And We're Back, Baby!

Internet? Check.

Updated WoW client on my Laptop? Check.

Authenticator? Check.

Looks like we're back in business. I miss the far better graphics and computing power of the iMac, but I'm not going to take it from my parents, since they bought it for themselves. We thought about working out a deal where I bought them a new computer and took the iMac instead (think inexpensive mac mini in exchange for the year old iMac), but when I checked prices I realized it would just be better to buy myself a new iMac and let them keep theirs.

I did a mass AddOn download (damn if Minion from MMOUI still isn't working for Macs...), and did my best to set up a decent-looking UI in the game using an alt. I'm honestly not overly happy with what I came up with but I won't complain too much. It works for now. Ideally, I'd love an all-in-one UI, like Spartan, but it usually ends up being too restrictive. I'm especially missing the giant 24 in. screen from the iMac as my much smaller MacBook Pro is lacking in screen real estate.

I'm surprised at how many AddOns I use. Even with my long list, though, I don't have a decent unit frame AddOn. I've always simply used the Blizzard ones. Something tells me that's something I'll have to deal with later. I've heard good things about Pitbull, Grid, and X-Perl. They all do the job, they're just all a bit different. I've also heard that you can make Pitbull look like Grid. It takes time to set them all up, though. :/ I don't know anything about this stuff.

Pitbull just looks sexy. It has 3D unit pictures, nice-looking bars and looks like it can be set up in a really clean way. It uses icons and such for a more visual way of communicating. The only thing I'm worried about is that for my laptop, it may be too sexy-looking. The poor thing is about ttwo years old now, maybe a little older, and I doubt it can handle all the processing that Pitbull appears to need. Also, it may have so many options that just setting it up would take me hours.

Grid is clean. It's small, light-weight (it appears that way, at any rate), and efficient. There aren't many bells and whistles, though (at least not at first glance). I also would have to figure out how to read it in a raid setting. I like pictures, icons, things that let me know exactly what the hell is going on without having to think too much. I mean, it's a game, not a chore. The little indicators may not be enough for me. Interpreting it in the middle of a fight may not be easy.

X-Perl looks a great deal like Pitbull, but easier to configure. That probably also means that it is a little less versatile. It has an option panel that appears easy to read and work with, so I can probably set it up in a half hour. I'm not sure, though, if my computer can handle it. It's sexy, but, like Pitbull, I'm worried that there is too much going on.

You know, I shouldn't discount an all-in-one UI just yet. Spartan is still one of the absolute best-looking UI's out there. With a few extra items, I bet I could make it work just fine. Or I could get a few extra things, like CBH Viewport, and set something up that will give me some other spaces to work with. If I ever get this all figured out, I'll post a picture. :D

Get That Groove Back

So patch 3.1 is firmly in place (mostly) and that brings with it all the fun of a new patch and all the diffculties of one, like broken add-ons and funky interfaces. I think about half of the ones I downloaded don't work anymore. D: It's okay, though. I'm sure in the next week or so they'll get updated. Of course, a broken interface is actually the least of my problems, I think.

I used to have this great system down and my time on WoW was pretty organized. Not in a "too-uptight" way, just an efficient way, that let me get the most done in the shortest amount of time. That system has fallen by the wayside completely. I realized last night, totally exhausted from allergy medication, that my perfect little system had more or less imploded over the last few days in anticipation of the Ulduar patch.

I was all over the place, doing the Argent Tournament dailies, then trying to head back to Dalaran to try the new fishing dailies (and, man, those take you all over Northrend, don't they?) back to the tourney, then getting sidetracked in Storm Peaks... basically, I was like a chicken with my head cut off. Normally this wouldn't bother me, but I've noticed other things about my playstyle that has really started to bug me.

For one, I'm a tank that doesn't really tank. Isn't that the dumbest thing ever? I haven't run any instance in well over a week. The good thing is that I'll be running Heroic Utgarde Keep tonight more or less for sure. If it goes well, maybe our group will run a couple others. I mean, I've been level 80 now for weeks and have less than 10 heroic badges. So that makes, what... 2 Heroic dungeon runs total? Sad. Just pathetically sad. I should be getting geared up and ready! I mean, eventually we're going to raid, right? ...right?

I purchased the dual spec ability, so I can go fury when I don't want to tank, but, honestly, I have no clue how to play a fury warrior. That's going to take time to research and get down. I can at least say that my gear I have for my dps set isn't too terrible, for a starter set. Most of it is at least blue in quality. For me, it will be more a matter of figuring out a rotation, and not starving myself of rage. Something tells me the fury spec I went with isn't the most efficient, either, so that may have to change.

Of course, the system still has a few kinks to work out as I realized this morning during a Wintergrasp fight. I switched to Fury, then noticed how low my hp got and decided to go back to prot. Imagine my surprise when I didn't have devastate or shockwave in my arsenal? Last night, one of the guild's death knights complained about it, too, but since it had worked fine when I first got the ability I thought he was just missing something, you know, on his end. Turns out he was right. When I switched, it didn't redistribute some of my talent points, specifically at Devastate and below in the Prot tree. Of course, I didn't figure this out until after I ported back to Undercity to go relearn those abilities, thinking I'd have to buy them off my trainer. Still, having two specs at my disposal is a cool new feature and I'm sure Blizz will get it worked out soon.

I'm tempted to work on fury by staying in that secondary spec during my dailies, at least in the lower zones, like Scholozar Basin. Yeah, I'm woefully behind on my Oracles rep, not to mention any other rep. I'm going to have to map out all my dailies again and try to figure out the order in which to do them. I used QuestHelper for so long that I don't think I know how to play without it. Lightheaded and TomTom might help me out, but honestly QuestHelper did what those two do automatically AND tell me the most efficient way to go about them. Thankfully, Outfitter is back, so gear swapping isn't an issue. I don't know about QuestHelper. I really liked automatic waypoints.

In any case, I have time. Our guild still isn't ready to raid and we won't be until we start getting the newer 80's all geared up with heroics. If this run tonight goes well, maybe we can play around with doing a weekly thing. That would be nice, and get us used to a schedule that may evolve into a raiding schedule. In the meantime, maybe I'll PuG the Northrend instances I've never seen, not as a tank, but as a fury warrior on regular to get even better gear. That would be nice. :)

Split Personality and the Tourney

Although 3.1 has caused some problems, seeing as the realms were down again this morning when I woke up at about 6 am, I was able to get on a play for a couple hours last night. Nearly all my addons that I manually updated (RIP WowMatrix) don't work with 3.1. Don't know why. GoGoMount, for example is claiming it's out of date. Frustrating, because I don't want to deal with Swatter constantly giving me error messages, so I just leave all the "out of date" ones turned off. Still, I feel a little crippled without all my shiny addons.

Anyway, I logged onto Yrovi and headed straight back to Dalaran by way of my hearthstone (Yay 30 minute cooldown!). I started by going to my trainer in Undercity, stopping by the mailbox on the way to pick up some gold I sent to push me over the 1000 gold mark. I set my options to allow me to preview my talents before permanently learning them and went to town fixing up my main spec, which is still a Protection build. Once that was taken care of, I paid my trainer to "expand my mind" (goodbye 1000G) and recieved the dual spec ability.

My second spec is a Fury build, one I'll probably have to change later on down the road. I've never specced fury, having leveled protection the whole way. I have no idea what I'm doing. It's... interesting to say the least and definitely feels like a newly-discovered split personality. I do at least have a full set of DPS gear and it even contains a good amount of blue items. I switched out my gear, got into Beserker stance (very strange for me lol) and took the zeppelin to Howling Fjord.

My two weapons I have are a 2H Sword and a 2H Mace. My 2H Sword skill was much higher, seeing as I was still occasionally carrying around the Hellboar Carver for a bit back before patch 3.0. I hadn't touched a 2H Mace, though, since about level 30. My skill was way below 200, so the poor wargs and Shoveltusks outside the Horde base got a beating. At least I got some chilled meat and Shoveltusk flanks out of the deal, allowing me to finally make some Great Feasts. Not sure when I'll get to use them, though. Maybe Thursday when the guild does those heroic runs, for fun and lolz.

Even with that little detour, though, my weapon skills are still too low. Figured that out when I decided to do some dailies for gold since I was now broke. It took me far too long to kill the Captured Vrykul in the mine in Brunhildar village. Still no Polar bear. She hates me. D:

After playing around a little more, I switched back to my more comfortable Prot spec and gear and made for the northern part of Icecrown. There, right where it was supposed to be, was the Argent Tournament, already in full swing, full of people. I made my way to the Argent Pavillion, picked up the starter quest and got to work. I started earning my Aspirant tokens on my way to becoming a Valiant. I did all the dailies available to me, picking up some nice gold and my daily allotment of 5 tokens. I also honed my mounted combat skills, working on the various training dummies. I must say, they improved the Tourney a great deal from when I messed with it on the PTR.

They moved the mount you need to complete the various mounted quests to a spot right outside your faction's main tent. There are also various Argent Champions you can ask to explain how to fight against various training dummies. This is pure win in my mind. Trying to just figure it out on the PTR was frustrating. With all that, I managed to snag both Argent Aspiration and Tilted! already, so I imagine getting all the others won't take too long. ;-)

I'm already exalted with all of the Horde racial factions, so that part of the tournament is more or less unimportant. Of course, it also means that I don't have to worry about grinding that rep or wasting my Champion's Seals on faction commendations. It also means that certain high-level achievements will automatically happen when I get the lower level ones. I forsee many titles in my future and I don't even have to be Timear.

The only drawback? I'll probably get so focused on the darn tourney that I'll forget about everything else. There's so much to do now that there is no way I'll get it all done. I haven't even mentioned the new fishing dailies, or even the sweeping changes to cooking and fishing, or the fact that I'm totally behind on my other rep grinds, like the Oracles and Sons of Hodir. Gah! I want to do everything!

Netherwing, MacBook Pro, and the Cavalry

I finally got around to pulling out my WotLK disk and updating WoW on my laptop. I'll have to try out all those new add-ons I mentioned in the last post to see if they really take up less space/are lighter in general. I'm also looking at a different action bar called LunarSphere. It looks like HolyHope or Necrosis, but for everybody. It comes with either a blank template or a class template (or one where you can completely start from scratch) but I haven't gotten around to setting it up yet, aside from telling it to use the Warrior template on Yrovi. Messing with it on my laptop first will mean that I'll know exactly how I'll want it on my main computer when 3.1 hits. I still need to figure out how to tell it to hide the Blizzard bars.

I've been working for the Netherwing faction a great deal, and I'm friendly with them now. Hopefully I'll be exalted with them in two weeks. No one else is working on that rep right now on Gul'dan, it seems, so I pretty much have the whole floating island to myself. No competition is great for finding those eggs as well, for extra rep. So far, it looks like I'll average about 2 eggs a day. I need to do the Booterang quest still, to open up that daily. Looks like it will be lots of fun.

Needless to say, I'm doing this quest for the mounts. I love the way they look, even if they do remind me of BC rather than WotLK. Still, I wasn't able to do the grind when you're supposed to, at level 70. I have to admit, I can't imagine trying to do it at the correct level. All the mobs are level 70 and some of them hit pretty hard. The mobs that can see through your disguise would have been instant death at 70 (I'm able to kill them, but not without using a health pot and enraged regen, thanks to their huge health pool). I'm in no danger of dieing, of course, but I can just imagine how much of a pain the opening questline and these dailies were for those who did it at level 70. Props have to go to them, for sure.

I've filled the barn so now I'm trying to lead the cavalry. I'm doing pretty well, too. Gold is no object to me. I don't stockpile it. It's fake currency in a game and I only get it in order to buy up vanity items and other things I want. I'm no in-game millionare, nor do I wish to be. Eventually I'll use it for enchants and raid-related items, although buff foods I can make on my own at this point. I want that albino drake, though, so right now I'm working on getting lots of mounts. I currently have 29 mounts. Once I bought my epic flight training and my first mount, I took a look at how much gold I earned the next day and decided to buy a few more. I farmed and purchased the mats needed to craft my new roflcopter and outright bought two more wind riders. The yellow one is far less interesting, so I'll probably wait on that one. Once I get the Netherwing rep, I'll probably buy one of each of those as well, but my favorite will be the one I earn, just as my favorite wind rider was the one I first purchased and experienced epic flight with. :)

Finally, yet another guild-mate ding'd 80 yesterday (Grats War!) so raiding is coming ever closer on the horizon. I think the guild will probably start with something simple, like the Vault of Archavon or the Obsidian Sanctum. Obviously the Vault is the simplest level 80 raid instance in the game at the moment and might be a good way to get to know our members, how we work together, and our raid composition. Right now I think we have a few too many tanks, so we'll have to see how that will work, although that might just be a moot point with 3.1 and dual specs. The loot from there is all PvP gear, though, so it would really only be useful (in terms of progression) for us to practice together. Still, that's useful in it's own right, especially for me, who has never raided except as a joke. And as much as I hate to say it, I wouldn't want to have to be the one who switches to dps... I leveled prot. I haven't been in any stance other than defensive for about 8 months or so... maybe longer. Hopefully one of the other tank-spec'd folk are willing to switch to dps.

Needless to say, things are looking up. Stuff is about to get interesting. :D

Add-On Overhaul

Blizzard recently changed the rules a little when it came to add-ons. I don't author add-ons, nor do I understand code or any of that stuff. Lots of people are talking about these changes, though, and I understand some of the basics of what has happened. I also understand that a few authors for some of the popular add-ons have more or less thrown in the towel (Outfitter, for example) while others say they will continue to update, but not to the extent they used to, due to the changes set forth by Blizzard. Some of the changes prohibit authors from asking for donations in the add-ons themselves or for charging for the add-on(*cough*Carbonite*cough*).

I'm honestly not sure how I feel about these changes. I'm able to see both sides. Add-on authors put in a ton of time and energy into their code. On the other hand, their product wouldn't exist at all without Blizzard and World of Warcraft. Can they honestly expect to make any kind of profit due to their "piggy-backing" of Blizzard's product? Or how can Blizzard so firmly and bluntly deny these authors any profit from their work? Work that improves Blizzard's game a great deal, even giving the developers ideas for new, integrated features (like the new Gear Manager which theoretically "replaces" Outfitter). It's a difficult situation.

It's also made me really look at the add-ons I use and which ones I could probably do without (Bejeweled, I'm kinda looking at you...) and which ones I can't live without. I've narrowed the list down to some categories:

• Action Bars (Buttons): I absolutely must have some kind of action bar add-on. The default actionbars included in the Blizzard UI  are clunky and unorganized, showing up all over the place. Plus, I love being able to easily map keybinds. I'll be using Bartender till the day they shut it down, I think.
• Extra Action Bars (Info): I enjoy having the little bars at the top (and/or bottom) to give me information all in one organized area, like my open bag space, my current gold, my durability percentage, my ammo count, etc. There are several out there, but Titan Panels is what I use.
• Threat Meter: Even if I'm not always looking at it at all times, now that I'm getting into high-end content like heroics, I like knowing where my group is in terms of threat and how I'm holding it. Omen ftw.
• Auction House help: I'm currently using the all-knowing, all-powerful Auctioneer. It does it's job really well, keeps all the info I could ever need... maybe too much info. I love Auctioneer, but I'm beginning to wonder if there is a lighter-weight mod out there as an option. I think I'll try AuctionLite for a bit and see if I like it as much. To be honest, I don't use Auctioneer to its fullest because I don't understand half of what it's doing. :/ StdDev? WTF?
• Gear Management: I've been using Outfitter. No more, now, since the author has thrown in the towel, so I'll try Blizzard's default Gear Manager and see if I can live with it. Honestly, the fewer mods I have to update, the better. If it ends up being really bad, I'll search for a new one then. I just think that with the new dual spec option in 3.1, this is going to be an absolute necessity.
• Raid Help: While I haven't started raiding yet, it's on the horizon, almost in reach, and I'll need all the help I can get. That's why I'll keep Deadly Boss Mods. As far as I know, there isn't anything better out there.
• Cast Bars: I used the default casting bars forever and recently got Quartz and can't look back. These are awesome and make my life easier, as they show cooldowns in a bar format which makes more sense to me, as well as a swing timer. Perfect for me, so it stays.
• Combat Text: I've mentioned how I love Mik's Scrolling Combat Text. I honestly don't know how I played this game before using this mod. It tells me when stuff procs and when my health is getting low (or mana, on my alts).
• Inventory Mod: I've been searching for a good bag/inventory mod, and I think I'm settling for ArkInventory as long as I can get it organized the way I want. I tried Bagnon, but it just wasn't a good fit, although it worked as advertised.
• Quest Help: I leveled my first toon to level 50 or so without any quest-related mod. It was slow-going. My first toon? A hunter. Beast Mastery spec no less. I'll never go without some kind of quest help again, even if it means I'm doing everything on ezmode. I don't care. I must have something, anything, to make it easier. Naturally I've been using QuestHelper for ages, but the author has posted that, while he will keep it updated for now, and possibly the future, he won't be adding any new features due to the change in asking for donations and such in the add-on. Due to this change, I'm going to search for a decent equivalent, just in case. I'm currently thinking of going with TomTom and Lightheaded as a start. Of course, Blizzard is implementing a quest tracker in the new 3.1 update that even allows you to use quest items without opening your bags or putting them on an action bar. That's an improvement for me. Maybe in the end, Blizzard finally fixed how you track quests. We'll see.

The other main reason I've begun thinking through all of this is because my current collection of mods use up a ton of memory when I play. At least, I think they do at over 100MB. I'm guessing that mods like QuestHelper and Auctioneer are big culprits here, as they have large libraries that are accessed often. As much as I'm making a "can't live without" list, I'm also thinking about how heavy these mods are, and how much I can trim off just by making a few choices, or going with Blizzard's default UI in certain places. I think the way I'll test all this is by finally getting my laptop dusted off again (MacBook Pro) and install all of the add-ons I think will be "lightweight" and see if it still runs okay. If so, and I like the add-ons, then maybe I'll use them on my iMac as well.

Altoholic and Why I Need It

I have many toons. Far too many, really. For example, I've filled the 10 slots on my main server with one of every type of class, just so I could try them all out:

Yrovi, my main, a Forsaken warrior; Untainted, Blood Elf rogue; Eruza, Troll priest; Xapha, Blood Elf mage; Mål, Blood Elf paladin; Dahr, Orc hunter; Phedré, Forsaken warlock; Purah, Blood Elf death knight; Xyno, Tauren druid; and Whitestone, Tauren shaman (19 twink at the moment, although not a great twink)

I love each and every one, even if I don't currently play them all. I change my focus about every two months, I guess, usually choosing a pair of alts to play when I need to step away from Yrovi. Lately it's been Mål a great deal, with a bit of my rogue thrown in now that he has no rested experience, as she's just starting the Arathi Highlands area. Not my favorite place to level, but not terrible, either, and I haven't been there in ages.

Because I have all 10 slots filled (plus more toons on other servers), and only one of them is at the level cap, I find it hard to figure out what's going on with each of them at any given time. That's why I have Altoholic, an alt management add-on. It's pretty fantastic. It allows you to see each character's professions, auctions, bag contents, gold, etc. It also shows you how much rested experience each toon has, and what amount of experience they are at before the next level. That's got to be my favorite feature right now. I like the boost to my experience as leveling goes super fast when you're rested up, and knowing which toons are closest to leveling makes choosing which to play a little easier.

It's great for professions as well. If a profession recipe drops on one toon, I can tell very quickly if any of my alts can use that recipe and then mail it to them. If I have a toon that isn't high enough level to use it, the tooltip on the item will let me know how many skill-ups away until they can. I'm able to manage their professions very well, now, and I'm actually able to level them without having to buy too many mats as I can shift things around when I get random items from chests and such. For example, Mål has jewelcrafting. He is currently needing silver, a fairly rare metal, and it is pricy on the AH. I popped on Altoholic, and used the search feature to find Silver. It looked in all my alts bags and just happened to find a large stack of Silver bars in Yrovi's bank. I had forgotten about them, and they've been rotting there. Perfect. He got them and leveled further in Jewelcrafting. Yrovi opened a bank slot. Win-win.

Basically, it's very informative. If you have a ton of extra characters, go get this add-on. It will save you some grief.

Glyphs and Mik Do a Warrior Good

How on earth did I function before Mik's Scrolling Battle Text? This Add-on is freaking awesome. :D It lets me know everything that is going on. I think the only other thing I need now is a way to easily see my rage and health in the center of my screen and I may never need to look anywhere else but the center of the screen ever again. Maybe Satrina's Digits (from TankSpot).

I've also glyphed up recently, and I'm noticing a definite difference in how quickly and efficiently I can take down mobs now. I'm running with:

Majors:

• Glyph of Blocking
• Glyph of Cleaving
• Glyph of Revenge

Minors:

• Glyph of Bloodrage
• Glyph of Thunder Clap
• Glyph of Charge

This combination is pretty sweet, I find. My major glyphs allow me to keep the bonus from Blocking up nearly 100% of the time, thanks to all my Sword-and-Board procs, and I've macroed Revenge and Heroic Strike together so that I don't really have to think about it. Of course, that being said, there is the occasional mix up with the macro, where it will attempt to que the Heroic Strike right as my auto attack happens or before the buff is actually applied. Still, it's working well so far and I've noticed the increase in DPS. I'm using PowerAuras to help me know what buffs/debuffs I've got on me at any given time, but it isn't perfect as you have to set everything up yourself, manually. Still, it's helpful. The Cleave glyph hasn't gotten a workout, yet, but I'm planning on running some instances this weekend, so it should get some use then.

I've already noticed the change to Charge. It feels like I can be miles away from a mob and still run right for it at top speed. Very fun, but I'll need to keep a better eye out for other players so I don't accidently tag a mob they are obviously going for. I find it frustrating when someone does it to me, so I attempt not to do it to others. Since CC isn't really used anymore in instances, I feel like the change to Thunder Clap will be beneficial, especially in fights like Violet Hold and such. We'll see how it works. I didn't use Bloodrage very often before, simply because I thought of better ways to gain some rage (Charge?), but now I can get some before a fight, maybe for buffing up party-mates. In terms of the other minors that are available to Warriors, this was my best bet after the other two I have.

UI and 1000 Fish

I have, over the course of the last few weeks, been working on gearing up for Heroics and Raiding. Everything is going quite well, and I'm steadily working my way to some of the best gear I can get (and the best I've ever done with any toon, period). It's all very exciting and very rewarding.

I am, however, woefully behind when it comes to upgrading my UI. I stand before you and very shamefully admit that I don't have any of the core add-ons that so very many other players (especially tanks) have. I'm probably the only level 80 tank in the world that doesn't have Omen. I mean, what tank doesn't have a threat meter?!? It's awful. So, since I'm so focused now on getting geared up, I've decided it's time to gear up my UI as well. Today I'll be downloading Omen Threat Meter, Deadly Boss Mod, Mik's Scrolling Battle Text, Quartz, and something to make my (eventual) raid UI look nice, like X-Perl or PitBull. I haven't decided on one of those yet. Grid is also on my mind, because, really, how much do I, as the tank, need to see?

I already use Bartender for my action bars and I like it a great deal. I use Outfitter for my gear-swapping needs. I'm still searching for a good bag mod (I might try Bagnon). I use SexyMap for my Mini-map modding needs. As a fan of Project Marmot and Ciderhelm's UI, I'm going to get CBH Viewport to see if I can't clean up my screen a little by adding some space above and below. We'll see. It may interfere with how TitanBar works.

I'm also going to have to really sit down and look at my action bar set up and my keybindings. I need to be able to spam Heroic Strike easily as Rage is no issue with most fights now. The way I have it now, I usually click-spam it and this should really be a no-no.

Regardless, I'm really looking forward to all these changes, as it means I'm finally seeing end-game content I never thought I'd see. :)

Oh, and as for 1000 fish... I got the achievement last night while fishing in Feralas to level up fishing and cooking together. I'm using El's Guide, and slowly trudging onward to get these professions skilled to max. Currently, Yrovi is hanging out in the Wailing Caverns catching Deviate Fish until I reach 350 or so. Unfortunately I don't have the recipie to do anything with them, but I should be able to sell the fish alone for a pretty penny. I hope, anyway. :)