I just can't figure it out, grr!

Evening,

So I have been trying to get a gold making business going. Its not going so well for me. I have max enchanting, jewelcrafting and tailoring at the moment. I just got jewelcrafting up there so I don't really have any cuts yet. I am missing a few of the dropped enchants but that's due to my lack of raiding. But for the most part I have what should be a good foundation. But the gems are irritating me and enchanting is expensive to get working. I find selling the crap I pick up to work better for me so far.

Now every goblin I have read says the same thing. Farming is a waste of time and less profitable. Now in a sense this is entirely true but it is based off what you feel time is worth. For me some days I really enjoy just flying around looking for ore nodes. Other days I want to do other things and I cant even find the time for all the crafting process to make the things to sell. Maybe just having enough gold is where I will have to settle but it would be nice to have a surplus of it to do as I like. I just have not been able to find the niche that works for me.

So now I am trying to decide which direction to go with all of this. I suppose I could just level most of the useful professions on my toons and keep my cost down that way so that if need be I would only be paying for material cost. It would also help if I could refuse to loan money to my wife. Loan is a very lose word also as I am not getting back as much as I gave which is my fault for being to nice. All I really want is the tundra mount and when I get close I let someone borrow gold and am back to starting almost over again. I don't think I will ever get that darn mount.

/oh well, could be worse right

Mage Update

Evening,

So I was able to hit level 62 yesterday. This has given me a chance to play a little with each spec in both questing and dungeons. My thoughts,

Fire-

• Actually is able to AOE but not as much at a time or as safely as frost can. It basically comes down to Living bomb on everything and then use all of your abilities to keep them as far away as possible for as long enough for them to all die. Its not easy, very mana intense and uses almost everything every pull to keep from dieing.
• In dungeons the cast times are still very slow. You can spec to get instant Flame Strikes when using Dragon Breathe but this puts you fairly close and aggro is a real problem. Other than that one ability everything cost a lot and Evocation is never off cooldown soon enough. This may be a lack of crit since that's where fires mana regen comes from but at this point I wouldn't suggest fire.

Frost-

• By far the best for AOE bar-none for both grinding, questing and dungeons
• Single target dps is very low even when popping Icy Veins and Elemental and then using Cold Snap to keep both up through entire fight.
• I will still be using this as my main leveling spec because of the AOE control and survivability

Arcane-

• Even without having Arcane Blast yet has by far the best single target dps so far!
• Can be mana intense or no thought of mana depending on Clearcasting procs, just be sure to be at full before a boss fight and you will be able to go the whole fight.
• AOE I personally have found to be very hard on mana if you try to go all out as well as the tanks tend to have aggro problems in that case. I have been dropping Flame Strike then just single targeting. It keeps up the dps and is sustainable.
• Rotating Arcane Barrage between Arcane Missiles for Missile Barrage procs is ok but using straight Arcane Missiles is likely better dps at this point. But the first time you get a Barrage proc you will love is so much you will find yourself weaving Arcane Barrage also.
• I will be using this as my dungeon spec for awhile.

So for now I against fire though if you prefer it that awesome. Its just not my style at the moment. I will likely try it again at some point but I will be sticking to Frost for AOE grinding and questing and Arcane for my dungeon runs.

Mage Leveling - So Far

Evening,

So last night my mage finally got to level 58. I had to get off after that so I have yet to take her into outlands to start the massive xp whore that Hellfire will be. I wanted to get my thoughts on the leveling process for me up to this point. I didn't get duel spec until around level 50 and then only to try out other specs to see how they played at this point. My primary leveling spec has been frost and will continue to be so. Now on to my thoughts of each spec up to this point.

Frost-

• Awesome mob control
• Best survivability of all the specs
• Best AOE damage and grinding capability
• Average DPS when Icy Veins is up/when it becomes available the elemental helps this a lot, though I didn't glyph it for the frost nova when AOE grinding
• There is a lot of drinking until you get the replenishment effect

Arcane-

• Capable Dps
• Very mana efficient due to Clearcasting and mage armor/shortened Evocate cooldown makes any bad points very easy to deal with
• Almost no AOE grind availability
• Using Flamestrike and Blizzard together AOE DPS is just as capable as Frost but more mana intense if Clearcasting procs are not very friendly
• Mana shield can be talented cheaper but I didn't use it, with proper use of Frost Nova there was no need for it

Fire-

• Very long cast times make it feel very slow
• can kill almost any mob before they reach you
• very mana intense, will be drinking even more than Frost due to most mana return coming from the crit DOT ticking which it rarely gets to
• In instances things tend to die so fast you don't have time to really get the DPS rolling even though I would say it has the highest DPS potential at this stage

So as you can tell I prefer frost for just about everything. Even though I have really been enjoying Arcane Missiles in instances. AOE grinding quest is defiantly the most time effective way to go with frost. Arcane doesn't really kill single target any faster than frost at this point. I really didn't care for fire at all. I just felt so so slow with the very long cast times it has.

I will continue to update this list and my feels as I continue to level. I am very excited about getting Living Bomb and Arcane Blast. I want to try AOE grinding with Living Bomb and see if I can make something work. Arcane Blast is what makes arcane viable so I will defiantly be using that for some good massive damage fun.

/breaths a sigh relief

Raid Leader?

Evening,

So after last weekend I had been doing some thinking. Would I make a good raid leader and would I even be capable of it? This came about from how our Rotface kill went. Also the help I gave the raid even though I wasn't in with everyone on Saurfang.

I have a decent enough knowledge of all classes and their specs to know what someone could be capable of. This helps in that I can make plans around that knowledge. For intense on Saurfang I knew that shaman and mage combo on one side would work because the mage could burn hard core and the shaman had very good slows and roots to give the mage time to burn. Same with the hunter and moonkin on the other side. I was also able to explain how they each needed to do their burning.

I am able to keep track of most of the room and still do my job. I almost always heal in raids. On Rotface that was no different. I was tank heals and the cleanser. So I took control and called who had the disease so they knew to run and they were also aware of how much time I was giving them.

I know boss fights by watching and understanding videos. This weekend what the first time I had seen either of the Festergut or Rotface encounters. But after the first pull I knew what was going on and who needed help. I learn very quickly and am able to adapt or at least I believe I am.

Now all the previous points would point to me being a great raid leader and possible your wondering why I don't do it. I'm am very impatient. I could not tolerate raiders showing up for raid when they can. I could not handle spending 30 to 40 minutes making sure everyone has flask and food and water. Come prepared and on time or we don't raid is how I feel about it. On top of that I believe you should do at the minimum 2 pulls before a break. I would prefer more but I can see how people need to breath to improve their game play. But breaks wouldn't be as long as you feel like. If any of these were not meet then I would cancel the raid then and there until people understood and started acting what I consider apporiately.

Now I do feel all of those points make for a decent leader. The problem is that the group of people I have been running with do not run like this at all. So I try to just ignore what is going on and maybe alt+tab during the bad parts. I understand that because of that I may not be helping the problem but it seems better than being the backseat driver that annoys everyone because they cant stop complaining all the time.

On top of it all I don't really want to be raid leader. I feel healing is stress enough without the headache of being in charge on top of it. I feel like more of a follower than a leader for the most part. I just get frustrated with the way our raids flow. With the raid leader usually being my wife it would seem simple to just say, hey honey can we do this better? But she seems to like the way her raids go. She prides herself on not being elitist and have a laid back fun raid. I'm just not sure that it is actually fun this way for everyone except a few. Most of us I don't feel really enjoy raiding for multiple hours on end with little progress in one night.

Maybe as she gets a more fixed group of raiders that aren't half pugs every week it will work its self out. But I am not entirely sure it will unless the leaders change the way they treat the raid. Only time will tell for sure.

/hoping everything works out in the wash

An Update

Evening,

Its been a bit since my last post. I just haven't had many ideas to work with but I'm getting a few finally and will start getting back to it. I am gonna work on updating my progresses and I have a mage leveling guide coming up. I'm really excited about the mage guide. I need to get my mage up a few more levels before I can complete it but I shouldn't take to long.

Over this last weekend I got some ICC raiding in on my paladin. It was fun and yet very frustrating. I'm sure many have felt what we were all feeling over the weekend. We spent on night working on Festergut to finally down him the next night. Then Rotface followed a night later after lots of work. Both were great achievements for my wife's guild. I'm not thinking I am the best raider out there but both kills were painful. The thrill and adrenaline of the kill get you through a few pulls on the next until you realize you may be lucky if you get it down.

It is raids like the this though that remind me why it is I don't care much for raiding. I don't enjoy beating my face against a wall that is only there because of small mistakes. Now I don't believe none of those mistakes are mine but when you see the same problems repeatedly by the same people its frustrating. I also think I could handle that better if we could recover faster. But when there is a five to ten minute break between each pull that has nothing to do with the game I really start to lose it. I don't enjoy spending 6 hours in a raid when we were only actually playing for 3 of it. I am including spirit runs and buffing the the play time. Now some of these delays are me and my wife's own fault for trying to raid with 2 babies in the house. But it still felt excessive to me.

/RAWR!

Yeah, So, Um, Yeah

Evening,

Yeah so its been awhile since I posted. No really good excuse just been busy with work and playing WoW with my extra time. That and I got caught spending to much time on the Internet at work so I have had to cut way back. And being that is where I do most of my posting it means I haven't been able to much.

In game I have been pretty busy though. Got my mage to level 27 as of last night and did my first ToC and ICC runs over the weekend. Got a shield upgrade off Lord Marrowgar. Which I was very happy about and got to friend with Ashen Verdict so that was a ring upgrade. With the Frost Emblems for ICC I am only 4 away from being able to get my T10 chest piece. So my holy set is coming along very nicely.

So with up dates done on to something more interesting. Yes I know I didn't mention the project because its probably a very good idea for someone else. I just don't know that I have what it really takes to pull that off. Mostly I am now using the excuse of a lack of time. Anyway moving on, I got to the point over the weekend of refusing to do randoms with strangers. It was bad, I had two groups in Pit of Saron that I was put into to heal the last boss only. Neither one could get him down. After wiping enough times to go completely red I called it quites. I'm not one to usually whine and cry about crappy players but it was crazy. I had a perfectly good tank quite group because they thought they weren't geared enough when he was second on dps. I don't know how long it was but I could drain all my mana twice is how long the fight was taking before I would get gibbed by bad placement or luck and we would wipe. But it is what it is and I have moved on to greener pastures. Ok not really greener but I can get back into the fray and be ok.

And now I am at a loss. Need to find something cool to talk about for the future. Maybe I will work class write ups or something. Cause I am sure my constant blabbing about what I am doing isn't that fun.

/over and out

The Start

Evening,

So it has started! The Cataclysm news is starting to roll out and beta invites are being sent to press. I loved keeping up with the news of things to be as Wrath was developing. Its what got me into leveling my paladin. So far they have only released previews on Warlocks and Shamans but this is shaping up to be even more dramatic than Wrath was. Not only are the redoing Azeroth but they are making some pretty big mechanic changes. I'm so excited about all of it.

Now I feel there is enough info out there and I don't want to regurgitate all of it over and over so I will only be hitting on the major stuff that makes me jump up and down and scream like a little girl. Wait I just said I wasn't regurgitating everything I read. Regurgitate, that's something only birds so do and its just nasty even then. *shiver* Um yeah so I guess I will just keep it to a minimum then. The things I am really excited about are the new secondary profession and the Path of the Titans. Also am very interested in how the guild talent tree thing is going to work. So far though there is no new information on those just class changes.

Project Update: Um, yeah, haven't really thought about it a lot. I think I may spend the weekend collecting and filing bookmarks for the various information needed for each class and spec. That will likely take up my weekend all with my play needs. So I likely will not be helping anyone this weekend but maybe I will try out my macro a couple times. After all if I only use it a couple times and get even one hit then I may very well be headed in the right direction. I don't believe I will ever be able to devote hours to sitting in a city spamming a macro though.

/must think of something actually interesting