Tukui and Updates

Obviously this poor little blog has been set on the backburner as I work on other projects and pursue new job opportunities, but Tiddlywinks is still going strong. Yesterday, Tukui was featured on both NoStockUI.com and WoW.com and I was intrigued. It was functional, minimalist, and clean. So I backed up my Cache, WTF, and Interface folders and dove right in. After some tweaking, installing some addons of my own, and playing around with all the different features, I think I'm to a point that will work for me. I'm still missing my "DPS Bar" - the bar that held my All-in-One macro for DPS and showed the cooldowns for all my DPS boosters, but I will figure a way around it.

So for now, here's what we've got. It's the standard Tukui, tweaked a bit. I've added shading to the background of the chat box, installed both Recount and Omen and skinned them to integrate with Tukui, and I tweaked the code for Tukui to display my current spell hit % (which was working when I had last tried it, but it is not working now for some reason - hence the 0.00% spell hit under the map).

I also installed Cork, Decursive, MageNuggets (solely for spell steal info), MonkeyQuest, Overachiever, Power Auras (not yet set up), Scorchio2, and Sexy Cooldown. I had never used Sexy Cooldown in the past because I had my DPS bar, but now without it, I think Sexy Cooldown will do the job and allow me to use my cooldowns better. Since I can now time them to coincide with a Black Magic or Lightweave proc, I can hopefully get a little more DPS out of them.

Should you have any questions, just leave a comment.

The New-New UI

I haven't done a UI post since March, 2009 and when I run random heroics, I've been asked a couple of times how I track cooldowns and such to maximize my DPS. So here it goes. This is my current UI.

(click image to enlarge, click here for full size (warning: 775kb - 2560x1600))

So, let's start at the top. Across the top of the screen, I use ChocolateBar to display all my broker addons. Since FuBar is no longer the bar of choice as most plugins are using the broker display, it only made sense to switch. From left to right, we have:

• BuffEnough - explained later
• Cork - explained later
• Decursive - to be explained later
• Omen - explained later
• Broker_BlizzEquipmentSet - an easy way to switch between my 3 defined equipment sets - PvP, PvE, and Naked
• Broker_CPU Memory - your standard performance monitor
• Broker_repair - a standard repair status
• Broker_GemGuild - an easy way to see who is on in your guild
• Broker_GemFriends - the easy way to see which friends are on
• Broker_AltGuild - shows you who is on in a second guild of your choosing
• Broker_Money - how much money you and your alts have
• Broker_Portals - a one click stop for all portals, teleports, and other means of transportation (e.g. Dalaran ring, Argent Tourney Tabard, Hearthstone)
• Broker_Wintergrasper - shows you who holds Wintergrasp, how long until the next battle, and best of all, can be configured to announce to yourself, or more (I have it announcing to the guild) when Wintergrasp starts (I announce at 15 and 5 minutes until the next battle)
• HeadCount - I used to use this to track loot during our Gold Team 25 man runs, but I am no longer the loot master, but I still use it to track raids - a great tool
• Prat - your standard chat modifier - I have found that it also handles alt names as well which has been awesome
• Bartender4 - standard bar manager
• Ora2 - raid manager (tanks, cooldowns, ready checks)
• Grid - more on this later
• GatherMate - tracks gathering nodes on your map
• Chocolate Bar - your bar config

So now we can look at the left side of the screen. I keep it generally uncluttered. The less clutter on the screen, the better. Since our guild hasn't made the move to Ora3 yet, I'm still using Ora2 and it serves me well. I have my main tank frames and below that I can track cooldowns such as battle resses and other class-specific cooldowns. To the right of the cooldowns I have my Deadly Boss Mods timers. Towards the middle of the screen, you can see where they go when they are close to occurring, but we'll get to that later.

Over here on the right, we have a couple of important mods. First up is one I've been using for ages - Elkano's BuffBars. These buff bars are amazing and keep everything in an easy to see spot. I absolutely love them and have found nothing comparable. Next, there's this little box that shows my spellpower, cirt, haste and hit rating at that exact moment. This box is courtesy Mage Nuggets. Mage Nuggets has - as the name implies - many nuggets that are useful to a mage. I use this nugget and one other and have turned the rest off. It's pretty cool to be able to just glance over at any given point and see that my current SP, with all buffs from all raid members is 4,228. What's even more fun is watching my haste move up and down. Fully raid buffed, I'm sitting at about 41% haste. With Icy Veins, Pushing the Limit (2 piece T10 bonus), and Wrath of Air Totem, I'm at 99.98% - with Heroism, it's even better (I have another screenshot with heroism, but no Icy Veins which has me at 116.65% haste). And finally, we have Omen - it's THE threat meter to use. However, it seems like I only really need to use it in random heroics these days as the tanks in my guild rock.

(click image to enlarge)

Now, to the guts of the UI - the middle of my screen where all relevant information pops up and which commands my focus 99% of the raid time. At the very top, middle is me. I have everything spread out around me - it makes it easy to keep my situational awareness up since my eyes never have to stray far from the middle of the screen. Around me, I use Power Auras to give me information that I need the exact moment I need it. The ( 10 ) that you see shows how long I have left on my Icy Veins. Below it, in yellow will pop up a similar counter that shows how much time I have left on my Heroism. These two numbers are extremely important because if you are having mana issues and need an Evocate, if you trigger it with 1 second to go on either Icy Veins or Heroism, it benefits from the haste buff for the full duration of the channel. This obviously reduces your cast time and generates mana in the fastest way possible. The skull-like looking thing directly under my feet is my Missile Barrage alert. It tells me that I have Missile Barrage, and I need to use it ASAP. With 2 piece T10 giving that awesome haste bonus when a Missile Barrage is used, the current theorycrafting advises you use your Arcane Missiles with 2, 3, or 4 stacks of Arcane Blast - in essence, just use it as soon as you can to activate the hast bonus which will haste your missiles and two arcane blasts after the missiles.

Continuing down, we have Scorchio 2 to track my Arcane Blast stacks and other good information. It's always helpful to know exactly when your mirror images will fall off so you can start casting an Invisibility if you are above the tank's threat for some reason. Off to the left, I have my Grid setup so I can at a glance quickly determine who is still alive in the raid or who really needs some healing. It's always fun on a decimate to see everyone drop to no HP and then watch as some die while others are healed up. It's not necessary to really use this, but I just like to monitor the raid when I have time. And, if I can see 90% of the raid is dead, I can pop Invis and maybe stay alive rather than wipe. Directly to the right of that is a little green box. It seems to blend into Decursive, but it's not that...it's BuffEnough. It turns green when you have all the buffs you need. Missing a well fed buff? It'll be red. No flask? Red. No Kings? Red. It's great and helps me if I've forgotten something during the buffing. So next to that, I've got Decursive. Just a quick click here and there to decurse when needed or to sheep that mind controlled target and I'm set. It's a great addon and one a mage might not think to have, but it just makes decursing so easy, there's no reason not to have it.

And now that green bar with all the cooldowns in the middle of it - what this is is a couple of things layered on top of each other. Underneath the green bar, we have a simple Bartender4 bar. This has all my most frequently used items. From left to right, we have: Evocation, Mana Gem, Escape Artist, Talisman of Resurgence, Icy Veins, Presence of Mind + Arcane Blast, Mirror Images, Arcane Power, and then the all-in-one button. The far right button is my macro that activates everything but POM+AB (since you can't use it at the same time as Arcane Power). So with just one click I can activate them all, or if two are off cooldown, I can activate those with one click. It allows me selective use of my cooldown abilities or use of them all at the same time. It's great. Overlaid on top of that is my Quartz cast bar. So as I'm casting, the cast bar shows up there, and I can easily see right under my cast bar which abilities are ready to be used. Why spread these items out when you can stack them and save room? The Quartz cast bar is amazing since it allows me to get a good idea of how my latency is affecting my cast timing which allows me to queue casts in a timely manner.

Lastly, at the bottom, we have your standard Pitbull unit frames. I have mine, the target's target, and my target as the ones that are shown all the time. Using my sheep focus macro, I'll have the focus target show up to the left of my target with my focus' target above the focus bar. To the right, my pet (if I'm controlling a pet or machine) shows up with my pet/machine's target above that. It all works out quite nicely.

Along the bottom, it's pretty standard - from left to right I have - my chat windows (all nicely formatted by Prat), my map (the awesome SexyMap), more Bartender buttons, a large blank space (which actually has more buttons that only show up on hover), and finally, Recount damage meters. Just used for my own personal tracking - because I hate nothing more than someone showing off because they just AOE'd the best on a trash pull - read here for a wonderful article on Why I Hate DPS Meters.

So that's pretty much it - however, there's some things missing. Right above my chat box, if I have to buff someone, Cork will alert me to that. It tells me to give Dalaran Intellect to someone (maybe just one person died on the fight), reminds me if my Molten Armor, and (though it doesn't work perfectly), reminds me to put Focus Magic on another mage.. It's a great little addon. I also use the Mage Nugget that pops up only when the target has a spell I can steal. It's lead to some great discoveries - like in Halls of Stone, a nice buff you can steal called Arcane Haste. I use it mostly for the Deathwhisper encounter, but it's fun to see what other spells are out there to steal. Other addons I use but which don't show up on the screen:

• _NPCScan - alerts me when a rare mob is found
• Ackis Recipe List - helps the compulsive collector side of me figure out which recipes I still need to obtain
• Align - helps me get my screen all lined up perfectly
• Auctioneer - if you don't know what it is, I can't help you...
• Mapster - a great replacement for Cartographer which stopped working
• Gather Mate - used with Mapster to track gathered nodes
• Map Notes - as it sounds - notes for the map to be used with Mapster (or any other map addon)
• Gymnast Tooltips - allows me to move the tooltip to the exact position I want it (lower-right just above Recount)
• MonkeyQuest - the best way to track your quests (hidden in the upper-left corner while raiding)
• OneBag and OneBank - all your bags and bank slots in one frame
• Overachiever - THE way to easily browse achievements
• Sunn Viewport Art - gives me the cool artwork around my top and bottom viewports
• XLoot - the best way to track loot when used with XLootGroup, XLootMaster, and XLootMonitor. I love it.

And with that, my UI update is complete. Right now I'm extremely happy with my UI and don't plan on making any major changes in the days to come. Later today, when the maintenance boss is gone, I'll post the macros I use while raiding.

Missing in Action

A couple things to quickly update.

1. The 10 Man Gold Team cleared Normal Trial in an hour last week. We then attempted the Northrend Beasts on heroic again. This time though, we killed them. We tried Jaraxxus a few times, but just didn't have the time or patience to kill him.

2. The 25 Man Gold Team took down the Faction Champions for the first time last week. I hear it was a one-shot. I was out of town. They then quickly took down the Twins, but didn't have time to get through Anub.

3. Just one week until Brewfest!! With it, a new mount. I'm currently at 96 mounts. I am still hoping to get my Red Proto Drake soon (97) then my Violet Proto Drake with Brewfest (98) and finally an Argent Tourney mount will be 99 in a couple days. Then, my special, super-secret mount will be revealed as #100.

4. We went into Naxx last night to get Undying. And, we did. It was not that hard and it took us just over 2 hours to clear all the way through. Not too shabby. Tiddlywinks the Undying sounds good. I do die quite infrequently (when not in raids - where my cloth armor does little to protect me).

5. I was roaming through Stratholme looking for another new mount. While in there, I found my new weapon to look pretty good. (click to enlarge)

Mimiron Down + Tier 8

So last night, after a week of waiting, I got to participate in a Mimiron kill. After a few weeks of banging our heads against the wall, two weeks ago, the Gold Team took him down. Unfortunately, I was not raiding that night, so I missed the fun. Last week, due to a freak power outage, we didn't get a shot at the "Tier 8" bosses. Well, last night, we got our revenge on Mimiron again. After a couple stupid wipes, we got him down and I was lucky enough to receive my second piece of tier 8. After defeating Mimiron, we headed back to Vezax. When you unlock the first door leading to him, you get a really cool hallway to stare down...


After killing some annoying trash, you're standing face to face with the Faceless one and he is quite an imposing sight:


We only had time for two attempts last night, but I made the most of them, maximizing my DPS (and mana) in the second attempt to hit 4200 DPS. I think with a few more attempts, we could have gotten a lot further. I think he will be a challenge for us in the weeks to come.

But, back to my Tier 8, my new helm and gloves make me look pretty intimidating. Especially with the tabard to match.

The Updated UI

(click to enlarge)

Building upon my last UI upgrade, I made some changes and moved some items around and have cleaned my UI up a little bit.

First off, I changed all bar textures from "Blizzard" to "Flat" - it just looks cleaner and information is easier to see. Next, I redid the "center" of my UI by rearranging some items.

This is my old "center" UI setup:


From top to bottom, you have Scorchio, Decursive, Quartz Casting Bars, Pitbull Unit Frames, and Bartender bars (under my unit frame).

This is the new "center" UI setup:


From top to bottom, you have Scorchio, Decursive, a Quartz casting bar ON TOP of a Bartender bar, and then Pitbull unit frames.

Firstly, you'll notice the cast bar. Underneath, you'll see icons. I've set it up so my casting bar is directly on top of a bartender bar that holds icons for all of my spells and items that are on cooldowns. I did this because I am usually watching my cast bar to chain spells together and this way I can see directly underneath it which spells are ready to go.

You can also see I moved the cast bar timer up above the bar and the spell name below the bar - a theme I followed throughout the new setup. Looking at my unit frame, you'll notice it's now centered and shows me a little more information. In the old unit frame, it said 80 Mage Gnome. Well, I already know that. So I got rid of it and can clearly see my mana. On the target unit frame, I have moved the name of the enemy I'm targeting up above the unit frame (Here: Dark Rune Guardian). I ran into issues a lot of times because I couldn't see the enemy's full name that I was targeting. In my old shot, all I could see was "Kel'Thuz..." There used to be no way for me to tell the difference between a Dark Rune Guardian or a Dark Rune Watcher without manually targeting the unit. Now I can tab target through a pack and pick the one I want.

Additionally, in my old unit frames, you cna see the "Frostbolt" that Kel'Thuzad was casting. In my current setup, you still can, I just didn't screenshot it. The new casting bar overlays the "Dark Rune Guardian" text and shows the cast time on the far right of the cast bar. Works perfectly and saves space.

Again, you see Decursive and Scorchio right there in the middle of everything as I love using these addons. They provide pertinent information right where I need it.


Another major change I've made is I've switched from the Blizzard provided raid frames to Grid. I used Grid back in the day and recently reinstalled it to minimize screen usage for the party/raid. I don't need to know much about what everyone else in the raid is doing, just if they're in range, and if they're alive. I can see diseases and other stuff I don't really care about, but it's funny to see everyone's life drop as Kolo wipes us out.

Those are the main changes. I removed some other action bars I don't need and next to my Grid you can see an extra chat box I use when master looting our 25 man raids. It just tracks raid warnings and whispers. As it stands now, I really like my main "center" screen. I'd like to move Omen down to mirror grid, but when I have focuses, they show up next to my target, and above them, I get my focus' target to show up.

Let me know if you have any questions in the comments.

The Flying Carpets!

Well, I figured it would have to wait a few days, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't wait to get the most amazing mount in the game. My very own Magnificent Flying Carpet! I love the thing. Unless I get a rusted or iron-bound proto drake, this is my one and only flying mount.

Randomness

1. Thursday, since we were unable to clear early bosses in Ulduar (10) on Wednesday, we cleared Leviathan, Razorscale, XT-002, Kologarn, Freya, Thorim and Hodir. No drops for me (I need that 2pcT8!).

2. Friday, Ulduar (25) made it to Kolo again, but still having healing issues and problems with beams (naturally, healing issues drive from extra healing of people hit by beams).

3. Tailoring is going well. On to mageweave now. Still a long way to go though. Silk was pretty easy to come by in the Armory of the monastery.



4. Marcia continues to deny me my strand crawler. I've done the fishing day EVERY day and nothing. However, fishing up the bloodtooths is fun when you get to be all read and piss off D.E.H.T.A.



5. Finally got my Chef's Hat. Been fun toting that around with my Chef title.

6. Farming mageweave from the pirates in Tanaris. I tried the ogres, but found the pirates have a slightly less drop rate but give nice rep (12.5 per kill). So it'll be the pirates for all my mageweave. While farming them, I had to go find Cuergo's treasure and on the way to his hiding spot, I found my new best friend, Winkey.



7. Finished off the 400g+5 seal mounts today from the Argent Tournament. Up to 82 mounts now (link will be outdated once I update it again - for the current listing, check the side panel -->).

Antechamber Clear

Last night, the Gold Team, fresh off a stomping off bosses on Wednesday night went back in, eager to learn some new fights. First up was Auriaya, the Crazy Cat Lady. After a couple of quick wipes due to massive incoming raid damage and also another couple of wipes before switching strategies, we took her out. In the end, the strategy of not killing the Feral Defender (it does die due to raid splash damage), worked very well for us. We were able to get her down after two attempts with our finalized strategy and she was nice enough to drop the Raiments of the Corrupted. I wanted these as I knew they were an upgrade and I rolled an 85. Yes! So I tell Matnocuido to roll, figuring if they're an upgrade for me, they'll be an upgrade for him. And what does he go and do? Rolls a 92. Of course. I don't know how he does it, but he always out-rolls me. However, he was nice enough to pass them over to me (he doesn't want to break his 4 piece Tier 7 bonus quite yet) and I happily replaced the Gown of the Spell-Weaver. I gain 20 stamina, 3 armor, 11 crit, 4 hit, and 8 spellpower at the cost of 8 intellect? Hell yeah.

With the new item, I also resocketed a few items, throwing a Runed Scarlet Ruby in my new Raiments and also in my Sandals of Crimson Fury, replacing a Rigid Autumn's Glow. My hit now sits at 340, down from 368. At 368, I was hit capped regardless of who was in the raid - however, there's always a draenei in the raid, so my hit cap is 341 and I'm perfectly fine being 1 point under the hit cap. I like to live dangerously like that...

So after Auriaya, we thought, let's go see Mimiron. Bad idea. For starters, his trash is insanely hard. After a wipe or two here and there, we made it through and then we tried to read about the fight. Mistake #2. He is probably the most complicated fight in Ulduar. So we all paused, watched a video on him, and then thought, hell, we can do this. Wipe after wipe after wipe later, we could not do this. We did manage to get him to phase 3 one or two times (I can't remember - they all blur together), so I'm certain we can kill him with more practice. However, I think next week, I'd rather go see Freya and give her a little kiss.

Once you get through the Antechamber of Ulduar though, there's so many beautiful sights. The first here is just as you start to come to the Keepers of Ulduar, then two of the tram that takes you to Mimiron and then two of Mimiron's workshop.

The Newly Updated Raid UI

So, after a bunch of tweaking and moving things around here it is:


It's pretty similar to the UIs I've used in the past, but a few small changes have been updated. Across the top is the standard FuBar (note: since the screenshot, I've collapsed most of the FuBar plugins to icons only), with a flight timer, boss mods, decursive, etc. There's a gold monitor, item repair status, bag space, friends online, guild members online, grey items to drop, faction tracker, and tradeskill tracker.

At the bottom I've got my chat window on the left, a simple map, button bars, and then damage meters on the far right. Nothing too outrageous. Ignore the quest tracker down there - it has since been replaced by another quest mod. Just too many issues with BEQL.

Over along the left, I have quick access to all my party members and Ora2 tank setups, cooldowns, and then deadly boss mods sit over there until they get closer to expiration and then they move to the middle right next to Scorchio. It's nice to just use the standard built-in raid UI to pull out the groups. Gives me a quick overview of who is alive, dead, or dying.

In the middle it gets a little complicated...


At the top is Scorchio - an amazing mod that tracks my living bomb and scorches on the target. I don't know what my DPS would do without it. The buttons below are Decursive and allow me easy decursing and sheeping during mind controls. There's a little green box you might be able to see over to the left of Decursive - that's BuffEnough - another great mod. Turns green when you are completely buffed, turns yellow when buffs are about to expire, and turns red when buffs are missing.

Below the Decursive boxes, there's Quartz for my timer bars. Here you see me catching Frostfire Bolt while Kel'Thuzad is casting a frostbolt.

Underneath that, I'm using Pitbull for my other panels. It's a pretty simple setup using the standard "Blizzard" shading instead of the "BantoBar" it was using before. It's me on the left, my target on the right, and the target of my target in the middle (thankfully it's the tank here). If I'm using a focus, that appears next to my target on the right and my focus' target appears above it. If I have a pet, it appears to the left of my name and my pet's target appears above it. Both the focus and the pet have their own Quartz cast bars.

Over on the right, we have Omen to monitor threat (I had tried placing it down next to the damage meters, but I need to watch it too much to have it down on the bottom of the screen, so there it is, right in the middle on the left). Then we have Elkano's Buff Bars going down the right side and LootHog beneath it. I have to run LootHog because, as you may have noticed on my character bar, I'm the loot master. Yay!

Other miscellaneous things: Sunn Viewport Art is amazing. It provides the nice backgrounds behind my top and bottom bars and also adjusts my viewport so my video card doesn't have to render graphics where I don't need to see. Which gives a few FPS boost I'm sure. I'm pulling 21 fps in the screenshot above - that's about as low as it goes during normal 25 man raiding. Thank you nVidia GTX 260.

Oh yeah, I use the built in scrolling combat text with arcs to move things up and away from my character. I found I needed the arcs because sometimes death knights or others spam abilities that cause lots of scrolling combat spam, so this works the best.

Now, to macros...not too many, but some that I couldn't live without:

#show Polymorph
/clearfocus [modifier:alt]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]; [target=focus,dead]
/cast [target=focus,exists,harm]Polymorph (Turtle)

Sheepage FTW. Bound to "G" key. Target my sheep target and hit "G" - if in range, it will set focus and sheep. If out of range, just sets focus. Now I have my sheep target focused and on screen at all times (next to my target as I stated above) and I can see when it breaks, or if it changes targets. If need be, I can just switch sheep targets with an ALT+G combo. The sheep will also change without the ALT modifier if my previous sheep focus is dead or doesn't exist anymore.

/stopcasting
/cast counterspell

I know it's simple, but it's necessary. I have it bound to the scroll down on my trackball scroll wheel. It allows me to quickly silence anyone, even if I'm casting something already. Works like a charm.

/cast [button:2]Conjure Refreshment
/use [button:1]Conjured Mana Strudel

My standard eat strudel button. Right click to conjure food, left click to eat. Easy, but effective.

#FIRE
/use [button:1] Mana Sapphire
/cast [button:1,target=player] Combustion
/stopcasting
/cast [button:1,target=player] Icy Veins
/stopcasting
/cast [button:1] Mirror Image
/stopcasting
/cast [button:2] Conjure Mana Gem

My newest one. I love it. All-out-DPS in one click. Uses my Mana Gem for a DPS bonus (thank you two piece tier 7), Combustion for extra crit, Icy Veins for fast casting, Mirror Image for a little extra DPS (not much, but it's something), and then lastly, if I right click, it conjures my mana gem. By default, because "Mana Sapphire" is first in the rotation, it shows me how many charges I have left and the cooldown on the mana gem.

As you might be able to see in my overall screenshot, it's right below my name plate. But to the left of it, I have individual buttons for Combustion, Icy Veins, Mirror Image, and the Mana Gem on its own. Since they all have different cooldowns, I have access to all of them individually to maximize DPS - though I just love hitting the one button at the start of a fight to get that DPS flowing.

/stopcasting
/cast Ice Block
/stopcasting
/cancelaura Ice Block

Another pretty simple macro, but it is bound to "R" and allows me to cast Ice Block quickly and easily. It cancels any spell I might be casting and throws me in an Ice Block. Then, quickly and easily, if I hit "R" again, I get out of my Ice Block. Comes in handy when the threat dissipates and I want to get back to DPS, or in PvP when people have Ice Block timers, I can break early and surprise them.

#showtooltip speckled tastyfish

This one I used over the weekend to allow me to see how many Tastyfish I have in my bags during the fishing tourney. Simply brilliant, thanks El's Anglin!

Of course, if you have any questions, suggestions, or ideas, let me know as my UI is constantly evolving.

Achievement 500 is...

Nothing I was expecting! So I figured it'd be Make Quick Werk of Him, but that was #501. Number 500 was...drumroll please...

The Dedicated Few!


We finished off just the plague quarter after already doing the rest of Naxx with just 8 a long time ago, so I now sit at 502 achievements since, although we didn't get The Undying, I did get my Wooly Mammoth after Naxx with my 201 emblems.

After that, I ventured over to Sholazar Basin and switched from the Oracles to the Frenzyheart (after picking up another Mysterious Egg of course).

So, now that that's done, I need to focus on my UI and get rid of these small bars under Scorchio - what are they?? I can't figure out what addon has placed them there.

2 Days, 2 Titles

On Thursday, our rag-tag bunch of adventurers stepped into Naxxramas looking to clear as much as possible, little did we know, a full clear was within our grasp. Taking about four hours, we cleared the whole place in one night, leaving Friday night open for Sartharion and Malygos. We quickly down Sartharion (after a couple of attempts with one drake up) and then made our way to Malygos.

We had seen Malygos one week before, but only got to the final stage a couple of times. But this week, we had over 3 hours to work on him, and we would not leave without him going down! So after about 5 or 6 wipes, including a couple of tries at his last phase, we realized, we didn't have the stacks working for the last phase and we'd never get him down. So we took a break, stepped outside, and went to practice on the daily quest, Aces High. After a bit of practice there, we stepped back in, revitalized, and ready to go. We had a couple of missteps, but in the end, Maylgos was defeated! And there were quite a few people in our raid who obtained the awesome title, Champion of the Frozen Wastes.

Skip ahead a day and the Lunar Festival had returned to Azeroth. I awoke at 7, ready to go get my coins. After collecting about 40 coins, Aravic and Eleazarjr awoke from their slumber and we set out to rescue the elders in the Northrend dungeons. After four heroic dungeons, I was left to go back to coin collecting. I quickly snapped up the rest of the coins throughout Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms and then looked for a group for some other instances. I found a pick up group going to Nexus and we quickly found the elder in there and I was left with just a couple of elders left. I took a quick side trip to Moonglade where I defeated Omen and bought a nice pant suit. I ported back to Dalaran and quickly found a group for my remaining coins in my wonderful guild. We got the coins, and in just under 12 hours, I was Elder Tiddlywinks.



The next morning, I woke up, started fishing for a sewer rat, and was waiting on the last book I need for Higher Learning to spawn when Rylara asked me if I wanted to go kill C'Thun. Heck yeah, I wanted to kill C'Thun! So I ported to Theramore, flew to Cenarion Hold, and made my way into the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj. We quickly dispatched of C'Thun (even though I died in his stomach), and I was finally able to complete my Classic Raider achievement!



In all, it's been a crazy couple days. Two titles received, Malygos and C'Thun down, and over 230 achievement points. I'm hoping my book spawns soon so I can receive another pet and my weekend will be complete!

Chef Tiddlywinks...Finally

So last night, after finishing up my daily cooking quest, I went to buy the Worg Tartare and Fish Feast recipes thinking each would cost 3 dalaran cooking awards. Worg Tartare down, one recipe to go. What's this!? Fish Feast is 5 cooking awards? And it requires 450 cooking? Oh noes. I'm only at 437.

So off I went to hunt rhinos. After amassing 52 rhino meat (I had 24 Northern Spices, so I wanted to make 24 small feasts to hopefully earn those last 13 points, and I wanted 4 rhino meat left over for the cooking dailies), I then quickly fished up as many Nettlefish as I could in 30 minutes on three hooks. It was quite a few more than the 48 required which is perfectly fine with me since my raid food of choice is Nettlefish. Then to find some Arctic Salmon - not a problem. Fished up 48 of them and hurried back to the Ledgermain Lounge to look for the last book I need for Higher Learning. I quickly started cooking small feasts and earned the 13 points I needed in just 17 feasts. So there I sat - at 450 with 4 Dalaran Cooking Awards...

To prepare the the fish feast cooking in the morning, I then had to venture back out to catch some Mussleback Sculpins (luckily it uses Arctic Salmon and Nettlefish too, and I had those left over). I fished up the requisite amount, killed a couple of worgs for my Worg Tartare and went to sleep, waiting for the daily the next morning.

So early this morning I awoke to Infused Mushroom Meatloaf and luckily had just 2 chilled meats left, I gathered the mushrooms quickly, got my 5th dalaran cooking award, bought the recipe and was rewarded with Chef de Cuisine, and then cooked up 4 fish feasts for The Northrend Gourmet and, of course, Hail to the Chef!

Here I stand on the shore of a peaceful lake in Crystalsong forest with my latest pet, the adorable fawn (reward from Lil' Game Hunter achievement for 75 pets).


Yesterday I mentioned my trip to Tempest Keep, and not only did I win the Robes of Tirisfal, but I also won the Ethereum Life-Staff which you can see in the picture of me below:


As an additional bonus last night, while briefly perusing the lists of achievements, I found two new ones! Pest Control requires you to go around all over the world to slay pests such as maggots, beetles, spiders, and roaches which was quite time-consuming, especially since I couldn't find a larva for the life of me. I went into Naxxramas, but couldn't find one without going past some enemies, so I went back to the Ghostlands, where after about 10-15 minutes of running around searching for them, I finally found one.

The other achievement is a follow-up to To All The Squirrels I've Loved Before entltied, To All The Squirrels Who Shared My Life. Similar to the "loved before" achievement, you have to go around and /love a bunch of critters - most of them scattered through Northrend, but a couple in some more obscure places. After a quick loop of Northrend, I went over to the Swamp of Sorrows to find a toad and got the achievement. With the Chef achievements this morning, I hit 4,700 points exactly!

Great Achievements

Last night, I got two awesome achievements done. The first will result in me getting my Hallowed title. Right when I awoke, Xenoxa wanted to run the Horseman - and of course I was ready to go. We quickly found a tank, assembled some other DPS and went to the Monastery.

Four of us made it there quickly and while we waited for the fifth to arrive, Xenoxa and I decided to raise our unarmed skill a little with some Spirit Boxing.


After our fifth arrived, we had five shots at the boss, and on the fifth...he dropped...the one...the only...the Sinister Squashling!

We all rolled for it and wouldn't you know, I rolled a 1. Luckily, the great people of the greatest guild in the land, even though they rolled higher, gave the pet to me! I love you guys. DarkLight Resolution is the greatest bunch of people I've had the pleasure to group with. So we ported out (bonus points if you can tell where I ported to) and I took some pictures with my new pet:



He's just so amazing as he collapses into a jack-o-lantern if you're not moving for a while, and his short legs have to work overtime to keep up with you while you're on a mount. This addition brings me to 77 of 88 pets! And I love them all.

Following the Horseman runs, I got back into my regular schedule and went off and did my dailies. Utilizing money made from the dailies, I bought mounts #47, #48, #49, and #50 giving me the awesome achievement, Leading the Cavalry. My new Albino Drake is amazing, but he was unwilling to pose for any photos last night, so hopefully I'll get those up soon. The guild was quite impressed with my latest achievement and I'm working my way up on the Loremaster achievements.

I now have 2 quests to do in BRD, 4 to do in Uldaman, and a couple of those are chains, so hopefully I'll get much closer to the 700 (I'm currently stuck at 686/700 quests). I might have some time to complete those quests tonight providing the instances cooperate. After I complete the Eastern Kingdoms, I might head to Kalimdor, but there are other achievements I'd like to complete - most notably Old Ironjaw.

Ragnaros Vanquished

Two nights ago, the Gold Team ventured into Zul'Aman once again determined to get three timed chests. Due to some oddities that I'm not even sure I can explain, we got none. Due to a prior commitment, I had to leave the raid early, but they continued on and fought valiantly.

Last night though, it was Darknight Resolution guild night and we were determined to tackle Molten Core. We started strong and were able to basically kill anything and everything without any problems whatsoever. Our goal for the night was to down Ragnaros as Kaldais was trying to obtain the Sulfuron Hammer. To do that, we of course had to get good and drunk. I started with some Autumnal Ale from my Brew of the Month club and quickly found I had an admirer, all the way down in Molten Core:


He followed me around for a while, but it was killing time, so we quickly marched forward. We had very little troubles with any boss and our DPS and AOE damage far outweighed anything any of the mobs could heal through. And before we knew it, we were standing before Majordomo himself.


He surrendered after we downed all of his protectors and after a quick jaunt down into the belly of the Core, we found him waiting there for us again! We challenged him to a fight, and he pulled out a new card on us and summoned the massive Ragnaros!



We fought our hardest to bring him down, and though I was crippled because I couldn't use my most powerful fire spells against him, we quickly succeeded and cleared all of Molten Core.



We quickly looted the body and, lo and behold, he dropped my Netherwind Pants! That now gives me three pieces of Tier 2 in under a week. Not too shabby. However, I now have no bag space and eagerly await the ability to stable all my pets.

After we looted, we all gathered up and took one last picture in the Core:


All in all, we had a great time, got some nice loots for some of our younger members, and Ryshat, a fellow pet collector I brought into the guild experienced his first raid ever! I also was able to earn a bit more Hydraxian Waterlords Reputation and I completed the Molten Core quest. One more clear and I'll be honored and be even closer to obtaining my Eternal Quintessence and douse the flames myself!

A Promotion!

Last week, I had talked about the new outfit I put together for our guild meeting. I knew something was up when King Elros requested my presence, but I had no idea the magnitude of events.

First, we all arrived and were briefed on why we met in such a public place. Apparently, our dodgeball game in Stormwind where we played shirts vs. skins raised a few eyebrows and there were rumors floating around about out guild. We hoped that a "normal" guild meeting in a public place would quash those rumors.

After that was taken care of, Diastolic was called forward and given a well-deserved promotion to Crusader. I was next and could deduce what was going on, but really didn't expect it. I was promoted to Knight of DarkLight Resolution, an officer position, and I graciously accepted the promotion.

A couple pictures of the fine event can be seen here and here.

The New UI in a Raid

Last night, as we quickly took out Gruul and fought our way through SSC, I had the chance to play with my new UI. On a whole, it performed very well. I love my new "Fire Bomb" button (Trinket+Combustion+Icy Veins) and I didn't have too many problems finding the buttons I was looking for. Buffing is still taking some time getting used to as I'm using Grid for my raid status rather than individual raid bars via Pitbull. Here's the Grid I had going last night (taken before a few tweaks I made later in the raid):


The way I've basically set it up is in the lower left hand corner of each grid box is either a blue or reddish/pink square. Blue indicates that they have Arcane Brilliance. Red indicates Arcane Intellect. So as long as all those boxes are full, I'm doing my job as the only mage. Each party is in its own row, so the top row is Group/Party 1 and so on with the pets on the bottom line. So far, I'm using it just for buffs and to get a quick look to see if we have a bunch of dead people in the raid so I need to make a few quick tweaks - I'd like the box to be a bright red if someone is dead so a quick glance makes the dead stand out more. Also, Grid does a lot, and if I can scale it back a little, it might use less memory and be a bit more efficient.

Other than that, the only minor problem I ran into was I had forgotten to whip up my quick /stopcasting /cast counterspell macro, but I quickly made that and was ready for the next Gronn Priest to try and heal. The only major problem I ran into was with Cryolosis. It has some issues with sheeping. Every time a sheep was broken, even though I had turned off notification of sheep breakings, I received a lua error. So I spent a lot of time in SSC clicking lua errors away. At the end of the raid, I downloaded a new addon as suggested in chat, but was unable to test it before people started getting lazy and wiping us on the Lurker Below (more on that later).

Here's a screenshot from last night as we were clearing to Gruul. Compared to my previous "action" shots, this one is just so much cleaner and has all the information I need. I do need to tweak the Pitbull spacing a bit later tonight or this weekend, but in all, everything worked quite well. And people seemed to enjoy the random messages Cryolosis outputs when I teleport, portal, or conjure a mage table.

A New UI

Not quite sure why I spent almost 6 hours yesterday designing this new UI, and not sure how it will hold up in a raid, but I'm pleased thus far and it should save a lot of screen real estate that was taken up previously by artwork and graphics. My first UI full post can be found here to see what I'm changing over from and then I've got a little here on how cluttered my UI has become. So, without further ado, here is my tentative "new" UI:

Right now it is a work in progress, but pretty far along. The bottom bar holds all the pertinent information I need (left to right): Chat (via Prat), Pots/Healthstones (via Bartender3), MiniMap (via SimpleMiniMap), Spells/Macros/Etc. (via Bartender3 & CyCircled) Quartz (not shown - above spell buttons), Omen (not shown since I'm not in a party), EavesDrop (CombatLog), and Recount(Damage Meters and more).

Above the black bar across the bottom of my screen I have three quick macro buttons - the top one quickly activates burst DPS via Icon of the Silver Crescent, Combustion, and Icy Veins. The next one down uses my Mana Emeralds via left click and conjures a new one via right click (will update this macro to destroy an emerald with less than three charges and summon a new one via a right click in the future). And then I've got my handy-dandy disenchant button.

To the right of the three macros is Cryolosis2. I haven't ever used it in the past, but it has been helpful in removing buttons from my bars. Rather than having all my teleport and portal spells on a bar, I can just click one of the buttons on Cryolosis which opens up more buttons which I can left click to teleport or right click to create a portal. There's also a buff button which gives me quick access to my AI/AB, mage armor/molten armor, mana shields, etc. So those are now removed from my bar. I also have it set up to have an invisibility and evocation button, but upon using those skills, I can't see how long they have until I can use them again (I have four buttons on my bottom bar right now which allow me to see the cooldowns remaining for those two spells along with the two in my macro - so I might just use those buttons and remove the two from Cryolosis).

Thought you can't really see it right now, I've switched over to Pitbull for my unit frames. Previously I was using agUF, but it is now "outdated" according to WowAce, I wanted to give Pitbull a shot. So far it's working well, I just need my party frame to be a bit cleaner (again, we'll see what happens tonight during the raid). As for my raid frame, well, I don't think I'm using Pitbull. I installed Grid which gives a quick overview of the whole raid so you can quickly glance to see the health and status of the raid and if it allows me to quickly buff up the groups, that's all I need my raid frame to do - again, it will be a learning experience tonight (if you look closely, you might notice I have spent NO time configuring Grid yet).

Across the top I have my standard FuBar installation - still need to make a few tweaks to it and then I have a new addon I have not used before - XLoot and XLootMonitor. XLoot allows you to easily link items to chat, see everything that dropped in one easy window, and just monitor the loot. XLootMonitor (which you see up there next to my buff bars) keeps track of who loots what - a pretty nifty little addon. And then there's ElkBuffBars in the top right. I shrunk them down from my previous installation and I'm quite happy with them thus far. Oh yeah, that little green dot next to XLootMonitor and ElkBuffBars is PallyPower so I can easily spy on which pally I need to bug for Salvation.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the layout and it should hold up while raiding. I turned the casting bars of Pitbull off and I am using Quartz instead, so I'll have to see how that holds up and I've got a new window which allows me to see the target of my focus (never really used that before). Also, Cryolosis presumably can alert me when I have a few seconds left on a sheep and can also "tattle" on people who break my sheeps in the raid channel. Tonight is Gruul/SSC, so I'll have to see how the whole thing holds up while tanking Krosh, DPS'ing Gruul, and sheeping trash in SSC.

Things to do: Get Grid working, install tcg_tradeskills for FuBar, test everything in a raid environment...

Lurker Wrap-Up

So last night, as you might have seen, the Gold 25 Man Team took down the Lurker Below! We started the night on a good note quickly taking out Gruul, skipped Magtheridon and went straight to SSC. Trash was cleared quickly with quite a few purples dropping including a Leatherworking and Blacksmithing pattern (never seem to see a tailoring pattern though). We had a few new people in the group, so after a quick explanation, we got set up and took on the Lurker.

He managed to get us the first time through, but we quickly regrouped, and with everyone seeing the fight now, we took him out! My sheep was left alone the whole fight and never broke (yay! for me - boo I'm the only mage). The healing on the individual platforms was amazing as we lost our hunter on our platform on th second dive but we were able to DPS both naga down without any CC on the subsequent dives.

(More shots here and here)

It sure was fun being able to go all out on DPS without worrying about aggro. We completely destroyed the Lurker before his first dive getting him under 65% and I was able to sustain almost 1,100 DPS while sheeping and sitting around waiting for the lurker to emerge. It sure is fun doing over 10% of the total raid damage for a 25 man fight.

On a side note, now that I am a class leader (DPS Casters), I seem to have amassed more addons than I would care to have on the screen. Big Brother was added to monitor my sheeps, but being able to see all pally buffs, consumables, and raid buffs is nice as I can quickly call out if someone needs to be rebuffed or alert people that they don't have food buffs (more on this in another post). I also installed Pally Power to monitor Pally Buffs which is nice because it allows me to quickly whisper a pally if I need a rebuff (i.e. Salvation after clicking it off to tank Krosh). As I am an assist, I can also switch up Pally Buffs as needed (e.g. no Salvation during Lurker fight). I also have Ora2 which litters my screen with tanks and tank targets, cooldowns for locks and druids, and ready checks. Patch 2.4.2 seems to have broken one of my cooldown monitors, but usually that is up as well. Below is a screenshot of my Raid UI while tanking Krosh (and below it fighting Lurker).

(Another shot)

(More shots after he is down here and here)

After Lurker was defeated, we moved on and cleared trash to the next boss, but had no time to even attempt him. Overall, a very successful night as we have made progress and had a great time doing it. SSC is on notice!

...of the Shattered Sun

Last night, I ran a few dailies, got my gold back up to a respectable amount and promptly proceeded to spend it all. I had under one gold to my name before I could convince my banker to send me a few more to get me by. But with that gold, I bought a shiny new tabard and my first and only title...

(2nd shot)