October Site News and Heading Towards the Cataclysm

Although it seems like I do this every month, I need to start with a huge thank you to the community who reads my blog.  In the month of October, we got over 3800 visits and almost 5000 page views, easily doubling what was done in September and the monthly average before that.  Since I started looking at data in June 2010, we have had almost 10,000 visits and almost 13,000 page views.  Whether you have been here since the beginning or recently found this site through the Raid Warning round table, Shift Happens, or through the LeetSauced podcast, thank you.

During this month, we celebrated the 100th post and the winners of our first contest, Christmas in July.  To those winners, I have been busy and have not been able to get the e-mails out to you but you will have them by the end of the week.

So, now we look on to Cataclysm and what is in store for World of Warcraft.  I will continue blogging through Cataclysm bringing you all the druid and raiding things that occur and beyond.  I also would love to hear topics you would want to hear more about both from raiding and the druid side of things.  I will also be talking a lot about the world events as they start occurring and what you could do to take part in them.  So again, thank  you and I can't wait to hear your suggestions. 

Election Day in Azeroth

With it being election day in the USA, I thought it would be fun to have some elections of our own from Azeroth.  There is not going to be any prizes, but it hopefully will stir some conversation.  Also, as we get close to Cataclysm, think of this as the best of Wrath list.

Election 1: Best End Raid Boss of Wrath - Lich King vs. Algalon vs. Yogg-Saron: The other raid bosses I don't think even hold a candle to these three raid bosses, although write-in candidates are possible.  This is also taking into account the hardmodes.

Redhawks' Vote: Yogg-Saron - While the LK hardmode is probably the single hardest boss encounter in the game, even the normal mode Yogg-Saron is not forgiving.  Counting all the factors in the fight from the annoying clouds to managing your Sanity to going inside Yogg's brain, it made for what is possibly the most epic fight in Wrath.  Plus, the 30% buff hurt the LK in the voting.

Election 2: Best 5 Man Boss of Wrath - Lich King (from HoR) vs The Black Knight (from ToC): The early 5 mans don't even really count.  With the exception of the Oculus, most of them were tank and spanks, even then.  And I don't even want to speak of the Oculus.

Redhawks' Vote: Lich King (from HoR) - Although none of the adds are really tough, there is a sense of urgency unlike any 5 man boss fight in Wrath.  Plus, just getting to him is a pain in the neck, especially with unexperienced PUGs.  Plus, it is not forgiving.  The adds can still two shot anything but a tank so if aggro is not gotten quickly or is pulled off of you, they are likely dead.  Cap it off with your airship collapsing the cave on the LK and you have a great finish to a boss fight.

Election 3: Best Quest Chain: Wrathgate vs. ICC - I know that some people will probably include the Quel'Delar or Shadowmourne quest chains, which are available as write ins, but these are the two quest chains that just scream to me as epic quest chains.

Redhawks' Vote: Wrathgate - The one quest chain that essentially sets up everything that occurs in ICC, from Deathbringer Saurfang to Bolvar Fordragon as the new Lich King.  Take into account the invasion of Undercity and everything else that occurs, if there is one quest chain to do in Wrath, it is Wrathgate.

Election 4: Most Annoying Leader - King Varian Wrynn vs. Garrosh Hellscream - While this election will likely occur along faction lines, both of these guys could be considered douchebags.  On one hand, you have Wrynn who invaded Undercity and tried to wipe out all of the Undead for the actions of a few Undead who turned Scourge.  On the other hand, you have Garrosh who wants to wipe out the Alliance in ToC because of the actions of stupid gnome, who was killed anyway.

Redhawks' Vote: Garrosh Hellscream - While both of these guys are douchebags, Wrynn at least redeems himself slightly after Deathbringer Saurfang is defeated in ICC by allowing his father to take his son's body.  Garrosh did nothing to redeem himself yet and even worse becomes leader of the Horde in Cataclysm. 


Election 5: Biggest Hero in Wrath - Bolvar Fordragon vs. Highlord Tirion Fordring - One made a sacrifice to keep the world safe, for now.  However, without Tirion, he wouldn't have taken over in the first place.


Redhawks' Vote: Highlord Tirion Fordring - From training in ToC to saving us during the LK fight, this man did everything to finally take down the LK.  And although Bolvar saved us from the Scourge overrunning the world, even that wouldn't have been possible without Tirion.


With today as election day, I have to urge you to go and vote today.  If you do not vote, you have no right to complain about what happens afterwards. I don't care about your politics but the important thing is to go vote.

My Cataclysm Plans - Version 1.0

Now that we are so close to Cataclysm, I have started focusing more and more on what I will be doing when Cataclysm hits.  Here is my likely list of what on my order of things in Cataclysm.

1) Druid to 85 - No question about this.  Unfortunately, because of my surgery, I will not be able to take the rest of the week of 12/7 to level him to 85, but I will do it every night.  To get ready, I'm gonna go fill my questlog up to the maximum number of quest and turn them all in after Cataclysm hits to help speed the process along.  I would like to tank my way to 85, but since I have to find the dungeon entrances and I'm sure they may be phased, I will have to quest some.

2) Heroic Dungeon Tanking To Get Starting Raiding Gear - Instant queues and lots of nice blues or even starter level epics.  I also will have some Justice Points saved up from the time before Cataclysm starts.

3) Raiding on the Druid - Get back in the routine and start raiding all the endgame stuff.

4) Mage to 85 - Get my first alt up to 85.

5) Level Tailoring/Leatherworking/Enchanting up to 525 - Leatherworking may make my DK finish leveling his skinning quicker to get to level 78 so he can skin.

6) Finish Jewelcrafting - May make my dwarf hunter, who is in the 60s, a miner for that reason.  Well, that and blacksmithing for my paladin.

7) Heroic Dungeons/Raiding on my Mage - I have to gear up my mage.

8) Level Other Alts - I have a feeling this won't be until 4.1  hits because there is so much to do.

9) Archeology - As fun as that sounds, it can wait.

What are your plans for Cataclysm?  I would love to hear your opinions about what you are doing once Cataclysm hits.

4.0.1's Most Annoying Bugs

As with every single patch, there is inevitably going to be bugs.  Some are minor and unnoticeable usually.  Others make you want to pull your hair out by the roots.  Here are my most annoying bugs of 4.0.1. from least to most.

4) Trial of the Champion Lance Disconnect - As someone who has basically stopped doing the Argent Tourney stuff, I usually don't have a lance on me.  So when I get Trial of the Champion 5 man, I have to get a lance off the shelf.  Every single time I have done that, I have disconnected from the game.  Usually, I can get back in before they actually start the fight, but it still is annoying.

3) Headless Horsemen Disconnect - Tanks are cowering at clicking the pumpkin to start the Headless Horsemen fight.  Not that the fight is overly difficult, but it seems that a lot of people are immediately disconnecting.  Pretty much every Headless Horsemen fight, the tank ask for someone else to start it.  I volunteered to once and it just immediately kicked me out.

2) Teleport Out of Dungeon Bug  - Sometimes, you are looking through your bags and you are the last person left in a 5 man.  This means that you can't leave group because nobody else is there.  However, you can usually press the Teleport Out of Dungeon bug and it will drop you up where you queued from.  However, after 4.0.1, it seems to bug out every so often.  This leaves one of two options.  Either you hearth or you run back to the start of the instance.  Both options are kind of annoying.

1) The ICC Rez Bug - This is the one that pisses me off more and more everyday.  If you have a wipe in ICC, when you release one of two things can happen.  Either you are a ghost in the graveyard and can just go back into the raid normally or you rez fully at the graveyard.  If you rez fully at the graveyard, gankers are taking advantage of this bug to get some free honor kills.  Then when you die, you run into the rez timer so you have to wait 30 seconds before you can rez again, where the ganker will inevitably kill you again.  It then becomes an endless cycle until somebody kills the ganker, which won't be you because you won't have full health or mana.  It makes me want to strangle a puppy every time it happens.

I'm sure there are some more bugs, but those are the ones that are driving me nuts right now.  What bugs have you run into in game after the patch.

The Benefits of Competition

Sometimes as people who have been raiding for a long time, we get comfortable.  Sometimes, too comfortable.  We know when it is time to raid, what to do, and do what we can.  But it also can be at times that you do the same thing over and over again and get very comfortable.

However, if you want to light a fire under your ass in raiding, bring another person of the same class and spec as you into a raid.  My guild is currently trying out a new moonkin who applied.  Last night going into the raid, I had one goal in my mind.  Outperform this guy on every standard whether DPS, raid awareness, being where I need to, etc.  Not that our raid couldn't use two moonkins.  I personally feel the more druids, the happier the raid.  However, being the person who has been in the guild longer, I felt it necessary to outperform him.

Competition is healthy and good, especially for raiders.  As we get comfortable with fights and raiding, we have a tendency to get lazy and make mistakes we normally wouldn't.  Competition will snap you out of it in a hurry.  When you know that you want to excel in performance, you get more on your game.  It is the same way athletes thrive on competition.  They are good normally, but in the heat of competition, some people excel and some people fall. 

In addition, it shows you take pride in what you do.  It allows you to say that I am up to this certain standard and I'm able to compete with any person who steps into this raid of my class and spec.  It allows me to say that I do everything that I can to the best of my ability.   

However, this can go too far as well.  The whole problem with Gear Score is people judging people by their gear instead of their performance.  It is a very bad way to be competitive.  However, it is better to be competitive on things that matter, like DPS or being where you need to be in certain circumstances.  Some things matter in competition but some things mean very very little.  It is important to find what things are okay to be competitive with and what things are not.

So the next time your guild recruits somebody of the same class as  you, don't demean their gear or put them down unless they truly deserve it.  Instead, look at it as competition that will raise your game to the next higher level.  Trust me, you will be thankful for it.

Christmas in July Contest - The Results

A couple weeks ago, I gave an update on the current results of the Christmas in July Contest.  Here were the winners of the first two questions.

Cataclysm Release Date Announced (10/4/10):  Loganw (Guess was 9/23/10)

Cataclysm Release Date (12/7/10): Alero (Guess was 12/1/10)

However, at that time, there was one question that was still up in the air.  The release date of 4.0, which actually turned out to 4.0.1.  Here were the top three winners for that question.  Remember, it has to be the closest without going over.

4.0.1 Release Date (10/12/10)

1) One Tree Heal (Guess was 10/10/10)

2) Natrii (Guess was 9/21/10)

3) Alero (Guess was 9/17/10)

So, as I thought was possible, we have three different people closer on one of the dates a piece.  This means we have to go to the tiebreaker.  The tiebreaker is who is the closest on all their guess by the least number of days.  This doesn't matter if it is over or not, it is just who is the closest.  Let us start with Loganw, then One Tree Heal, then Alero.

Loganw Tiebreaker

Cataclysm Release Date Announced: 9/23/10 (Off by 11 days)

4.0 Release Date: 11/15/10 (Off by 34 days)

Cataclysm Release Date: 12/13/10 (Off by 6 days)

Total Days Off By: 51 Days

One Tree Heal Tiebreaker

Cataclysm Release Date Announced: 9/12/10 (Off by 22 days)

4.0 Release Date: 10/10/10 (Off by 2 days)

Cataclysm Release Date: 11/5/10 (Off by 32 days)

Total Days Off By: 56 Days

Alero Tiebreaker

Cataclysm Release Date Announced: 8/25/10 (Off by 40 days)

4.0 Release Date: 9/17/10 (Off by 25 days)

Cataclysm Release Date: 12/1/10 (Off by 6 days)

Total Days Off By: 71 Days

So, here is the final lineup of winners from this contest.

1st Place (FigurePrint of Your Character): Loganw

2nd Place (Warcraft Razer Mouse): One Tree Heal

3rd Place (PrintCraft Poster): Alero

Also, as a treat to Loganw, who is a close follower of the site, I give him this.

Congratulations to all the major prize winners.  But we are not done with prizes yet.  Yes, we have some authenticators to award.  Any of the current prize winners are ineligible but I'm randomly drawing for the three authenticators.  The random drawing is being done thanks to random.org.  The number comment you were determined what number you were in the generator.

Authenticator Winners

1) Brandon

2) Antlergirl

3) Natrii

All the winners will be contacted by e-mail although I hope they read it here first.  Congratulations to all the Christmas in July Contest Winners.

My Moonkin 4.0.1 Impressions

After only getting one blog post last week and still recovering from surgery, I am finally back and will be updating back on a normal schedule.  The first thing I want to tackle now that I'm back is my impressions of moonkins after patch 4.0.1.  I think this is best described in this following equation.

4.0.1 Moonkin = 3.3.5 Moonkin + Fire Mage

Now, it may seem a little weird to say it like this, but it is absolutely true.  With the new addition of Shooting Stars and Starsurge, which procs into an instant cast off of Shooting Stars, it seems a lot like Hot Streak proccing instant Pyroblast.   In addition, like a fire mage, we now have no talents that give us hit.  We are required to get all of our hit from spirit or hit on gear. 

The biggest difference however is the short cast time of Starsurge makes it to where we will want to cast it when it is off cooldown, regardless if we have Shooting Stars.  Shooting Stars just resets the cooldown and makes it an instant cast so we can get more in.  Mages may stick a Pyroblast in there every so often, but they would much rather just proc Hot Streak from Fireballs due to the long cast time of Pyroblast.

The other major changes come in the way of our DoTs.  Before, you would cast the DoTs, Moonfire and Insect Swarm, when you don't have an Eclipse.  Now, you will cast them both at the beginning of an Eclipse.  The other change in our DoTs is Moonfire changes to Sunfire when you proc a Solar Eclipse.  In other words, I would not macro the two DoTs together because there is no way (at least, I know of no way) to macro for Sunfire.  Also, Faerie Fire's use has gone down drastically since you don't need the 3% hit.  We have a feral tank and he needs it for aggro, so I just let him cast it now.

With reforging, after patch 4.0.1 hit, I was at 27% hit due to the benefit of spirit changing to hit.  So, when it comes to reforging, here is the order I reforged since you can only reforge each piece of gear once.

1) Reforge excess spirit or hit to haste or crit depending on the gear. (Reforging for some reason only allows to change some pieces to just haste, just crit, or haste or crit.  If I had a choice, I always leaned towards haste.)

2) Reforge 40% crit into haste if possible.

 

The final thing is the timing of Starfall.  Most places I have researched say cast Starfall during Lunar Eclipses if it is off cooldown.  Now, there are some situations where you may want to cast it off Lunar Eclipse.  The best example I can think of is Valks during Lich King.  If people are getting close to the edge of going off and my Starfall is off cooldown, even if it is not a Lunar Eclipse, I'm casting it to save them from going over.  It may not be the max DPS, but it becomes situational.  That is why I would say use in a Lunar Eclipse, but be mindful of specific situations.

So, as you see, a lot of what moonkins do stay the same, but there are some new tricks up our sleeve to use.  I definitely saw a DPS increase although I was using a laptop that was topping out at 10 FPS during some boss fights.  Tonight, since I'm back on my main computer, I'm expecting it to go up even higher.  Also, a lot of this information has come from other bloggers like Qieth's Quips and Gray Matter, so I encourage you to check them out since they go into more theorycrafting than I do.

Also, come back tomorrow because I will announce the winner of the Christmas In July contest where someone will win a FigurePrint of their character.

And damn, it feels good to be back.