During preparations for the recent gold-making exercise I was exploring options for using up raw materials and I took a look at Jewelcrafting.
As it happens, earlier in the expansion, I had a JC plan!
It took so long to manufacture each gem at the time that they sold very quickly, sometimes selling out completely on my server, and prices remained consistently high.
So my plan was increase gem production to keep up with this demand and not miss any potential sales.
How do you do that? Get more JCs!
I switched 5 or 6 alts over to JC, bought a boatload of ore from the AH and distributed it between them.
They were all starting from 1 but that didn't matter, they just sat in the garrison doing the daily CD and filling work orders.
I maintain that it was a good(ish) plan but for a couple of drawbacks:
1. Shortly after I put the plan into action there was the patch that brought visitors to your garrison. The Ore Trader allowed everyone to produce more gems if they wanted to.
2. It was really boring. I just got tired of moving ore and common gems from char to char.
So the JC-world domination plan was abandoned before it really got off the ground.
Well... I was looking at getting back into JC and checking out the Epic Gems.
You can't learn the recipes for them from a trainer, you have to actually go out into the world and find them!
Awesome!
This is an amazing idea!
Actually having to play your character, maybe even going... outside your garrison!
The disappointing part was that I had to go to Wowhead to find out where the recipes dropped, why couldn't Blizzard put in quests for them?
It seemed like such an obvious step to me, to continue the mini-questline which took you to the Gemcutter in the first place.
The recipes come from:
Versatility - Free one given automatically.
Critical Strike - Iskar in HFC (any difficulty)
Haste - High Sage Vyrix in Skyreach (Mythic only!)
Mastery - Rank 6 Brawlers Guild
Multistrike - Tanaan Arrakoa rep
Stamina - Rukhmar (World boss)
Ok... sounds easy enough.
So who is my best JC?
Oh dear... the only to make it all the way to 700, or anywhere near 700, was...
Warlock!
This was my free boost to 90 back in MoP, fumbled his way to 100 by virtue of having his own personal tank, failed the Proving Grounds, and hasn't moved since.
Oh dear.
Not to worry... back to Preach!
I was a Demo Warlock and they were gutted so Demon Hunters could have all of their abilities...
By the way, is this the most blatantly cynical move that Blizzard has ever pulled?
Nerf Demo locks so heavily that they are not viable in any form of organised content.
All Warlocks switch to the other two specs which are both incredibly powerful.
Give all Demo abilities to Demon Hunter.
Any complaints?
Well, the data says that nobody was playing Demo anyway.
No shit, Sherlock!
(also see Marksmanship Hunter/ Lone Wolf)
Anyway...
I have switched out of Demo, I hadn't enjoyed playing it much anyway to be honest, and decided to have a go at Affliction. A spec so complex at one point it had it's own tailor-made addons to make it remotely playable.
Worth a go anyway.
It's not that complex these days... snapshotting has fallen by the wayside so it's more of a plate-spinning exercise trying to keep up dots on multiple targets.
Single target is very simple... keep up 3 dots, add a 4th dot when the Ember procs, fill with something else, pop CDs with trinket procs, summon and sacrifice Demons...
See, really simple! :-s
I'm off to practice in front of the dummies and hope I can get TMW to make some sort of sense out of it all, will let you know I get on!
Friday 26 February 2016
Tuesday 23 February 2016
Mythic Magery - Hellfire High Council
A real step up from the Heroic version and particularly challenging for the healers.
I thought this fight was fun at the other levels and I think it's even better on Mythic.
The tactics haven't really changed, we don't even do the rotating groups for the debuff tactic from fatboss.
Instead, we just stack very tightly on Gurtogg and have people move slightly further away as needed.
This keeps the whole raid (except Dia's tank of course) inside the numerous healing circles, hopefully taking a little stress from the incredibly taxed healers.
In fact, the healing is so demanding on this fight we run with 5 healers instead of the usual 4.
Even with the extra healer, and the extra penalty for doing it, we are choosing to dispel the reaps to spread the damage more evenly across the raid.
This goes against everything we know about this fight and is even worse on mythic as it spreads to three new people rather than two but anything that can reduce the strain on the healers is welcome.
It does cause us some issues later on in the fight though, issues which I particularly struggle with.
Anyway, as dps, much of the fight remains the same as heroic. We still follow the same priorities and there is still the intense thrill when you are fixated by Gurtogg.
It's that fixate that essentially decides who tops the dps charts but, taking that out of consideration, it's the Arcane Mage massive single target damage versus the multi-dotting Boomkins and Warlocks... it's a very close contest!
It's that fixate that essentially decides who tops the dps charts but, taking that out of consideration, it's the Arcane Mage massive single target damage versus the multi-dotting Boomkins and Warlocks... it's a very close contest!
The key to the actual kill though seems to be how we handle the Reaps.
As we are dispelling it once each cycle, we have 9 to drop each time. This very quickly takes up a large amount of the available space and leads to a specific moment that causes most of our wipes.
It is one of those 'moments' that occasionally arises in raids.
You know that if the raid makes it through that key moment in decent shape it will likely lead to a kill.
It may be due to running with an extra healer, or it may just be that our dps is not quite up to scratch, but we can't kill Blademaster Jubei'thos before his second Mirror phase.
Knowing this, we avoid pushing him below 30% and switch to Dia for a while.
Unfortunately though, that second Mirror phase coincides with a ghost phase and, with both going on... we get the Reap.
This is where I er... cock it up.
I've often had a knack of using fantastic, helpful spells to kill myself (see Suicide is Painless) and that has continued here as I contrive to Blink into everything that could possibly kill me rather than the spaces in between.
Ghosts, Mirror Blades, other Reaps... You name it, I've blinked into it. Often more than one of them at once.
I'm far from the only one though, this is the moment we either wipe or go on to kill the boss.
It all depends how many people managed to negotiate the maze of Reaps, Ghosts and Swirling Blades to find a safe spit to drop their own Reap.
If it's 3 or 4 we can normally just go on to get the kill but it's often many more with chain reactions of deaths... die before Reap goes off, it jumps to someone else who panics and runs (blinks) to their death so it jumps to someone else who has no time to move and drops it under the raid... killing more people.
That kind of thing.
I might suggest we save Heroism to burn down the Blademaster on our next kill but I haven't checked how much that would hurt us on Bloodboil.
Otherwise, we are back to the headless chickens running for safety... we should get pretty good at it in time :-)
You know that if the raid makes it through that key moment in decent shape it will likely lead to a kill.
It may be due to running with an extra healer, or it may just be that our dps is not quite up to scratch, but we can't kill Blademaster Jubei'thos before his second Mirror phase.
Knowing this, we avoid pushing him below 30% and switch to Dia for a while.
Unfortunately though, that second Mirror phase coincides with a ghost phase and, with both going on... we get the Reap.
This is where I er... cock it up.
I've often had a knack of using fantastic, helpful spells to kill myself (see Suicide is Painless) and that has continued here as I contrive to Blink into everything that could possibly kill me rather than the spaces in between.
Ghosts, Mirror Blades, other Reaps... You name it, I've blinked into it. Often more than one of them at once.
I'm far from the only one though, this is the moment we either wipe or go on to kill the boss.
It all depends how many people managed to negotiate the maze of Reaps, Ghosts and Swirling Blades to find a safe spit to drop their own Reap.
If it's 3 or 4 we can normally just go on to get the kill but it's often many more with chain reactions of deaths... die before Reap goes off, it jumps to someone else who panics and runs (blinks) to their death so it jumps to someone else who has no time to move and drops it under the raid... killing more people.
That kind of thing.
I might suggest we save Heroism to burn down the Blademaster on our next kill but I haven't checked how much that would hurt us on Bloodboil.
Otherwise, we are back to the headless chickens running for safety... we should get pretty good at it in time :-)
Friday 19 February 2016
The Gold Plan...
The Aim:
To (re)make my Million Gold with as little effort as possible.
The Tools available:
11 chars at 100 (sort of)
All profs (except Herbalism for some reason) maxed at 700
Stage 1: Garrisons.
The main idea is to find some task that isn't too onerous to repeat at will for guaranteed gains, sounds like the garrison to me.
My main advantage is that I login, even if it's only for a few minutes, virtually every day so the garrison also plays to that strength.
I know I've missed the big gold rush from the garrisons after a series of nerfs but there is still plenty to be made.
The Setup...
The first step was to grab a load of followers with the treasure finder trait so that means a level 2 Inn.
You're going to want a level 3 Inn to open up the Treasure missions anyway so that's no problem.
Harrison Jones is not only a treasure finder himself but also a god-send for levelling up your new treasure finder recruit each week.
Get him on as many chars as possible!
The treasure missions aren't the only ones that bring in the gold though, virtually all of the rewards can be vendored for a nice chunk and there are also the big rewards like the Medallion of the Legion and the Champion's Honor.
And, if you are doing so many missions each day, it makes sense to have the level 3 Salvage Yard so you have the opportunity to gain something from every mission.
Barracks level 3 for the extra follower slots. Obviously, more followers equals more missions you can do at a time.
I also went for a Storehouse but that was mainly for access to the bank so I could dump anything in there that I didn't immediately vendor.
The Plan...
Cycle through the chars twice per day (when possible), completing missions and sending the followers out again.
Prioritise missions based on gold rewards.
Empty Salvage once per week, vendor all the BoE stuff (as I've said before, no clue about transmog).
It doesn't get much simpler than that!
Not an Auction House in sight!
But does it work?
Well... the setup took longer than anticipated.
The weekly wait for a new follower, plus gearing them all up to 675ilvl, were things I hadn't initially considered.
I also hadn't considered that half of my chars found 'gimmicky' ways to reach 100 and had barely moved since.
My Monk, for example, had gathered a total of 5 followers and not bothered levelling them up.
He, and the others in a similar situation, took a trip around Draenor picking up the free and easy followers so at least they had some to send out.
I had to prioritise levelling over gold for quite a while but I think it will pay off in the long run.
Needless to say, the gold wasn't immediately flowing in. But I had enough encouragement from the main chars to see that, given enough time, it would flourish.
Fast forward to the present and the setup is almost complete.
5 chars have all followers at 675ilvl including the treasure finders.
5 chars have all followers at 100 and half or more at 675ilvl
1 char, the lazy Warrior, was actually still levelling when the plan started so he's way behind with about 15 or 16 followers.
Conclusion to follow soon...
To (re)make my Million Gold with as little effort as possible.
The Tools available:
11 chars at 100 (sort of)
All profs (except Herbalism for some reason) maxed at 700
Stage 1: Garrisons.
The main idea is to find some task that isn't too onerous to repeat at will for guaranteed gains, sounds like the garrison to me.
My main advantage is that I login, even if it's only for a few minutes, virtually every day so the garrison also plays to that strength.
I know I've missed the big gold rush from the garrisons after a series of nerfs but there is still plenty to be made.
The Setup...
The first step was to grab a load of followers with the treasure finder trait so that means a level 2 Inn.
You're going to want a level 3 Inn to open up the Treasure missions anyway so that's no problem.
Harrison Jones is not only a treasure finder himself but also a god-send for levelling up your new treasure finder recruit each week.
Get him on as many chars as possible!
The treasure missions aren't the only ones that bring in the gold though, virtually all of the rewards can be vendored for a nice chunk and there are also the big rewards like the Medallion of the Legion and the Champion's Honor.
And, if you are doing so many missions each day, it makes sense to have the level 3 Salvage Yard so you have the opportunity to gain something from every mission.
Barracks level 3 for the extra follower slots. Obviously, more followers equals more missions you can do at a time.
I also went for a Storehouse but that was mainly for access to the bank so I could dump anything in there that I didn't immediately vendor.
The Plan...
Cycle through the chars twice per day (when possible), completing missions and sending the followers out again.
Prioritise missions based on gold rewards.
Empty Salvage once per week, vendor all the BoE stuff (as I've said before, no clue about transmog).
It doesn't get much simpler than that!
Not an Auction House in sight!
But does it work?
Well... the setup took longer than anticipated.
The weekly wait for a new follower, plus gearing them all up to 675ilvl, were things I hadn't initially considered.
I also hadn't considered that half of my chars found 'gimmicky' ways to reach 100 and had barely moved since.
My Monk, for example, had gathered a total of 5 followers and not bothered levelling them up.
He, and the others in a similar situation, took a trip around Draenor picking up the free and easy followers so at least they had some to send out.
I had to prioritise levelling over gold for quite a while but I think it will pay off in the long run.
Needless to say, the gold wasn't immediately flowing in. But I had enough encouragement from the main chars to see that, given enough time, it would flourish.
Fast forward to the present and the setup is almost complete.
5 chars have all followers at 675ilvl including the treasure finders.
5 chars have all followers at 100 and half or more at 675ilvl
1 char, the lazy Warrior, was actually still levelling when the plan started so he's way behind with about 15 or 16 followers.
Conclusion to follow soon...
Tuesday 16 February 2016
The Alt Plan: Discipline Priest
The Rogue has essentially finished his adventures in Draenor now, although he might have a run out occasionally, so it's time to turn my attention to another alt:
Discipline Priest.
The scourge of healers everywhere with crazy absorbs and smart heals sniping everything going.
Well... that's the theory anyway.
A few trips to LFR taught me basically zero about how to play as Disc so I went to my favourite resource, Preach Gaming.
Oh... so it's not just PW:S spam?
Ok, let's go!
The Preach guide backed up my initial thoughts on the Disc Priest, that it is at it's most effective when shielding proactively but it's even more important than I thought.
Knowledge of the fights and anticipation of the damage is vital to being a decent Disc. There is no get-out-of-jail card like Healing Tide or Tranquility for when the shit hits the fan, so you have to make sure it never gets there.
How do you do that?
Ok, maybe it is PW:S spam.
Kept up on the tanks and anyone who looks like they will take some damage, that's the base from which to build.
From there though, weave in PW:Solace on cooldown to regen some mana and stack up Evangelism.
Penance on cooldown too... used offensively as often as you can get away with it, for another Evangelism stack, but on whoever needs it really.
And there are a couple of other talent choices like Halo/Divine Star/Other one I can't remember which you throw out there as needed.
That is most of the Disc Priest sorted and nets you a fairly decent HPS, capable of handling most situations if used proactively.
To take it to the next level though, is Archangel!
An incredibly powerful spell on a super-short cooldown of 30 seconds. This is where the knowledge of the fight really bears fruit, timing Archangel correctly can absolutely trivialise some boss abilities.
My giant male Pandaren (Guild was going for the Stay Classy achievement back in MoP so needed a Pandaren Priest, one joined the guild when I had reached level 87 :-s ) may look stupid with those little wings on his back but they make him feel like a superhero!
We aren't a DPSer now, it doesn't have to be used exactly on cooldown, but you want to get as much out of it as possible and that is where knowing the fights comes in.
Balancing using Archangel as much as possible against having it available for exactly the right moments is where the skill of Disc Priest seems to be, certainly not how many times you can press your PW:S button.
I've just begun to venture into Normal mode HFC and I'm still working out the best timings but I can see the amazing potential of the spec.
Getting the Archangel right, using the guaranteed crit to put up some nice, juicy shields just before a big ability hits is a fantastic feeling.
And it's so different to the Resto Shaman, almost the opposite way to play. The Shaman has the tools to recover from any situation, cooldown after cooldown available to stabilise the raid and bring them back from the brink.
The Disc Priest doesn't have those tools but can make sure they are never needed. So far there hasn't been a lot of those moments in normal HFC but it was fantastic to challenge myself in the Mythic dungeons over the weekend.
I didn't get it right every time, and it's a struggle to catch up when you get it wrong, but it's worth it for those times that you get it absolutely spot on and sail through the encounter.
The only time I actually wiped the group was on Ner'zhul in Shadowmoon Burial Grounds. It wasn't poor healing or badly-timed cooldowns though, I accidentally ran into the purple stuff and died instantly :-(
Ah well, the pug group was nice enough that they just had a bit of a laugh at my expense as we ran back in.
The garrison has brought me up to speed with the Legendary Ring so now I am just collecting Tomes and doing the Shipyard missions.
Not much luck with gear drops in my Normal HFC attempts so far but I haven't done much to be honest so hoping that will improve.
I'm looking forward to seeing how far I can take this Priest, it's a lot of fun to play and challenging me in completely new ways.
Discipline Priest.
The scourge of healers everywhere with crazy absorbs and smart heals sniping everything going.
Well... that's the theory anyway.
A few trips to LFR taught me basically zero about how to play as Disc so I went to my favourite resource, Preach Gaming.
Oh... so it's not just PW:S spam?
Ok, let's go!
The Preach guide backed up my initial thoughts on the Disc Priest, that it is at it's most effective when shielding proactively but it's even more important than I thought.
Knowledge of the fights and anticipation of the damage is vital to being a decent Disc. There is no get-out-of-jail card like Healing Tide or Tranquility for when the shit hits the fan, so you have to make sure it never gets there.
How do you do that?
Ok, maybe it is PW:S spam.
Kept up on the tanks and anyone who looks like they will take some damage, that's the base from which to build.
From there though, weave in PW:Solace on cooldown to regen some mana and stack up Evangelism.
Penance on cooldown too... used offensively as often as you can get away with it, for another Evangelism stack, but on whoever needs it really.
And there are a couple of other talent choices like Halo/Divine Star/Other one I can't remember which you throw out there as needed.
That is most of the Disc Priest sorted and nets you a fairly decent HPS, capable of handling most situations if used proactively.
To take it to the next level though, is Archangel!
An incredibly powerful spell on a super-short cooldown of 30 seconds. This is where the knowledge of the fight really bears fruit, timing Archangel correctly can absolutely trivialise some boss abilities.
My giant male Pandaren (Guild was going for the Stay Classy achievement back in MoP so needed a Pandaren Priest, one joined the guild when I had reached level 87 :-s ) may look stupid with those little wings on his back but they make him feel like a superhero!
We aren't a DPSer now, it doesn't have to be used exactly on cooldown, but you want to get as much out of it as possible and that is where knowing the fights comes in.
Balancing using Archangel as much as possible against having it available for exactly the right moments is where the skill of Disc Priest seems to be, certainly not how many times you can press your PW:S button.
I've just begun to venture into Normal mode HFC and I'm still working out the best timings but I can see the amazing potential of the spec.
Getting the Archangel right, using the guaranteed crit to put up some nice, juicy shields just before a big ability hits is a fantastic feeling.
And it's so different to the Resto Shaman, almost the opposite way to play. The Shaman has the tools to recover from any situation, cooldown after cooldown available to stabilise the raid and bring them back from the brink.
The Disc Priest doesn't have those tools but can make sure they are never needed. So far there hasn't been a lot of those moments in normal HFC but it was fantastic to challenge myself in the Mythic dungeons over the weekend.
I didn't get it right every time, and it's a struggle to catch up when you get it wrong, but it's worth it for those times that you get it absolutely spot on and sail through the encounter.
The only time I actually wiped the group was on Ner'zhul in Shadowmoon Burial Grounds. It wasn't poor healing or badly-timed cooldowns though, I accidentally ran into the purple stuff and died instantly :-(
Ah well, the pug group was nice enough that they just had a bit of a laugh at my expense as we ran back in.
The garrison has brought me up to speed with the Legendary Ring so now I am just collecting Tomes and doing the Shipyard missions.
Not much luck with gear drops in my Normal HFC attempts so far but I haven't done much to be honest so hoping that will improve.
I'm looking forward to seeing how far I can take this Priest, it's a lot of fun to play and challenging me in completely new ways.
Friday 12 February 2016
Mythic Magery: Kormrok
I'll be completely honest... I've never really got this fight.
My Shaman used to struggle to hit decent numbers here so I used to focus on the dirty jobs... breaking out the one person in the hand going the wrong way or that's in the pool... making sure the runes were done properly... that kind of thing.
It always seemed like another one of 'those' fights, the ones that had lots of mechanics but none of them were really important. The fight didn't require any precision.
Stack up for the hands... doesn't matter if a few people aren't stacked
Dodge the blobs... doesn't matter if you get hit a couple of times
Push the Empowered Runes to the middle... ok, it needed doing, but there was a lot of room for error.
And so on...
Mythic doesn't really seem much different.
The fight is almost exactly the same as Heroic.
The main added mechanic is the splash as Kormrok lands in a pool. Everyone has a designated spot to stand and soak the splash to prevent bad goo stuff from covering the floor.
Except it doesn't really matter.
Half of our team gets it wrong every time and, while it restricts the space we have to play in, it doesn't have much of an effect on the outcome of the fight.
A lot of this has to be gear-related again.
As we push the Empowered Runes around, sometimes in the bad goo, the damage taken must have been much harder to heal through in lower gear.
It does help that we have 3 mages, 3 hunters and a rogue doing it though. Damage is spread throughout the raid and covered by a myriad of cooldowns.
So this fight trundles along like normal or heroic... we stack, we spread, we run to our spot to soak (some of us anyway) and close in on the kill until...
All hell breaks loose!
Suddenly, everything is happening at the same time!
Being dragged by hands just before he jumps into a pool, runes and blobs all over the place as we are spread for the Pound.
It's like Kormrok suddenly remembered it was supposed to be on Mythic!
My god, how did people cope with all this 20+ ilvls ago?
The damage is insane, even now, and I pity those under-geared progressing healers.
We have the dps these days to push through and kill it not long after all the mechanics hit so we don't have to deal with it for too long but we still have the odd wipe at this point.
Either we have lost one or two along the way so our dps is lower, or had to blow cooldowns at an unplanned point in the fight, or maybe just a poor attempt... but it's always at that point where it all blows up.
I don't even know if it settles down again after that because either the boss is dead or we are.
Playing this fight as a Mage is pretty much the same as Heroic was on my Shaman... I still don't get it, I time my cooldowns wrong or position poorly and have to move during them... something like that, I can't hit the big numbers anyway.
I heard somewhere that ranking Arcane Mages on this fight were doing literally nothing until the first set of Grasping Hands so they could guarantee a Prophecy of Fear proc landing on them.
That might be the way to boost my numbers but we have two Bladestorming Warriors so the hands aren't much of an issue for us.
I'll just stick to hitting the boss and doing the dirty jobs.
My Shaman used to struggle to hit decent numbers here so I used to focus on the dirty jobs... breaking out the one person in the hand going the wrong way or that's in the pool... making sure the runes were done properly... that kind of thing.
It always seemed like another one of 'those' fights, the ones that had lots of mechanics but none of them were really important. The fight didn't require any precision.
Stack up for the hands... doesn't matter if a few people aren't stacked
Dodge the blobs... doesn't matter if you get hit a couple of times
Push the Empowered Runes to the middle... ok, it needed doing, but there was a lot of room for error.
And so on...
Mythic doesn't really seem much different.
The fight is almost exactly the same as Heroic.
The main added mechanic is the splash as Kormrok lands in a pool. Everyone has a designated spot to stand and soak the splash to prevent bad goo stuff from covering the floor.
Except it doesn't really matter.
Half of our team gets it wrong every time and, while it restricts the space we have to play in, it doesn't have much of an effect on the outcome of the fight.
A lot of this has to be gear-related again.
As we push the Empowered Runes around, sometimes in the bad goo, the damage taken must have been much harder to heal through in lower gear.
It does help that we have 3 mages, 3 hunters and a rogue doing it though. Damage is spread throughout the raid and covered by a myriad of cooldowns.
So this fight trundles along like normal or heroic... we stack, we spread, we run to our spot to soak (some of us anyway) and close in on the kill until...
All hell breaks loose!
Suddenly, everything is happening at the same time!
Being dragged by hands just before he jumps into a pool, runes and blobs all over the place as we are spread for the Pound.
It's like Kormrok suddenly remembered it was supposed to be on Mythic!
My god, how did people cope with all this 20+ ilvls ago?
The damage is insane, even now, and I pity those under-geared progressing healers.
We have the dps these days to push through and kill it not long after all the mechanics hit so we don't have to deal with it for too long but we still have the odd wipe at this point.
Either we have lost one or two along the way so our dps is lower, or had to blow cooldowns at an unplanned point in the fight, or maybe just a poor attempt... but it's always at that point where it all blows up.
I don't even know if it settles down again after that because either the boss is dead or we are.
Playing this fight as a Mage is pretty much the same as Heroic was on my Shaman... I still don't get it, I time my cooldowns wrong or position poorly and have to move during them... something like that, I can't hit the big numbers anyway.
I heard somewhere that ranking Arcane Mages on this fight were doing literally nothing until the first set of Grasping Hands so they could guarantee a Prophecy of Fear proc landing on them.
That might be the way to boost my numbers but we have two Bladestorming Warriors so the hands aren't much of an issue for us.
I'll just stick to hitting the boss and doing the dirty jobs.
Tuesday 9 February 2016
Gold...
The Push...
Around the time Lei Shen was falling and we were taking our first (of many, many) steps into Siege of Orgrimmar, I was very active at my local Auction House.
I had set my self a goal to make a million gold!
I'd been dabbling a fair amount from the middle of Cata to that point so I was about halfway there anyway but it needed a push.
I decided to diversify my, mainly JC/Ench, portfolio by going back to my Glyph roots and also adding in crafted PvP gear and some flasks/potions.
I was targeting high-turnover goods but staying away from the extremely lucrative but slower-moving Transmog market.
This decision was primarily based on the knowledge that my incredibly poor taste in transmog would undoubtedly leave me with bags full of crap that nobody would ever want.
I'm sure I could have looked up some guide online but I just decided to stick to markets that I knew and understood fairly well.
So, with TSM controlling the whole enterprise, I had 7 crafting alts, 3 storage alts, 1 purchasing alt and 3 sales alts.
As you can probably imagine, the hardest part was setting it all up and it didn't take too long after that to reach my goal.
I moved all the gold on to one char and took a screenshot with my gold cap then pretty much ceased all gold-making activities.
It had been far too labour-intensive, even with TSM, and I had achieved my goal so I was done.
Warlords of Draenor...
Little changed in the many intervening months before release and I entered the new expansion with a very healthy gold balance.
Unlike any other time though, I started to spend spend spend!
In the race to be prepared for that first raid night, there were so many things to buy!
Ridiculously expensive crafting materials, which I had previously laughed at my friend for buying, were bought without a second thought.
The 665ilvl BoEs from the Salvage Yard were incredibly powerful compared to dungeon blues so commanded a price to match.
The gold reserves dropped suddenly in those first weeks of the expansion but it didn't stop there.
There were always more crafting mats to buy, or just the fully-crafted items, plus a steady flow of BoEs as each raid opened up.
Then there were alts who wanted a shortcut to skip the dungeon/early lfr grind, or re-speccing them at 100 into a tank/healer spec.
Alts who needed mats to level their profs and the daily profession cooldowns.
Stuff to buy all along the way.
It was only recently that I even looked to see how much gold I had left, or how little to be more precise.
Well... it wasn't pretty I can tell you.
With pretty much nothing left to show for it, even in a world of pixelated possessions, I had spent around 750k.
Virtually all of the gear had been replaced in HFC, even the alts' gear had been replaced by Empowered Baleful or Garrison drops.
I don't want to repeat that kind of spending in the next expansion but I do want to be able to spend freely so I need to replenish those gold reserves.
Do I re-install TSM and get the gang all working again?
To be honest, I don't have the energy for it. My AH-camping days are well and truly behind me.
So I need to find another way...
I need a plan!
Around the time Lei Shen was falling and we were taking our first (of many, many) steps into Siege of Orgrimmar, I was very active at my local Auction House.
I had set my self a goal to make a million gold!
I'd been dabbling a fair amount from the middle of Cata to that point so I was about halfway there anyway but it needed a push.
I decided to diversify my, mainly JC/Ench, portfolio by going back to my Glyph roots and also adding in crafted PvP gear and some flasks/potions.
I was targeting high-turnover goods but staying away from the extremely lucrative but slower-moving Transmog market.
This decision was primarily based on the knowledge that my incredibly poor taste in transmog would undoubtedly leave me with bags full of crap that nobody would ever want.
I'm sure I could have looked up some guide online but I just decided to stick to markets that I knew and understood fairly well.
So, with TSM controlling the whole enterprise, I had 7 crafting alts, 3 storage alts, 1 purchasing alt and 3 sales alts.
As you can probably imagine, the hardest part was setting it all up and it didn't take too long after that to reach my goal.
I moved all the gold on to one char and took a screenshot with my gold cap then pretty much ceased all gold-making activities.
It had been far too labour-intensive, even with TSM, and I had achieved my goal so I was done.
Warlords of Draenor...
Little changed in the many intervening months before release and I entered the new expansion with a very healthy gold balance.
Unlike any other time though, I started to spend spend spend!
In the race to be prepared for that first raid night, there were so many things to buy!
Ridiculously expensive crafting materials, which I had previously laughed at my friend for buying, were bought without a second thought.
The 665ilvl BoEs from the Salvage Yard were incredibly powerful compared to dungeon blues so commanded a price to match.
The gold reserves dropped suddenly in those first weeks of the expansion but it didn't stop there.
There were always more crafting mats to buy, or just the fully-crafted items, plus a steady flow of BoEs as each raid opened up.
Then there were alts who wanted a shortcut to skip the dungeon/early lfr grind, or re-speccing them at 100 into a tank/healer spec.
Alts who needed mats to level their profs and the daily profession cooldowns.
Stuff to buy all along the way.
It was only recently that I even looked to see how much gold I had left, or how little to be more precise.
Well... it wasn't pretty I can tell you.
With pretty much nothing left to show for it, even in a world of pixelated possessions, I had spent around 750k.
Virtually all of the gear had been replaced in HFC, even the alts' gear had been replaced by Empowered Baleful or Garrison drops.
I don't want to repeat that kind of spending in the next expansion but I do want to be able to spend freely so I need to replenish those gold reserves.
Do I re-install TSM and get the gang all working again?
To be honest, I don't have the energy for it. My AH-camping days are well and truly behind me.
So I need to find another way...
I need a plan!
Friday 5 February 2016
Mythic Magery: Iron Reaver
Bombs! Bombs! Bombs! Bombs! Bombs!
(Could be a Baldrick raiding poem)
The main difference from Heroic is the addition of some extra... you guessed it, bombs!
Some explode quickly
Some take forever but are heavily armoured
Some you can't kill, you just have to soak the explosion a la Iron Juggernaut in SoO
Some of them even fight back!
None of them are really a problem when you are all 725ilvl.
Another fight that has lost a lot of it's challenge due to over-gearing it.
I was beginning to think I should have stayed at that first guild... then I remembered all the rage and was thankful for my current, fun-loving guild.
Anyway... bombs are the priority.
A few normal ones drop during the Ground phase which we switch to and kill off quickly, while the variety of more interesting bombs drop during the Air phase.
This kind of fight would have been a nightmare during progress for my Shaman.
The constant target-switching, to bombs that you know aren't going to live long but you can't leave them to other people just in case, is always going to be difficult for the Shaman.
The Mage suffers from no such difficulties.
This fight is almost designed with the Arcane (or Frost for that matter) Mage in mind...
Very little movement - Hunter advantage doesn't come into play.
Short-lived priority adds - live longer and it's the multi-dotters that reign supreme.
Big-hitting but spaced out abilities - perfect for the defensive tools of the Mage.
I considered trying an Evanesce/Rune of Power approach to reduce movement to an absolute minimum, using Evanesce to essentially ignore any Barrage pointed my way, but I thought it was too risky. I didn't want to be caught not realising that Evanesce was on cooldown.
Plus, my raid team has a problem with personal space. Or, more accurately, invading mine and not leaving.
Yes, I know people have to move out of Barrage, but you can move back afterwards instead of all joining me in my nice, (formerly) safe position.
Talking of Barrage...
You would think that, after weeks and weeks of killing this boss on Normal and Heroic, everyone should be able to avoid the Barrage... right?
Wrong!
/sigh
In what I can only assume is an attempt to inject some of the challenge back into this fight, a number of our 'Mythic' raiders still get regularly hit by Barrage and die.
At least it makes it more interesting for the rest of us :-)
Note: Prismatic Crystal
I hate this talent.
I am just not good enough as a Mage to use this with Prophecy of Fear trinket, I mess it up almost every time.
If the trinket procs on the Crystal, it's easy. Just carry on hitting the Crystal.
If it procs on the boss, I am apparently supposed to put down the Crystal anyway and weave the spells together... Arcane Blasts on the PC, Arcane Missiles on the boss with the proc. Or maybe it's the other way around :-s
That sounds so easy when I read it but can I get it right? Hell no!
Last time I tried it, I ended up hitting Blink and Evocation right at the start of my burst :-(
I'll stick with the other talent choices for now I think.
(Could be a Baldrick raiding poem)
The main difference from Heroic is the addition of some extra... you guessed it, bombs!
Some explode quickly
Some take forever but are heavily armoured
Some you can't kill, you just have to soak the explosion a la Iron Juggernaut in SoO
Some of them even fight back!
None of them are really a problem when you are all 725ilvl.
Another fight that has lost a lot of it's challenge due to over-gearing it.
I was beginning to think I should have stayed at that first guild... then I remembered all the rage and was thankful for my current, fun-loving guild.
Anyway... bombs are the priority.
A few normal ones drop during the Ground phase which we switch to and kill off quickly, while the variety of more interesting bombs drop during the Air phase.
This kind of fight would have been a nightmare during progress for my Shaman.
The constant target-switching, to bombs that you know aren't going to live long but you can't leave them to other people just in case, is always going to be difficult for the Shaman.
The Mage suffers from no such difficulties.
This fight is almost designed with the Arcane (or Frost for that matter) Mage in mind...
Very little movement - Hunter advantage doesn't come into play.
Short-lived priority adds - live longer and it's the multi-dotters that reign supreme.
Big-hitting but spaced out abilities - perfect for the defensive tools of the Mage.
I considered trying an Evanesce/Rune of Power approach to reduce movement to an absolute minimum, using Evanesce to essentially ignore any Barrage pointed my way, but I thought it was too risky. I didn't want to be caught not realising that Evanesce was on cooldown.
Plus, my raid team has a problem with personal space. Or, more accurately, invading mine and not leaving.
Yes, I know people have to move out of Barrage, but you can move back afterwards instead of all joining me in my nice, (formerly) safe position.
Talking of Barrage...
You would think that, after weeks and weeks of killing this boss on Normal and Heroic, everyone should be able to avoid the Barrage... right?
Wrong!
/sigh
In what I can only assume is an attempt to inject some of the challenge back into this fight, a number of our 'Mythic' raiders still get regularly hit by Barrage and die.
At least it makes it more interesting for the rest of us :-)
Note: Prismatic Crystal
I hate this talent.
I am just not good enough as a Mage to use this with Prophecy of Fear trinket, I mess it up almost every time.
If the trinket procs on the Crystal, it's easy. Just carry on hitting the Crystal.
If it procs on the boss, I am apparently supposed to put down the Crystal anyway and weave the spells together... Arcane Blasts on the PC, Arcane Missiles on the boss with the proc. Or maybe it's the other way around :-s
That sounds so easy when I read it but can I get it right? Hell no!
Last time I tried it, I ended up hitting Blink and Evocation right at the start of my burst :-(
I'll stick with the other talent choices for now I think.
Thursday 4 February 2016
The Alt Plan: Combat Rogue
Old faithful. My go-to guy. The Rogue.
Whenever I am getting a bit bored or running out of things to do on my main, I can always turn to my rogue for a bit of stabby fun.
There has been lots of stabby fun lately as he hit the pugging scene with a vengeance!
I have stuck with Combat for all of the fights, even if it isn't always the best spec, mainly because it's really bloody easy to play.
The hardest part of playing a Rogue is making Soul Capacitor trinket actually explode on something rather than thin air.
So many times the boss moves or I have to move just as it's about to go off, it's infuriating!
The worst culprits are Kormrok and Iskar...
On Kormrok, if it procs on the pull (which it invariably does), he is in the pool as it explodes.
There are 4 options:
1. Waste the proc on fresh air and therefore do no damage at all.
2. Don't attack at all until he comes out. Still no damage but the proc isn't wasted.
3. Click off the buff so it explodes early, only waste half the proc.
4. Follow him in!
I like option 4 :-)
Just before he jumps pop Feint, Cloak and Killing Spree... hope you have timed it right so you don't take too much damage.
Iskar is just as bad.
Trinket procs on the pull, you can guarantee you will get the first Fel Chakram and have to move out.
Every time it procs during the fight, you know you will get Chakram, Winds or the boss will run away.
(note to self: If the boss runs away just before explosion, do NOT immediately Shadowstep the adds and let the explosion hit them. Tanks don't move as fast as Shadowstep.)
Infuriating trinket aside, it's been a lot of fun :-)
Combat is so forgiving that it's the perfect spec for an Alt.
I have tried out a bit of Assassination lately (mainly in the Cata Timewalking dungeons over the weekend so I could use the Legendary Daggers again) but it is incredibly slow by comparison.
I don't have the weapons to try it (or Subtlety) in an actual raid which is a shame, maybe I will pick some up along the way.
The pugs have been as hit and miss as ever, with some failing the absolute basics and some doing horrendous numbers but killing everything (eventually).
Gathering the 4-set and the Archimonde trinket actually reduced my ilvl by a couple of points but the dps is noticeably higher, and it has been a lot of fun.
He's now sat at 9/13HC, almost entirely from pugging, with a 711ilvl complete with 4-set and trinket and this should be close to the end of his journey in Draenor...
But it's been so much fun!
So I'm considering carrying him a bit further, maybe get him a full Heroic set and try out the other specs on the single target fights.
I haven't decided yet.
I should probably make the most of it before they turn him into a pirate.
Whenever I am getting a bit bored or running out of things to do on my main, I can always turn to my rogue for a bit of stabby fun.
There has been lots of stabby fun lately as he hit the pugging scene with a vengeance!
I have stuck with Combat for all of the fights, even if it isn't always the best spec, mainly because it's really bloody easy to play.
The hardest part of playing a Rogue is making Soul Capacitor trinket actually explode on something rather than thin air.
So many times the boss moves or I have to move just as it's about to go off, it's infuriating!
The worst culprits are Kormrok and Iskar...
On Kormrok, if it procs on the pull (which it invariably does), he is in the pool as it explodes.
There are 4 options:
1. Waste the proc on fresh air and therefore do no damage at all.
2. Don't attack at all until he comes out. Still no damage but the proc isn't wasted.
3. Click off the buff so it explodes early, only waste half the proc.
4. Follow him in!
I like option 4 :-)
Just before he jumps pop Feint, Cloak and Killing Spree... hope you have timed it right so you don't take too much damage.
Iskar is just as bad.
Trinket procs on the pull, you can guarantee you will get the first Fel Chakram and have to move out.
Every time it procs during the fight, you know you will get Chakram, Winds or the boss will run away.
(note to self: If the boss runs away just before explosion, do NOT immediately Shadowstep the adds and let the explosion hit them. Tanks don't move as fast as Shadowstep.)
Infuriating trinket aside, it's been a lot of fun :-)
Combat is so forgiving that it's the perfect spec for an Alt.
I have tried out a bit of Assassination lately (mainly in the Cata Timewalking dungeons over the weekend so I could use the Legendary Daggers again) but it is incredibly slow by comparison.
I don't have the weapons to try it (or Subtlety) in an actual raid which is a shame, maybe I will pick some up along the way.
The pugs have been as hit and miss as ever, with some failing the absolute basics and some doing horrendous numbers but killing everything (eventually).
Gathering the 4-set and the Archimonde trinket actually reduced my ilvl by a couple of points but the dps is noticeably higher, and it has been a lot of fun.
He's now sat at 9/13HC, almost entirely from pugging, with a 711ilvl complete with 4-set and trinket and this should be close to the end of his journey in Draenor...
But it's been so much fun!
So I'm considering carrying him a bit further, maybe get him a full Heroic set and try out the other specs on the single target fights.
I haven't decided yet.
I should probably make the most of it before they turn him into a pirate.
Tuesday 2 February 2016
Mythic Magery: Hellfire Assault
Despite, until recently, having only killed this boss once, I feel like I have done it to death already.
Coming at the boss with a fresh team meant the learning had to begin again but, due to the massive boost to gear we have received since the Valor patch, it's all a lot more forgiving.
First time I killed it, back in July on my Shaman, I was at 701ilvl and the team averaged around 705ilvl.
First kill on my Mage, I was at 721ilvl and the team around 725ilvl.
An incredible 20ilvls difference!
I think it just shows the quality that was in that team, and I mean no disrespect to my current team, but they were on a higher level.
And it makes you think about how good those really top teams are that can kill raid bosses in dungeon blues.
Not that it's a true and fair comparison though.
My current guild didn't exist back in July so they haven't even had the opportunity to push forward on low gear.
Also, we only raid twice per week so relatively more time is spent clearing farm bosses and gaining gear compared to pushing progress.
It will be interesting to see how this team copes with the next tier of raiding but that's still too far away to think about right now.
So... how does Mage compare to Shaman on this boss?
Well, at 720+ ilvl, the Mage just can't compete with Shaman AoE.
The gear has made the fight so much more forgiving that we can just pretty much AoE through the whole fight and heal through any negative consequences.
The Mage shines on burning down that important target though, the Felcaller pushed at the wrong time or the Berserker feasting on the tank but it just can't compete with the sustained AoE of some classes.
When it comes to the raid joining back together in the middle, it's the Shaman that shoots ahead on dps but it's the Mage that does the big damage to U'rogg and Grute.
Back at low gear levels when we couldn't afford to throw that AoE around so freely, the Mage was definitely more useful.
Nowadays, it doesn't matter so much so the overall bigger numbers of the Shaman are more desirable (not that you can make the fight go any faster).
There is always the thought that Blizzard intend classes to work this way...
The big-hitting Arcane Mage with it's incredible single target burst synergising with the Chain Lightning machine of the Ele Shaman taking out the smaller minions while helping on the boss.
Perhaps that is how the big teams think about it, the synergy of the team above all else.
If only there was no Recount/Skada, maybe we would all think this way.
Coming at the boss with a fresh team meant the learning had to begin again but, due to the massive boost to gear we have received since the Valor patch, it's all a lot more forgiving.
First time I killed it, back in July on my Shaman, I was at 701ilvl and the team averaged around 705ilvl.
First kill on my Mage, I was at 721ilvl and the team around 725ilvl.
An incredible 20ilvls difference!
I think it just shows the quality that was in that team, and I mean no disrespect to my current team, but they were on a higher level.
And it makes you think about how good those really top teams are that can kill raid bosses in dungeon blues.
Not that it's a true and fair comparison though.
My current guild didn't exist back in July so they haven't even had the opportunity to push forward on low gear.
Also, we only raid twice per week so relatively more time is spent clearing farm bosses and gaining gear compared to pushing progress.
It will be interesting to see how this team copes with the next tier of raiding but that's still too far away to think about right now.
So... how does Mage compare to Shaman on this boss?
Well, at 720+ ilvl, the Mage just can't compete with Shaman AoE.
The gear has made the fight so much more forgiving that we can just pretty much AoE through the whole fight and heal through any negative consequences.
The Mage shines on burning down that important target though, the Felcaller pushed at the wrong time or the Berserker feasting on the tank but it just can't compete with the sustained AoE of some classes.
When it comes to the raid joining back together in the middle, it's the Shaman that shoots ahead on dps but it's the Mage that does the big damage to U'rogg and Grute.
Back at low gear levels when we couldn't afford to throw that AoE around so freely, the Mage was definitely more useful.
Nowadays, it doesn't matter so much so the overall bigger numbers of the Shaman are more desirable (not that you can make the fight go any faster).
There is always the thought that Blizzard intend classes to work this way...
The big-hitting Arcane Mage with it's incredible single target burst synergising with the Chain Lightning machine of the Ele Shaman taking out the smaller minions while helping on the boss.
Perhaps that is how the big teams think about it, the synergy of the team above all else.
If only there was no Recount/Skada, maybe we would all think this way.
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