The 3.3 Cat Gearing Guide, Part 3 (10M ICC)

 Feral  9 Responses »
Feb 232010
 

For Part 3 of the guide, we’ll be looking at a build using the gear available from 10M ICC (normal) and Frost Emblems. You do miss out on a few fun toys from 25M ICC (Deathbringer’s Will, for instance), but your gearing will be much simpler. Much depends on the buffs/debuffs you have available. For the purposes of this post, I’ll assume you have Imp. MOTW/Faerie Fire (duh), Might, Kings, Horn of Winter, Trueshot Aura, Sunder Armor, and an Endless Rage flask. I also won’t take any profession bonuses into account.

Note: Most of these calculations were derived using Rawr, so go download it and follow along if you haven’t already.

TLDR Version:

1. You NEED 4pT10. Rake being able to crit, with our absurdly high crit rates, will be a very powerful addition. You’re looking at a 6-8% DPS increase just from that set bonus. It’ll take a while to get there though, so it’s probably best to keep 4pT9 until you get 2 pieces of T10. You can break it early if you’re upgrading from 232′s, but I’d keep ilvl 245 2pT9 as long as you can.

2. Don’t believe the ArPen hype. Agility remains the best stat. Why? Well, as I mentioned earlier, the 4pT10 bonus feeds off agi/crit. ArPen only helps your direct attacks, mainly your white damage and your Shreds. Now, if you have lots of haste or lots of ArPen (from 25-man buffs, 25m ICC gear, or both) than this might change, but in general, things look like this (10m buffs):
Gearing up (4pT9): Agi > Str > Crit > ArPen
Somewhat geared (2pT10ish): ArPen > Agi > Str
4pT10(251): Agi > ArPen > Str

I’ll cover how the picture changes with 25m gear in a later post. It’s up to you if you want to regem for ArPen then back to Agi…that can get pretty expensive, however, and the DPS difference is fairly minimal (-50ish DPS for going full ArPen vs agi/crit, or a -.5% drop).

Gear List

Head: Lasherweave Headguard, 95 EoF’s.
Alternatives: Discarded Bag of Entrails (My, what a lovely name), Prof. Putricide; Hood of Lethal Intent, 75 EoT’s.
Notes: The Bag is an okay piece, but PP is one of the harder bosses, so you may not get it early (and the T10 is superior anyway). The 245 piece is much better than it was in T9, since you’re less likely to be hitcapped.

Neck: Rimetooth Pendant, Sindragosa.
Alternatives: Precious’s Putrid Collar, Festergut; Wodin’s Lucky Necklace, ICC BoE world drop.
Notes: Whichever one you get…you’re likely to get the Collar first, but the hit on it may go to waste. If you’re lucky enough (or rich enough), you might get Wodin’s, which is a 264 and superior to both. (It can drop in 10 or 25.)

Shoulders: Lasherweave Shoulderpads, 60 EoF’s.
Alternatives: Skinned Whelp Shoulders, Valithria; Duskstalker Shoulderpads, 45 EoT’s.
Notes: All of these are pretty close in stats. The Whelp Shoulders are slightly superior, but not enough to make this the preferred off-set.

Back: Recovered Scarlet Onslaught Cape, 50 EoF’s.
Alternatives: Shawl of Nerubian Silk, Marrowgar; Saronite Gargoyle Cloak, Gunship
Notes: The EoF cape is a VERY good piece (arguably BiS until heroic), but it still doesn’t take precedence over your 4pT10. It’s about an 80 dps upgrade over the Shawl, which shouldn’t be hard to come by. The Saronite cloak is meant for plate DPS’ers (str instead of agi), but we do okay with strength, so it’s a good third option.

Chest: Lasherweave Raiment, 95 EoF’s.
Alternatives: Chestguard of the Frigid Noose, Deathwhisper; Ikfirus’s Sack of Wonder, Gunship(25M) BoE.
Notes: The Chestguard and the T10 piece are almost identical, except for an extra gem slot in the Chestguard. It’s pretty easy to get, so I’d use that and hold off from upgrading to the T10 until you need to. The Sack BoE isn’t really all that great for DPS…it’s more of a bear tanky piece.

Wrist: Vambraces of the Frost Wyrm Queen, Sindragosa.
Alternatives: Bracers of Swift Death, crafted.
Notes: The crafted bracers are great (it’s only about a 20 dps upgrade to the Vambraces) so this slot is not a high priority. If you don’t have the crafted bracers, get them. :P

Hands: Cat Burglar’s Grips, 60 EoF’s.
Alternatives: Scourge Stranglers, Saurfang; Lasherweave Handgrips, 60 EoF’s.
Notes: The tier piece here is the weakest of the five, so this is where I’d recommend you use your off-set (Grips are +80 dps, Stranglers are +40 dps) However, this will mean your 4pT10 will take slightly longer to get, since you’ll have to use the three expensive pieces (chest/head/legs). I’d hold off unless you manage to snag a 264 in another slot, in which case use that as your off-set and pick up the T10. (Legs are an excellent choice to get a 264, so see below.) These also have a chance to drop off Toravon, so try to hold off if possible.

Waist: Vengeful Noose, 60 EoF’s.
Alternatives: Soulthief’s Braided Belt, Deathwhisper.
Notes: The Braided belt is fairly easy to get, so stick with that until you have the EoF’s to burn to upgrade to the Noose (70 dps upgrade, probably your second purchase after the cloak).

Legs: Lasherweave Legguards, 95 EoF’s.
Alternatives: Bladeborn Leggings, crafted; Plague-Soaked Leather Leggings, Festergut.
Notes: The Bladeborn Leggings are VERY good if you only run 10′s…however, you’re missing out on the expertise from the tier piece, which will become a big problem later for 25′s gear. If you don’t mind shelling out the cash and you don’t mind replacing it later, this is the best off-set. Also, as with the hands, this has a chance to drop off Toravon.

Feet: Footpads of Impending Death, crafted.
Alternatives: Taldaram’s Soft Slippers, Princes.
Notes: The crafted Footpads are good, but they’re only mildly better then the drop from Taldaram, so they’re probably not worth the investment. (I have them because I picked a non-optimal way to get under the server-transfer gold cap.) :)

Rings: Ashen Band of Endless Vengeance, repring; Saurfang’s Cold-Forged Band, Saurfang (naturally).
Alternatives: Seal of the Twilight Queen, BQL; Runed Band of the Kirin Tor, ~12000g.
Notes: The rep ring is great, so just grab it and go. If you can’t get any of the others, the Dexterous ring is still very good.

Trinkets:Whispering Fanged Skull, Deathwhisper; Herkuml War Token, 60 EoF’s.
Alternatives: Needle-Encrusted Scorpion, H FoS.
Notes:The Skull is just like the good old Mirror of Truth, except BETTER. Can’t go wrong with that. The 2nd slot is debatable, as the value of the Scorpion fluctuates greatly with the amount of ArPen you have. It’s meh with less than 400 ArPen, becomes good in the 400-722 range (ArPen softcap), then starts getting worse. If you managed to snag a Death’s Verdict (Choice) from TOC25, that beats out both; use that instead. Try to get into an ICC25 pug to land Deathbringer’s Will from Saurfang…it’s almost perfectly itemized for ferals.

Weapon: Hersir’s Greatspear, Princes.
Alternatives: Shaft of Glacial Ice, Rotface; Lightborn Spire, quest reward from Battered Hilt questline.
Notes: Not much to say on weapons, as generally you want the item with the highest ilvl. I haven’t listed the weapon from LK…if you’re one of the lucky few who even have a chance at killing him now, then snap that up. Otherwise, Hersir’s is better itemized, but take either of the two if you still have a non-251 weapon. If you raid with a hunter, discuss this with them; you get more of an upgrade from it then they will, as the DPS on the weapon factors into your stats, whereas the hunter simply uses them as stat sticks.

Idol: Idol of the Crying Moon, 30 EoF’s.
Alternatives: Idol of Mutilation, 25 EoT’s.
Notes: This is probably the last place you want to spend EoF’s, as the Moon idol grants about a 30 dps upgrade.

Stats:

Again, I’ll be analyzing this gear set from three different buff perspectives.

First, we’ll look at the numbers when selfbuffed, with only Imp. MOTW. Next, we’ll look at the set from a 10-man buff perspective, with my arbitrary list of buffs including Horn of Winter, Blessing of Might/Kings, Trueshot Aura, Sunder Armor, Agility food, and an Endless Rage flask. Finally, we’ll look at a 25-man buff perspective, adding in Imp. BOM, Ret buffs (Sanc. Ret, Swift. Ret, HotC), Savage Combat, Imp. Windfury, Enhancing Totems, Heroism, Trauma from an arms war, and a speed pot. These numbers are assuming full enchants (see part 1 for enchant list), and are optimized with Rawr for the best gems. See below for the relative stat values. (Note: I decided to not go with ungemmed gear this time…it’s really kind of a hassle to do. Also, remember that Rawr’s stats are slightly higher than paperdoll since they add in averaged-out procs over the fight length. I’ve used the default 5min duration.)

Character: Self-Buff 10M-Buff 25M-Buff
Race: NightElf NightElf NightElf
DPS Points: 6918 9003 10984
Attack Power: 10455 13429 13322
Agility: 2129 2562 2251
Strength: 169 371 398
Crit Rating: 958 923 898
Hit Rating: 225 225 225
Expertise Rating: 144 144 80
Haste Rating: 294 286 311
Armor Penetration Rating: 544 597 928
Avoided Attacks: 1.14% 1.14% 2.69%
Crit Chance: 67.41% 72.17% 70.96%
Attack Speed: 0.890s 0.893s 0.715s

10M bumps up DPS considerably by boosting AP, Agi, and Str.  25M goes back to ArP. These numbers will mean more in context: let’s look at the calculated relative stat values.

Relative Stat Values:

Optimized Gemming (9 red/7 yellow/3 blue/1 colorless):

Self/10m buffs: +20 agi in red/colorless slots, +10 agi/+10 crit in yellow slots, one +10 stats then +20 agi in blue slots.
25m buffs: +20 ArP in red/colorless slots, +10 agi/+10 crit or +20 ArP in yellow slots, depending on socket bonus, one +10 stats then +20 ArP in blue slots.

Character: Self-Buff 10M-Buff 25M-Buff
Agi: 1.14 1.55 2.00
Str: 1.05 1.39 1.8
ArPen: 1.01 1.43 2.11
Crit: 1.08 1.36 1.68
Haste: 0.79 1.12 1.58
Exp: 0.51 0.00(cap) 1.35
Hit: 0.71 0.95 1.35
AP: 0.49 0.60 0.76

As you can see, agi remains your top stat for 10M content, but the added buffs in 25M push ArPen over the top. Why? See below.

Damage Table:

Character: Self-Buff 10M-Buff 25M-Buff
Melee: 337x (23.7%) 336x (26.1%) 419x (30.8%)
Mangle: 145 DPE (6.1%) 197 DPE (6.4%) 228 DPE (0.0%)
Shred: 174 DPE (17.3%) 236 DPE (17.9%) 273 DPE (25.6%)
Rake: 390 DPE (21.3%) 473 DPE (19.8%) 499 DPE (17.3%)
Rip: 1980 DPE (25.4%) 2342 DPE (23.1%) 2469 DPE (20.0%)
Bite (5cp): 331 DPE (6.2%) 449 DPE (6.7%) 521.4 DPE (6.4%)

Once again, I’ve included a DPE table. What I want to point out specifically here is the increase in % of damage done by direct attacks as you receive more buffs. The extra haste means a lot more melee attacks are landing, which drastically increases the effectiveness of ArPen. This may lead to rotation priority adjustments, especially as you approach the ArPen cap (1400). It remains to be seen if the 4pT10 set bonus will continue to be strong enough for Rake. Looking at the 25m buff example, if the effect of the 4pT10 set bonus is removed, Rake’s DPE drops to 280, which is almost equal to Shred…and that’s only at 928 ArPen.

That’s it for this section; in part 4, I’ll be analyzing the same numbers using a 25M ICC BiS gearset. The wait shouldn’t be as long this time, though. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments.

10455
2129
169
958
225
144
294
544

Preliminary Conclusion, 10M ICC gear analysis

 Uncategorized  7 Responses »
Feb 192010
 

I’ve almost finished Part 3 of my cat gear guide, but I’d like to share my preliminary conclusion now, as it runs counter to the conventional wisdom.

Don’t gem ArPen for 10M.

Why?

Our 4pT10 set bonus is amazingly good, and will boost your DPS by 4-8%. Before, Rake was one of our lower DPE abilities, enough so that FB surpassed it. Now, we’ll want to maximize our Rake uptime. (After Rip/SR, of course.) Rake does not benefit from ArPen.

Also, the real benefits from ArPen comes from having it close to the cap, due to its scaling nature. The softcap at 722 is nice (with NES), but 10M buffs and gear simply do not provide the supporting stats necessary to support stacking it in most cases, though it’s very close. (BS/JC may swing things…haven’t tested that scenario.)

However, until you get 4pT10, ArPen is relatively stronger, and will be slightly superior in many cases depending on your offset pieces and raidcomp. It’s up to you how much regemming you want to do.

It should be the Lunar (I'm lost again) Festival

 Uncategorized  14 Responses »
Feb 162010
 

Unlike my detailed guide for Love is in the Air, I will not be posting a guide for the Lunar Festival, as it boils down to this:

1. Go to area/instance. Most are impossible to find or confusing as hell. (The path INTO Sunken Temple is more complicated then any Northrend instance…I felt like I was playing Zelda and I was stuck in the freaking Water Temple AGAIN, looking for the switch/plate/button that would raise/lower the water level.)
2. Get lost trying to find Elder. (Hi, BRS!)
3. Finally find Elder.
4. Realize you can either hearth out and port from Dal/fly to the next zone you need (takes 15 min) or find your way back out and ride there (takes 15 min).
5. Curse Blizzard.
6. Repeat 8523523461 times. (Ok, Omen is pretty cool.)

Bonus: Apparently, these Elders are mail spammers too! You’d think at least one of them would have the decency to send some gold or something, but I guess they all went broke spamming everyone three years ago. Do the Elders have an opt-out?

The power of cosmetics

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Feb 132010
 

Nothing new on the theorycraft front (various family and weather considerations have prevented me from actually finding the time to sit down and write up a detailed blog post)…but the biggest thing that’s struck me lately is the power of the Love is In the Air perfume/cologne for alts. 75AP perfume + heirloom axe means my new pally is killing on-level mobs with a single judgement/melee swing. Woot. :)

Raidwise, mad props (do people say that anymore?) to my new guild for inviting me to their 25m ICC with my failtop. The Crimson Hall trash was horrid (positional DPS requirements and knockbacks with 4 FPS!) I still did tolerably well on the Princes and BQL, though the FPS makes reaction times horrible. Hopefully, next week, I’ll be able to clear some of the Lower Spire on 25 which is less movement-intensive.

Welcome wow.com visitors

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Feb 092010
 

Greetings all, and thanks again to Allison for her link. If you’re looking for more feral druid information, try these posts:

  • The 3.3 Cat Gearing Guide: Part 1 covers the basics, while Part 2 looks specifically at T9 gear. Part 3, coming “soon,” will look at T10 gear. I was *going* to write a kitty 101 post, but Allison’s beat me to it, apparently. :) Maybe I’ll do Kitty 201: Advanced Feline Concepts.
  • Melee Hit Table FAQ: This post covers why agility gets worse and worse as a stat once you reach the T10 levels of gear, plus some more good information.
  • Armor Penetration FAQ: A bit outdated, but still good. Part 1 covers the basics, while Part 2 covers it in a bit more detail.
  • The Feral Tanking Guide: For our bear relatives. Start with the Introduction.

Fool for Love (Love is in the Air) achievement guide

 Achievement  22 Responses »
Feb 072010
 

EDIT2: After Maintenance, it was apparently hotfixed to have only mobs that grant experience drop charms. This will make charm farming much more difficult, if you haven’t done so already. If you’re not looking forward to grinding, buy necklaces off the AH ASAP (price will most assuredly rise now). Thanks evan!

EDIT: Big change that I missed at first…the Love Fool no longer has 5 charges, so you’ll need 5 this year. Unsure if this is intended or not, but this will significantly increase the number of Tokens you need.

There are 16 achievements for this holiday, of which 12 are part of the meta, Fool For Love, which is required for What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been. With Lunar Festival coming up next week, you don’t want to dawdle. Let’s get your charm(s) on.

Setting the Mood (Introduction)

Before you go rushing off, let’s explain how the holiday works. The primary thing you’ll need are Love Tokens, of which you’ll need 100 or so to complete the meta, or more for the optional achievements. Love Tokens can be acquired three ways:

  1. Two basic dailies, available from any major city. The first is immediately available, requires spraying 10 friendly NPC’s or players, and is very fast and easy. Rewards 5 Love Tokens. The second, Crushing the Crown, is only unlocked once you complete the Uncommon Scents questline (very short and easy, starts in SW/Org) and requires you to go to a certain area and kill a few easy mobs (varies based on level, lvl 75+ version is right outside Dal in Crystalsong). This is easy except for the fact that the spawn area will be COMPLETELY camped. Those of you on PvP servers may wish to pass up this daily. Also rewards 5 Love Tokens.
  2. A turn-in daily in each major city to that city’s faction leader. (so can be done 4x per day, once per city). Requires 1 Lovely Charm Bracelet (see 3), rewards 5 Love Tokens. You have to do this at least once in each city for the achievement, so be prepared.
  3. Finally, green or better mobs will randomly drop Lovely Charms on death if you have a Lovely Charm Collector’s Kit, available near the daily questgiver. (Unlike most everything else in the game, Lovely Charms are automatically added to your inventory if they drop and you’re eligible to loot them.). EDIT: As Kae and Keeva have pointed out, you have to get a killing blow to be eligible to get a charm, so healers are slightly disadvantaged for this. 10 Charms can be combined into 1 Lovely Charm Bracelet. The best use of Bracelets is to complete #2 (above), but if you’re pressed for time, 1 Bracelet can be turned in for 1 Love Token. You have to create 12 Bracelets for an achievement, so start farming! :) It’s actually quite easy..you can expect to get ~10 charms per heroic run if you’re still aiming for badges. If you just want to farm them fast, form a raid with someone and head to Ulduar 10…grab a demolisher or bike and start wiping out the dwarves that constantly respawn. I did this last night and had about 200 charms in ~20 minutes. (Tip: Charms stack in 10′s, which sucks, but Bracelets do NOT stack at all…so don’t combine them till you’re done.) If you can’t get in Ulduar for whatever reason, good alternatives are the Bombardment/Battle dailies in Icecrown or the chaingun in the mausoleum in Dragonblight (may need to be sub-80 for this one.) Edit: If you missed out on this, it’s been hotfixed to be only mobs that grant experience…no more free ride. However, it has also been hotfixed to drop to anyone in a group, so healers are no longer (overly) screwed. Another good strategy: If you have a leveling alt that you don’t care about getting the achievements on, have them pick up a charm kit and just quest away. My new pally picked up a kit at level 5, ran through all the Draenei starter quests (Azure Watch/Blood Watch) and ended up with about 200 charms that I mailed to my main.

There’s also a new boss that spawns in Shadowfang Keep which drops some ilvl 226 necks (just reskins of the EoC ones) and some fun vanity stuff, so check that out if you’re into that. Needed for a few non-meta achievements.

Quick and Dirty… (Checklist)

  1. Go to SW/Org and complete the questline that starts with “Uncommon Scents.”
  2. Get 120 Lovely Charms and convert them into Bracelets. (See #3 above.) (Charming)
  3. Find a group (or just solo, if you can) for UK/OK/HoS to get the Bouquet. Drops from Keleseth/Taldaram/Maiden, respectively. (My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose)
  4. Get 60+ 100+ Love Tokens, or 100+ 140+ if trying for optional achievements. It’s best to start early on this, as you can get 30 per day easily via the dailies (See #1 and #2 above), and you need to do them all at least once anyway. You can still do it if you wait until the last minute, but it’ll take quite a bit more grinding. (Dangerous Love, Nation of Adoration)
  5. Buy 10 Silver Shafted Arrows and 3×5 Handfuls of Rose Petals and start looking for the race/class combos you need. Dal’s generally your best bet. Shoot random players while looking. (Fistful of Love, Shafted!)
  6. Buy Bags of Candies, open and eat until you get all 8. (Be Mine!) I’m 99% sure these are tradable, so it may be to your benefit to find someone else who needs the achievement as well. It appeared to me, though, that there were 4-5 common candies, 2-3 uncommon ones, and 1 rare one (that took me 6 bags to get).
  7. Buy 10 Love Rockets, fire them. (The Rocket’s Pink Glare)
  8. Buy some alcohol (enough to get completely smashed) and some perfume…head to IF/UC and use all three, then /kiss the relevant NPC. (Flirt with Disaster)
  9. Find a friend/guildy. (This may be hard for some people…gold helps :))
  10. Buy a Box of Chocolates and a Romantic Picnic Basket. Open the Box…if you have bad luck and don’t get all four, buy another. Go to Dal, use the picnic basket, get your friend to sit down with you at it (you need to have the buff) and eat one of each chocolate. (Lonely?, Sweet Tooth)
  11. Buy 5 Love Fools…use the Love Fool and /pity in the 5 specified locations. EDIT: This is a big change from last year that I missed at first, where one had 5 charges. Thanks Timezombie. (I Pitied the Fool) To get into Naxx, group with your friend and create a raid (you can do it right when you zone in, no need to kill anything). You’re done for the meta! (Fool for Love)
  12. (optional) Get more tokens and buy a Silver Shafted Arrow (Perma-Peddle) and Lovely Dress Boxes until you get a Lovely Black Dress (Lovely Luck is on Your Side).
  13. (optional) Kill the Apothecary Trio in SFK (Tough Love). This can be done once per day per character. If you’re VERY “lucky”, you might win the Big Love Rocket! (Big Love Rocket).

…Or Slow and Tender (Achievement Details)

Be Mine!

Requirement: Eat the eight “Bag of Candies” heart candies listed below.
How to Complete: Bags of Candies can be bought from the merchant for 2 Tokens, and have 10 random candies in them. Unless your luck is good, you’ll have to buy 2 or 3 (or 5 or 6…grrr) to find all eight at least once. (I believe they’re also tradable.)

Charming

Requirement: Create 12 Lovely Charm Bracelets.
How to Complete: Create 12 Lovely Charm Bracelets. :) See #3 above.

Dangerous Love

Requirement: Assist the Steamwheedle Cartel in stopping the sinister Crown Chemical Co. plot.
How to Complete: Complete the Crushing the Crown daily quest at least once. See #1 above.

Fistful of Love

Requirement: Use a Handful of Rose Petals on 11 different race/class combinations.
How to Complete: You can buy 5x Handfuls from a merchant for 2 Tokens. (Annoying, since there’s 11 combinations, so you’ll need 6 Tokens…you do need a handful for the next achievement, though, so save at least one.) Then, you just have to find them. Good luck with the Troll Rogue.

Flirt With Disaster

Requirement: Get completely smashed, put on your best perfume, throw a handful of rose petals on Jeremiah Payson or Sraaz and then kiss him. You’ll regret it in the morning.
How to Complete: Get some alcohol from an Innkeeper (or use your Brewfest stuff for style points), then buy (any) Perfume for 2 tokens from a merchant (you hopefully have some Handfuls already, if not, get those as well). Go to IF/UC, find your respective NPC, get smashed, use the perfume, toss the roses, and /kiss. Horde Note: Apparently, there’s no alcohol for sale in UC, so get some before you make the trip.

I Pitied The Fool

Requirement: Pity the Love Fool in the locations specified below.
How to Complete: Buy 5 Love Fools for 50 Tokens from the merchant, then drop one and /pity them in each listed area (Wintergrasp, Arathi Basin Blacksmith, Naxxramas, Battle Ring of Gurubashi Arena and The Culling of Stratholme). You will have to be 80 to get into Naxx, so hurry up and level if you’re not there yet. (The fool does last 10 days from purchase, so you could conceivably finish this one after the holiday was over and still get credit for the Meta).

Lonely?

Requirement: Enjoy a Buttermilk Delight with someone in Dalaran at a Romantic Picnic during the Love is in the Air celebration.
How to Complete: Buy a Romantic Picnic Basket (10 Tokens) and a Box of Chocolates (10 Tokens) from the merchant. Find someone else, pop your basket, wait till they sit down with you (and you get the Romantic Picnic buff), then open the Box and eat a Buttermilk Delight for credit. (You may want to open the box first to make sure you get a Buttermilk Delight…but that spoils the fun. ) :)

My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose

Requirement: Obtain a Bouquet of Red or Ebon Roses during the Love is in the Air celebration.
How to Complete: Just like the Winter Festival hats, these drop from Northend instance bosses, specifically Maiden of Grief in Halls of Stone, Prince Keleseth in Utgarde Keep or Prince Taldaram in Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom. Normal or Heroic. UK’s the easiest, obviously.

Nation of Adoration

Requirement: Complete the Lovely Charm Bracelet daily quest for each Horde or Alliance capital.
How to Complete: Complete the Lovely Charm Bracelet daily quest for each Horde or Alliance capital. :) See #2 above.

Shafted!

Requirement: Shoot 10 players with the Silver Shafted Arrow.
How to Complete: Buy 10 Arrows for 10 tokens from the merchant…then start shooting. :)

Sweet Tooth

Requirement: Sample all four the Love is in the Air candies.
How to Complete: Buy a Box of Chocolates for 10 tokens, open and eat. Best done while doing the Lonely? achievement. May need to buy two.

The Rocket’s Pink Glare

Requirement: Shoot off 10 Love Rockets in 20 seconds or less.
How to Complete: Buy 10 Rockets for 10 tokens, put them on your hotbar, and fire away.

Big Love Rocket (not required for meta)

Requirement: Obtain the Big Love Rocket from Apothecary Hummel in Shadowfang Keep during Love is in the Air.
How to Complete: Get a group for the boss, kill him, get the VERY rare drop AND win the roll. :). This is actually a Feat of Strength (worth 0 points).

Lovely Luck Is On Your Side (not required for meta)

Requirement: Open a Lovely Dress Box and receive a Lovely Black Dress.
How to Complete: Lovely Dress Boxes cost 20 tokens. Grind tokens and buy until you get lucky.

Perma-Peddle (not required for meta)

Requirement: Obtain a permanent Peddlefeet pet by procuring a Truesilver Shafted Arrow.
How to Complete: Buy the Truesilver Shafted Arrow for 40 Tokens from the merchant.

Tough Love (not required for meta)

Requirement: Defeat the trio of Crown Chemical Co. apothecaries in Shadowfang Keep.
How to Complete: Get a group, go to SFK, and beat them down. :) You don’t really need a tank, but you will need a healer. You’ll get two items to become immune to perfume OR cologne; Hummel’s attacks are all perfume, Baxter’s attacks are all cologne, and Frye uses both. Have two players go immune to perfume/cologne respectively and “tank” Hummel and Baxter to the sides- the rest burn down Frye, then the others, staying out of clouds as much as possible. (Melee, you’ll need to switch which immunity item you’re using, as Baxter/Hummel have cologne/perfume auras. Ranged can fire away.)

The search is over

 Uncategorized  4 Responses »
Feb 052010
 

I’ve found a new home, it looks like. I’ll be joining <Collateral Damage> on US-Vek’nilash as a trial next week. That’s something I’ll have to get used to…going from being an officer to the bottom of the ladder. :) From the conversations I’ve had with them, they seem like a great bunch of people. If my computer will show up, I’m looking forward to raiding again.

(I’ll be getting back to the cat theory posts next week, especially now that I’ll be doing Feral DPS full-time.)

A crossroads…guild app time

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Feb 012010
 

EDIT: Thanks to all who replied. I’ll be joining <Collateral Damage> on US-Vek’nilash. I’m also working on a blog post describing how I went about looking for a new guild.

Not much to report; I’m still killing people while tanking due to bad hotel wifi and a slow computer, but that’s not new. Tanking in 2pT10 with cat gear on leads to some nice DPS numbers.  My DK finally hit 80, so I get to mess around with some plate tanking and such. I can’t believe that two of my top 10 games (Bioshock/Mass Effect) have sequels due out while my XB360 and PC are somewhere over the Pacific. (hopefully over…under would be bad.) The Motorola Droid is a very nice phone. :)

This post isn’t about that. I’m really struggling, more than I thought I would, with what I want from a new guild. I had a really good time with my casual guild, but I’d like to take the step up to one that’s a bit more progression-focused. Unfortunately, being both an Army officer and a father of a toddler, my raiding time is generally somewhat limited. I’m torn between looking for a 10-man guild (whether it be ten-strict or not) or a 25-man. 25′s get all the cool toys and itemization, and they have more complex strategy and execution requirements (good) but also more drama and less efficiency. (I hate wasting time, and people who waste other’s time unnecessarily). I also dislike the reduced accountability and cohesion that can come from that.

Sooo…let’s make a list. (Man, another list. I should rename this blog to The Bullet-Pointed Parenthetical-Comment Inserting Druid).

Want:

  • An Alliance guild on a US PvE or RP server that raids 8-12 EST (or a subset of that), 2-3 days a week, with an 80-90% attendance requirement or so. More raid days is fine, but I can’t promise I’ll make more days than that.
  • A respectful guild of mature people. I will not tolerate abuse or harassment (of anyone), at all.
  • A guild that holds its members to high and transparent standards. If I’m slacking on DPS/whatever, the RL should call me out (respectfully), and likewise for other people…however, it better be clear what DPS he/she’s expecting. In the same vein, I’d prefer a transparent loot system (i.e. not loot council), though I could be persuaded otherwise.
  • A guild that’s willing and able to challenge the toughest content available, without sacrificing the above. To use a slightly crude analogy, i’m looking for a committed relationship, not a one-night stand. :P
  • Um, this goes without saying, but blogger-friendly. :)

Don’t Want:

  • A guild on a PvP server. Nothing against them personally, I just find that open-world PvP usually turns into gankfests, which wastes my already limited time.
  • A guild that realizes WoW is just a game. (Yes, that’s a hard one.)
  • A “leet guild.” I can’t really define this, but I’m interested in WoW for the challenge of the content, not necessarily the challenge of world/server firsts. (See “WoW is just a game.”)

I’ll Bring:

  • My MS cat/SMS bear/OS resto/SOS boomy druid. (Yep, I have sub-main and sub-offspecs, with gear for each…cept the boomy, and I’ve got enough EoT’s to equip a set if needed.) Full gems/chants/consumables/etc. are a given. I’m most knowledgeable about feral, am very good at resto, and…um….know where the Starfire and Wrath buttons are for boomy. :) Whatever the guild needs. I prize myself on being prepared and adaptable (hence the blog title). With the addons Talented and ActionBarSaver, I can port to Moonglade, retalent, assign buttons, holler up my Squire for consumables out of the bank, and be ready for any role in >2 minutes.
  • A good attitude 90% of the time. (Hey, I’m realistic. Everyone has bad days.)
  • My occasionally skewed sense of humor. (I would say take it or leave it…but it’s coming regardless.)
  • Sass.
  • More sass.

Hmm. I look back at that list, and really, I see nothing that would necessarily push me one direction or the other (to a 10-man or 25-man guild). Someone help me make up my mind. ;)  Do I want cool toys and more complicated strategy or a more tightly-knit raiding group? (I also don’t want to be the guy that because he can’t make a raid makes everyone else cancel their plans…which seems to impact 10′s more than 25′s.)

(Note: FWIW, I’m looking now, but any actual raiding will have to wait until I get my stuff, in a month or so, hopefully sooner. *crosses fingers*) I can still do…umm…moral support?


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