add tanks right after they spawned. This was not in and of itself bad, but the tank in question was a Druid with ~45k health – in other words, the absolute worst person in the raid to manage when it comes to effects that drain a % of health. We lost him, and hilarity ensued. 15% wipe. Still, this was ~15-20% better than our best last week. We had him.

  Attempt number 2 was madness. You know that cute little Chains of Kel’Thuzad mind control gimmick? The rat bastard did it to a Moonkin (unsheepable!), who promptly Moonfire / Starfire / Hurricaned myself and 2 other Healers into oblivion in about 5 seconds with surgical precision. Lol, wipe.

  Now it’s really getting later, though. 2 DPS bow out, and there are rumblings about the dreaded “last attempt”. I was able to go back to the well in guild, though, and bring in 2 more Druids (it’s madness, I tell ya!) to fill spots. One was a Moonkin, hopefully equipped with a friendly-fire prevention device, and the other Resto. While this made 6 healers, I was happy to have him as an “at-large” Healer primarily set to look for those Frost Tombs and assist with them. That, and 2 more Battle Rezzers.

  I’ll spare the details, but the attempt was frickin’ butter. Everything , front to back, went great. There was one potentially devastating hiccup early on, when he chained a Frost Tomb off 4 people, including 2 Healers. Lucky for me, I was quick to target one of them and hit the “Kitchen Sink” macro (NS + TF + Trinket + Chain Heal). Pop – pop – no deaths, all four saved. I’m sure the other healers helped, but this did feel good for me. The rest of the time, our spacing was good and everyone was really on top of the Frost Tombs and CC’ing the mind controlled players. I even Hexxed a few! End result: Little Black Bowling Ball of Loot made an appearance, first time I’ve seen Kel’Thuzad downed in 25 man.

  Unfortunately, no mace, no shield. Dropped a Hobby Horse, a Tank axe, and Tank neck… but oh joy, the Shammy helm token dropped! What a fine time to roll a 90 for loots (though I think I had it on wins alone over all but one contender). That unexpected win was very big for me for a few reasons:

1. It means that I can take my old helm and resocket it for pure Elemental duty.
2. New helm has MP5 on it, so more longevity (and room to drop other current MP5 gear should an attractive option come up.)
3. Best part: I have the 4-piece bonus now – 5% more Chain Heal and Healing Wave!

  Oh yeah, and I got enough Badges of Valor collected that I could go out and buy a luxury item – my 7.5 Elemental Shoulders!

  So, despite a big ol’ speed bump in the middle, everything ended very, very well. Things seem to be carrying over into the new week as well; after maintenance today, I joined a Wintergrasp raid and racked up over 225 HK’s through nothing more than Chain Healing the masses – and didn’t get killed once myself! Vault-25 Raid after that was Healer-heavy, so I spent the respec money to go Ele for Archavon; yes, I know it’s a waste of 2 respec fees, but I wanted to see where I stood with my recent gearing changes. Well, it was kind of in a rush and so I geared a little half-assed, and still running with my Resto glyphs - but still managed to rank 5th on the DPS meter for the fight! Very nice indeed, and even nicer that a Shaman-friendly piece finally dropped from this event (second time, first was an Enhance chest) – and I won the roll! Yay, me.

  The only thing that could have made it better would have been if Old Crafty had made an appearance; but despite over 1000 casts (and now, 300 fishing) in the process, he remains, well – crafty.

  It’s been a hell of a week.

The Definitive “New Raider” Education Site

Shamelessly pilfered off a post by my friends at <Anathema>, this is a *very* good resource for any “casual” that is just beginning to raid, or thinking about starting to raid.

Class specifics (rotations, gearing, chants, stat prioritization) all discussed ad nauseum here. This is the kind of entry-level theorycraft that I can get lost in for some time. Additionally nice in that it has some citation links for further research. Regardless of your class / spec – it’s covered here.

Read Me!

I’ll just kind of let it speak for itself!

The 6th Screenshot Challenge

As I suspected, I don’t take too many screenies. Also worth noting that many of the files in the folder were very definitely not on purpose… but lo and behold, what should I find in slot #6 but a little bit of history from about a year ago…

I can't vouch for the one on the left... but the caption on the right just kills me.

 What you see here is famous moments in Ribby history. Ignore the action bars for a second, Ill get back to those. This is from the Lunar Festival event, 2008. In fact, if you read the profile tab I wrote up for Rib, this is the event in question. Here’s the background:

  I had only recently hit 70 on Ribeye, my 3rd toon to do so. Rib was a late convert to Feral, having been Resto all of the way until 68. As such, I had some tanking gear, but it was really pretty rudimentary. I don’t think that I even had my Manimal’s Cinch at this point. I remembered from the previous year that there was some critter named “Omen” who came out to play once a year in relation to the Lunar Festival, and I only knew that because I had happened through the area with Eltorogrande at that time (which was about 2 months into my WoW career). I was also somewhat awash in my newfound power as a bear – some of the quests that I had completed as a Feral in my runup to 70 required that I kill elites, and I had never before been able to dispatch them with such ease while soloing. In short, I was a young bear who was feelin’ his oats, so I did what any enterprising young bear might – I headed off to see about this Omen guy, and just how tough he was.

  Oh yeah, more background notes! Up until now, I had never been in a group for anything other than five-man content. No Karazhan, no Gruul – not even a Heroic. Babe in the (Moonglade) woods, indeed.

  So, fast forward to Omen. I didn’t even know what he looked like – I was expecting something like a wolf model, really. I knew that he was by the Barrows in Moonglade, so that’s where I headed. Once I got there – hoo, boy! He looks pretty mean, this could be trouble. While I was sizing up the situation, I watched as a few people – Alliance Hunters, I think – engaged him. One shot, maybe 2, GG Nelf. Curious bear is curious by nature, though… so I had to see what kind of damage he was dishing out – after all, I was still in the throes of euphoric power that come with playing a Tank class for your first time. He can’t hit that hard, right? Thus, I did what suicidal bears do and engaged him.

  Predictable results, I got whacked around for a bit and he killed me… but it took a lot longer than I had anticipated. Took a second to look over the “what happened to me” report, and I found that I was getting hit for somewhere around 400-600 damage per swing (he didn’t do that nasty AOE thing this year!) This got me thinking, “With a little help, I can take him!” So, I sent a tell to a Paladin friend of mine who was pretty well equipped- probably T5 at the time, but that was like Sunwell for me for all I knew, and Sunwell didn’t even exist yet. I asked if he’d done Omen yet. “No.” Want to give him a shot? “What, just us?” Yeah, why not? He wasn’t hitting me for that much, how long can you cast for? “Pretty much forever.” Alright, fine! Lets do it!

  And so a half-assed idea was born. He shows up, and there’s another Horde Shaman there too (level 67 or 68, if memory serves) who happens to be Resto. Tag team healing, giggidy. A few buffs, and we engage Omen – and things go about like you’d expect. I’m standing in there, Healers are looking good… and his health bar is not moving at all. Remember, default UI at this time showed a percent of health. If it was anything different, I sure as hell didn’t know how to make it work… but I’m watching it and it’s at about 98%, then like 30 seconds, 40 seconds later – 97%… this might take a while.

  Fortunately for me, somewhere along the 2-3 minute timer (best guess) on this fight, people started to believe. Those Nelf Hunters from before realized that they could extract their pound of flesh from Omen for the earlier repair bills, and he’d beat up on me for it – what a deal! Other Horde happened by and we added ‘em in when they showed. All kinds of level ranges, but so what? The more, the merrier.

  Anyways, I swear that it took us 20 minutes to do it, but he was downed eventually (screenshot or it didn’t hap- oh, wait.) Omen was the first Raid Boss that I had ever faced, and I tanked him. Yeah, he’s no Gruul / Patchwerk / etc, whatever. I was proud as hell when he dropped, and people started scurrying in from all over to run through the light. I just kind of stood around for a bit, a conquering hero in a fog, before it occurred to me that I should take a screenshot of it all – and there it is.

  I hadn’t even viewed it until today, and some of it is pretty funny. I *love* the gnome with the macro for breaking language barriers, it’s just the icing on the cake for this moment. I’d forgotten about it until I saw this, but reading it again – it must have been one of the first times that I ever saw someone speak cross-faction.

  I love my action bars, too. Remember how I said I was Resto ’til 68? Old habits die hard, look at the bottom right bar. Auslese’s Light Channeler and Jewel of Charismatic Mystique, represent! I mean, the spells had a bit of use in that location, so I could pop out of bear and use one. The trinkets? Kind of emblematic of the state of flux I was in. Know what’s over on the right side? Evergreen Pouch, combine with Un’Goro soil to make (maybe!) Morrowgrain. Still in the bars. Above that? Six Demon Bag, a favorite trinket for Resto solo work (lvl 46). Above that? Hypnotist’s Watch. I clearly don’t trust the threat generation of the people who tanked for me.

  So, while I still can’t figure out exactly what Cydius is saying (maybe it translates to common?)… this 6th screenie turns out to be a great blast from the past for me.

Also, I have no Idea whom to pass this on to. Being a bit of a FNG around here, I don’t know too many folks who have yet to receive this… but a big WTFthankyou for thinking of me!

Farming the Basin: The Math

  So, I’ve recently hit 77 with my Rogue, Hiltzaile. Back in the BC days, Hiltz was my farmer. She’s a Miner / Engineer, so I got her the epic helicopter and spent many hours circling Nagrand for motes and nodes in order to obtain materials for both sale and Jewelcrafting on Bubba. Now that she finally has her wings back, I’ve been spending some of my latenight time farming Sholazar Basin for Saronite, Titanium and anything that interacts with a Zapthrottle Mote Extractor.

  I made a guess about the value of this a few days back, and pegged it as a rough estimate of 700-750g / hour of farming. Since that’s a pretty substantial number, I decided last night that I would research it and gather some more concrete data… so, here’s the results.

1) The participants: Myself, Miner / Engineer with epic flight. In addition, at least 3 other farmers (one of them also an Engineer) active for this timeframe and competing for the same nodes. All 3 had epic flight as well.

2) The time and place: Sholazar Basin, 3am-4am Server time (PST – 6am-7am EST)

3) The timeframe: 1 hour without a break. To time it, I simply applied my weapon poisons and used their timer.

4) The overall take from the event:

• 12.3 stacks of Saronite Ore
• 12 Titanium Ore
• 7.8 Eternal Fire
• 2.5 Eternal Water
• .9 Eternal Air
• 7.7 Eternal Earth
• 5.8 Eternal Shadow
• 2 Sky Sapphire
• 1 Forest Emerald
• 4 Dark Jade
• 2 Chalcedony
• 1 Bloodstone
• 1 Sun Crystal

Some materials used to smelt one (1) Titansteel Bar from the spoils.

5) Prices for these items at Skywall Horde AH; attempt made to gauge what the average “priced to sell” amount may be.

• Saronite Ore: 26g / stack
• Titanium Bar: 19g / ea
• Titansteel Bar: 140g / ea
• Sky Sapphire: 13g / ea
• Forest Emerald: 20g / ea
• Dark Jade: 1.5g / ea
• Chalcedony: 1.5g /ea
• Bloodstone: 3g /ea
• Sun Crystal: 3g /ea
• Eternal Fire: 35g /ea
• Eternal Earth: 7.5g /ea
• Eternal Shadow: 7.5g /ea
• Eternal Air: 35g /ea
• Eternal Water: 16g /ea

Which works out to the following total values for the collected goodies:

• 12.3 Saronite Ore: 319.8g
• 3 Titanium Bar (after smelting): 57g
• 1 Titansteel Bar: 140g
• 2 Sky Sapphires: 26g
• 1 Forest Emerald: 20g
• 4 Dark Jade: 6g
• 2 Chalcedony: 3g
• 1 Bloodstone: 3g
• 1 Sun Crystal: 3g
• 6.8 Eternal Fire (remainder; 1 used in Titansteel): 238g
• 2.5 Eternal Water: 40g
• .9 Eternal Air: 31.5g
• 6.7 Eternal Earth (remainder; 1 used in Titansteel): 50.25g
• 4.8 Eternal Shadow (remainder; 1 used in Titansteel): 36g

Sum Total: 973.55g

  That’s one hell of a good haul for an hour. Consider a few things about that number as well when the take is analyzed:

1. Gems are not impacting it significantly, as the numbers and quality are both low and within expected attainable numbers.
2. Titanium was also at a median level with only 12 ore mined
3. Nearly the entire result for Eternal Fire and Eternal Water is the result of Engineering; though hard to single it out due to the influence of Titanium Veins, 80-90% is a fair expected contribution.
4. Saronite amount is also within acceptable levels, given 12.3 stacks = approx one stack of 20 / 5 minutes, assuming a balance of 3 ore per (regardless of regular / rich nodes), that’s ~7 veins every 5 minutes.

  In light of the numbers, I was pretty shocked. Even with the AH cut, the raw mats alone are closing on 1000g / hour and could easily get there with a few lucky breaks. However, I *did* do this in the dead of night, so I tried it again exactly 12 hours later, during the mid-day. I don’t know how many competitors I had, it’s safe to say that it was at least double or possibly tripled. I know that I saw 2 other Engineers, and while 1-2 players were on standard flying mounts, most were epic.

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to tabulate the results because my wife had absconded with the pen that I had nearby, and I had to bolt off to work. From memory (all numbers approximate, but should be about right):

• 11.5 stacks of Saronite Ore
• 17 Titanium Ore
• 7.3 Eternal Fire
• 2.4 Eternal Water
• 7.4 Eternal Earth
• 7.2 Eternal Shadow
• 7 green gems
• 1 Sky Sapphire
• 1 Twilight Opal
• 1 Monarch Topaz

  I’m confident enough in my memory to give this about 95% accuracy. Given that, subtracting the possibility of Titansteel as CD is used, and adjusting for the new gems (2g per green, 30 for opal, 55 topaz) – that comes to 975.9g.

  Even taking into account the higher spike in Titanium gains and the presence of a single valuable rare gem (abberations which do skew the figure, but not outrageously so), I was very surprised to see that daytime farming is not only competitive with, but on par with night. As to why this is the case, despite a heavier rotation of people competing for the same nodes, I might theorize that it relates to nodes zone-wide repopulating at a faster rate under heavier farming – though conducting an experiment that could prove this would be difficult to execute.

  Finally, there is another thing to consider: even if the player is just selling off uncut stones, using a Jewelcrafter to prospect all of the Saronite instead of selling the raw quantity on the AH would likely see that value increase by about 150%, conservatively – adding ~150g or more, depending on luck with stones prospected, to the total.

  I think I’m going to be spending more time in Sholazar.

Why it pays to be nice; or, a counterpoint to “boosting” paranoia, Goblindom and “Ape-Subroutines”

  So, this one has been brewing a while for me. Sometimes, I read something out in the blogosphere that really strikes me, for better or for worse. For instance, this was a major eye-opener for a young Feral Druid in terms of frontloading threat and managing 5-man content more effectively. I remember reading it and then implementing it for the first time, and thinking “oh, wow. I look like a *pro* doing this kind of stuff! Thanks, Surabear!”

  Sometimes, though, I read thing like this or this. This too.

  Now, there’s certainly a lot of good information to be gleaned from that site. Despite the fact that it’s a game, and a virtual community, the laws of economics, herd mentalities and whatnot are very much in play in WoW. I’m not going to dispute for a moment that he’s got a handle on how to make money in this game, because he clearly does. While you may not agree with all of what is said over there, you can probably dissect any given economics post down to a few finer points that will serve you well. What I’ve got an issue with is a little deeper.

  MMORPG. Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. More than ever, that second “M” is becoming crucial. If you want to push into any kind of content, you need friends – and being mercenary about your dealings will only get you so far. Contrary to the “Spotlight” posting, people *do* remember you on a server. Servers are a far smaller community than we might believe them to be, and your actions are noticed. You might get away with something once, twice or more – but eventually, it will catch up with you.

  I know that it isn’t going to matter to the majority of people, but I know that, in the 2+ years that I’ve been on Skywall, I’ve certainly developed a list of people that I don’t like to group with, or even do business with. How do they get on that list? Several ways.

  Trade channel trolls are almost universally on it. These are the people who spend all day in /2 trying out their latest comedy material; every server has ‘em. There are probably about a dozen or so, self-styled into a false sense of importance and decked out in the best BOE / 5-man loot you can get. Why? Because nobody likes them enough to keep them as members of anything approaching a serious guild. Sure, they can always get a PuG Heroic in, and probably regular groups for 25-man “Onyxia style” content like OS and VoA. When it comes to content that requires more serious coordination though, you’ll find them on the sidelines. That’s because you’re dealing with an exponentially greater degree of difficulty in compiling a competent group for content as numbers go up. 5 man is easy to fill. 10 man gets harder, due to class needs and competency / gearing. 25 man is a total crapshoot at the PuG level, and having even 60% of your raid at an appropriate gear and skill level is difficult. In other words, they might be able to get through Arachnid or Plague Wings, but see how they do versus Gluth, where you actually have to coordinate – and this is the easy content!

  While trade channel trolls are getting what they deserve, the other group is what BBB would call “the asshats”. Asshattery comes in many flavors, but this is the category that you’ll risk falling into by subscribing to thing’s like “Patchwerk’s Blessing”. The people I have on this list are more or less jerks. They’re the ones that bail in the middle of any kind of adversity, scoff at everyone in sight with gems like “l2plynub”, or pop off about how awesome they are every time that you fall into a group with them. Maybe they just like to ninja nodes after you killed the mob, then /lol at you to boot, or maybe they’re hardcore and prefer the ninja loot + Hearth + log. Don’t worry, I hate you all equally, which is to say that I have no problem dropping out of a group that includes you before the run starts.

  I’m sure that, for every one of these that I can remember, there are two or three that I don’t… but I’m taking notes. For instance, there’s a certain Priest on my realm who is a colossal tool. He’s self-important, always looking out for himself and more than happy to flame you or your guild if he sees fit. Never mind that he’s been in dozens of guilds as a result of his behavior, he’s clearly the bee’s knees in his own mind. About 2 weeks ago, said Priest – for no apparent reason – decided it would be fun to flame my guild in a conversation with one of our officers. Fine and dandy, I hope that you’re happy, and welcome to the Asshat List. Not just for me, but for our whole guild, since your interaction just came over /g. Fair ’nuff. What’s funny about this is, I remember this guy from about 12 months back, when his Priest main was about level 42 and he needed help with something. I assisted him with it (I think it was just some crafting / enchanting work), and he apparently friended me as a result.. because about 3 days after this recent flaming, he whispers me while I’m questing on my Warlock about coming to a 5 man. I was more than happy to tell him that, due to his recent actions, I had no interest in running with him or any of his alts on my Warlock, or any of my alts.

  Which brings me to another point – you never know who you might be talking to. Most of us who have been around a year or more are recognized or familiar on the server with one or two characters. Some of us, like myself, have far more. Whether the alt that you’re playing is level 14 or level 73, though, there is player attached to the other end of it – and that player may well be the GM of the #1 progression guild on the server for all you know, spending a little bit of lowbie time in anonymity. Beyond that, on the subject of guilds, any serious guild will have an application process – and that application is going to be screened by the officer community of the entire guild. Consider that you can expect 5-10 officers on average that might be privy to that process, each of which might have 4-7 characters, and you’re looking at anywhere between 20-70 characters that you’d better hope don’t remember your transgressions, or you’re getting denied.

  The flip side to this equation is playing the nice guy. Of course, there are extremes to this side that are ultimately unproductive for you as a player. I don’t assist people asking “pls run me WC/SM/BRD/etc”, nor do I cater to the “can u giv 10g pls lol” crowd. That’s a waste of time for anyone. What does pay is networking.

  I play a lot of latenights, and have for a while. Part of this is because of my work schedule, which causes me to miss what most would call “prime time”. Part of it is just that I’m a night owl. Still, it means that I PuG a fair amount of stuff out of necessity. In the course of doing those PuGs, and not behaving badly, bailing on the group, ninja looting, or otherwise acting like a selfish ass, I’ve managed to make a few friends, and those friends have helped me out TREMENDOUSLY.

  I’m going to break from my usual routine of not naming names here, because these are good people and they deserve the accolades.

   One of the first that I met was a Paladin Healer, Smoothnrich. I first met him during Burning Crusade, well before he or I had hit 70 on any of our characters. We’d link up every now and then for content, or he’d whisper me for crafting assistance, fairly typical stuff. Typical, except that he belongs to one of the best progression guilds on the server. As he levelled alts, or wanted to run something for badges or gear, he’d frequently whisper me to come along. Not just any group, but frequently groups full of players with a lot of skill and the equipment to make it work. When you have as many alts as I do, finding solid PuGs for Kara and such was a great luxury – and I got tabbed frequently to round out some of his groups. Because of the fact that I had helped him out when we were both still “on the way up”, I’ve seen a lot of long term dividends. The “Goblinish wisdom” of it all might have suggested otherwise, that going out of my way to perform profession related services, or even giving away cooldowns for things like Primal Might, is foolish and unprofitable; yet I’ve reaped 10 times what I sowed.

  Another good friend on the server is Deceit, a Warlock. I met her, like so many others, in a latenight PuG heroic – Slave Pens, if memory serves. I would get home from work well after midnight server time at the time (proving that life is cyclical, I do now, again) and usually look for a heroic PuG to tank before I’d go to bed. One night, I got the idea of phrasing my /2 LFG request as something along the lines of “LF 3x DPS for H SP that can follow a kill order and have a key, no other requirements.” You know, pseudo-witty enough to grab someones attention, yet at least put a (very) mild condition on the whole thing. She was one of the first to whisper me, we ran it together and had a good time. I started to notice on later nights that, when I’d log on and start LFG, she was frequently on – so we would group again. Each time, we enjoyed our runs – and each of us could see that the other was both a competent player and a quality individual.

  Well, time wore on, shifts changed for me, and I played less at night. I still talked to her from time to time, and once WotLK dropped we were more or less still focused on leveling our own toons – but that old friendship returned and paid me back in spades again. You see, Deceit is the GM of Skywall’s most prominent Horde-side Australian guild – and that means that they’re actually on and playing when I am. It is because of this connection that I have been able to get into Naxx-25 groups for the last 5 weeks – and not PuG crap, but consistent players, with organized and coordinated strategies, loot rules and standards. Given my latenight situation, this should be damn near impossible – but here I am, thriving because of one simple reason – I was nice to someone, and that person just happens to be kindhearted as well. It’s called symbiosis.

  Now, again, I’m not saying that there isn’t a need to look out for yourself as well. Believe me, I was running those latenight heroics for badges too, not charity. As much as I enjoy Naxx-25, I’m hoping for my drops as much as the next person is hoping for theirs. But the difference is, it’s not outright, Machiavellian greed. You’ve got to give a little bit to get yours – which segues into another subject – “boosting”.

  Boosting – the process whereby a perceived “greater” equipped / skilled player is enlisted/used to assist a perceived “lesser” equipped / skilled player to improve their quality of gear – is a frequent topic of Goblinish thoughts. My take? There’s boosting, and then there’s elitism. To hear it explained in some of the posts referenced earlier in the post, just about anyone that wants to group with you is looking for a free ride – unless they’re “doing 2.5k plus DPS”, or whatever. Well, here’s a point with regards to that – if you’re going to use the “Patchwerk’s Blessing” standards, then it’s time to take a long, hard look at yourself in the mirror before you go and boot a responsible raider who is “only” churning 2.2k – because it just might be you who’s seeking that “boost”. If that doesn’t show you enough, there’s always this to consider too. Look at the 25-man Heroic section and I’ll tell you what that says to me: PuG couldn’t get Gluth. It’s one thing if you’re a skilled progression guild, raiding Naxx-25 and looking for 1-2 people to make numbers (even though you may not need them, but I digress). It’s another to be ridiculously critical of your raid at large when you’re showing up in the best BOEs money can buy (including that craptastic, overpriced ring) with both spellpower and a mana pool that is at the low end of acceptable for the content. Quite simply, there is a time to be humble and accept that you need the help there as much as anyone else. We aren’t all born into full epics, and we all have to experience growing pains. I don’t mind when there are people in the raid who have inferior gear to mine because they’re at a transition point, such as the heroics -> Naxx 10 cusp, or the 10 -> 25. They’ll get better, and we’ll all prosper as a result. I was that guy at some point, and people had the patience to help me get to where I am now. Pay it forward.

  Lastly, there is this concept of “Ape subroutines”. Google it, it doesn’t show up in too many places (especially with the quotes). What it’s getting at is simple, primal psychology – that we as a species are kind of hardwired to do and follow certain actions, patterns or habits (“herd mentality” may be a better representation, in the common lexicon). While there is certainly an element of truth to this as pertains to any element of human interaction, I have trouble seeing the extensive usage of it as little more than another indicator of elitism. “I’m smart, I pull the strings around here, you just go about your same drone routine everyday, lol.” Well, like a famous quote states, “You can fool some of the people all of the time,” and there is an element of truth to it all. Make this your mantra, your code of beliefs, and you are setting yourself up for failure, however as it means that you’re going to be walking the knife’s edge between privateering and asshattery. Despite our habits and how easy or not they may be to exploit and prey upon, we’re all people – and each of us has a certain amount of intrinsic pride that you’re going to offend if and when we find out we’ve been snookered. My point is, if you’re going to practice the Puppetmaster belief systems, you’d damn well better be a professional, or you’re going to be the King of Animal Farm and probably spend an inordinate amount of time wondering when people with torches might come marching up the hill to your little domicile.

  The long and short of this all: making a crapload of gold in WoW is great fun, and can allow you the freedom to do an awful lot of things – but it won’t buy you the reputation or allies that you need to succeed in a game that’s moving more towards 25-man content, and at the end of the day you’re nothing but a mercenary in search of a country. I said it before, and I’ll say it again – the amount of good ideas over there are legion – but there is a great amount of danger in blindly buying into everything posted lock, stock and barrel. Make money in your spare time, don’t sweat the repair bills and consumable costs of being a responsible raider and see where a little kindness gets you – you might be surprised what happens when you grease the wheels of progress and open a few doors for yourself by sacrificing a little, instead of closing them through avarice.

Naxx 25 nearly down, looking good for this week

  Progress continues to be made on this front at a good clip. After a bit of a slowdown in weeks 2 & 3 of running that saw only moderate progression gains, the raid team was able to break through in a big way this last week with first kills on 25-man Gothik, Four Horsemen, Thaddius and Sapphiron. Unfortunately, we wound up against the end-of-raid timer for Kel’Thuzad and only got 3 attempts in on him, but I’m betting that he goes down this week.

  Anathema is getting faster and faster about clearing the Wings with practice and better gear, and they’ve expanded their Naxx-25 raiding to 3 nights /week. This was a very pleasant revelation for me last week, as I was out of town from Thursday morning until Sunday afternoon and thus expected to miss out on more than half of the festivities. You can imagine my surprise when I got home from work on Wednesday night at 1:45 am to find that they were about to sweep through Obsidian Sanctum and Spider + Plague Wings! When I returned for day 3 of raiding on Sunday night / Monday morning, I found that they had managed to get the Military Wing down while I was gone as well. Great news, as we had only downed Razuvious prior.

  As things stand, I fully expect that we can clear Plague, Spider, Patchwerk and Grobbulus during night one without much trouble, and pick up everything up to (and possibly including) Sapph on night two. If possible, that would leave a full raid session to get Kel’Thuzad down – and that’s why I’m really hoping to see a Little Black Bowling Ball of Loot this weekend. WWS has finally been posted for the last 2 weeks’ worth of raids as well; though I can’t parse them from work, I’ll certainly be checking them out when I get home to see how I’m faring.

  Partly due to the fact that I have several of the available upgrades, and partly due to the fact that Maexxna sucks and won’t cough up that which I’m obsessing over, it was a slow loot week – but I *did* score my 7.5 shoulders, which was like a double win as it allowed me to re-gem and enchant my 7.0 Resto shoulders to serve as Elemental ones, instead of pulling double duty. Won the roll, but lost due to overall loot distribution on the Ring of Decaying Beauty. I shouldn’t gripe about this, since I’m a guest and all, but it went to a Priest. What sucks about that is, there are a ton of DPS / Healer usable rings out there with Spirit itemized on them, and these are no good for a Shaman. In terms of MP5 rings, the selection is narrow – and thus, usable drops are rare for us. Consequently, I’m of the opinion that this one should have gone to a Shaman or Paladin, but like I said – the person who got it had not won anything, so fair is fair there. Loot can always drop again, after all.

  Another positive aspect to this weekend’s progress was the acquisition of a Heroic Key to the Focusing Iris, which is something that my own guild has yet to obtain as they have not organized a Naxx-25 guild run to date (though, if forums are an indicator, that is coming soon). I don’t know if / when Anathema is planning to take a crack at Maly, but I’m really hoping that I get to come along – not only for the completion of my “Champion of the Frozen Wastes” bit, but also for a crack at this beauty, acquisition of which would like lead to me peeing my pants and giggling uncontrollably for a minute or two.

  So, as I was out of town for more than half of the “Love is in the Air” event, I really had to scramble to get it all together once I got back. I had already sortied 9 of my toons out to the three capital cities, 3 per city, to collect goodies before I left so I had a bit of a head start. By the time I got back from the airport, I had 14 hours to get it all done with. No Perma-Peddle (though Hiltzaile did score one), no Lovely Black Dress (on Manch, at least), but I was able to complete the title achievement by pitying a fool in Naxxramas just after 2:00 am. Reminder to self: don’t vacation in the middle of a timed event next time!

  Lastly, though I didn’t have too much time to plug away at it, I managed to get Hiltz to 77 and back into the ROFLMAOcopter. Mining + Engineering + Epic Flight is so much win, especially since I get home at such a late hour that nobody is on. I did the math on my haul from 1 1/2 hours of farming on my initial night, and figure that I’m turning about 700-750g / hour worth of mats at low end AH prices. Not that I’m selling anything yet, as I still have to finish leveling her Engineering and Bubba’s Jewelcrafting – but when I do, I can bang out mats for a bike (or two!) pretty quickly. I think that I’ll have to make one for the wife first, but it shouldn’t be too much trouble.

Progression, Levelling and Everything Else…

  I’ve spent a lot of time lately espousing my opinion or whatever on gear, bosses, specs, etc – so probably about time for something different. For the first time in a while, the State of The Union (lesser ones first, like the Oscars!)

Inyaki- lvl 47 – I’ve actually been levelling him a bit lately. I spent some of Manch’s extra Emblems to buy some shoulders for him, as my two lowest-level toons (Inyaki + the Death Knight) can use em. While I’m not sure if it’s as a result of those shoulders, the fistful of rested XP he has at a given moment, or the nerfage that is lvl 1-60 XP bars, he’s moving pretty fast. I’m rampaging through Feralas now, with an eye on Hinterlands soon. Still largely in my lvl 39 mail twink gear, and I don’t even care. I’m disheveling people.

Zuggzug- lvl 58 – OMG, not listed at the top of the page! I had to bid farewell to Derting in order to shoehorn a Death Knight in here, but I never got around to updating that part of the page. Thanks, Blizz, for offering free server transfers to the rest of the planet, but not Skywall. I would have preferred to move Dert, but it’s just the way of things. Zuggzug is lvl 58, done with the basics, and sitting in Org until I’m darn good and ready to level her – which is no time soon, the world does not need another DK right now.

Eltorogrande- lvl 70 – Another of the languishers. I’ve just been lazy about him, I levelled him about halfway to 71 a few weeks back… but I’ve just got other priorities. I’ll get to him sooner or later. On hiatus.

Bubbahotepp - lvl 71 – Also more or less on hiatus, though he’s a mixed bag to level. On the one hand, it’s fun because he can actually use a lot of the gear upgrades early on. The flip side is, it sucks because he can’t blow stuff away like the others can. Still, as he’s my Jewelcrafter, I’ll need to get him up to snuff sometime.

Euskogudari- lvl 73 – I kind of go in bursts with him. On the one hand, I’m very interested in getting him to 80 because I like Pallytanking. On the other, same problem I’ve always had – leveling Paladins is mind-crushing boredom. His Inscription skill is almost maxxed, something like 443 I think. Been too lazy to do the daily discoveries, which I should try to stay on top of more.

Noobz - lvl 75 – I’ve been making a bit of a push with her lately. From a professions standpoint, I’ve maxxed out her Enchanting (and gathered almost all of the recipes, just a few minor ones left), and her Tailoring just passed 435. Still levelling Demonology, and she is absolutely owning the content so far. Fast killing makes for fun leveling. I hope to have her to 80 by early to mid March, so I can start gearing her up for Raids. Strongly considering Epic Flight investment as well, despite relative non-farmer professions. She has so many quests left, I can probably pay for it that way!

Hiltzaile- lvl 76 – I’ve been slacking on her after a fairly sustained leveling burst that got her to 76. Picked her up this morning, I really need to get her to 77 as she is one of my 3 toons with Epic Flight right now, and as an Engineer (423) / Miner, she’s money in the bank if she can fly. I’m less concerned with her Raiding, but I’d like to get her to 80 within the same timeframe as Noobz, and at least gear her enough that she can make a good showing in heroics.

Ribeye- lvl 80 – Been making a lot more of a push with Ribby lately, because (for the first time since 3.0.2, really) I’m happy and comfortable with Feral tanking right now. Rib is good enough to handle Heroics without too much trouble, and could OT 10-man content just fine as well, I’m sure. I want to push him through some more heroics before I really open up for Raids on him, though I think that I’ll be looking to get him into the weekend Naxx-10 runs when possible. I was going to go with him this last weekend, but we’re progressing to the point with our Fri / Sat raids where the 2 1/2 hour Friday allocation is enough to blow away 3 complete Wings. Unfortunately for me, my work schedule only allows me to Raid Sat / Sun, so I wound up with some bare pickins this week.

  I realize that this might sound selfish, but at that point – it isn’t worth it for me to Raid, so I gave up my spot. Primary driver? I have a 7 month old daughter and a wife. In order to Raid, I have to make arrangements, and its usually a bit of give and take. My wife covers all of the baby duties during the Raid time, and (in turn) I do something to scratch her back and buy my freedom. Sometimes, it’s kind of a hassle to get the time, so you have to weigh value vs. difficulty – and it’s just not worth it to make all of the necessary arrangements for one Wing, Sapph and KT. Real Life trumps WoW, so I just opted out and asked that they let the previous nights’ OT finish his run in my stead.

  I’m kind of concerned now that I won’t be able to get a full run in anymore, unless they make it a Sat-only clear event and use Friday for something else. Given the history of Raid scheduling, I don’t think that this is a likely option, but really – it’s pretty feasible. Naxx-10 is something like 4 to 4 1/2 hour front to back now, so I’d love to see it moved to a one shot… but I’m probably doomed to partial Raid IDs or PuG Naxx now. No real worry, though – I should be able to get a decent set of gear together from heroics and Emblems, given enough time.

  That said, I’m starting to gather caster gear. Once the Warrior and Paladin are 80, they’ll likely be my Tanking choices… so Rib might go Resto, or (and I’ve *never* specced this) maybe even Moonkin.

Manchego - lvl 80 – Far and away my primary focus lately. Manch is to the point where she has seen enough Naxx-10 that there are only 3-4 drops left in there for her, at best. Consequently, I’m moving on to a regular Naxx-25 run with her. Unfortunately, my guild doesn’t currently run Naxx-25 (likely due to the scheduling / organizing time commitment, but that’s just supposition; we have 2 Naxx-10 runs going each week.)

  So, what to do for a solution? I’m fortunate enough to have friends in Skywall’s Aussie guild, Anathema. They are just recently getting into regular Naxx-25 runs after clearing the 10-man content, and as fine a bunch of people to run with as you’d hope to meet. Off-color, upbeat and funny as hell. They have a solid core of players who are well-geared, responsible and capable with their classes. Due to circumstance, though, they are often just short of enough people to form a 25-person Raid… so it’s a perfect fit.

  The trick is, Australia *is* halfway around the world from us (duh!). That means that their weekly Naxx-25 time is Saturday night / Sunday morning 2am-6am, and the following night as well. It’s something that needs to be prepared for, so we usually wind up going to bed for a nap prior. The upshot about the timing, though, is that the baby is almost always asleep for the duration, waking up for a feeding maybe once and that’s it, so we can both play.

  I’m also fortunate in that there is only one other Shaman in the Raid, so we’ve more or less split the loot. Not that it always drops, but in three weeks, I’ve scored Legguards of the Undisturbed, Bindings of the Decrepit and Atonement Greaves. I’ve also added two Totems to my repertoire, Totem of Misery (which I doubt I’ll use unless I’m single-tank healing a fight with no splash damage) and Totem of Hex, which I have been absolutely COVETING for a while in lieu of the fact that my previous “DPS” totem was this. No, I’m not making that up. I won enough that I had to defer one really good drop that I was also jonesing for, but that’s no worry – it’ll drop for me soon enough.

  In our initial week, we had some struggles. Wipes on Faerlina while we got used to Mind Controls and an 18 1/2 minute Heigan which saw 5-6 people finish out the last 12 or so minutes of it (4 Bloodlusts!) and me, as Resto, doing lolDPS since there were 3 other Healers among the living. Patchwerk was very trying, and Gluth was a roadblock since nobody was quite prepared to deal with 3 grates’ worth of Chow.

  Since then? It gets better every week. Weeks 2 & 3, we’ve been able to clear Arachnid and Plague in their entirety, plus Patchwerk and Grobbulus on the first night – leaving night 2 for (sometimes trying) progression. We’ve been able to down Gluth now (kiting was nothing short of stellar last time; the time we downed him, we had no deaths) as well as Razuvious. Razuvious, by the way, is a funny guy. As to progression, Thaddius is a matter of time; 5-7 people dying to Polarity misunderstanding in the first few switches is not acceptable and gimps the Raid DPS too much to be able to beat the enrage timer (30 million health ?!?!?). Gothik, we tried a few times on night #2 of week #2 and didn’t have much luck. It’s not that hard of a fight, but I think position was the issue. Instead of backing into a corner and playing reactively to inbound adds, people were in a spot where stuff came from all sides and they were running around to engage it. Chain Heals were hitting 1-2 targets, and AOE overwhelmed us each time. Markedly inefficient, but I’ll say this: when they (Anathema) wind up with a mess like that on one night, I’ll be damned if I can’t count on these guys to come back next time with a plan and just nail it.

  I’ve been really pleased with my showing in 25’s as well. I have yet to top a 10-man healing meter, but in every 25 I’ve seen (outside of VoA), I’ve been #1. I’m not a meter-watcher by nature, nor is that what fuels me in the slightest – if the boss eats some floor, then it’s a win, regardless of what the meter says – but it’s pretty cool to feel like I’m contributing a lot to the success of things by tossing out ZOMG heals. I’ve never even sniffed #1 on a Raid damage meter, but I think that topping the Heals is ultimately more satisfying to me. I’ve more or less reached the conclusion with Manch that she contributes more in bigger groups. In 5-man, she’s a good Healer, but plenty of people can do what she does. In 10’s, she helps out a lot with making it smooth. In 25’s? She dominates, and it’s a good feeling.

  Anyhow, I managed to get my “Explorer” and “Elder” titles on Manch as well, which was kind of nifty. I also leveled her cooking to a level where I can make my own consumables; while this is not outwardly noteworthy, I admit, this is actually the first time that I’ve had the patience to do it. I’m flat-out *terrible* with the secondary professions. Inyaki has 225 First Aid; I don’t think anyone else even has 175. Manch just did the Nat Pagle “cleared to go to 300″ Fishing quest – first toon to do that, too. Realistically, I don’t need more than one Fisher / Cook, so I seriously doubt that I’ll be progressing much further on that one with anyone else, but I will get Manch fishing in Northrend eventually. I really *should* level Hiltzaile’s First Aid, though. That’d save a ton of downtime.

  OK, one last bit that the wife sent me from a PuG Halls of Stone (reg) run that she was in to get her last Elder. Names redacted to protect the guilty / noobish.

• (Hunter present w/o pet)
• Ness: “Do you have a pet? Where is it?”
• Huntard: “Dead.”
• Ness: “You can resurrect it can’t you?”
• (Huntard rezzes pet, which dies shortly after, and likely because it’s growling instead of cowering. He elects not to rez it.)
• Ness: “Having your pet out would help us.”
• Huntard: “How? I am not BM”
• Ness: “Helps with aggro and deals damage”
• Huntard: “I know what I am doing”

  For the record, on the damage meters, this level 75 Huntard was doing 545 DPS. If he really and truly “knew what he was doing” was 545 DPS, then I’m gonna have to go out on a limb and say “you’re doing it wrong.” My wife has a Hunter who is something like level 7 or 8, and she knows more about the class. For grins, I looked him up. 58 points in Survival tree, and not a single point of that in Hunting Party or Resourcefulness, but 3/3 Hunter vs Wild. With apologies to all of the good Hunters out there, this is what gives you guys a bad name!

Anyhow, that’s the News of the World. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Elemental / Resto Shaman Gearing: Naxx 10 & OS

  Continuing references for the loot tables and Elemental / Resto gear drops. For this one, it’s easier if I just break it down by boss. I’m using the loot tables for Naxx-10 and OS 10 + 25, as most people will wind up doing both of these a few times over before progression winds up in Naxx-25.

  Emblem loot excluded, it’s been covered already. I’ve also scored each item on a “Should I spend my DKP (or loot roll, or whatever)” rating, shown as R(n) / E(n) after each. 1-10, 10 high as to whether this is an item that you should prioritize rolling on, versus what *could* drop.

Anub’Rekhan:

• Boots of Persistence (R-E) – Viable choice for either spec, and a major upgrade over anything that is obtainable prior to Naxx. The only upgrades for this are found from 25 man Emblems, Naxx 25, and Sarth + drakes. Verdict: R9 / E9
• Band of Neglected Pleas (R-E) – At this stage of raiding, you’ll start to notice a pronounced lack of rings dropping. Personally, I used the CoT + UK ones forever. This one is a decent upgrade for Resto that you won’t be replacing for a while; while the stats work for Elemental, though, it’s a lesser priority as the itemization from MP5 would better serve an Ele build as Haste or Hit. Verdict: R8 / E5

Grand Widow Faerlina:

• Avenging Combat Leggings (R-E) – More of a Resto piece due to the inclusion of Haste over Crit, though they do provide excellent stat values and 2 sockets to customize with. Some may prefer the Kilt of Dark Mercy for the raw MP5, but the Haste on this shouldn’t be overlooked. For Elemental specs, only roll this if you haven’t been able to obtain the Legguards of Nature’s Wrath from Heroic CoT, or if it will just wind up being sharded. Verdict: R8 / E3

Maexxna:

• Aegis of Damnation (E-R) – Outside of the Emblem shield, this is all that’s available. Thankfully, it’s very nice. Stats favor an Elemental build, but very suitable for Resto as well, the lack of MP5 being the only negative. Verdict: R8 / E10
• Embrace of the Spider (E-R) – Unless they update the tooltip to be damage casts only, this is more or less similar to the Egg of Mortal Essence. There are better trinkets out there to be sure, but at this stage there just aren’t many to choose from. Verdict: R6 / E4
• Pendant of Lost Vocations (R-E) – Very similar to the Lattice Choker of Light, but with Haste instead of Crit. As you probably have the 25-Emblem neck already, this one is really only useful for a Haste set. Verdict: R3 / E2
• Don’t be fooled by: Timeworn Silken Band. Nice stats, but Spirit is wasted itemization. Let a caster who actually cares about Spirit take it.

Noth the Plagebringer:

• Handgrips of the Foredoomed (E) – The Tier gloves for Elemental Shamans have +hit; these have everything else, short of MP5. As such, they aren’t an ideal Resto piece, but they are an outstanding upgrade if you’re slinging Lightning Bolts. Verdict: R3 / E8
• Ring of the Fated (E-R) – As one of the few available rings that isn’t wasting itemization on non-useful stats, this one is great for an Elemental Shaman. Since you likely aren’t using +MP5 rings worth a darn anyways, it’s not bad for a Resto build either as it will help to boost your auxiliary stats significantly. Verdict: R6 / E9
• Don’t be fooled by: Dark Shroud of the Scourge. Wasted itemization on spirit doesn’t make up for the +hit bonus, you’d be better off using the Dark Soldier Cape from Ebon Blade – honored and saving your roll.

Heigan the Unclean:

• Necrogenic Belt (R-E) – A stellar pickup for any caster Shaman. Some Resto players may lean more towards Haste, but the overall stat allocation on this is fantastic for anyone. Even better, your only possible competiton would be from a Holy Paladin. Verdict: R9 / E9
• Don’t Be fooled by: Ring of Holy Cleansing. Much like the Maexxna ring, it’s wasted itemization for you.

Loatheb:

•   T7 Shoulder Token (E-R) – Valuable enough, more so for Elemental as there just isn’t anything to substitute at this stage of progression (short of the Leather caster shoulders in OS-25). That, and the Emblem ones require 25 man tokens. Verdict: R8 / E10

Patchwerk:

• Drape of Surgery (R) – One of the better Resto cloaks at this stage, somewhat of a sidegrade from the easily obtained Wispcloak; you trade a small amount of MP5 for Haste. This is probably a good trade for most, as it helps to equalize your stats and smooth out overall effectiveness. Inferior for Elemental builds. Verdict: R7 / E2
• Retcher’s Shoulderpads (R-E) – Far more favorable for Resto, but a stopgap shoulder for Elemental builds if you’ve had poor luck with the Tier Token. In either case, the T7 shoulder is superior, but these offer a lot more than the blue piece you’d be wearing without them. Verdict: R6 / E4

Grobbulus:

• Infection Repulser (R-E) – This is the best caster weapon you’ll find without downing Kel’Thuzad. Itemization is ideal for a Resto Shaman, and the spellpower number alone makes it decent for an Elemental build. Verdict: R10 / E8
• Don’t be fooled by: Bone-Linked Amulet. More +Spirit. You know the drill.

Gluth:

• Who knows? he drops the entire loot table, with the exception of Sapphiron and Kel’Thuzad loots, so refer to the appropriate entry.

Thaddius:

• T7 Leg Token (E-R) – Valuable for either, and best-in-slot for either prior to Naxx-25. If you’ve got a roll left at this point, use it as you’re probably going to wind up looking for either this or the headpiece to get your 4/5 bonus. Verdict: R9 / E9

Instructor Razuvious:

• Iron Rings of Endurance (R-E) – At this point, you’re probably sporting the Limb Regeneration Bracers from Drak’Tharon, so this upgrade means adding MP5 and swapping out Haste for Crit. That’s a win for either spec. You’re not going to find a better piece until Naxx-25 here, either. Verdict: R9 / E8

Gothik the Harvester:

• Signet of the Malevolent (E) – Top shelf DPS caster ring, this would only be better if it had Crit instead of Haste. Still, that’s an excellent amount of +hit, and this is one of the slots that you are able to stack that stat. Minimal value for a pure Resto player as it is inferior to either Heroic ring. Verdict: R1 / E10
• Heinous Mail Chestguard (R-E) – Not a bad piece on its own, the only weakness being that most people will favor the Tier setpiece instead. However, it’s worth noting that the T7 Resto Chest has Haste instead of Crit, and the Elemental piece sports a lower Crit number (even with socket bonus). Definitely worth picking up if you don’t have the T7 piece already, and also has a lot of value for building an offspec set if you do because of its versatility after socketing. Verdict: R8 / E7

The Four Horsemen:

•  T7 Chestpiece Token (E-R) – Personally, I wouldn’t waste the roll here unless it’s yours by default. Since the same thing is easily obtained via Emblems (80), it’s better to apply those towards it and collect a harder to find item. On pure value as an item, though… Verdict R8 / E8

Sapphiron:

• Helmet of the Inner Sanctum (E-R) – Forget for a moment that the very next boss can drop the T7 Head Token, this piece is sick. Everything you need is there in spades. Sure, it doesn’t have MP5, but that’s easily remedied by socketing an Insightful Earthsiege Diamond (approx 50 MP5 value) in it. Elemental? How about a nice Chaotic Skyflare Diamond? On top of that, You’re probably wearing a serviceable but inferior blue like Helm of the Lightning Halls at this point anyhow. Get this. Verdict: R9 / E10
• Circle of Life (R-E) – Somewhat of a sidegrade for most Resto casters, it’s more or less equivalent to the Heroic rings, sacrificing some Haste and Stamina for MP5. From an Elemental standpoint, it’s not all that desirable. Verdict: R4 / E1

Kel’Thuzad:

• T7 Head Token (E-R) – If Helmet of the Inner Sanctum just dropped and you got it, you’re out of the running for this. That said, if it didn’t, its a priority item as it represents one of only 2 upgrades for the slot prior to Naxx-25, and is a huge helper towards your 4/5 T7 bonus. Pass it if the Hammer dropped, but not otherwise. Verdict: R10 / E10
• The Soulblade (E) – I’m breaking from tradition here. Yes, it has Spirit. it also has an outlandish amount of spellpower and includes +hit as well. Consider this, if you are Elemental (or if you’re Resto, and your weapon really sucks). Verdict: R2 / E7
• Hammer of the Astral Plane (E-R) – There’s gonna be some competition for this, as Priests, Druids and Paladins are all going to covet it too. In terms of itemization, the only better piece in this slot is the counterpart that Kel’Thuzad drops in Naxx-25, or Wraith Strike. So what if it lacks MP5, this baby is a beauty. Verdict: R10 / E10
• Cloak of the Dying (R-E) – Kind of like the Drape of Surgery, but with Crit instead of Haste. While an Elemental caster might prefer something with +hit, it’s still a fine item. Verdict: R8 / E6

  Finally, an overall priority list for what *I* would want. Top 5 items for each spec, if you could pick anything. I’ll call it, “If I could have just one item from Naxx-10, I’d take….”

Restoration Builds:

1. Hammer of the Astral Plane
2. T7 Head Token / Helmet of the Inner Sanctum
3. T7 Shoulder Token
4. Boots of Persistence
5. Aegis of Damnation

Elemental Builds:

1. Hammer of the Astral Plane
2. T7 Head Token / Helmet of the Inner Sanctum
3. T7 Shoulder Token
4. Signet of the Malevolent
5. Aegis of Damnation

Obsidian Sanctum

  What is listed here represents the combined loot of the 10/25 man loot tables. Note that some of this requires having one or two Drakes up, and that feat isn’t likely to be accomplished until you’re well into Naxx-25 anyhow. OS version / Drake requirement listed after items.

• T7/7.5 Glove Token (R-E) – The relative ease of acquiring this piece through Obsidian Sanctum (versus 60 Emblems) is a big lure here. The T7 gloves are nice, but ultimately less of an upgrade than some other loot drops; if you’re forced to pick between rolling on these or something else, try for the other item first. (10/25)
• Circle of Arcane Streams (E) – No wasted itemization here, and it has +hit. Definitely worth your roll if you’re Elemental. (10)
• Wyrmrest Band (R) – Superior to anything short of 25 man Naxx and Emblem of Valor loot. (25)
• Volitant Amulet (R-E) – Very, very good Resto piece and adaptable to Elemental duty via socket. (10+1)
• Council Chamber Epaulets (R-E) – Augmented version of the Retcher’s Shoulderpads. Superior in some aspects for Resto Shamans to the T7 shoulder, but surpassed by T7.5. (25)
• Mantle of the Eternal Sentinel (E-R) – Despite the fact that they are leather, there is no wasted itemization here. Best in slot for Elemental build prior to Naxx-25. (25)
• Illustration of the Dragon Soul (E-R) – Blizzard keeps on nerfing it, but it remains the best DPS trinket in the game and has a lot of Healing synergy as well. If it drops, this is your priority roll, period – regardless of build. Basically, it’s +200 spellpower on every boss fight. (25)
• Bountiful Gauntlets (R) – Only Malygos-25 has a better item available for this slot at present. Can be used for Elemental, but really favors Resto. (25+1)
• Pennant Cloak (E) – Every other DPS caster will be rolling on this too, as it’s currently best in slot. Given the feat required to get it to drop, you might never see it, though. (25+2)
• Sabatons of Firmament (E-R) – Remarkably similar to the far-easier-to-obtain Treads of Coastal Wandering, the socket in these does allow for a bit more DPS functionality. (25+2)

Har-de-har “3.1 Patch Notes” Review

  Yes, I realize that they’re false at this point. Initially, you could glance over them and see enough that made sense to believe it.. but when you actually have some time to sit down and read ‘em, there’s a lot that doesn’t make sense.

  So, why write any more? Well, two reasons. For starters, despite the mishmash of buff-after-buff contained in them, I think that there were a few good ideas worth a second look. Secondly, these sort of workups frequently start with actual notes that get added to, modified and built on until they form what you saw last post. Bottom line, there’s a grain of authenticity in there, with some of those comments. While it’s certain at this point that those notes aren’t representative of the actual patch, here’s some of the stuff I takeaway from it that I think *would* be welcome in the game, and help balance out some current issues.

General:

• Ulduar: We know this is true, and it’s coming. Yay!
• The Ruby Sanctum: Not sure if this has any basis, but there is certainly room within the Chamber of Aspects (much like CoT) to add more little “Onyxia Style” Raids. I think it would be kind of cool if they added one for each Dragonflight eventually, popping in there to sweep through 4 quick hitters would be a fun night of raiding.
• Silver Covenant / Sunreavers: You’ve got to think that they become active eventually. Whether they are more PvP-based faction reps or what, I don’t know – but I’m hoping that they do offer some different Emblem / Reputation goodies.
• Dual Talent Spec: I haven’t had the courage to look at my “statistics” page in a while to see what I’ve spent switching between Ele and Resto, but I’m likely more than halfway to 4 digits, if not 3/4. I don’t support the “quick-switch” aspect of it as something that can be done in the field; I think it should be more like going to a Lexicon of Power to swap Glyphs where it requires you to go to a Capital City, just without the bankruptcy bonus that spec switching has right now.
• Potency Rating: Bad idea. Keep the stats separate.
• Wintergrasp: Yes please on the teleport out, I hate being a free HK. As to latency in high-pop areas? Good luck.

Death Knights:I don’t know anything about this class other than facerolling the keyboard right now, so I can’t really address this. Better to close your mouth and be thought the fool than open it and remove all doubt, and I sure as heck don’t know what I’m talking about here so I won’t pretend.

Druids:The Shapeshift one is interesting, as most don’t have to do it more than every 3 seconds anyhow and this would alleviate a lot of issues with Ferals lacking anything approximating a mana pool. Kind of radical, admittedly. The Swipe radius thing – something would be nice that allowed AOE tanking in the rear 180 degrees of the Bear, but I don’t know if that’s the answer. I’m definitely for a reduction in the Wild Growth cooldown, though. Beyond that, I’m fairly happy with the 3.0.8 Druid – things are feeling a lot more fixed / competitive than before, and I’m comfortable with my class again.

Hunters:I generally support the stuff that goes towards making exotic pets have some “above and beyond” skills or attributes. They should be special, a BM Hunter has invested damn near all of their talent points to make them so – and keeping pets alive in Raids takes skill sometimes, so it rewards good players. Other than that, something is just broken IMHO when Surv > MM for DPS. I think BM should be the highest DPS, with the caveat that you lose some effectiveness on things like traps to do it, and have to keep the pet alive. MM should produce the highest pet-independent damage (and noticeably so), while Survival is all about utility by nature and thus, DPS should be lesser (though still competitive). I think the current changes are kind of getting away from what my perception of the spirit of things is.

Mages:I’ll admit, I’m in favor of upping their DPS. I hate it that Mages are in Raids for Biscuits + Arcane Intellect. Old school role playing guy that I am, I feel like they should be among the highest DPS in the game as they sacrifice health and armor to make it happen. The Glass Cannon tradeoff… and it’s still lame to see Locks annihilating Mages all the time on the WWS. More parity, please. So what do I like here? Most of it. I’ll bet that the bit about Combustion comes true, since that would parallel what they did to Elemental Mastery for Shammies.

Paladins:Auras should be off the GCD, I can dig it. They did this with Barkskin, and it makes sense. This section of notes is where some of the more outrageous material showed up in the patch notes, too. Note the comments for Divine Plea, Judgement of the Wise, Crusader Strike and Exorcism are all pretty funny. Consequently, I don’t think many of these notes can be viewed as possibly true.

Priests:Yet another class I don’t know. My Priest is a lvl 1 bank alt whom I’ll level once I have 9 80’s – so, never.

Rogues:While the believability of a lot of this is pretty overboard, a lot of the comments seem to be more at the Combat tree. I’m thinking one of two things here: either our author is a bitter Combat Rogue, or Blizz really does have some stuff in store to help bring Combat back up on par with Mutilate-specced Rogues. Killing Spree certainly needs a buff, that’s for sure. Amusing entry: “Kick: damage significantly increased”. What, after they just made it zero?

Shaman:I wouldn’t be surprised to see some new healing mechanics enter. A lot of the gimmicky add-on stuff doesn’t include Chain Heal at all (Ancestral Awakening, Healing Way) so it’s less valuable as there aren’t a lot of HW-spamming Shamans out there. Riptide / Earthliving coefficients could certainly use some work, though I wouldn’t expect to see severe buffs applied as that would likely weigh too much in favor of Shaman Healers vs every other class. Elemental is looking to be pretty normalized now after 3.0.8, and Enhancement is dealing ridiculous damage. I don’t think much more tinkering will be done with those specs.

Warlocks:Who knows. They’re still pissed off about being less effective in PvP, sure… but Lock DPS remains obscene in Raids. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Demonology tree buffed somewhat, because 95% of all Raiding Warlocks are either Affliction or Destruction, but if there’s one class (besides Hunters!) that doesn’t need a DPS increase to be competitive in Raids, it’s Warlocks.

Warriors:I’m still more or less a neophyte on this class too… but what I see right now is Prot Warriors as the most consistent tanks, and Fury dealing ZOMG DPS. Not too much broken or uncompetitive… critical block is a cool idea, though.

Professions:

• Alchemy: Hell yes, the runic potions should cost 1 less Icethorn / Lichbloom. They’re too cost-prohibitive for what they are at this point, that stuff is so annoying to farm.
• Inscription: More Glyphs, please. Especially minors, as a lot of classes only have 7-8 to pick from anyhow. It’d be nice to see a Glyph for every ability, if only to force players to select 3 from a list that might have 7-8 viable choices for the spec and reduce the min/max effect that is so prevalent today.
• Enchanting: As much as I might detest farming a Raid mob (see: Moroes) for a specific enchant, it’s certainly less fulfilling to know that you can now buy everything from a trainer. I’m in favor of adding some drops.
• Engineering: The Bike is too expensive, and the gimmicks aren’t good enough. Still a fun profession, but one that needs some love for functionality. It would be nice if Engineers had more BOE stuff that was usable by non-Engineers. Belts? I dunno. Trinkets might be a good focus area. Maybe bows and crossbows too?
• Blacksmithing: I suppose if I were to add anything to this, it would be some Mail love. I’m glad that they can finally craft shields, though. It would be nice to see a greater variety of craftable weapons as well, outside of 78 different maces.
• Jewelcrafting: You know epic gems (along with epic prices) are coming eventually, so I’ll buy that one.

Other stuff (that I’d like to see):

• Customizable Raid Frames (say, the option to make it like Grid)
• The idea of confirmation dialogue for a saved instance is a fine idea.
• Display the bank as one large tab? Yes, please.
• Add new currencies to the Currency Tab: I don’t know how much you really can do, but I’d like to see some kind of consolidation icon for Tabards like they use for Keys.
• Netherweave and frostweave for rep? Might actually make netherweave worthwhile again.
• Trade multiple Emblems of Heroism for a single Emblem of Valor: this makes sense. Yes, it should be high – but given that full-clear of all 25 man content right now means 24 Emblems of Heroism a week (assuming Maly is 2, as I’m not sure), and friggin’ bracers are 60… it just takes way too long to get anything here.
• I bet the one for Damnation is true, it’s stats suck for the iLevel.