Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Friday, October 31, 2008

Come one, come all

Counting down the days now till WotLK and following the presidential election. Got stuck in trade chat last night as I was posting my Herbs on the AH (TY TY TY for inscription jacking up the prices - I post mine at WAY less and always sell). Anyways, about trade chat...

It was on fire with poli-talk. Man, oh, man was it rabid. I ended up posting, grabbing a bat, and flying out of TB to log so I wouldn't have to see any more of it.

WotLK has been pre-ordered, using my Best Buy gift card (yay for christmas!). I'll be, hopefully, back to more blogs once the game goes live. I'll even start getting some FRAPS going to post some vids following the lore/legend that is the DK.

BTW - I'm diggin' the Shaman(53)and Druid (26) classes. Of the two, the Shaman feels more dangerous but less controllable while the druid feels unstoppable. I'm curious as to how they'll both play in Outlands.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Death Knight

Resetting the blog soon. Once WotLK comes out, I'm going to aim at getting my RP/Lore/Tactics built around the Death Knight class.

Debating as to whether it will be a new toon or whether Orkwar will succumb to the Dark Side.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Hoooome stretch

Long time, no write.

Posting a collection of gear to hunt down once I hit 70. Here's the list.

AUCHENAI CRYPTS
HEAD: Hope Bearer Helm (Shirrak, 16%)

SETHEKK HALLS
Nothing Tanking-wise

THE STEAMVAULTS
AMULET: Steam-Hinge Chain of Valor (Mekgineer, 17%)
BACK: Devilshark Cape (Kalithresh, 12%)
RANGED: Recoilless Rocket Ripper (Mekgineer, 12%)
HAND: Gauntlets of the Bold (Kalithresh, 13%)

SHADOW LABRYNTH
BACK: Cloak of the Inciter (Blackheart, 25%)
SHOULDERS: Shoulderguards of the Bold (Murmur, 10%)
TRINKET: Adamantine Figurine (Blackheart, 11%)

THE SHATTERED HALLS
HEAD: Greathelm of the Unbreakable (Nethekurse, 18%)
LEGS: Greaves of the Shattered (Bladefist, 17%)
TRINKET: Figurine of the Colossus (Bladefist, 12%)

That's all the stuff from Normal instances. Checking heroics next.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

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[img]http://www.dkpsigs.com/sigs/Ravenholdt/164436.jpg[/img]


[url=http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Ravenholdt&n=Orkwar][img]http://www.dkpsigs.com/sigs/Ravenholdt/164436.jpg[/img][/url]

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Warrior Tanking vs. the WORLD! part 1

Welcome, welcome, welcome. I'm writing this to collect my thoughts on HOW to tank with a Warrior.

The WoW Official Forums are alight with the fires of mutiny. Each day, a new post is created debating the Warrior's ability to tank vs that of the "others."

I'll just come right out and say that anyone who posts against Ciderhelm is already fighting an uphill battle (just because it's Cider... I mean, an almost 12000 Shield Slam caught on video? The dude knows his stuff and has rabid fans!).

So, here's my take on Warrior tanking.

vs. Pally - Warriors don't have the initial AoE burst that Pally's can dish out.

vs. Druid - Warriors can DPS at the same level.

That's it, IMO.

I can survive, better in most cases, most encounters than either a pally or druid.

I can save, through taunt and other "oh crap" buttons, a pull from becoming a wipe.

I love watching a Pally AoE tank. It looks like a blast!

I love watching a Druid tank climb the DPS charts and take the big hits. Wish I could!

But I'm a Warrior. I pull and I grind. I make damn sure that no matter how big the incoming hits, incoming heals, DPS output or other factors, are, I keep that ugly mob staring at my devilshly Orcish grin.

I can pull a mob back to me faster than the other two classes. I have more tools at my disposal for when things go "wrong."

And things always go "wrong."

This next part is my order of Threat Creation that I use. I do TAB target and I MARK all my targets - I've made macros listening what each Mark is for and their kill order (KO - skull, x, square, moon, star).

1. Shield Slam - most encounters, I have Blood Fury popped so I'm building my 36 rage, enough to open on my Skull mark with a Shield Slam. Insta big threat!

2a. Devastate - Round fo everyone! Put 2 on your skull then pass 'em around if you have multi-mobs.

2b. Thunderclap - If you had a BIG pull and large heals are going to be incoming, you need to Thunderclap to prevent healer aggro on your other targets (x, square, moon, star). Once you get the TC in, hit each mark with a Devastate to keep the threat up and then go back to smackin' the skull.

3. Revenge - It lights up on Dodges, Blocks, or Parries. Hit it. If you spec'd 43 points into the Prot tree (a la this), Revengel should only cost ya 2 Rage. Hit it every chance you get. If your group is running a threat meter and you are WAY up on the threat, tab to 2nd on DPS and hit them with it. Just hit it.

4. Heroic Strike - Rage dump. If you are over 40 rage, pop it. Once I have 5 Devastates, I switch to spamming HS on the DPS target of the moment. HS hits hard with 5 Sunder Effects and I just refresh the Sunder Armor when needed with a Devastate.

The problem I have, and it's not a big problem, is finding out whether I should spam Shield Block on every refresh. I do. I try to run with a heavy DPS group (no mages, sadly. Don't know where they all went??) so I don't worry about trying to kill the mobs faster as my DPS output (little as it be) is less important than my Healer's Mana.

Every refresh, I'm hitting Shield Block. I also keep Demoralizing Shout and Battle Shout up at all times.

I think I'm going to run a WoW Web Stat for my instance runs tonight to start playing around with how it works. It looks pretty nifty and it'd be a nice tool to see if I'm actually working within these rules.

Right now, 'cause I'm not in Heroics and trying to save money, I don't run with Potions (except healing) or Elixirs. I know there are some great ones out there but I can spend TONS of cash on those if I'm not careful. And, because I usually PUG, I die a lot. I hate losing the bonuses through death. So I don't.

I'm also not Gemming with the super popular all +STA gems. I'm trying to grab the socket bonuses and bumping my avoidance/defense. I'll have a bit less HP (I still socket blues with +9 STA and others with +4 STA where I can) but I'll be using less healer mana because I'll avoid attacks.

The problems I'm reading about (but not experiencing) is that gemming this way at higher tiers reduces your Rage by quite a bit. I don't know yet but I'll be looking to find out when I get there.

**End of Part 1**

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Sooooo, at a pondering point

I'm working on an Origins story for both Neb and Orkwar. I've gotten all it down to paper - no edits yet, just a basic story.

Problem is, the beast rolls in at 23 pages long! AND I want add more!

Wow, don't know if I can post this one to the blog site. If you want a copy, e-mail me. Otherwise, I MIGHT be posting bits and pieces, breaking it up into chewable bites.

Hey, if I stretch it right, I'll get about a month's worth of bloggin' out of it!