OOC

((Probably no updates for a week or so as I just bought a house and I am currently in the process of cleaning it up - removing wallpaper, painting every room, installing new carpet, and then moving next weekend. Just an FYI. It certainly was weird to be walking around and thinking, "This is my house."))

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...

A New Outfit

Earlier this week, it was "hinted" that I should make sure to be at the Guild Meeting tonight. Not that I hadn't planned on going, but things come up and I have missed a guild meeting in my time. However, when the King tells you something "might" happen, you take special care to be there.

However...two weeks ago we had our dodgeball fight in Stormwind and I came sporting my two usual outfits - one a mix of Tuxedo+Brewfest, the other pure Tuxedo. So for tonight's Guild Meeting, I crafted a new outfit. While I wanted to go with an "oriental" theme to match my new Blade of Vaulted Secrets, I couldn't find any matching clothes and went with something a little more simple, but still fun.

It all starts with the Simple Kilt. From there, I needed a blue shirt and the Stylish Blue Shirt fit the bill perfectly. From there, I needed a nice pair of gloves. There weren't really any that fit the bill until I found the Hands of Darkness. They match the shirt perfectly. A pair of Simple Linen Boots cover my feet and I found an interesting hat on the auction house to top it all off - the Slavehandler Cap. There were some other hat options, but I found this one seemed to match the best (couldn't find any wide-brimmed blue hats).

For trinkets, I scoured my bank and came up with Thunderbrew's Boot Flask, fire-breathing for the win. And I will have my trusty Timbermaw Guardian by my side thanks to my Defender of the Timbermaw.

And for the icing on the cake, I'll be sporting Teresian's Stranglestaff. It was a hard choice to make between the staff and my King's Defender, but the staff won out in the end. All in all, a nice looking outfit. Probably not my best work, but it will be acceptable for tonight's guild meeting...

Raid Consumables

Over the past few raids, I've been watching the Big Brother consumables chart quite closely. It always pains me to see people with no flasks or potions while we're fighting a boss. Even worse, I often see people without food buffs even after being reminded to eat something before the fight.

Now I realize that not everyone is a master chef like I am, but it's just a part of being dedicated to the raid - and those that are unwilling to take the time to skill up in cooking or just don't want to buy food off the auction house are not team players in my opinion. Every raid I attend I have food in my bags. Often, food I can't even use (+Agility, +Strength). I try and hand them out when I see people are short on food - it happens to us all, but I have never run out of +Spell Damage food and I always have a few +Stamina/+MP5 fish sticks in my back pocket just in case. Yeah, it's annoying to carry all that food around, taking up bag slots, but it's something you just have to do when you're raiding Tier 5 content in my opinion. A +23 spell damage food buff is huge - that's 2 extra epic red gems in my case. You can't just ignore that boost. Add on top of that the spirit I receive to keep my mana in tip-top condition, and there's just no excuse to not be using food buffs.

Perhaps even more egregious is the ignorance of flasks and potions. A while ago I stopped using potions altogether due to the fact they don't persist through death. This last Tuesday night while we were taking down Magtheridon and Lurker, I had to pop two Flasks of Pure Death. Yeah, it's expensive, but it's +80 damage to ALL of my spells. Add that with a food buff, and that's +103 damage. Like Vetarra pointed out in raid chat a while ago, that's an extra piece of equipment. You wouldn't come into a raid without your gloves or boots. Why come in without flasks or food?

Ok, I realize that not everyone plays just one character like I do. I know that during the week you might not have time to do dailies, but the two flasks require me to outlay about 120g a week (usually just one flask if we go to Gruul and I can use a Blade's Edge Elixir) or even less if I get a Mark of the Illidari. But in a quick trip around the Outlands, I can easily do the Shattered Sun quests in Nagrand, Blade's Edge, Netherstorm, then head south to Hellfire Peninsula and then back to Shattrath to turn them in (sometimes with a stop to bomb in Skettis). All told, it takes maybe 1/2 an hour and nets me 100 or so gold. Pick up the fishing quest and cooking quest and you'll be in any zone required for those two quests while making your circle and they will also net you free food and fish along with even more gold. Excuses about not enough time to gather gold are worthless to me. You have time. You don't have to level that alt just now. If you're committed to the raid, you'll gather a few gold and pick up a couple flasks and if you're not a cook, buy some food.

As always, WowWiki has a great listing of flasks - find an Alchemist and have some made. I can usually get my Flask of Pure Death made for free if I provide the Fel Lotus and the Nightmare Vine (which I always have extras of to make Superior Wizard Oil with. So go do your dailies, level up your cooking, and show up to your raids prepared!

More on Zanza

So yesterday I mentioned about hitting honored with the Zandalar which then allowed me to turn in my four Arcanums of Rapidity for Savage Guards. The reason I had the arcanums in the first place was for Shen'dralar reputation, and now that I am honored with Zandalar, I can turn them in for more Zandalar reputation. They all start from Librams of Rapidity which I haven't seen on the auction house recently, so I might have to start looking into other libram turn-ins which require Frayed Abomination Stitchings instead of the Blood of Heroes that the libram of rapidity requires.

Anyways, here's a wonderful shot of me and Zanza, who by the way is a Loa, more powerful than elementals, but just a step below the gods. As you can see, I also took Toothy along and we got close, but didn't have to kill any of his crocolisk relatives within Zul'Gurub.


As a side note, the easy way to get to Zanza as a 70 mage is as such: Enter Zul'Gurub and jump in the water on your right. Follow the stream to the waterfall - but be careful not to fall down. Jump out of the waterfall to your left and drop down to the first bridge you see (watch out for the patrol). Cross the first bridge and second bridge and pop invisibility. Invisibility will almost take you all the way to Zanza's staircase (I will try to make it next time in one shot). But if you stay to the left against the wall as you head up to Zanza, when you come out of invisibility, you will see Zanza's staircase in front of you and some snakes guarding it. I waited here until invisibility was up again and then easily made it to the top of his pyramid.

I also got a nice picture of my new Blade of Vaulted Secrets with Potency on it. It's a very cool looking sword and I've been wielding it often (and subsequently finding out that my sword skills are quite low - though I did take some time to level them up in Stranglethorn Vale). I'm a little bit worried that th Potency enchant may be a bit too strong and obscure the beauty of the sword. Here's a picture:

Ahn'Qiraj Fun

Last Thursday, Flamehelix organized a guild run of AQ20 which was mainly put together to get him the blacksmithing patterns from the Lieutenant. Unfortunately, during a knockback, the boss took out the lieutenant, but we carried on. While inside, I was able to pick up a Blade of Vaulted Secrets which I threw Potency on for the glow.

I think we'll be going back to work on those blacksmithing patterns again and perhaps I can complete the Trappings set.

On an unrelated note, I have been buying bijous and coins off the auction house since I can't seem to get Zul'Gurub runs going and I have acheived honored status amongst the Zandalar tribe. And while this now allows me to turn in my Arcanums of Rapidity, it more importantly allows me to buy Pattern: Bloodvine Leggings and Formula: Brilliant Wizard Oil.