So, reading blogs this morning while my TPS reports… umm, I mean FMS reports are generated from the worlds…. slowest….. database……. [snore], and came across a good one by Fikkle on For the Horde!

Fikkle tells a story about how he was in a situation where his normal methods of punching a mobs’ ticket as a Hunter weren’t working, and he was frustrated enough to mention it to a non-WoW player at work the next day. His non-WoW playing friend was able to suggest a possible solution, using a Hunter ability Fikkle himself had mentioned in the past, but had mentally put in the ‘cute, but mostly worthless’ category. And it worked.

I’m paraphrasing here, don’t go flame Fikkle.

This hits home to me on several levels.

Personally, I had the same thing happen. I had asked right here on this blog for your thoughts on Magister’s Terrace, complaining about the Shadow Priests’ lack of viable CC since there are no undead mobs in there to Shackle. And the majority of you smacked me upside the head and said “Mind Control, stupid!”

It’s a good thing Elystia/Shadewynn doesn’t play Alliance anymore, or she’d have probably beat me up in the game for being dumb.

Anyway, I had done the same thing with Mind Control. When I first got it while leveling, I played with it a bit. Of course I did.

And what I found was that it was situational, with a narrow useability window.

Why? Because it’s got a 20 yard range… and around 40 yards from me as the caster, the mob I MC’d would break the control and come for me. If the mob you can get near is all alone, there is no way you can get him far enough away to grab someone else. They need to be standing close together. AND, since you are channeling the whole time, you are open to attack… and if you are attacked, then you are facing the guy what whacked you, PLUS the mob you MC’d, PLUS the guy you were having your MC whack.

So, I mentally put MC into a box that said “awesome fun for PvP, but very risky in PvE soloing. Revisit later.” And never revisited it.

So you all told me to use Mind Control, and I looked at my bars in shock, saying, “Oh yeah, I got that, don’t I?”

And I played with it a bunch this weekend, testing the limits of what I could do.

And of course you are right, in an instance, with 4 other people including tank, where mobs are very often right next to each other, it is an optimum situation to use MC to have one mob take on a second, leaving the few remaining for the tank and other DPS to burn through… it’s a two-mob CC that actually whittles BOTH targets down in health, unlike Sheep or Ice Trap that leaves the mobs at full. And it can last for 1 full minute. Not too bad at all.

So yeah, on a personal level, Fikkle nailed it. I’m motoring along, I’ve leveled solo as a Shadow Priest, I’m used to doing things a certain way, and BAM! You come along and remind me that what worked fine solo is not using my abilities to their fullest potential in groups.

This is one of the reasons we blog about WoW, yes? To try and share our experiences on how to use our character’s abilities to their fullest potential?

I know that I still occasionally get emails from folks that read my Catform DPS sequences post and tell me how they had gotten used to whacking the mobs a certain way, and had never HAD to think about how to squeeze more DPS out of their playstyle. After all, when soloing, there isn’t that big a difference between burning the guy down in 3 seconds instead of 3.5 seconds in the grand scheme of things.

But when you’re a kitty in a raid, suddenly you need to know that you have to attack from behind to keep from triggering Parry or getting your attacks Blocked. All your opponent can do if you are attacking from behind is Dodge, or if you are not hit capped, you can also plain miss. Hello, if you increase your hit rating so you cannot miss, then all he can do is Dodge. Just a reminder, hit rating for cat gear is the number one reason you want to have two seperate feral gear sets.

And if you’re normal uber-OPness as a kitty with 2500 AP means you have totally slacked off on using skillz solo, and you just run on up, spam Feral Faerie Fire and then Mangle, Mangle, Mangle, well… that crap doesn’t cut it in a group or raid. Shred is your friend. As you well know.

I wrote a post a long time back about how I think this affects Hunters so much. The poor Hunter class has the huge ‘Huntard’ reputation, and I truly feel it is because there are so many awesome Hunter abilities that streamline solo play, that when it finally comes time for running instances or even grouping, many Hunters just have had no reason to learn to branch out and explore their other abilities. 

Chain Trap? What’s that? Kite? Huh? Oh yeah, I heard about some dude that kited some Fel Reaver to a city and let the guards kill it, sure wish I knew how that uber-l33t guy did that.

The Hunter class, and I’m speaking as asomeone that has leveled a BM Hunter to 70, seems very easy to pick up and run with… but as BRK has shown time and time again, when it comes time to group, there are some serious skills that you can bring to the game… and you haven’t needed to develop them while leveling.

I think that this is the single most important contribution any class blog can try and make.

To let people new to the class know about things that are not apparent when you are soloing. Warn people in advance, “Hey, it was all fun and games and Sunday strolls along the beach while you were coming on up, but in a group at 70, here are a bunch of the neat things you can bring to the party to amaze your friends and make them want to play your class. And dear god, here are the things that will make them call you noob. Please don’t do those or we revoke your [insert class name here] license.”

If you write a class blog, than I encourage you to think of two different topics you can cover that would provide your readers with long-lasting benefits.

The first is a recommended gear guide for the spec you prefer, so your readers see what you recommend they look for and why. A Karazhan-ready gear list seems to be the accepted starting point, followed by a serious raiding gear list to shoot for. Start with something nice and casual-friendly, then maybe follow it up with the list of l33t drool-worthy gear most of us will never see. I practically LIVE on the Shadowpriest website because of the compiled gear lists.

If someone else has already done a gear list you use and love, don’t reinvent the wheel… just put a good link to it on your blog and point people that way.

And the second thing to provide your readers is the ‘how to squeeze more out of your class’ collection of tips and tricks you have learned the hard way. 

I know that, while I read most of the blogs I do because I enjoy the writing, the stories and the fun, when I put my game face on and want to know more about a class I am leveling, I go looking specifically for those two types of info… what to look for in gear, and how to do neat stuff with the class and not be a moron.

If I had to add a third, it would be a recommended talent spec, and why you choose the different talents you say you recommend.

And a fourth would be ‘things not to do in a group or you will get flamed, blogged about, and held up as an idiot by your server forums’.

An example? Seeing a poor Hunter that didn’t know any better get his Armory screenshotted and put up on the server forums… because he had Crusader on his melee weapon. You could prevent this from happening. It is a solemn responsibility.

I think it’s why BRK is the standard for hunter blogs. He covers all such topics with style and thoroughness. 

Just something to think about, my friends.

Had some fun playing Stinkywind, my brand spankin’ new Warlock this weekend.

I’m trying a lot of different things all at once on this one.

BUT! I ain’t abandoning Windshadow and Windburn. In fact, I went into Sethekk Halls and Shadow Labyrinth with Nasirah, Squirrelz, Cassieann and Wulfa last Saturday to see if we could get Wulfa a few tasty drops.

Sigh. No Sonic Spear. We ran them both in normal mode, so we messed around and had a bit of fun on some of the pulls.

Okay, I messed around. I think Squirrelz was getting grouchy at my ‘not correct’ methods, but hey… sometimes, you’ve gotta have some fun. And when you have TWO decked out feral druids on the run, you got twice the tanking love! Plus, Wulfa knows her hunter skillz, she was doing some mad chain trapping, and had all the right moves. So, I pushed the boundaries a bit and bounced around.

Sometimes I think I am the player you do NOT want in your pug.

“Why the hell did you pull the whole room???!!??”

“Relax, it’s normal mode, we can handle it. Chill. Live a little.”

“But we DIED.”

“Okay, so die a little. It’s only gold, go run a daily. Look at it this way.. now we know one way it won’t work. We’re like Edison! We’re geniuses!”

Yeah, I’m just the life of the party… 

SO! Also got Windburn a little love, I pushed the rest of the way to Exalted with Aldor so I could get my Greater Inscription… AND feel that I accomplished something in terms of rep. In fact, it got me so excited to close off one rep grind, that I did all my dailies for SSO last night on Windburn. Gonna push on to Exalted there. I have Lola’s Eve and Charlotte’s Ivy, so I need a good ring upgrade to remove Lola’s Eve before it would be worth it to equip the necklace, but at least I’ll have it in the bank. And then… Consortium! Gack.

Windburn also got a bit of love in a different way… thanks to the diligent efforts of Cassie, who checked the AH and networked with players and broadcast in the dreaded /trade channel, yesterday I got the very last card I needed to build my Blessings deck!

And coincidentally enough, today is the first day of Darkmoon Faire in Goldshire! So I got it just in time to turn it in for the Darkmoon Card: Crusade.

But my Warlock… this is turning out fun. I hit level 15 by Saturday night. I’ve got my blueberry, named Krakkrit (just like Kemangi!) and I’ve got a nice wand, and I’m speccing Affliction. Got my instant cast Corruption, I’m having fun. I have no idea what points to put where after that, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

And I’m leveling 100% in the Draenei starting lands. I hit level two and begged a port to Shatt for my hearth, and then I went straight to Exodar. I’m gonna be a gnome on a elephant! Woot!

Yep, every two levels I hearth to Shatt, port to IF, train my Warlock skills, and then mess around until I can hearth back.

Let me tell you, I never experienced OP-ness until I was able, at my little level, to handle a four pull like this.

Working the satyrs, I pull a single mob by sending the blueberry after him, stack dots, and then mob two sees me and comes running. 

I send blueberry after mob two to pull him off me, and keep dots refreshed on mob one. The first mob dies from the dots shortly after mob two gets pulled off me and dotted up, and then mob number three comes up on me from behind. 

This time I remember I have Fear, so I Fear mob three out of my face and keep burning mob two down with wand. Just as mob two is about to die, a fourth mob comes rolling on in.

So I send the blueberry after number four, reFear number three, and focus on burning down four as two finally dies. A quick dotting and wanding and mob four dies just as my blueberry dies and mob three comes on in for the kill.

So I reFear three, resummon my blueberry, and burn down the mob when he comes on back. 

Four dead bodies, and I never even had to pop my Healthstone.

Are you freaking kidding me?

I love my Warlock… Druids are awesome when you get kitty at 20, but I’m only level 15 and I’m playing mob ping pong.

And did they really have to make those idiot satyrs in Bloodmyst Isle THAT aggressive? Seriously, wtf…

So, I have a lot of alts, none of whom ever really get any playtime.

I mean to, but I just don’t feel the love.

Guess what? I’m as geared as I’m going to get on my Druid and Priest, without serious time investment.

I would love to get back into Karazhan, and as more Sidhe Devils get closer to 70, the likelihood that we will be doing Karazhan weekly increases.

I would love to run Heroic Magisters Terrace frequently, as well. Some incredibly sweet drops in there for everyone I know.

To do either of those takes a significant commitment in time, and requires my friends to also have that time free. During the week, gonna be very hard to manage.

So, wow. Geez. Do I farm ore, herbs, dailies, grind money, grind money, grind money, grind rep….

Or do I start a new alt to mess around with?

Well…. maybe a little from column ‘A’, and a ot more from column ‘B’.

I would like to get Consortium rep on my Priest JC to see Exalted. Sure, who wouldn’t? Lots of recipes for JC.

But grinding rep… gack.

So, I was kinda getting into my Pally alt, but Cassie is playing a Pally alt… level 38 as of last night. And anyway, I gots a tank, and if I want to heal I gots a Priest that could respec.

And I had been messing around with a Shammie alt, but I’m out of gas for that. I keep trying to picture what I’d do with a Shammie at 70… and as far as I see, it’s heals or killing things with large blunt objects. Not feeling very excited right now, Ghost Wolf or no Ghost Wolf. Maybe later.

But I keep coming back to the one class that I just have a mental block about, the Warlock.

There is just something about Warlocks, that I can’t visualize. Even the names of the talent trees don’t evoke any images in my mind. I have no feeling about how Warlocks REALLY work, or what difference, if any, there is in specs.

So, what the hell. Best way to cure my ignorance is to play one.

What do I know about Warlocks? Let’s break it down….

1) They get pretty summoned horsies with flaming hooves at 40. Woot!

2) At some unknown level, they can group with two other people to summon folks across the world.

3) They can create Health Stones. Free pot that doesn’t share pot cooldowns. Woot!

4) They get pets. BUT, you get no choice or control over the pet name, or appearance. Every Warlock gets the same pets. But, they are still pets, so, cannon fodder.

5) Fear, dot dot dot. Warlocks are famous for Fearing a mob, throwing a shitload of Damage over Time spells on ‘em, and then watch them running around like chickens with their heads cut off as they slowly die. There could be some fun in that, as long as I’m patient.

6) Warlocks can Banish demons, an unbreakable demon-only CC. Ummm, and for some folks in my audience… CC is short for ‘crowd control’. Inside joke, move along.

7) It’s possible that a Warlock pet can charm a mob, as a form of CC… and everytime I have ever seen it done in a situation where we needed that CC, the damn thing breaks free in about 3 seconds. So, my perception is… a useless charm CC ’cause you can’t trust it. maybe I’ll find out differently as time goes on.

Warlocks have Curses. They weaken enemies with Curses that, like… weaken them. And stuff.

9) At 60, Warlocks have a quest chain to learn how to summon their epic mount, a quest chain that is expensive, long, and that no one wants to help you with anymore because you have to go into Dire Maul, and that cuts into raiding or Daily Questing time.

10) At very high levels, Warlocks can summon some big ugly demon pet that used to be considered wildly OP, but I ain’t heard jack about it since, so it probably got nerfed. For some in my audience of readers, OP is short for over-powered, unfair unbalanced cheating sacks of shit that kill you by Deathcoiling you and dotting you and then laughing as you run around like a chicken… oh yeah, we covered that.

11) Did I mention you have no control over what name your pet will have? The first time you summon a demon pet, it creates your pet’s permanent name. So, being level whatever is a great time to find out your blueberry will forever after be known as Kissybear.

12) Warlocks use shards to do lots of stuff, like make healthstones and summon peeps. And they do that by burning down a critter with a spell as it dies. And the shards, like, don’t stack. So you get to lose bagspace just like hunters. Poor, poor hunters. well, or like Druids or any other class that carries multiple sets of gear.

13) Oh yeah, and apparently at some point Warlocks get some wierd chain explosion AOE stuff called Seed of Corruption… and just so’s ya know, AOE stands for Area of Effect. And Warlocks are adamant that they are more damaging than Mage’s AOE… but Warlocks aren’t really OP. Right? Right. Deathcoil chicken dot dot dot… wait, what? Sorry, I keep getting distracted.

14) Aaaand, the handy tip all tanks know and love… Imps can share a Stamina buff with the party, the Imp can be parked to sit where the Tank plans to, well, um… tank, and then can be shifted out of phase so the Imp doesn’t take damage from things like boss AOE, but still provides the buff.

Is that about all I know, or think I know? Yeah, I think that’s about it.

So I guess I’ll be having fun on the Warlock while I work on getting some Magister’s Terrace runs set up.

Last night, getting late, Cassie and I were about to pack it in for the weekend.

That’s when we got the call from Doodle, one of our guildies,  that he could use a teeny little bit of help. 

Now Doodle has altitis bad. Not as bad as Linnaea, it’s true, but bad enough.

Doodle has a level 70 Warlock named Doozie and a 70 Druid (Resto, atm) named Doodlebug, and one of his latest flotilla of alts is Doodleberry, the level 11 Hunter. (Resto Druid and Warlock… Hots and Dots… good blog name, is all I’m saying).

Anyway, Doodleberry wants to get a pet. His first pet on this hunter.

Okay, pretty cool. “So, whatcha thinking, Doodle?”

“Oh, I was thinking one of those reddish-colored cats in the Blood Elf starting area. You don’t see many people with one of those, Alliance side.”

Okay, that’s true. And for good reason, it’s a long, long way to Tipperary, my friend. But all right.

“Okay, I’ll escort you. I’ll be in Exodar in a minute. Let’s boogie.”

The journey was long and grueling for a level 11 Draenei Hunter.

We started out at the Exodar. From there, we traveled by ship to Darnassus, and switched boats for Menethil Harbor.

From Menethil, the journey moved overland through the Wetlands, following the road first east, and then north and into the Arathi Highlands.

A dogleg to the west brought us to the Hillsbrad Foothills, and then north again to the Alterac Mountains.

Heading east in the frozen land, we encountered our first death of the run, as respawning Ogres swamped the kitty defenses. Poor Doodleberry went down.

A quick battlerez prepared us for the rest of the journey, and swift reinforcements from Cassieann riding in from Chillwind Camp strengthened our defenses.

We pushed on, past the stealthed- rogue infested areas along the eastern pass, to finally reach the Western Plaguelands’ Chillwind Camp.

From here, we took stock and readied ourselves for the last push on to Ghostlands.

We headed straight for the gravesite northeast of Chillwind Camp, where we found we were unprepared for the massive aggro radius of a level 11 hunter in a level 53-58 zone. Again, Doodle went down, this time under waves of undead.

This time, as we waited for his spirit to return to his body, Cassie and I cleared undead to ’safe’ the zone a bit.

Doodle returned, and as we made our way through the graveyard, intercepting incoming undead left and right, we made the quick decision to take to the water once again.

We jumped the hills and hit the lake to the right, swimming right across it’s length, passing to the north of Scholomance, to come safely to the shores of Eastern Plaguelands.

We made our way to the road, and then along the road to the first PvP tower, where we remembered that there was a graveyard just south of the Stratholme Servants’ Entrance.

Doodle decided to suicide hop to that graveyard to shorten our trip.

Alas, we found out there is a graveyard right near that first PvP tower, also. A much closer graveyard. MUCH closer. Like, 20 yards. Oops.

So we had a short hop, and then decided to go from there straight north, cutting across the center of the zone rather than around the great scar. We fended off waves of incoming doggies and bats, skirting the water elementals in the small lake in the center, and came at last to the road. A short run to the east, and then straight north, and our intrepid band of adventurers zoned into the Ghostlands.

From there, the difficult part of the journey was over, but Cassie and I continued on, to see our friend Doodle safely tame his first pet.

We ran to the north, getting ever closer to the fabled land of the skinny Blood Elf addicts, and there it was that Doodle found the pet he had traveled across a world to tame.

Friends, I present to you Doodleberry the level 11 Hunter, and his new Kitty.

May they enjoy many exciting adventures together!

Now, I don’t think he has settled on the perfect name just yet, so why not suggest the perfect name? I don’t say he’ll use it, but maybe one of you will give him the inspiration for that perfect name.

Yep, that’s right… not so long ago, she made a Shaman. I asked for advice, we got some great advice… she played to 16 and decided to ask “what else we got to choose from?”

So she made a Paladin.

Benefits? Heavy armor, heals, bubbles and great Blessings and stuff. All sorts of craziness. Rezzes and general fun.

She just dinged 15, she seems to be having fun so far.

Guess what? Another class I haven’t played much, my alt got to 12… and as much as I love it, it’s my “I want to level this next after my Priest dings 70″ class, but I still only got to 12.

Now, she has been rocking the joint solo, it’s true. But she asked me my opinion on what her next Talent point should be spent on, after she showed me she had 3/5 in Might and 3/5 in reduced Mana cost of seals and judgments, and I said “I dunno”.

I looked at her seals and judgments. She told me she liked the reduced cast time of Judgment idea. I thought maybe reduced mana cost and might to max first, myself.

Here’s the thing. Looking at it from a ‘what the Talent and tooltip says’ point of view, it looks like you should pop Seal of the Crusader on a bad guy and instantly Judge it to get the holy damage DoT… and then follow it up by popping Seal of Righteousness to maximise your Holy damage in conjunction with your Judged effect. After those two are up, leave it be and whack him to death. So reduced mana cost, good. But if you’re only popping one Judgement per bad guy, then what the hell do you need with a reduced cast time for?

I guess. I don’t freaking KNOW though.

She asks me “What gear should I use? Is the ‘of the tiger’ good, or should I take ‘of the bear’?”

I don’t freaking know. Strength and Stamina is what I tell her, followed with Intellect for a larger Mana pool. What the hell do I know though? Maybe Agi is good? Spirit?

So here is my challenge to the Paladin bloggers out there. (Banana Shoulders, yes you too…)

Cassie could use two things.

1) A guide to what Talents to choose while leveling as a soloing damage dealing Pally. And WHY to take those Talents at each stage. Just posting a spec is lame, I want a reason, a rationale, I want to know what you’re thinking when you say to put 5/5 in Might at that point in time, or whatever. If you got a guide already, then say so. If you don’t… well, I feel pretty certain your readers would darn well LOVE to see one! And that would bring readers knocking at your door to learn from your wisdom….. hint hint. 

2) A guide to how you manage your abilities, your seals and judgments and auras and such as you level, to maximise your usefulness and damage output. It seems clear that your damage output changes drastically depending on what order you use things.

Think about it… I’ve had folks in Trade channel tell me that the only way to level a Pally is Prot… well, gee, thanks for the info. That’s good to know. That is so illuminating.

How about telling me WHY?

If you want to make a flat declarative statement, back it the hell up with your reasoning. Just saying ’cause that’s the way it is done, noob’ does nothing but tell me you don’t know, you’re just parroting something you read at Elitist Jerks and were too stupid to understand yourself.

Oh, and that’s not a shot at any blogger whatsoever… that’s my response to the people that share their lack of knowledge and canned responses on the Trade channel when I ask questions in the game. 

How’s about it? Paladins, start your engines! Lead us to your Blessings of Wisdom!

(Yes, I know, I could go do my own research at Wowwiki, Elitist Jerks, the Official WoW Paladin forums, the forums of WoWhead, and my fellow blogger’s websites myself. But ya know, I don’t take enough opportunities to give my fellow bloggers the lovin’ they deserve as it is. That’s why I do these things. It’s not cause I’m lazy at all. Uh uh. No way.)