[WoW IC] Shadow

Log of Expert level Priest, Solinari

Day 34

It took me a few days, but I recovered from my little ordeal in Tarren Mill. Rather than shatter my will, I think it has steeled it. I've redoubled my efforts into becoming more powerful. One day I hope to meet that Death Knight again, I won't be as lenient as that Blood Knight.

To that end, I've decided that I need to embrace both aspects of what it means to be a Priest. All my life I had dedicated to healing, and the ways of the Light. Even when protecting myself, I used the blinding aura of Light to intimidate, and when necessary, punish those who would do me harm. With what happened to me at Tarren Mill, I've discovered that while power from the Light is potent for healing, they are simply not meant to hurt. To truely be effective at slaying the evils in Azeroth, I would need to turn to more dark arts.

I made my way to Lady Balestra in Silvermoon, to inquire for training in the ways of Shadow. She didn't seem surprised at my inquiry, I guess in these dark times more followers of the light are looking at effective ways to fight back. She mentioned that there is a way to follow two avenues of the light at the same time, but it takes special training. It also doesn't mean that I will be equally powerful in both aspects, the training would simply allow me to switch which aspects becomes more powerful, after some meditation.

Lady Balestra directed me to Master Aldrae, possibly the most powerful Priest trainer in Silvermoon. He started my training to allow me to switch aspects. The training itself wasn't terribly difficult, though Master Aldrae seemed surprised that I was able to get through it so quickly. We were finished within a few days. Master Aldrae then directed me to Orgrimmar, to study under a Dark Cleric Cecille. He said she would be able to teach me all about being a Shadow Priest.

Shadow Training

Going to see Dark Cleric Cecille was a mixed blessing. I was glad that she was located in Orgrimmar, and not in the Undercity. I was relieved to know that I wouldn't have to spend any more time in Undercity than absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, getting to Orgrimmar involves going through Undercity, plus the Dark Cleric is a Forsaken ( figures ), so it would still be a constant reminder (plus the smell).

Tomorrow I set off for Orgrimmar to start the training. The trip should be quicker because of the extra training I've received in riding. Strut ( my hawkstrider ) received some new armor as well, so he's in fine form.

I've decided NOT to tell Luni about my decision and training. She thinks I'm just going back to adventuring, like before. She's already worried about Nuitarri. Her worry has kept her pre-occupied so I haven't had to lie per-se, but I don't like keeping secrets from her. She doesn't like anything to do with the Arcane, let alone Shadow teachings. I guess she can't help it. I've heard its drilled from the very first day of magecraft to be wary of the Arcane arts, since they so often lead to Shadow magic. Shadow magic being so addictive, many a magii have fallen under its spell never to be the same again. Luni still hasn't told me exactly what happened to Nuitarri, and why she isn't here yet. Maybe on my way to Orgrimmar I'll inquire with a Magii to see if I can find anything.

[WoW] 4.0.3a The Shattering thoughts

I would love to say that the most memorable part of my first night playing after the shattering was the new vistas, or the new classes, or even seeing Deathwing ( which I haven't yet ).

But no, the most memorable part was feeling like a noob.

The biggest contributing factor to this was that I could not figure out how to get anywhere. I was logged into my Solinari, and trying to make my way down to Duskwallow March , on orders from Warchief GARROSH *grumble grumble*. I made my way ( on the regular, non-epic ground mount), through Durotar and over to Northern Barrens. Passed through Crossroads and ended up at the "Great Divide". I followed the divide looking for a way to cross. Asking in chat yielded the usual "Lol jump" answers. Wowhead for once was no help. Someone suggested I fly over, which would be fine if I had any flight paths down there. I made my way over to Ratchet and decided to fly to Thunderbluff and run east to the barrens from there.

After arriving in Thunderbluff, I rode out to Mulgore. Unfortunately the entrance to the barrens from Mulgore now has a huge gate, aptly named "The Great Gate". I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to get through it. Frustrated I flew back to Ratchet. I then made my way across the coast and finally made it down past the divide and into Duskwallow Marsh. By then I was too tired to quest, so decided to just level my cooking on my alliance toons.

Sweet potato portion of the cooking, I could not figure out where the Pilgrim's Bounty setup was in darnassus. I thought that since every other city had it outside the city walls, then it should be in Rutheran Village. It was not, someone on Trade said it was at the Exodar. I flew over there, but it wasn't. I could not figure out how to fly back, simply because the flight point had been moved. The hyppogriphs were in the same place, but the flight master was gone. After 15 minutes, someone told me it was INSIDE the exodar now. Of course I should have remembered, since I FLEW INTO Exodar. By this point I was annoyed and just logged off.

Granted quite a few of these were my fault, but it reminds you how annoying getting around was before the Shattrah/Dalaran portals. For high level toons, its not as big of an annoyance, mainly because they already have most of the flight paths. But for people re-running alts, its a major headache. Not that I'm suggesting its a bad move, just something we have to get used to.

Its true though, it does make the world feel bigger, just because you have to run through more of it.

[C++]

Learned something new today.

If you get the "jump to case label" error in g++. This is caused when you don't have brackets in a switch-case but are trying to instantiate variables within the case statement.

switch( num )

{

case 1:

int a;

...

break;

....

Bad.

switch (num)

{

case 1:

{

int a;

....

}

Good.

[WoW] Title to Level

In the stories I try to write, there's really no concept of "level". I can't say in character that I've leveled up or reached a new level. Usually you just say less/more powerful. So I think I've come up with a simple way to express the levels, in a way that people can relate to. I've made a mapping between the profession levels and class levels.

In Wrath, the highest profession skill you can attain is 450. When you start a proffession, you begin at level 1. There are currently 6 proffession levels you train for as you progress: Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, Artisan, Master and Grand Master ( Cataclysm is introducing Illustrious Grand Master). I've broken up the 80 levels, into these "titles".

Apprentice 1 - 14
Journeyman 15 - 29
Expert 30 - 44
Artisan 45 - 60
Master 61 - 70
Grand Master 71 - 80
Illustrious 81 - 85

Master, Grand Master and Illustrious corresponds to the levels added when that skill as activated. The other 4 levels were divided between the 60 levels in Vanilla. This will mean I'll have to retcon some of my old stories, since Lunitari and Nuitari are still considered Apprentice Magic Users, and Solinari is now an Expert Priest. I'll have to find a way to explain an "Expert" Priest, but that should be fun.

[WoW IC] Unexpected help

Adventurer Log, Solinari, Priest.

Day 15

Spent some time in the Undercity today. Wow, that place was a bit terrifying. There were body parts everywhere, not to mention falling off some of the inhabitants. I think the worst part was the smell, I'm still trying to get it out of my robes. I stayed in Undercity only as long as absolutely needed before venturing to Tarren Mill.

At Tarren Mill I had my first taste of Alliance "hospitality". I was hired by the inn keeper at Tarren Mill to gather some herbs and hunt for some meat. Not the most prestigious instructions, but coin is coin. I was just returning with the meat and herbs when I heard a commotion outside the inn. Outside was an Alliance death knight! The death knight was not in a particularly good mood, judging from the way he was coming after the Forsaken, he seemed rather grumpy. I guess he hasn't quite figured out the difference between Scourge and Forsaken. Strange for a Death Knight to not know the difference, but maybe he just didn't care?

Before today, I'd never actually SEEN a Death Knight before, only descriptions and accounts from survivors of the fall of Silvermoon. They're quite a bit more intimidating in person. In fact they're very intimidating when they're barreling at you on a deathcharger while the guards are 2 strides behind him and losing ground. For a second I considered getting onto my hawkstrider and making a run for it, but from the pace his deathcharger was going, I wouldn't have gotten far.

By instinct alone I cast my go-to protective spell, "Shield" on myself. I knew that the shield would protect me as well as some dried leaves but it was purely instinct at this point. The shield materialized, which looked about as imposing as the dried leaves I mentioned before. At this point I steeled my nerves and willed myself not to look away. If I'm going to die, I'm gonna die facing my opponnent, not cowering away. Before my eyes could shut out the actual blow, I did notice that my shield became much more opaque. For a split second I stood there, waiting for the flash of pain and darkness, but none came. Instead a dull POP was all I heard. Opening my eyes, I saw the death knight's rune blade arching once again for my head. The blade simply deflected as if it had hit pure stone. The death knight himself had a confused look on his face, probably the mirror of my own confusion. The death knight's head shifted ever so slightly over my right shoulder and he took a reactive step backwards.

I turned my head to see what could possibly enlisit such a reaction from a death knight. Behind me was, a Blood Knight. This was no journeyman blood knight, judging by the armor he was wearing, and the way he stood, this was a grizzled veteran. His left hand was extended after having cast a Blessing of Protection ( thus saving me ). In his other hand was the hilt of a huge black battle axe. The axe itself glowed, and seemed to actually BLEED. With the cowel of his helm over his face, he looked like the epitome of a golden warrior out for blood.

This image was not lost on the death knight as he took another step backwards. By then the forsaken guards had closed in and were preparing to deliver their own attack on the death knight. With surprising speed the deathknight leaped to get back on his deathcharger and rode away from the forssaken guards. With the speed of the mount he was able to start putting distance between himself and the forsaken, but not before a few arrows could ding his armor.

When I tured back to thank my savior, he was gone. I caught a brief glimpse of him as he rode off on his own red and gold charger, going the opposite direction. After that turned in my herbs and meat, took the next bat back to Undercity, then headed back to Silvermoon. Usually I would have stayed in Tarren Mill to save on the fare, but all I wanted to be was back in the semi-familiar surroundings of Silvermoon.

Luni met me at the door to our little apartment in Silvermoon. We had dinner, and I told her about the experience. She seemed more frightened than I was. I tend to forget that Luni hasn't been outside the Silvermoon walls yet, so in many ways she's more sheltered than I. I think I'm going to stay in Silvermoon a few days, let me get myself back together.

[WoW IC] Lunitari

Excerpt from the log of Lunitari, Apprentice Blood Mage...

Day 2, Apprentice Mage Log

I left Sunstrider Isle mid-morning yesterday. Currently staying in an inn on the west side of the Ruins of Silvermoon. They've blocked off the East side of the city, no access from this side to the next. Some of the guards mentioned that in order to gain access to the city, adventurers have to cross the dead scar farther down south. They are able to provide protection up to the dead scar, and from the dead scar into Silvermoon proper, but not inside the dead scar.

It took me longer to get here than it should because I stopped to help a few folks out on the road. With the state of the land and everything, we need to really stick together. Also, they were paying some good coin, and my purse is very light. I've saved about 10 silver up to this point. Not a lot, but certainly more than I've ever had at one time. There was no real need for coin at the Mage school, most of our needs were provided for by the school.

Spellcasting has gotten easier with time, I think I'm getting more and more used to the arcane energies. Casting a fireball has become almost second nature now, though i'm embarrased to admit that I occasionally still singe my robes in the attempt. Magister Erona mentioned that as my proficiency with spells increases, I will need to train with more experienced Blood Mages.

I'm told that in the near future I'll have to pick a school of magic to specialization into. I heard about this specialization in mage school as well, but I haven't decided which specializatoin to pick.

From my understanding Fire is the most popular, because of the sheer power of the spells. Unfortunately I've also heard its the most taxing, exacting a heavy toll on the bodies and minds of its practitioners. But for those interested in sheer destructive power, its an attractive school.

Frost is another popular spec, almost being the polar opposite of the Fire specialization. This seems a more controlled specialization, using elemental ice. One of the Magisters at the school gave a demonstration where they could incase both their enemy and themselves in solid blocks of ice!

There's also the third specialization, Arcane. This is a dangerous specialization, especially for Blood Mages. With the Sunwell restored its less of an issue, but you still have to be careful. Delving too much into the Arcane puts us dangerously close to letting the addiction take control. Personally I've never considered this specialization, but I know some who have. Including some that have taken an almost too keen interest in it.

[WoW IC] Back to the bottom.

Correspondence between Solinari, blood elf priesttess and her sister Lunitari, blood mage. Read from the top down.

Greetings Solinari,

As we agreed I will be staying with you in Silvermoon once I complete preliminary training. My instruction will end in 3 days, so I am planning on starting off on the journey within a week, I just need to gather some supplies and tie up some loose ends here. Nuitari will not be joining me, as she has run into ... complications ... with her training. Its a shame, I would have welcomed the company on the trek from Sunstrider Isle to Silvermoon. I've heard from travelers that the route has become especially treacherous in recent months. You would think there would be less scourge in the dead scar, because of the fighting in Northrend, but I guess they have plenty.

As you said, I'm not bringing too much on the trip, basically what I can carry in my backpack. I've brought enough provisions for the trip, plus a little extra in case its needed. When I graduated, one of the magi gave me a small quarter-staff, its my first weapon. I really hope I don't have to use it.

Well that should be it, see you in a week or two!

Sincerly,

- Lunitari

-----

Hi Lunitari,

Its a shame Nuitari isn't going to be joining you. I know you guys were planning on making the journey together for a while. Maybe its a blessing in disguise, the accomidations I've been able to get are... humble. Lodgings are expensive here in Silvermoon. Its not very crowded ( there's not really much of us left ), but everything is still expensive. I think its a throwback from when the city was bustling from before. Some of the innkeepers can't seem to let go.

Speaking of the innkeeper, once you arrive in the city head for the ____ inn, its near the bazaar area. Ask any of the guards, they'll help you. They're mean at first, but a little flirting softens their demeanor quickly. When you get to the inn, we're upstairs and to the left, room 65.

Yours,

- Solinari

-----

Hello Solinari,

Wow I wasn't expecting a letter so quickly. I guess these new mailboxes are pretty quick with the deliveries. I'm guessing someone from the Kirin Tor had something to do with that.

Well anyway, by the time you read this I should be on my way.

Sincerly,

- Luni

WoW Update

Heroic burnout is upon me. I've run so many heroics the past week that I literally cannot stand to be in heroics again for a while. This has lead me to trying to level my Priest ( lv 31 ) and my new baby lock ( lvl 10 ) so that I have something new to do.

Hooff - Retribution
The reason for all this heroic running was to get better gear for Hooff. Hooff now has 4pcT10 for his Retribution set. Unfortunately even with 4pcT10, Hit and Exp capped, he's still only pulling 5k DPS max on the target dummy. That hurts considering that Bob can pull almost 5k DPS in 4pcT9. Both Melee DPS and more specifically Retribution DPS has been crap lately.

I've started to get pretty comfortable with the new Ret rotation. Its more complicated than the previous priority system, but its not super complex. I do still sometimes TV at 2 instead of 3 stacks, or do CS when I have a full 3 stacks of holy power, but its not as common as it used to be.

Looking at Hooff's DPS gear, there are a few things I really need to work on. The non-tier gear is pretty low level, most are from Naxx or OS. This is of course because that was when Hooff was hardcore raiding. A big contributor to the low DPS is probably my weapon. As with most melee classes, the weapon makes a huge difference in DPS, mostly because a lot of the abilities are based on weapon damage. Some classes, such as kitties are based on AP, which weapons seem to have a lot of also. Currently Hooff has the Tyrannical Beheader from Pit of Saron, Scourgelord Tyrannus. Its a good weapon as weapons go, certainly better than any other 2-hander from 5-mans. I'm hoping that maybe there's a PVP option I can grab to raise my DPS.

Pre 4.0.1, ret solo DPS wasn't too great, but it was usually helped with having DS in our rotation. With DS, we had a built in AOE that helped with trash mobs and such. I know DPS on trash doesn't really count for anything, but its still nice to have something to help.

Hooff - Holy

So far I've decided NOT to upgrade Hooff's 4pcT9 set with the t10. I didn't put too much thought into this, it was more of a helper reason for upgrading the Retribution set first. The T10 bonuses are pretty lack luster, especially the 4pc bonus. Because of the way the names of spells have been mixed up, the t9 2pc bonus is actually pretty good. The 4pc T9 bonus is +10% more healing with Flash of Light. Pre-4.0.1 this was to help make flash of light not so weak. Because of the 4.0.1 changes, this effectively boosts our Big+Fast+Expensive heal even higher. With the almost infinite mana pre-cataclysim I use this spell more than almost any other ( Holy Shock + Word of Glory being the other two).

I'm sure that the stats differences between 4pc T9 and 4pc T10 more than make up for this +10% healing but I haven't done that math yet.

Solinari

Solinari just got Shadowform. That plus devouring plague has really stepped up the DPS. I'm able to kill mobs quite a bit faster. Unfortunately I also go OOM much much quicker now as well. This is especially true in dungeons. After a few pulls I'm completely tapped. Also, since a lot of Shadow priest damage is DOTs based, I do very crappy damage on recount. Overall, DPS on this priest has been lackluster. I'm hoping it picks up soon.

Healing on the other hand is pretty fun. There's elements of mitigation ( Power Word:Shield), HOTs ( Renew ) and direct healing ( Flash Heal). Even when I'm almost completely OOM, I can still keep the tank up, because of the synergy between PW:S and Renew. PW:S is really nice, especially when someone's health is dropping like a rock.

Nuiitari

I tried leveling another baby lock. I guess I just can't get away from having a Warlock. It was my first toon, and I just love having one. It took some getting used to having a "guardian" instead of a "minion". For the first few levels your demons are guardians, meaning you don't give them commands. They just attack anything that you attack, or attacks you. It was disconcerting, I kept thinking it was some addons that were malfunctioning.

Over all its harder than I thought to relevel another toon. There's none of the wonder of a new toon, just reminders of how you did this already but are doing it again. I'm planning to level demonology, just so its something different ( leveled Affliction then Destrution previous).

Lunitari

My mage is still the banking alt. I want to level her but the thought of going through the belf starting area AGAIN makes me want to shoot myself. I figure she can wait until after 4.0.3a, so that it'll be new quests and such.

Transmission

Fiance's 2002 Dodge Neon can no longer go in reverse. I'm afraid that it might be the transmission needing to be replaced. If so that'll be quite an expense. Fiance and I talked about just getting a new car.

Pros:
1. New Car
2. We've been needing a truck/SUV, it'd be nice to be able to actually haul stuff.
3. Putting money towards a new car, instead of putting it towards keeping an old one running.

Cons:
1. Way more expensive
2. Payments again, which would mean we'd be paying 2 car payments and a new mortgage. Not fun.
3. She loves her neon.

Eventually we decided that having 2 car payments and a mortgage would be all kinds of stupid so we're going to be getting Neon repaired. Some of our friends have had transmissions replaced before and there are cheap ways of getting it done. I'm just hoping its not terribly expensive.

[WoW] Update

I'm still working on an in character introduction of what happened to Hooff, and whats going on, but thats taking a while. For once I have a lot of ideas and am having trouble getting from ideas -> story. Usually I have no ideas... and thats what makes me have trouble writing a story.

Here is the down and dirty update.

I've gone Horde.

My old Sinister Blades gang reformed on another server and went Horde. Unlike the other times they've tried to form, we seem to have reached critical mass, and fusion has started. I made a priest alt on the server to see how things were and found that I really missed being in a tight-knit guild. So I bit the sword and server transfered, and faction changed Hooff. Hooff is now a Blood Elf Paladin. Its weird seeing everything from the other side.

I've had to try to work Hooff's server transfer into the story. I think it'll work well, though I don't know if I'll have enough material to keep both the Alliance-side and Horde-side stories going.

Speaking of Horde side, downed all the way to Sindragosa 10-man normal on their first night of raiding. I wasn't able to join them but I was able to join then for night #2. We spent the whole night wiping on Sindy. We got her down to 20-12%, a few times down to 9%. The night of wiping was fun. Its been a long time since I've had to watch my mana, make sure my positioning is good, heck its been a while since I've had to learn strategy. I'm sure we'll be able to get Sindragosa down eventually, just need more practice and maybe tune up our strategy a little. It seems like the tank dies whenever I'm not spamming heals. During phase 3 I have to duck behind an Ice Block or else I will die from Buffet Magic stacks, this is usually when the main tank dies.

Hooff

Onaara,

I have some sad news for you. Elder Hooff had a terrible accident. A few days ago Rhonin ( of the Kirin Tor I'm told ), requested a meeting with Hooff. A new gnomish device was invented, one that could transport beings through time. Traveling through time is not unheard of ( the Bronze Dragonflight do it all the time), but to have a device that enables mortals to travel through time is amazing. While clearly it was dangerous, the worst anyone was expecting was that the old dranei would fall out of the sky somewhere ( which to paladin is trivial).

Something went horribly wrong. As Hotplate put it, this is what happened: Rhonin, Hotplate, Waash, even QB, a representative from the Horde as well as the Alliance, along with the Gnome Toshley ( from Toshley Station ) were there to supervise. The first test was simple, send Hooff 5 minutes into the past, in the other side of Dalaran. After the device was activated instead of disappearing ( and later reappearing ), Hooff started to phase in and out. A blood curdling screen rang out, and then a flash of blue then red appeared and Hooff was gone. Toshley contacted the receiving team, but Hooff wasn't there. They then tried to figure out where he was. Rhonin called for mages to scrye, try to locate where Hooff ended up. After the mages reported that his presence was felt nowhere on Azeroth the search was widened to Outland. Finally when all else seemed to fail, the Bronze Dragonflight was involved, to try to locate where in time Hooff may have possibly ended up. Chromie reported that it was very unlikely that Hooff was lost in time as there was no disruption in the flow of time. Even the infinite dragon flight could not mask a disruption.

Rhonin declared that Hooff was simply lost, a victim of technology ahead of its time.

I'm sorry to have had to break the news to you.

- Huntry

-------

Hot,

Heard from Huntry today, she's taking the news of Hooff's passing as well as can be expected. He was like a father to those twins. I expect to hear from Onaara soon as well, she may even come home for a while. Zoee and I have restocked the manor, in case people show up.

I corroborated the story you told them. I hate keeping secrets from them but I guess its for the best. They can't do anything to help anyway, they might as well get some closure from it.

- Waash

-------------

Bob,

I told the young ones the story you told me to. Waash corroborated the story and it seems like everyone is satisfied with the explanation. Care to explain what I really saw in Dalaran?

- Hot

Housing Update

Fiance and I have been in the house for about 2 weeks now. We've settled in pretty well. The unpacking has slowed down to a crawl. I think this is because we've unpacked enough to live day-to-day. Its amazing how little of the stuff we brought we actually use every day. There's some stuff that would make things more convenient ( doors on the bathrooms, clothes in dressers instead of a pile on the couch, Fiance's shoes, etc), but we're making do. I think tonight will be more of a hardcore unpacking night. We may possibly have people staying over at the end of the month and I don't know if they'll appreciate our certain level of unpackedness(that a word?).

We seems to have reached a compromise in the battle of the server closet. Some background, one of the bedrooms was converted into a den by the previous owners. The closet doors were removed, so there is a space there. Fiance wants to put a cabinet for "office supplies" while I want to put the servers, and server related equipment there. We found a nice modular cabinet/dresser system at Ikea. Our basic idea is to have a tall cabinet in that space for all the assorted equipent (except the servers). The servers themselves will be on top of a smaller, matching dresser thing, out and to the right of the opening. Haven't worked out the measurements but it should work out.

We also got an idea for the dining room. There's a big empty wall that used to contain a large bookcase ( by the previous owners). We don't have THAT many books, so we thought some more modular would be good. We're thinking basically stacking 3 of those modular cabinets on that wall, in different configurations. Then maybe a painting on top.

4.0.1 the Money Maker and Class Breaker ( kinda )

4.0.1 Hit last week and there has been blog after blog written about it. Many much better written than this one. With that in mind, here's how 4.0.1 affected moi.

Fiance and I moved the Monday before patch day. This means that we didn't have internet again until Wednesday night. Because of this I completely missed out on 24-hours of post-patch mayhem. This was both good and bad, good in that we were able to get enough stuff unpacked to be able to live BEFORE I totally got sucked into WoW. Bad because I missed out on a huge amount of glyph business.

Class Changes

In short, almost all my toons, especially the 80s, underwent huge changes. As of yesterday some still don't even have their specs rebuilt. This is mostly my fault, I've spent far more time making glyphs than actually rebuilding the toons.

Bob, Warlock

Destruction
The destruction rotation is very complicated. Much more complicated that the previous rotation. The old rotation went something like this:

Opener: Life Tap, CoE, Immolate, Chaos Bolt, Conflagrate, Incinerate.
Maintenance: Keep Chaos Bolt and Conflag on cooldown, refresh Immolate as needed, lifetap every 30-40sec to keep the buff up and get mana.

Now:

Opener: Bane of Doom, CoE, Soul Fire, Immolate, Chaos Bolt, Conflagrate, Shadow Flame, Corruption, Incinerate.
Maintenance: Keep Chaos Bolt, Conflag, and Shadow Flame on cooldown, refresh Bane of Doom, Immolate, and Corruption as needed. If Empowered Imp procs then cast Soul Fire. On top of all that use Soul Burn->Soul Fire three times somewhere in the fight. Spam Incinerate otherwise.

The opener has 9 spells, you're keeping 3 on cooldown, refreshing 3 dots, watching for a proc and weaving in 3 big cooldowns. I'm slowly developing the feel of it on a target dummy. Its complicated, and I find myself watching the dot timers and my action bars. On a target dummy the rotation is involved, in a real raid where you have to move around, it would be very difficult, at least at first.

The good part about all this, is the DPS. I'm pulling in 6K when I do the rotation well. Thats pretty crazy considering I was only getting 3-4k pre-patch.

Demonology
With dual-spec being lowered to 100g, I went ahead and got bob a second spec. I've always wanted to try Demonology, its the most utility oriented class, plus who doesn't want to turn into a big purple demon?

The rotation is much easier, but the DPS I was getting was only around 3.5k. Its entirely possible that my gear isn't suited for this spec or that I just don't know the "proper" rotation. Either way, I'll have to work on it and see how things progress.

Hooff, Paladin

Paladins ( and Hunters ) have had the biggest change in terms of class mechanics of the patch. Pallies now have "Holy Power" think mini rogue combo points. For Retribution, the rotation isn't that much more complicated, but it changes the tempo of the class quite a bit.

Rotation: Crusader Strike(CS), Filler, CS, Filler, CS, Templar's Verdict. Filler being Exorcism when Art of War procs, judgements, holy wrath ( which now affects all enemies but stuns undead/demons). Its made the class feel slower, more rigid. Whereas before it was priority and you hit whatever was off cooldown, now you have to wait and try to build up holy points (with crusader strike) as fast as possible to hit with a heavy TV. I have to keep myself from trying to hit the abilities as they come off CD.

Unfortunately melee DPS seems to be down accross the board. I don't know if they've fixed it yet, but that was the scuttlebut on wowinsider and mmochampion.

Holy
I haven't got the courage up to try healing on Hooff yet. The heals have been shifted around and new ones added. Flash of Light is now a big, fast, expensive heal. Holy Light is the slower, small heal. Divine Light is the big, slow nuke heal. Except for the names changing, its not a huge change. Then there's the Holy Power mechanic. Holy Shock is still instant, with a CD, and it heals for a decent amount. It also produces 1 holy power. Word of Glory is instant, has no mana cost, but consumes all your Holy Power. The more holy power the more it heals. So this leads to the scenario where you want to use Holy Shock all the time to build up HP to get mana-free healing using WoG. There's also Light of Dawn, which is a Cone type AOE heal.

I haven't actually tried healing with this new toolbox so I don't know how anything feels. My old playstyle heavily favored Holy Shock + Flash of Light combos so that should be easy enough to convert to Holy Shock + Holy Light. Remembering to use WoG will come with time. From what I've heard, the mana pools are so large ( from the SP->Int conversion) that using Flash of Light won't drain your mana much at all.

Hotplate, Death Knight

Blood Tanking
I haven't even respec'd her yet. I forsee that it shouldn't be a huge change for me, since I was already blood tanking pre-patch. There might be new abilities, or name changes but it should be ok. With that said, I haven't built up the bravery or inclination to try tanking with her yet.

Frost Dual-Weild DPS
I just spec'd her into dual wield DPS yesterday. To be honest I really just like seeing a character go to town on a monster with two weapons. With 2pcT9 dps with a bunch of tanking gear, plus a tanking 1hander, I was pulling 2.5k DPS on a target dummy. Pretty low, but to be expected considering my gear and inexperience with the spec.

Waash Druid

To be perfectly honest Waash has spent the majority of the time creating Glyphs. Though I did get around to specing him back into tanking. I even tried tanking a few heroics. The biggest change? Swipe now has a 6sec CD. Thats an eternity for an ability that used to be spam'd with no cooldown. It makes getting AOE threat much much more involved. Now I still use swipe on every cooldown, but I have to be smarter when I use it. For example, during a pull I have to make sure that first swipe gets EVERY mob, so that I can get some initial threat. After that I'll throw a mangle on the first target, then tab-target a lacerate on each mob until swipe is back off CD. Eventually either every mob will have the complete set of debuffs or they'll be dead.
I'll mix in Maul if I'm falling behind in threat and/or I have plenty of rage.

Onaara Shaman

Probably the least affected toon. DPS is exactly the same as before. Healing did take some getting used to, but mostly the same spells, just different named. No more Lesser Healing Wave. Healing Wave and Greater Healing Wave (new) have the same cast time, but different heal and mana costs. With the SP->Int conversion I have a huge mana pool now. I rarely have to drink, and even spamming chain heal barely dents the mana bar. This will probably change at 85, but at 73 its awesome.

Glyphs-mas

Even with the 24-hour late start, glyphs have been selling. I had about a guild tab full of icethorn going into the patch. This was by chance from when I used to do glyphs before my last hiatus. Those herbs came in handy. Once I got my auction addon working ( ZeroAuctions instead of QuickAuctions), I looked around. Most glyphs were going for 100+ some weren't even on the AH. I set my fallback to 200G ( just in case ) and made all the expensive glyphs I could. I chewed through those herbs in a few hours. Everything was selling. I made 8k that first night, which was nothing compared to the 20-30k other people were making that prepared.

I'm still creating glyphs, I predict that it'll still be easy profitable for another few days. Once most of the glyphs drop below the threshold I'll have to make a decision on whether I want to continue or just get out and enjoy my profits.

Paddling News

Winter Off-season has hit for paddling. It's hit pretty hard. Because of the weather, its hard to get out on the water more than once a week, sometimes none at all. There were some highlights though.

PIFA 2010

PIFA was a big success. It was my first time going. I stayed for all of the first day ( Saturday). The usual suspects were there, Fiance, Uncle, Auntie, Victor, Mica, Princess, etc. One of the Keiki's put on the gourd helmets, which helped to attract attention. MN was leading the charge getting everyone signed up for the intro paddle the following weekend. All in all we got about 6 pages of emails/info for people interested in trying it out that day. If we even get a percentage of that to show up at the intro-paddle its going to be huge. I heard that over the 2 days we got over 13 pages worth of emails.

Intro Paddle 10/02/2010

The most intro paddlers I've seen at one place ever. By last count there were 50 people there. Because of time constraints we didn't do a double-hull, just had all 4 going out constantly. There was rarely a time where a canoe was sitting on the beach. Fiance, and all the other steersmen were very busy that day. Uncle did his introduction speech and paddling basics. It was longer than normal, probably cause there were so many people that he put in quite a bit of culture into the course. There wasn't near enough Wa'a to take everyone out at once so people had to take turns. IKOCC provided seats 1 and 6, the rest were intro people.

True to Uncle's word, we were having a nice luau when a Regatta breaks out. Some of the intro paddlers, a group of 6 to be exact, wanted to go out again, this time racing. This started it off, soon every canoe was lining up and putting on a small sprint race. When I saw the 5 guys going out again, I grabbed Rog and Fiance and got a crew together to race against them. Needless to say we killed them, but the intro people in our canoe loved it.

I think we've stumbled into something to get people even more interested in joining the club, and racing in general. These little mock sprints are short enough ( and exciting enough) to get people going. But they're also short enough that they don't feel discouraged when they're being left behind. Something like deanza to the bowling pin and back would be wayyy too long and take too much time.

[WoW IC] Back into it.

Dearest Sister,

Greetings! Its been a while since I've had a chance to write. This was
partially because the past few months I haven't had anything to write
about. I've been pretty quiet the past 4-5 months. Stayed at an inn
and just tried to live the normal life. Even got as far as putting my
armor into a crate, because I thought I "wouldnt' be using it any time
soon". Well that changed quickly.

A few weeks ago the little termors and rumblings I've been noticing
have gotten worse. I don't know if you notice these quakes in
Ironforge, ( it being deep in into a mountain maybe that makes them
MORE noticeable? ) but you must have heard the talk. There's talk that
the end of the world is near. That a huge shakeup is due and that some
sort of Cataclysm is about to happen. No one seems to know when, but
they all know its coming "Soon". I didn't pay it much mind, even the
quakes I eventually got used to.

Unforunately, as is usually the case, I started getting cabin
fever. I've never been able to stay in one place too long. Since we
were children, neither of us have really spent more than a year living
somewhere. The lure of fortune and adventure was just too much, and so
about 2 weeks ago I bid farewell to the innkeeper and set off yet
again.

I've learned a lot in the past 2 weeks. The shaman master in stormwind
has taught me quite a bit, both in the art of healing and melee
combat. I've needed every ounce of knowledge. I've been traveling to
quite a few new places. I've spent the majority of my time at this
huge mountain. It was the kingdom of the Dark Iron Dwarves ( cousins
of the dwarves from Ironforge). Unfortunately they're not very
friendly, but there is an elemental infestation. I've joined up with
other adventurers to help keep back the evil living there. I've gone
in many times, usually with random people, usually with mixed
success. Being able to effectively heal has made me more valuable to
the war effort. Seems quite a few people know how to hurt, but not to
heal.

One of the commanders mentioned that I might be powerful enough to be
of some use in Outland. I remember Elder Hooff talking about it a few
months back. I'm excited to go, from what we've been told the fight is
going well there, but slowly. Wish you were here.

I'll write again as soon as I'm able.

- Onaara

Too Hot

CPU Temps on Squirrel

My new obession seems to be temperature and heat. More specifically
how how my cpu and hard drives are running. I noticed a few days ago
when Squirrel ( Q8400 w/ stock cooler) was encoding some video in a
very hot apartment, the temperatures hit 86C. That's crazy. I let it
finish the encode, but vowed not to let the temps get that high
again. This is especially worrysome because the chip isn't even
overclocked ( unlike my Athlon64 @2.3Ghz, stock 1.8Ghz).

I think the culpurit is the stock Intel cooler. Its just not up to the
challenge. As far as I know the Q8400 isn't known for being
particularly warm. It runs at 2.66Ghz with 4MB of cache. The only part
in the rig that could be producing crazy amount of heat is the ATI
4870 ( which itself has a massive cooler that exhausts to the outside
of the case). I'm thinking I want to replace the stock cooler. For $20
- $50 or so I can get a really good cooler that will keep the machine
nice and frosty. I haven't even tried to overclock ( mainly cause its
fast enough for what I need and the temps were a bit high). With a
better cooler the temps might be low enough that overclocking would be
nice. Plus it would boost my folding and transcoding a bit.

At first I'm only planning on replacing the cooler on Squirrel. Dug
doesn't get used near enough to warrant a new part. It's kind of a
shame really. But I can't really blame Fiance for not using her
Quad. There's so much stuff stacked all over her desk, that just
getting to her computer would take a while. I keep mine relatively
cleared off just because I want to be able to use my machine.

HDD Temps on Frisket

Also recently I found a linux utility, hddtemp, that reads out the
temperature of the hard drives. On a whim I checked the temps on
Downy. Those are running at about 40-45C, considering there's 5 HDs in
that case I would say thats pretty good. The Antec300 case seems to
really help with keep the temperatures down. Makes sense considering
there's 2x120MM fans blowing straight onto the drives, a 120MM
exhausting hot air out the back and a monster 140MM fan exhausting air
out of the top. With that kind of airflow, the drives should be ok.

I checked the temps on Frisket, which only has 3 HDs total and those
temps were in the 55-59C range. Much higher. I think this is
attributed to the fact that that machine is still on my old desktop
case. The case itself was ok back in the day, but if I'm planning on
turning it into a true server class machine, I need a better
case. With that in mind I ordered another Antec300 case for the
server. This time its the "Illusion" version. which just means it
comes with front led fans, so I don't have to buy them seperately.

Subie again...

Why I hate living in an apartment.

Went out to Subie this morning, on my way to work. Saw a shiny mark,
about the size of silver dollar. I thought it was bird poop, like
normal. Closer look it was a scratch. Not just a small normal one, it
was pretty deep and it looked like it went through the paint into the
actual shell.

This isn't the first time Subie has been accosted in this parking
lot. The side is littered with little dings and scratches, mostly from
incosiderate fuckers that can't understand that maybe other people
actually give a shit about their cars.

One particular incident comes to mind. Fiance and I were walking to
her car to go on a jog ( back when we did such things). On the way
there I see 4 mexicans hanging around the car. Worst, one of them was
SITTING on the hood. Maybe more like leaning, but there was butt to
hood contact. Me being the chicken shit I was ( I'd like to think was,
but possibly still am) didn't say anything. I'm actually trying hard
to be better at this. I've gone out of my way to face confrontation,
instead of scurrying away. I even went and got a manager because a guy
was being unruly during a movie.

This is a perfect example of people thinking they can do whatever they
like. They have no concept of personal property. They don't care if
they sit on their car so why should anyone else care? People wonder
why the "rich" like to segregate themselves away in gated communities,
this is one of those reasons. Logic follows that if you're in that
situation then hopefully you're of the same mindset, ie: I won't fuck
with your shit if you don't fuck with mine.

PS: Does them being Mexican have anything to do with them being
dumbasses? I don't know, they were Mexican so I'm describing them as
such. If they were black I would have said "4 black guys", if they
were filipino I would have said "4 bastards". ;-)

Back in on the Crack

Yesterday I reactivated my World of Warcraft account. Why? Mainly cause I needed some stress relief from the house and paddling. Paddling itself is winding down, and I can feel my body just needs more rest than it used to. I think some time playing games will really help me deflate after this season.

Minutes after reactivating my account I hopped into a Halls of Reflection PUG. I was healing, and it did not go well. Partly I'm sure was my forgetting where all my keybindings were and how everything is. I was even experiencing some lag at certain points... which was strange.

I hopped into a Sunken Temple run with Onaara also. That went better. I slowly had to remember how to play a resto-shaman. It went well enough that I dinged 49. Did some questing and got to within 700xp of level 50. Went to bed, then finished it off early this morning. I'm now at level 50.

New Server

Low Power Server?

Was talking to a fellow mdadm/server/RAID5/packrat about what he has
planned for his current and next server. His significant-other is
starting a new endeavor that requires she have a redudant,
fault-tolerant system to keep all her documents on. He of course
though that a Ubuntu based RAID with automated backup would be perfect
for this.

Reuse

He decided that based on her storage needs, his current server would
be more than adequete for her needs ( with some minor reshuffling
towards data backup than maximum capacity). He will take his RAID5,
composed of 5x500GB drives, and turn it into a RAID1, with hot
spare. 500GB is more than enough space for her needs, and the other
two drives can be used for cycled backups. He would have a nightly
backup of the RAID onto another 500GB, and this would be cycled on
some schedule. I'm going to suggest he create something like
rsnapshot, which would enable him to have versioning as well as
backup.

With this repurposing, it enables him to think about what he will do
for his next, bigger, badder RAID server.

... Less? Power

He apparently has been thinking of building DOWN his server. He's
noticed that he doesn't use much of the server's processing power on a
day to day basis. With the amount of electricity a dual-core (not to
mention the quad-core I was planning on getting) uses up even at idle,
a more efficient system could lead to significant savings.

I originally was planning on upgrading the "new" server to a quad
core, probably an AthlonII X4 630 or similar. Its a cheap chip, with
decent performance for the money. Yes some dual core intels are
faster, but I like knowing I have 4 real cores. The reasoning behind
this upgrade was Air Video, the fact that it does take up some power
for live-conversion almost necessiates a powerful machine. Plus I'd
like to be able to run Bittorrent and possibly other services on the
machine.

With a lower power machine I would save quite a bit of energy. With
the possibility of moving into a house, saving electricity will be
even more important. But at the same time, I'll lose the ability to
have a power server. It can probably still do the software NAS
functions, samba sharing, as well as bittorrenting. Air Video
live-conversions would be too taxing for the little processor. This
could be possibly remedied by farming out the conversion duties to my
quad desktop ( much like how its done now ). It wouldn't be too bad,
since I don't think I'd really get in the habit of turning the quad
off.

Prices

The prices for Atom based boards are about comparable to a decent sale
at Fry's for the quad-core Athlon. I've seen the Athlon II X4 630 +
motherboard on sale at Fry's for as little as $70. The Atom based
boards on newegg are closer to $100 for processor and
motherboard. Another potential savings would be on the power
supply. With such an efficient processor, more of the PSU's power
would go towards the drives, meaning I would be able to use less
powerful (400-430W) PSU's instead of the big ones I use now ( 500W+).

Either way, first things first. I need a case for that
server. Regardless of the processor, those drives aren't being
properly cooled.

Contract Signed

Contact Signed

Got an email yesterday from the realtor. He has the signed contract and is forwarding it to our loan guy. Fiance dropped off all but 1 of the documents loan guy needed to get to the underwriter. She was missing her W-2 from an old old job. That came in the mail yesterday also, but not until after she'd already made the trip to drop off the other docs. Guess she's making another trip to drop it off.

Open Escrow?

I don't really know if this means we've opened Escrow and thus have moved into the "Contingency" portion of the process. We haven't given our deposit check ( is it even a check I don't know) so I'm guessing we're not. But we'll have to see.

Next up, we need inspections up the wazoo to make sure the house isn't hiding anything weird under the hood.