The Five Hidden Laws of WoW

Doesn't it feel like sometimes games claim to use one kind of rules but in reality they run by a hidden set of rules designed to mock and frustrate you? A lot of this comes from biased thinking, meaning that when something has started to annoy you is when you'll start noticing it and you'll think that it stands out. You rarely recognize when things go your way but more often when things go bad. I swear that some games just seem to know how to tease you though. I don't know how many times I've said I'll give up grinding for something in WoW only to have it drop the minute later (proving I did not quit grinding after all, but I would've! Eventually...).

Continuing on with another post based on some notes I found in an old notebook of mine, this one is about video game logic or lack thereof. These notes (this post and the previous one) were written closely together so clearly I was in something of a pissy mood, hateful about players in general and my game luck in particular when writing these. Remember that these are written tongue in cheek, are based on my experiences alone and you might not agree at all. Also I use words like "always" very loosely. At the time they were probably just an attempt to vent some anger from my side. After (at that time) five years of playing WoW I thought I had its tricks pinned down - I knew that it worked around hidden rules that were designed to lure us into trying just one more time. Fake instant gratification!

1. In a group, whoever plays the worst will always get the loot.
All the entries on this list are frustrating, but I wonder if this one is not the worst one. I was ok with people who played badly (aka did bad dps/healing/tanking and/or a lot of mistakes) to get some loot. In fact this "rule" even worked to my favor on occasion. I clearly remember bringing my lock to Vault of Archavon once, playing utter crap and being the one to win the loot out of at least a handful of rollers. Playing badly is one thing, it can happen to anyone. But the amount of times this seems to have worked in the favor of the jerkwad of the group, I can't even count. You know, that one person in the group who seems dead set on ruining the day for everyone unlucky enough to be grouped with them. Numerous times have I've had people like that in my group, seen something really cool drop (even random epics, mounts or the like) and 9 to 1 the Ruiner of Fun would win it. Just to write "Lol! Screw you guys!" and leave with a digital finger aimed at the rest of the group. Oh sorry, I mean "LOL!!!! SCRUW U GUYZ!!!!".

Every... time... - wowhuntershall.com

2. Percentages are not what they say they are.
This might take some explaining so bare with me, but this is true as day. Imagine yourself fighting some kobolds in Elwynn Forest, chuckling at their cries of "No take candle!" and having a generally good time. Say, just hypothetically that you've got 100% hit chance and 10/10 swings are actually landing. Now imagine further that you somehow get a debuff that reads "10% reduced hit chance". "Ok" you might think. "So I'll only hit 9 out of my 10 swings, no biggie", shrug and move on to the next Kobold. The Kobold end up being the one laughing however as you stand there, wildly flailing your weapon at them, suddenly having a hit chance that seems closer to 1/10 than anything else. What am I trying to say? I always felt, nay unconsciously known, that debuffs that reduces stats had more than twice the actual impact than it claims to have.

It's like the game can't handle statistics and probability properly. I know this is how the human mind works (hence the existance of this list), meaning that we often think in either/or rather than in actual probabilities. But I thought a game, based on solid, programmed numbers would be better than that! As it is I often wonder if the game just runs by the commands "doesn't miss much" or "misses a lot", rather than actual percentages.

3. You always get dazed when you want it the least.
Which usually is always. But sometimes you're lucky and don't seem to get dazed much at all. You can bet your life (and it will be your life) that whenever you're being chased by a ganker you will get dazed by a mob. Or when you pull an elite. Or when you try to ride out of Zul'Farrak after having pulled half the instance.

us.battle.net

4. If you run between mobs to avoid aggroing them you will pull both and their stealthed friend.
See point 3. on this list for what will happen next by the way. This is just classic irony or perhaps Murphy's Law. By trying to avoid to get into trouble, you'll actually end up in trouble, and a lot more of it than if you had just wo/manned up in the first place and dealt with it rather than trying to chicken your way through. But I just hate it when I am simply trying to get smoothly from point A to point B (which happens a lot in WoW), I'm not in the mood for any skull bashing and this Gnoll just knows he has to ruin my day. So he brings his friend. And where the hell did THAT guy come from?!

5. It doesn't matter which class you bring, stuff for your other class will always drop.
This one is for all you alters out there, you know my pain! At one point I was juggling quite many, and did some 10 VoA runs each week (day? Don't remember how often they reset). And I swear, the more alts I had the more it felt like I lost out on loot. Which you know, makes sense, because every loot that dropped was something I could've used on one of my other alts. And I guess the more alts I had the more I got the sense that loot dropped just to mock me. Ok, maybe I can scratch this one and just write it down to me being damn unlucky. Or probably averagely unlucky.

Well this person had no trouble finding gear! - wow.joystiq.com

Bonus entry!
6. If you get jumped by someone while questing and you're about to own him, a paladin will come out of nowhere and kill you when your opponent is at 5%.
I think the title speaks for itself and I think this just happened to me when I wrote this list.

Ever felt particularly out of favour with the WoW Gods? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

Plex - Level 40

Did you miss me? I know you did. It did take me longer to level 30-40 than the previous levels, even when taking into account that you need more exp to do so. It is partially because I've taken active counter measures, to actually level slower, so that I can do the quests in each area while they are still current. I try to never log out in rested areas to get as little rested as possible, for example. I still only do each instance once, and just when I dinged 40 my guild dinged level 2, which means I gain 5% more experience from quests and killings. Maybe I will have to go guildless to not level too fast. Yes, leveling is going way too fast - eventhough I really try not to get any "unecessary" exp and have no BoA at all. Therefor it really cracked me up when a guildie asked for help with leveling faster, although he had full boa and played a tank-class. Some people are just never satisifed, they'd probably roll a fully leveled character if they could. I wonder if I'd ever do that if that option was given to me? I don't think so. Well maybe. I don't know.

So I'm actually in a new guild now, both with Zinn and Plex interestingly enough - I left my old one in a furious nerd rage after I had been killed by Yetimus the tenth time around (on Plex, not Zinn). I had to punish someone, might as well be the empty guild that had abandoned me! Why I joined another? I don't know actually - there are some perks that are useful, but I think maybe I should avoid the exp bonus one, like mentioned.

Another reason it has taken me long to level Plex is because I realized why I've never leveled another priest to max level before. Why I always abandon them very early on. It's because I already spend so much time playing a priest, and suddenly I play this stumped version of my main. And I don't like being handicapped in my healing - not when I know exactly what I could've done but I can't now because this isn't my main. I miss my Prayer of Mending. I miss my haste. I miss my Shadowfiend. I miss a thousand other things. And I miss them so very much. Worst of all was probably when I had Atonement on Zinn, had fun with it in raids and then returned to Plex to quest with it. So slow Smites, it was horrible. Fortunately I removed Atonement from Zinn so now I've only got Plex if I want to play around with it, but this is definitely my main issue with my little priest right now. How hard she ever would try, she'd never become my main. Poor thing.

The discipline tree is similar to the arcane mage tree or survival hunter tree in that many talents don't become especially useful until later on. This removes the feeling of getting talents that actually make a difference, and somewhat stagnates the progress feeling of a discipline priest. For instance, many talents rely on heavy shield usage, while the shield isn't very useful on low levels, or at least it hasn't been for me all the way up to 40. This means that talents like Imp PW:S, Sould Warding, Renewed Hope and Rapture are weak because I just don't have much use for the shield. I haven't even specced into Soul Warding because I shield like twice every instance, and Imp PW:S is actually preventing my Rapture from proccing even on a low leveled tank who has 6 mobs hitting on him. The shield is still way too good. Can't believe I am complaining about that, but I am. Pain Suppression will also be pretty moot, unless I decide to pvp more. Same goes for Strength of Soul. Why would I want to recast a new shield when the old one isn't even absorbed yet? And so on.

This guy ate me! Never seen that before.

Questing goes very easy however. Atonement rocks ass, even with my slow casting. I never go low on health and now that I've slain Yetimus I have yet to come across anything that has been a challenge. The fact that I outlevel the quest areas by a handful of levels (although I really try not to) plays a big part of course. Atonement works really well for lowbie healing instances as well, probably better than it does later on. Atonement is among your best heals when you get it, and it also adds a good portion of dps to the group. Mana doesn't have to be an issue if I use it sensibly, which often means I can dps "normally" on most trash packs and don't have to think much of healing the tank. I even seem to dps more efficiently than most other casters, who constantly go oom while I still have plenty of mana left. Unfortunately, without the extra level of difficulty that some planning takes, which you have when you use it for raid healing, smiting your way through all quests and instances does become boring quickly and I am considering not using Atonement for instance healing just to give myself some variation. Oh, and I had some logs over my healing, but I accidentally deleted them when I was enthusiastically cleaning out my blog picture folder.

A lot of the joy and frustration of doing lowbie dungeons, or elsewhere meeting new players in WoW, is having to learn them about all the things I take for granted. No, strength is not good for you mr Mage. Not to mention all the tank mistakes I did a post about and that people take with them all the way up to endgame. I've asked myself, where should new players find good information about how to play the game? Some say that looking at the character sheet and drawing conclusions from that should be enough. But that too requires some sort of pre-existing knowledge. Who says that attack power is a bad stat for a holy paladin? It might sound dead obvious, but is it really? Or how do you know that spirit isn't very useful for a mage? Or that agility is less good than strength for a warrior? I remember back when my brother started playing WoW, in early Vanilla. He played a rogue, and did exactly what people say you should do as a new player - check the character sheet and see what stats will benefit you the most. He quickly learned that agility would give him ap, dodge, armor and crit. Why would he need any of the other stats when Agi gave him all of that? He stacked only agi and was constantly owned in pvp due to not having enough of a balance. But knowing you need a balance (and that some classes don't!) takes trial and error. You could argue that people should read up on their class online, but should they really have to do that or should Blizzard provide new players with this kind of information in game? I don't know.

Gammerita has put on some weight.

Speaking of pvp, I did give it another shot. And it worked a lot better than my first try, this time around I actually managed to make a difference (or so I think anyway) and survive more than two hits, at least most of the time. Unfortunately, the opposing team (I was in WSG) had no less than 8 stealthers. Seven rogues and one feral druid. So we couldn't see most of their team until they had all stacked up around one or two of us and all opened with their hardest attack. For some reason it made me wish that there was a cap on how many of the same class, or spec when hybrids, that could join the same fight. It's no fun when you meet a team with a balanced setup of healers and dpsers and your team has one or no healers. Would it be worth the extra queue time? I think it might, depending on how much extra time we're talking about of course. It's the same really as commenter Christopher noted about old heroics. Maybe there should be more restrictions between what geared people end up together? It would mean longer queue times, but maybe also more fun runs.

Oh most of my bg raid is dead, that's nice.

Now that I am finished with the early questing areas I've ventured into some that haven't gotten the major overhaul that Silverpine Forest and Hillsbrad did. Arathi Highlands wasn't that interesting, I was also very disappointed to see Valorcall riding around alone, non-elite. A complete mockery to my skill after having fought Yetimus if you ask me. And I've always loved Hinterlands, but Jintha'alor has pretty much turned into the pain in the ass it was in Vanilla and BC, but for other reasons. Back then I really liked the area, the problem was that all the mobs were elite. It was an outdoor instance if you like, and you nearly always needed a couple of players to be able to do the quests. Trouble was finding said people. Then they remade it into a regular questing area, and I liked it even more (except the Hexxer lady at the top had an extremely annoying Hex spell). The area has gotten completely new quests in Cata, and unfortunately not for the better. Oh they might be interesting, but they force me to run up and down that hill some six or seven times. If they want me to kill trolls, why can't they just ask me to kill all the trolls at once? And after they've made most chain-quests (quests that rp-wise can't all be given at once) into pop-up quests, so that you wouldn't have to run all the way back every time, why have they left out this entire area? First I run up to kill 15 of X troll, and back again. Up to kill 15 of Y troll, who were exactly where X troll are! And back. Up to get some cauldrons, and back. Up to test some blight or whatever, and back. Up to collect some spiderlings, and back. And so on several times. It's not fun.

Shadra used to be badass, but I had some help this time.

Another thing that wasn't fun was that I found an Iridescent Pearl lying around in my bags when I logged on the other day. What's wrong with that you might ask? Well, I have been searching high and low for such a pearl to skill Enchanting on Zinn. They cost 150g each on that server, and I refuse to pay such ridiculous prices. I sold it for 35g on Plex, only to remember I need it on her too, because she has Enchanting as well /facedesk.

Mocking me...

I have no idea how long it will take to level 50. Actually, my leveling isn't that slow, I dinged 40 and wrote this already in early september. It's just getting posted now because there has been so many other fun stuff to post about inbetween. But, until next time!

Old Darkmoon Cards

The other day as I was randomly scanning AH in lack of better things to do, I noticed that someone had put up Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon for 250g. Definitely not worth the money, of course, but it got me interested in the old Darkmoon Cards. What do they do and are any of them still worth getting? Let's have a look.

Level 60
The simple but odd trinkets.

 
Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon - Caster

Equip: 2% chance on successful spellcast to allow 100% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting for 15 sec.

This is a remnant from the Vanilla days when casters didn't have mana regeneration at all during combat. Trinkets like these were the only way, and I can only imagine that this was one of the best healing trinkets in the game, especially considering that getting any trinkets at all was pretty tricky. They didn't exactly hang from trees back then, as they do today. But how good is this today?

It seems to not have any inner cooldown, which means it benefits you more the more casts you can fit in to any given time frame. Casters like resto druids, shadow priests and affliction locks might see the most use of this item. Paladins and disc priests might see the least. Generally dpsers tend to have a lot less spirit than healers in endgame, but they usually use the same gear at lower levels. "Spellcast" also seems to mean basically any skill that isn't physical, much like how Clearcast can proc from just about anything, like herbing, switching specs or crafting. It does not however, proc from each tick of a hot or dot.

100% of your mana regeneration is a lot, but 2% is very little. How much you can gain from this trinket varies greatly with your class and gear so it's difficult to say some numbers, it's probably better to look at uptimes. You'll need 50 casts in average to get a proc. If you're dpsing you might have higher uptimes since you normally do more casts when dpsing than when healing. If we estimate one cast every two seconds while dpsing (average over all caster classes) you could hope to have one proc every 100 seconds or roughly every one and a half minute giving it an uptime of 15%.

At level 60 this actually is a decent trinket, and if you find it anywhere below 100g and don't happen to have any other trinkets that rock your world, I'd definitely recommend this one. In fact, some people are even arguing that this is a great starter trinket for healers in Cata (!), because it's usually rather cheap and it has relatively high mp5. Healers also stack a lot more spirit now than they did in Wrath.

Darkmoon Card: Heroism - Melee

Equip: Sometimes heals bearer of 120 to 180 damage when damaging an enemy in melee.

This trinket wasn't even that good back in Vanilla. Some loved it, some hated it. On the bright side, the procs do stack, don't seem to have an inner cooldown and they can crit. On the downside, 120-180 damage is a fixed number and for most people it's just not much enough to make a difference. This is even more true now that many classes that didn't have any way of healing themselves back in Vanilla, have become heals since then, like Recuperate and Victory Rush. The less hp you have and the more strikes you can get off in a time frame the better it will be. Druids with swipe can have it procs tens of times per minute, other see it proc a couple of times per fight.

It's not awful, but it's usefulness depends a lot on your situation. If you find it cheap and feel like surviving while questing is your biggest issue, it might be worth a shot (in which case you might also want Crusader enchants).

Darkmoon Card: Maelstrom - Melee

Equip: Chance to strike your melee target with lightning for 200 to 300 Nature damage.

As with the other trinkets, it doesn't seem to have an inner cooldown, so yet again this is heavily dependant on how often you strike something. It does work in shapeshift (as I assume Heroism does too, but haven't found confirmation). The proc rate seems to be around 2%, which is true of Blue Dragon and probably true of Heroism as well (Blizzard liked to make things even that way back then). just as with Heroism it can crit, it is affected by modifiers such as Stormstrike, but doesn't seem to be affected by spellpower.

On a level 60 character, this is actually a rather nice dps upgrade apparently. If you find it at AH at a reasonable price, you should get it as it could serve you well for many levels to come.

Darkmoon Card: Twisting Nether - Any (Pvp)

Equip: Gives the wearer a 10% chance of being able to resurrect with 20% health and mana.

This has always been considered mainly a pvp trinket, unless you're one of those who die a lot while questing and instancing. It is more of a fun trinket than a useful one, but it does actually work in Bgs and Arenas! I'd like to see the faces of the opposing team when the disc priest they just struggled to kill gets back. 20% mana and health isn't all that of course, and the stat loss is probably not outweighed by the few times you'll have use of this. Remember that eventhough it will resurrect you every tenth death (on average), that are nine deaths where it is absolutely useless. I'd only get it if found dead cheap on AH and your character lacks a trinket. On the other hand, as kingbread, commenter on Wowhead puts it;

"the only item like it. its always funny to pop back up and fireblast that cannibalizing UD rogue. and laugh in its face, cause the shock on a dead rogue's face is simply priceless"

Amen.

Level 70
No healing trinkets here unfortunately.

Darkmoon Card: Crusade - Any dps

Equip: Each time you deal melee or ranged damage to an opponent, you gain 6 attack power for the next 10 sec., stacking up to 20 times.  Each time you land a harmful spell on an opponent, you gain 8 spell power for the next 10 sec., stacking up to 10 times.

It's fun to see how Blizzard started thinking about hunters when they designed the level 70 trinkets, as compared to the level 60 ones. Overall, level 70 (and Burning Crusade) is marked by the realization from Blizzard that they have to design their gear with less specific targets in mind. If they do gear that only works for one class, they have to put in the effort to design a completely nother gear for another class. If they make it so that some items work for anyone, they only have to design one item!

• Crusade gives either 120 AP or 80 spellpower for 10 seconds. First of all, it's not really balanced across the classes. 80 spell power is way more than 120 AP.
• On the other hand, this is basically a permanent buff as long as you're in combat and you keep on swinging/casting, since each new swing/spell will refresh the buff.
• Any spell cast works apparently as long as it's harmful, ie no healing.
• It's based of off landings rather than casts, which means channeled spells (like Arcane Missiles and Penance) will give multiple stacks.
• Wanding will give the AP buff.
• Aoe attacks will give multiple stacks, one for each target, which means you could get a full stack with a well timed aoe attack.
• Some classes (paladins and shamans for example) that have attacks that count as both spells and melee will get both buffs, depending on what skills they use. This makes it especially valuable if you happen to use different dps specs, since the trinket works for both ele/enhancement or balance/feral.
• Passive effects (such as armors doing damage) do not give procs.

Although players have way more spellpower when leveling through those levels nowadays than they did before Cataclysm, this is still a really good trinket for those levels.

Darkmoon Card: Madness - Any dps or quester

+51 Stamina

Equip: Each time you land a killing blow on an enemy that yields experience or honor, you gain the Power of Madness.

Along with Vengeance this is the first Darkmoon trinket to actually give some sort of stat bonus, a plain stamina so that it works for any class. It doesn't actually mean that it's mainly aimed at tanks, but just a buff for the equip. So what does the equip do? A whole lot of things actually, depending on what class you are;

•     Delusional: +70 attack power (Rogue, Hunter, Paladin, Warrior, Druid, Shaman)
•     Dementia: "Down the rabbit hole..." Every 5 seconds either gives you +5% or -5% damage/healing. (Druid, Shaman, Priest, Warlock, Mage, Paladin)
•     Kleptomania: +35 agility ( Warrior, Rogue, Paladin, Hunter, Druid)
•     Manic: +35 haste (spell, melee and ranged) (All classes except Hunter)
•     Martyr Complex: +35 stamina (All classes)
•     Megalomania: +41 damage/healing (Druid, Shaman, Priest, Warlock, Mage, Paladin)
•     Narcissism: +35 intellect (Druid, Shaman, Priest, Warlock, Mage, Paladin, Hunter)
•     Paranoia: +35 spell/melee/ranged crit strike rating (All classes except Hunter)
•     Sociopath: +35 strength (Paladin, Rogue, Druid, Warrior)
•     Extra: The player will occasionally exclaim "This is madness!" This is similar to the things said by NPCs in combat. It is not controllable.

Eventhough you'd have to look at which class you are to fully evaluate this trinkets usefulness, the buffs are actually all pretty well balanced among the classes, which means that the trinket is about equally good regardless of which class you are. We have to take into consideration that the buff is granted when you land a killing blow, which makes this best for grinding/questing, maybe also pvping if you happen to be one of those classes that get a lot of killing blows. As such it is also unfortunately rather useless for anyone aiming to be an instance healer, but so is pretty much everything else around this level. Unless you plan to level your way through a killing spree, I wouldn't recommend this trinket. If you find it cheaply you could get it just for the funs of having a trinket that procs random buffs, and to get your char to yell randomly.

Darkmoon Card: Vengeance - Tank/pvp

+51 Stamina

Equip: You have a 10% chance when hit by an attack or harmful spell to deal 95 to 115 holy damage to your attacker.

Now this would actually be considered a tank trinket if anything. I know back in BC you had some paladins get the shield from Sporeggar, a shield spike and this trinket and be able to kill off huge amount of mobs just by doing loads of mini-damage. As such this trinket (and that complete combo) probably works really well for any paladin or warrior who plans on leveling that way. For the rest of you this might be a decent pvp or questing trinket, and if you don't have anything else, why not?

Darkmoon Card: Wrath - Any dps

Equip: Each time one of your direct damage attacks does not critically strike, you gain 17 critical strike rating and 17 spell critical strike rating for the next 10 sec.  This effect is consumed when you deal a critical strike.

This trinket works rather differently for melee and casters. Melee will probably stack up faster since they usually get off more skills within a time frame. Also, this trinket is of course better the less crit you already have. Aranarth over at Wowhead.com has kindly provided us with some information;

"Base crit --> Average trinket gain

5% crit --> 5% (110 crit rate)

9% crit --> 4% (88 crit rate)

15% crit --> 3% (66 crit rate)

24% crit --> 2% (44 crit rate)

41% crit --> 1% (22 crit rate)

Based on 100 000 000 tries simulations, assuming you attack or cast a direct damage spell at least once every 10 sec."

This conversion list is rather rigid of course, but in short it means that this trinket becomes better the more you need crit and the less you have of it. At level 70 you might actually be rather badly geared out on crit, and this trinket could probably provide with a lot of extra needed dps. I definitely recommend it, especially if you're a class that relies heavily on certain crit procs. As another commenter, Phinar, points out, this is also a great tool to combat increasing resilience on your enemies if you happen to pvp around these levels, since the more resilience they have the less you crit and the more crit buff you will get.

Level 80
The double equip trinkets!

Darkmoon Card: Berserker - Pvp (or possibly a moon lighting tank)

Equip: Increases your resilience rating by 100 (3.83% @ L80).

Equip: You have a chance to gain Berserker when you deal or take damage in combat, increasing your critical strike rating by 35 for 12 sec.  Effect stacks up to 3 times.

Resilience at low levels either points towards pvp, or towards a tank. As a pvp trinket, any class interested in some extra crit could have use of it, as a tank trinket it's actually a lot less good since tanks don't need crit for anything (unless you happen to be a Deep Wounds Warrior). Also, at level 80 tanks won't need the extra resilience anylonger since they'll all have the anti crit talent since long, which means only someone who doesn't have that talent could be interested (and I'm not even sure resilience works anti crit anymore, think they changed that in cata). Long ramble short, ignore what I said about tanks - it's for pvp.

It's important to note that it procs both of off taking and dealing damage, which makes it not all worthless for a healer (especially since I have been hearing that healers are targeted like never before). Since most healers don't value crit very much, this trinket is probably best for the pvping crit-lover, and there aint that many out there.

Darkmoon Card: Death - Any dps

Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 85 (1.85% @ L80).

Equip: Each time you deal damage, you have a chance to do an additional 1750 to 2250 Shadow damage.

This is like the prequal to DMC: Volcano in that it deals extra damage as a proc (35% chance in this case). As with Volcano you should probably see the extra damage as a bonus rather than the big whoop of this trinket. It has an icd of 45 seconds, which was very common in Wrath. It can proc of off dots, the damage can crit and seems to be affected by various talents and buffs and crit chance, but not spellpower. Nonetheless, the proc isn't worth much dps and should either be seen as a tool (to interrupt bandaging in pvp perhaps) or as mentioned, a small bonus. 85 crit rating is 1,85% crit at level 80 which makes this trinket an overall rather weak trinket for its level.

Darkmoon Card: Greatness

+90 Spirit/Agility/Intellect/Strength

Equip: When you heal or deal damage you have a chance to gain Greatness, increasing your Strength, Agility, Intellect, or Spirit by 300 for 15 sec.  Your highest stat is always chosen.

This is probably the best of the level 80 DMC trinkets, and that was the case already back in Wrath. +90 in a primary stat of your choice with the possibility to get another 300 as a proc is still really nice. The only reason not to get this trinket at level 80 is if you know you'll go through level 80-85 and replace this trinket too fast for it to be worth whatever money you put into it. Only you can make that decision.

Now go out there and find yourself a nice trinket for your lowbie alt.
Thanks to wowhead.com for the pictures and specifics.

Plex - Level 30

Level 20-30 seem to have just flown by. Probably because I've been having a complete blast doing the quests in Hillsbrad and as you know, time flies when you have fun. My most prominent memory is how much I got my ass kicked by the various elites that reside in the area. How is that fun, you might ask? Well it wasn't actually, after my fifth or so death I was pretty fuming angry - but everything else was fun! Even when outleveling them I really have to bust my ass off to make it, and I have as I am writing this still not been able to kill Yetimus. I've been damn close but that thing he does where he throws you half across the screen just kills me. Literally. I don't mind it, actually I kind of enjoy that the difficult world elites are back. But then I look at Loves fresh warlock, fully decked out in BoA gear of course and how he just steamrolls stuff that totally would've killed me. Ah well. And then I see him getting his ass kicked by Yetimus too and then I think maybe I wasn't that bad - maybe Yetimus is simply the incarnation of evil. It wasn't exactly made easier by the fact that I couldn't find anyone to help over the course of asking for several days (!). I had to buckle up and level to 31 before I could get this big boy down, and even then it wasn't cake walk.

But I finally got the bastard!

My healing hasn't changed much, mainly due to the fact that I'm running around with basically the same healing tools since I dinged level 10. It means a whole lot of renewing, and not so much else. Healing isn't as easy as it was the first couple of dungeons though, but that is something I mentioned already in my last post. A boss can actually oom me and have me healing on fumes. I like it, it adds some challenge to the fights and I don't think my failures are due to bad tools but due to tough encounters (made tougher by new players who don't always know how to do things). It actually means I have to be active and care, not like before where the healer pretty much could be afk the entire instance. On Zinn I've bound the Shield to unmodified RMB and renew to alt+RMB, since I use the shield a lot and renew not so much when disc. On these levels however, the shield is still more of an "Oh shit" button rather than a regular heal, and I use it very scarcely (especially since I don't even have Rapture yet). It eventually made me switch my bindings between Renew and Shield on Plex, and it'll be interesting to see when I feel the need to switch back. Here are two examples of my healing done from Gnomeregan and SM GY.

Doing lowbie dungeons has also made me dig out my old "HEALER HAS AGGRO" macro. I don't think I've had to use that since... well since Cata and probably even well before that, but lowbie tanks do need some help with their attention. Nothing wrong with that, as long as it helps them keep the mobs off me. I'm also using Fade quite frequently.

I've also remembered that one of the biggest benefits of being a healer, as compared to a dps and especially tank, is that you can join even very high leveled instances without it being much of a problem. Just make sure to keep out of range from the mobs, since you'll probably pull easily, and there's no problem. Being underleleved as a dps or tank is a big problem however since you probably miss everything you do. That is what is so lovely about healing, that other players are your main targets and you mainly have to adapt to that.

My guild that showed such promise has since pretty much died. Since my last post no one has been online for two weeks, except for someone being online briefly yesterday to write in the GMOTD that he won't be online much (yeah thanks, I noticed). I'm not sure why I stick around in it, since it's only level 1 too. I just really have trouble with leaving guilds (separation anxiety?), I don't just join them for nothing and it takes quites a lot to have me leave them too. But a guild with no one else in it and no perks... yeah that's pretty much useless.

I got to buy my first set of glyphs at level 25, and yet again I marvel at the prices. On my main I just shrug at them, because I know it's an investment. I only have to pay for them once. But 200g for a glyph just really stings when you're level 25. That's more than most epics cost at that level. I could probably get 5 really good blue items for those money. Those prices always mean I have to go pretty much glyphless on my first chars on new servers, fortunately I have a warrior with some 900g on the same server this time around. Acquiring money isn't difficult at all, but having the hundreds of g often needed to get at least two good glyphs at level 25 still isn't done over night. I chose Renew as my first prime glyph, since that is the heal I use the most currently, by far. For major I got Divine Accuracy obviously, since it will help me out with both my questing and later on Atonement healing.

Speaking of Atonement healing, at level 30 is the first time you actually get it, if you put a point in it that is. Tier 3 in the discipline tree is overall the "tough choice" tier. I get to choose between Atonement, Power Infusion and Inner Focus (and Borrowed Time, but that is less awesome). Those are all really good talents, but in the end I decided to get Power Infusion first. This was because I was struggling against the elites in Hillsbrad and I had this idea of being able to burn them down before I oomed. In hindsight I'd probably have more use of one point into Atonement though. Fortunately I don't have to wait long before I get it.

In a way I think it's good that you don't get Atonement healing until level 30. I think that is just enough time for a new player to get acquainted with the regular way of healing, before introducing what actually is a very unique and completely different way of healing. One of the biggest issues I see with lowbie disc priests using Atonement healing is that they forget that they're actually there to heal. Either they tunnel in on Smite spamming and forget to heal whoever isn't affected by Atonement, or they just spam it even when no one needs heals and oom too fast, meaning they have no mana when people actually need heals. The key to using Atonement succesfully is to know exactly when to use it, just as with any other heal really. I am really looking forward to see how it will work out.

Plex - Level 20

 Plex the disc priest is leveling on!

Interestingly enough, I thought 10-20 went by a lot faster than 1-10. I think it's because of the instances, and eventhough I actually try to keep them to a minimum to avoid outleveling my questing zones too fast, you really get loads of exp from them. Not as much as the couple of friends I met in Ragefire Chasm, who got four levels thanks to RAF, from one single run. And that was without BoA. If you want to, you could really level rocket fast, but I've never minded taking it in a moderate pace. Or maybe that is what I tell myself since I don't have access to BoA or RAF anyway.

The first instance I did, a Deadmines, was extremely easy to heal. Already at level 15 you've got a decent setup of tools to help you out, not to mention the completely overpowered Penance. I did talk a little already about how the Shield was a little too good. It just wasn't worth the mana, because unless you took shit loads of damage you'd never get to use it all. That is still true, but it means I've got a really handy oh shit button. But Penance - now there's an overpowered spell. My heal has about 5 hpm, Penance has more than 8. Each tick heals for around 100 hp at level 15, when the tanks usually run around with about 500-600. To be able to use it properly, I have to let the tank drop fairly low, which doesn't feel very comfortable, but on the other hand I have another good oh shit tool. The "problem" of my heals being way oversized compared to both average mob damage and the health pool of most tanks is what makes healing so easy. 95% of the time I just keep Renew up, which also ticks for one tenth of the tanks health pool (like having 20k renew ticks at level 85). For someone like me who already know most about healing, it might turn a little dull, but overall I like that they've made the intro on healing so very easy. Because priests (especially disc) start out with so many tools (Heal, Penance, Flash Heal, PW: Shield and Renew) already for their first run, I could see how a newbie priest gets scared away. This way you're allowed to carefully try each spell out and see when to use which spell. Although admittedly, most lowbie priests seem to just spam Flash Heal and be happy.

So my initial impression of instance healing below level 20 was that it was extremely easy, but I quickly found out - it depends a lot on the tank. Bear tanks at level 15 don't have any aoe skill for instance, which usually means everyone in the group has some sort of aggro, since people never learn to take the same target as the tank. Some tanks just randomly run into stuff, and when you're geared in mostly whites even lowbie mobs hurt a lot. These tanks made me very happy I found out that Cannibalize now also returns mana (I am sure it has done that for a long time, but I haven't had to use it for years).

I'm usually ok with people being bad players in lowbie dungeons. Most of the time it really doesn't matter how people play, you'll probably manage anyway. I only demand that they're contributing as best as they can, and don't try to actively ruin the fun for everyone else. Unfortunately, the vote to kick function has a 15 minute cooldown at the start of an instance before you can kick anyone. I can see why Blizzard thought this was a good idea, so that people don't do too hasty judgements. You might need at least 15 minutes to really be able to judge whether someone deserves to be kicked or not. But for some behaviors you don't have to think long to realize you're dealing with an asshat. Someone who just follows while being afk, stealing exp, or someone who needs on everything for example. I know some new players just don't know they're not supposed to need on everything, so I always give people the benefit of getting that explained before I try to get rid of them. But the 15 min cooldown is about the time it takes to do nearly a full run of those lowbie instances, or at least get really far, which allows for people to be asshats without the rest of the party being able to do anything about it. Unless you decide to wait for 15 minutes, in which time you could've finished the instance.

I mentioned last time that it really bothered me that Smite, for no good reason at all, only has 30 yard range when standard range for dps skills nowadays is 40 yards. Of course, it wasn't limited to smite. All holy dps skills have this shortened range, Holy Fire and Penance too (except when healing fortunately) and it doesn't make me any happier about having to smite way through every mob. But I've decided to try out Atonement, both for healing and questing, and I'm going to stick with it.

Speaking of questing, I did a post a couple of weeks ago about how we need something in game that allow us to be nostalgic about all the fun stuff we do, prompted by the removal of the key chain. Therefor, I'm really happy that they've put so much time and effort into the new quest chains and especially into the names of the quest rewards. Most of the quest rewards, usually greens you'd normally just vendor as soon as possible, are named in a clever way that reminds you exactly when, where and how you got that item. Unfortunately there is no good way to store them except having them take loads of space in your bags or bank, so you've probably got to select a couple of special ones to keep as keep sakes.

The guild I am in is very small and silent, but when I do catch someone online they're nice and usually chatty. It's an rp guild, as I mentioned in my previous post, and I haven't decided yet whether to go for it (rping that is) or not yet. The GM said she'd mainly wanted an rp guild to have a reason to do guild events and meetups, but I usually attend to those kind of events regardless if it's for rping or not. I've always liked gatherings, and I remember back in late Vanilla when I was part of the biggest guilds on the server - Aventian Exiles - we used to have loads of events together. Races, duelling competitions, quizes, find-the-hidden-guy and a whole lot of other stuff with nice rewards too. I'm not sure I'd do it on my main, but I'd definitely do it on my scrub alt. Don't ask me why there's a difference, but somehow there is.

Plex - Level 10

Some of the posts I enjoy reading most are the ones that just simply tell about what someone did in game. Doesn't have to be some fancy analysis or advanced theory crafting, just reading what happened to people while they did some good old playing works fine for me. I'm the same with literature overall, where I really enjoy reading life stories, whether they're real or not. I've tried to share some in game anecdotes about myself, like my posts about pugs, my raiding and my guild problems. This time around I thought I'd just share some random thoughts about yet another alt that I've created and what happens when I run around and do quests, instances and play with strangers.

I started out Plex, undead priest, because I wanted to get a feel for how lowbie priest healing works nowadays. No special reason really, just one of those curiousities I have. I'm not entirely sure why I started a new char when I've already got an undead priest somewhere around level 40 - maybe I wanted a female undead priest (the other one is male) since I miss the way Zinn looked. She had been female undead for 5 years before I turned her into a goblin in early Cata. I don't regret it since the goblin racials are superior to undead ones in pve, but there is no denying I miss my old female undead somewhat. I also figured that by leveling two healing priests simultaneously, I could check out both disc and holy without having to hassle around with constant respecs. It allows for a great opportunity for comparing the two specs to eachother.

I haven't played my old healing priest alt (the level 40ish one) since the launch of Cata. I have been pretty busy leveling all my other alts, and I've never actually been a big fan of leveling priests. It came as a shock to me to notice how ridiculously overpowered the shield is at early levels. You get it at level 5, and eventhough I don't have any fancy gear (the coolest thing I've got is a staff with 3 stamina), it shields for more than 200 hp at that level. The mobs hit for 10-15 damage. It is very expensive, but you'd have to aggro a couple of mobs before they get through it. Actually the problem with the shield is rather that it is too good, so that you never get to use the full absorbtion of it before it falls off. If I were to pull more mobs I wouldn't have enough mana to kill them all before the shield fell off. The new, shortened duration on the shield is very noticeable at these levels where the shield doesn't immediately fall off, and eventually I figured that the Shield wasn't worth the mana after all, since so much of it was wasted. I would've liked it if they made it cheaper and less good instead.

But hey, I thought. Awesome shield must be awesome in pvp! I had been eager to try out the new pvp since I heard that you could get good exp and level fast through it. Jumping in with only white/gray items and level 10 into Warsong Gulch probably wasn't my smartest move though. Eventhough level 8 mobs might not hit for more than 10-15 damage, the twinked level 14 rogue sure does. I was more often one shotted than not, and didn't really feel like I was of much use at all. My shields were powerful alright, but I could only use 3-4 before I was completely oom and completely useless. I mostly felt sorry for my side for having me to be honest. I'll give pvp another go in a couple of levels.

My primary goal with leveling as disc was to give Atonement a real work through and see how it works in the lower levels, because as you know, I'm no fan of using it in end game. I thought that maybe if I really get the hang of it the slow way, I'll like it more in end game as well. Unfortunately, the first couple of levels you do nothing but smite basically, which only reminded me about one of the things I really don't like about atonement healing. It's damn boring to spam those smites. But I'll still give it an honest shot and see if I change my mind, especially now that Holy Fire actually works in the rotation. Overall I think you start out with too many healing skills at early levels. What am I supposed to do with Shield, Renew, Flash Heal and Penance at level 10? Penance could be used as dps too, but I'd rather have more dps skills so that I don't have to do all that smiting. Shadow Word: Pain isn't efficient because the mobs die too fast for it to do any good. On the other hand I remember that shadow priest dpsing is all about mind flaying. Oh, and why does Smite have 30 yds range when every other ranged skill is 40? Any good reason for that? I doubt it.

I immediately fell in love with Darnell. Who could NOT love a guy who carries your corpses?

Contrary to how I usually level my characters, I didn't choose skinning and herbalism as my professions. As a homage to my first character, I chose tailoring just because it is the first profession trainer you find when you start as undead (or it used to be, now you find a trainer that can teach you any profession). I complemented it with enchanting because it's a nice combo. Some of my best gear is hand made, it actually feels kinda cool.

I usually jump on leveling guilds whenever I can. Eventhough I don't mind leveling slow, having crap gear and never getting boosted, I'm not sadistic enough to turn down the easier path if it's laid out to me. Sometimes it takes only a couple of levels before you find someone fishing for lowbies to their leveling guild, sometimes I can't find one even when I am asking for it in trade and general chat. This time around I was found by a 30 something rogue who wandered around the starting area and asked me if I wanted to sign his charter for 1g. If people ask politely I usually comply, and his guild was formed quickly after that. Most people left after it had been formed, but I decided to stay. The guy had proper english and humor, which can sometimes feel like a rare gem in WoW. We talked some while I leveled and he gave me four Netherweave Bags just like that! But then I had to log to do irl stuffs. I didn't see him online for the next couple of times that I logged on, but I didn't care much. I'm fairly used to being forever alone when I level alts, and it's really how I like it anyway. I don't mind some chatting, but in the end I just like to focus on the game. I get so scatter brained when I talk to people.

Then I logged on one day and noticed that I wasn't in a guild anymore. Or actually, I ran around randomly in UC and saw this rogue, but with another guild tag. "He switched guild?" I thought, which was odd since he had just started his own. Then I noticed I wasn't even in the guild myself anylonger so then I thought he had kicked me, for whatever reason. I've been kicked for little or no reason before. I decided to whisper him and ask about it, and it took me a couple of minutes to think about something witty to say without it sounding too angry like "Oh, I was kicked was I?" or "Hey, I'm not in the guild anylonger!". Eventhough I hardly knew the guy, I still feared that he'd say he'd kicked me because I didn't fit in the guild.

Then I remembered my mantra - it's never as bad as it seems. So I whispered him a "what happened to the guild?" and he answered that he had disbanded it because he realized he didn't really want to lead a guild anyway. I can understand that. The last time I tried to seriously start a guild was back in Vanilla, and I've never tried it again. Recruiting people sucks. When they leave sucks. If you've got a small guild that you've busted your ass to get together and to make everyone happy and someone still says "ah, it was nice guys but I'm moving on" it really hurts.

He offered to invite me to the guild he had joined instead, and I accepted. The new guild, which apparently is some aspiring rp-guild (the first I've ever been in as I can recall), was lead by a person who ended every sentence with a smiley =). Girl, I thought. I got my suspicions confirmed when the rogue told her that someone had declined an invite to the guild but "wished us luck with our endeavors". She then answered something in the lines of "Omg that's so nice of him, awwww =)". "You don't happen to be a girl?" I asked. "Yes I am =)" she answered. "I figured" I said. I remember I had a period in my early gaming when I ended every sentence with a smiley. Until I met Love and he told me it made me seem psychotically happy (like this girl, but I liked her nonetheless).

So far so good for the first ten levels, we'll see what happens next.

Are the demands for raiding too high?

Little more than a year ago I wrote a post titled "Are new players too impatient?". That post was written towards the later half of Wrath, we had seen Naxxramas, Ulduar and ToC pass and ICC had been out for only a few months. Even then, with ICC fairly new and fresh, in fact players had only just gotten access to killing Lich King, taking in new raiders into your raid group was not something uncommon. Gearing for ICC was ridiculously easy, not only had new players the first three raids to fall back on, the newly implemented ICC-heroics provided some good gear as well. As one who had struggled through regular heroics, then Naxxramas, then Ulduar, then ToC and then ICC-heroics, I was getting annoyed at the new players who thought they could just skip all that progression and jump straight to the good stuff. This isn't because I thought I deserved loot or raid spots more than them, but because I was confused at new players who didn't seem to understand that I was where I were because of the time and effort I had put into it. Back then I wrote;

"(...)my gear is pretty good, since I raid alot, usually a couple of times a week. But it didn't start out that way, naturally my gear also "sucked" at some point, and will suck again with each new content patch, that is the way the game goes. Behind the gear I have right now lies endless hours of raiding plus all the time spent preparing to raid."

These new players could come with their badly geared alt and say "hey, I want a spot in the raid too!", where we would go "sure thing, just gear up a little doing some heroics, buying some boe gear, and you can join" and they would answer "why do I have to do that? You guys have good enough gear to carry my lack thereof". I saw this line of reasoning over and over and I just had to tell them that just because I've spent all this time getting good gear doesn't mean you can take it for granted and use me as a spring board into higher content. At least not without saying "pretty please".

"When I started gearing up for raiding, there hadn't already been alot of raids out and people were around my gear level. I couldn't expect guildies to give me an easy boost through Naxx because their gear was as lousy as mine. I had to do endless heroics (without the LFG-tool mind you!) and did the old wipe-a-roo in raids plenty of times to get my gear, I couldn't expect easy kills anywhere."

Before you tell me I sound like one of those old people who go "when I was young we had gravel for breakfast and fought Arthas uphill in a snowstorm", I will forego you right away - yes I do sound like that. The reason people sound like that is because newer people who come around and reap the benefits of our hard work (albeit it was made because we thought it was hell of a lot of fun) without actually putting any thought into how it is that we got there. We worked for it mind you! But don't get me wrong, like I said I don't have any problem at all with people who come undergeared to a raid, it all depends on whether the rest of the raid minds boosting them or not;

"A new player comes along with everything that comes to it - no experience and no gear. He could hit the heroic-train like everyone else, but he doesn't have to. He could actually get into Naxx/Ulduar/ToC (even ICC) and down bosses, because the rest of the raid can carry his weight at this point. And this happens, I didn't mind that at all. I've been on the sugar cane end of that trade myself."

But I've always had a problem with people who take nice things for granted;

"(...) because the raid can carry his weight (as long as the good geared outnumber the badly geared) the new player actually expects the raid to carry his weight. He get all grumpy and doesn't understand when he's benched for a raid. He seriously asks "how come I didn't get to join?". And when you tell him to go get better gear he answers "how can I if I don't get to raid?". He sees the advice to go do some heroics as an insult or punishment of some sort. He doesn't realize we've all had to do it before him. (...) People who come in afterwards just see how easy things seem to be and want a slice of the cake. They don't realize the persons they're asking to give up their raid spot maybe has done that particular raid 50 times to get to that point, and probably doesn't want to give it up to someone who hasn't even begun doing heroics."

Interestingly enough however, I am seeing the opposite when it comes to raids at the moment. Admittedly, we're at the start of this expansion, so things could probably change. I can't actually recall how we treated "new" players back when Naxxramas (Wrath edition) was current content, but I get the feeling that gearing for raiding has never been so difficult as it is now (except perhaps in vanilla). There is one out of raid raid-boss available in Argaloth, who by the way only seems to drop pvp loot anyway. There are no lesser raids that can provide easy gear to new players (yet, this will change with 4.2). You've only got to grind heroics to get any sort of raid-viable gear, this is especially true if you happen to be a very poor person and can't afford buying many boe. So far nothing is wrong though, this doesn't differ much from how it's been at the beginning of any expansion. But like I said, it seems like people already raiding have put the bar a little higher for new players this time.

When I started doing raids I recall having no more than somewhere around 340 gear score (I think in fact it was 336 exactly). And sure, I had hell trying to keep people alive at Magmaw and Halfus the first couple of times, but looking back at it I'd say that was because I wasn't all comfortable with the new heal style rather than my gear being shite (and also, priests still sucked then). Someone with 336 gear score right now however, would barely make it into our alt raids. Maybe if we were desperate. He'd definitely wouldn't get into our regular raids, but we are doing heroics at the moment and want people to be able to jump straight into that. On the other hand, that's another piece of the problem. To be able to raid nowadays it's not enough to have a viable raid gear, say somewhere around 350. Raids that do heroic modes will probably prefer you to have even better gear, somewhere around 360-365. I read the most hilarious tweet from @Pyriss the other day;

"Healer in ZA told me I needed to raid more and get better gear. Really...raid more to do a 5 man for gear that is inferior? Interesting..."

The point is that the demands to be geared enough have never been higher. Back in late Wrath we saw undergeared players complaining about not getting to raid as often, because in reality they could get into most raids and the raid would still do good. Now, we're seeing rather the opposite where established raid groups are basically demanding to get people who have full raiding experience and gear already. It reminds me of the swedish employment market where you have to have an exam and 5 year experience to become a waitress (it's seriously not far from). Like I said, this is common in the early stages of an expansion, but I feel like the demands have never been as high as they are now. Getting enough gear to meet raid demands seems to be really difficult nowadays. Where does it put most people? In the heroic limbo.

Having a couple of alts who do heroics, I know that it aint fun doing those over and over and over to get rep and gear enough to be able to join some sort of raid. That must be especially true if you're in that position with your main and that is all you've got. And even more true if you're used to raiding and doing other things than just grinding the same heroics. People didn't enjoy grinding heroics back in Wrath, and they're not enjoying it now. And the worst thing is, unless you happen to know a raid group who is willing to take you in once you're geared enough, all that effort will probably be in vain since I have yet to see someone pug for the current raids. So far I've only ever seen guild raids who pug the last spots to fill their own ranks, but never a full-fledged pug raid. People expected to get undergeared into raids in Wrath and now raids expect to have a fully experienced and geared player into the raid. Maybe I am getting senile, maybe this was exactly what happened in early Wrath and BC, and I have just forgotten all about it. In truth, Cataclysm has only been out half a year. Yet it is obvious that people are getting tired. Cataclysm also holds three less heroics than we had in Wrath, and it seems like all you get is Halls of Origination anyway. I remember that the only instance I thought was troublesome back in Wrath was Oculus, now I sigh whenever I get anything but Vortex Pinnacle or Lost City. Raid guilds seem to crumble left and right, and I doubt many people enjoy the idea of going from raiding to dungeon farming. If you happen to be one of those people that are stuck in heroic-limbo, with no real prospect of getting into a proper raid, I can definitely see why this seems like an ideal time to quit WoW, for some time or forever.

Pointers for the Altoholic

Leveling alts is one of the things that have really made me stick around with WoW as long as I have. I've always found great enjoyment in trying to find new ways to solve old problems, and it has allowed me to feel a fresh wind in WoW even after playing it for more than 6 years. Some people absolutely hate to level characters and focus everything they've got into one character. It's really two ways to attain the same goal in my view - experiencing everything with one character, or experiencing everything with several characters. Doing the same content isn't what amuses me, it's being able to see it from another perspective - I do feel like it teaches me something new each time. Even if I do SM Cath for the 100th time, it's not the same if I do it as a tank, healer or dps, if I do it as a druid, rogue or priest. Even if Blizzard might've consolidated classes more than ever before, they still have their unique style that make them tackle a situation in a unique way. Seeing it that way, there are really 31 different ways (counting druid feral spec as two) of experiencing the game and considering they change stuff all the time, I've still not experienced them all. I did level an elemental shaman back in BC, but things have changed a lot since then and leveling one now would be quite different from three years ago. Add to that the implementation of some awesome new quest chains and I really recommend you to indulge yourself in a little alt. Try something that differs completely from what you're used to! One added benefit is that it gives you a deeper understanding of your own class and role when you've seen it from another perspective. For instance I always think about standing in line of sight with my tanks, because I know how important it is for the healer. I always try not to throw a heal exactly when the tank charges in, because I know how annoying that is when tanking, and so on. I've also got a lot more patience with other people if I know how easy/difficult something is to handle. I won't yell at the tank to pull more, or at the warlock to do more damage, if I know how difficult it is to do in that situation.

Now that I've hopefully convinced you to try out alting (although I honestly think the vast majority of people have at least one serious alt), I'd like to continue by giving you some pointers on how to make the alting experience as smooth as possible. Here are a couple of things to think about;

• Using BoA gear will definitely make a lot of things easier, and you don't have to rely as much on drops in instances to feel like you do a good job. I usually level alts without BoA gear though, and don't worry, it's no problem at all.
• If you happen to level an alt on an off-server, here's a post on how to earn your first money.
• Leveling with a friend is a double-edged sword, something I've also written a post about.

Something I've often seen put people off their alts is their UI. Love has often played some character a couple of levels, but then abandons it with the next big patch, because he just can't be arsed to set the UI straight again. You will probably put a lot less time into your alt (except perhaps initially), which kind of is the definition of it being your alt and not your main. Therefor you want to make your alt as accessible as possible. You might take an hour to get everything right on your mains UI, but you probably won't do that with your alt, and especially not if you have to repeat the procedure with every next alt. This can easily be avoided! Make sure the UI you've got is easily copied. As an example I currently use Vuhdo as part of my UI, and whenever I start a new alt or start up an old one, I can just copy the settings from my main and voila, Vuhdo is set up. This takes one second. Even UIs that might be very customized like Dominos and Xperl have these features that will allow you to exactly copy the profile you have on another char. Fortunately most addons actually have these kind of features, so that usually isn't a problem.

You might use 100 addons on your main, but you rarely need that many on your alt. To not scare you off the first time you log in, by having the entire screen cluttered with addons that needs to be set up, you could turn all your addons off and then tick those you actually think you'll use. It also saves you loads of RAM to not load DBM on your level 35 hunter. Unless that is the purpose of your alt, you probably won't need addons that are specficially to facilitate crafting and/or auction housing. Alts tend to have a specific purpose - pvping, instancing, questing, herbing etc - try to only use addons that are aimed at helping you in those areas. It might sound troublesome to have to go through all your addons for your new alt, but on the other hand it is a one time thing and you'll be thankful you did afterwards.

Another really important thing when you get into the habit of switching between characters, is to keep your setups fairly equal among chars. I don't mean that your UI looks exactly the same from one character to the next, ultimately the UI has to fit the role you're playing. For instance I used different UI setups depending on whether I was on a tank/melee or healer/caster. This mainly meant I had the bars in different places and different settings for showing debuffs and party frames for example. But even if your UI looks different from one character to the next, your keybinding don't have to. There is nothing more dangerous than having completely arbitrary key setups on different characters. One good example is when I decided to use T as my autorun on some characters (so that I could use my old autorun, middle mouse, as ptt instead). T is otherwise my Mount button. So suddenly I had a couple of characters where T was autorun, and a couple where it was Mount. It did have me fall to my death plenty of times before I decided to fix it. I did write a post on how I've decided to set up my buttons, but the general idea is to have similar functions on the same key. Same things go with clique-bindings and mouse over macros of course.

For instance I've tried to have trinkets on my function keys on all my characters, also mitigation cooldowns like Shield Wall, Divine Protection, Barkskin and Icebound Fortitude to name a few. A is nearly always an interrupt, except for the classes that don't have it (on my priests A is Chakra or Smite). D are utility skills - I've got Leap of Faith and Death Grip on D. Similar bindings are more important on some skills than others of course - you want your reflexes to guide you to the right skill when you don't have the time to think and look down on your UI. It really sucks if you accidentally throw bubble on the tank just because that is the key for Guardian Spirit on your main. It really sucks if you shift out of bear form when tanking just because that key usually is your taunt button. It really sucks when you press dismount 100 yards up in the air just because that key is your autorun on other characters. Some things can't be helped though, like habitually dismounting midair because you're used to playing a druid. Having similar key structures will also allow you to faster get into the loop of things if you've been away from your alt for some time. Even if I don't play my resto shaman that often, I always know that my core heals are on the same bindings as they are on my holydin and priest which means I don't have to do much warm up before I can throw myself into action - that is really what you want to aim at with your alts. 

If you really get into this alting thing (like me) there are more specific addons aimed at helping you sort out your alts. When you've got some 8 serious alts like me, it will become a hassle trying to keep track of who has done which instances, has got what materials, has how many emblems/points/tokens, has how much money and a ton of other things. Here are a couple of good addons to use if you like playing many different characters;

• SavedInstances: Allows you to see which instances your characters are saved to without having to relogg. I used this a lot back in Wrath when pugging raids became as common as doing heroic dungeons. When someone asked for last spot to VoA, I could just mouse-over SavedInstances to immediately know which character was already saved for it. Before I got SI I had to relogg each character manually going "oh no, shaman is saved... oh, warrior too... let's see the paladin". In Cata raid pugging hasn't become very prevalent, in fact I can't recall anyone pugging an entire raid yet, only guild runs who pug some last member. But there is BH, and with the 4.2 nerfs I am sure that raid pugging will be back again (which I think is good).
• Friends With Benefits: If you happen to be the social type, unlike me, and have loads of people you like to talk to on your friends list, it's quite the hassle having to add them on your friends list for every new alt you make. FWB saves you the trouble by simply copying your friends list from one character to the next. RealID has made this less of a problem since it already does this, but we don't always want the RealID of every nice guy we meet, eventhough we might add them to our friends list.
• ArkInventory: I can't believe I haven't made a post on this amazing addon already - I'll definitely get to that some day. ArkInventory allows you to set up the perfect bag for yourself, sorting out items exactly like you want it. It's mainly a bag-addon, but for alting purposes it quickly and easy shows you what's in the bags of other chars, what they are currently wearing, how much of an item you've got across your characters and just but everything else connected to your bag, money and gear.
•  ACP (Addon Control Panel): Allows you to switch addons off and on in game, without having to relogg. This is useful because it can be difficult to exactly predict how your alts will need and use different addons.
• Altoholic: The name is pretty self explanatory. It does just about everything you could need when trying to coordinate a lot of alts, for example it can show you what mail your alts have waiting (which an addon like ArkIventory doesn't).
• Daily To-Do's: Commenter Hagu asked for an addon that would help him track dailies across different alts. Since I don't do dailies, I had completely forgotten about this little nuisance and how troublesome it can be to keep track of them all across varying chars, quite like with Saved Instances above. Commenter Eldhorn (Love) suggests Daily To-Do's, which will do exactly this - help you keep track of all your dailies across your different alts.

Tank Heirlooms!

I've always managed to stay fairly calm when Blizzard has announced various ponies over the years. Even things that directly affected my gaming and things that were pretty cool didn't have me do much more than raise an eyebrow. "We're getting a Barrier? Yeah, that sounds cool", "Disc becoming viable raid healers? Sounds like fun", "Holy getting completely revamped? That will be interesting". If there is something I learned from WoW and life it is that the lower you expectations are and the less you hope for something, the less disappointed you will be. It might sound like I'm rather the pessimist, but I'd like to argue that it's really the other way around. If I imagine that what I have already is good enough, and that whatever is coming can't be much better, I'm in a happy place. If I on the other hand start hoping for something else, it must mean that I think my current situation can become better, and if I don't get what I'm hoping for I will resent where I am right now. But enough of the philosophizing. The sum of the cardamum, as we say in sweden, is that I am pretty good at being content. Don't get me wrong, I like change and improvements as much as the next guy, but I don't get all excited about them. Until now.

The other day I was casually browsing around my regular set of pages - a couple of news magazines, a couple of science magazines, reading up on new blog posts, reading the guild forums and checking if there was anything new at mmo-champion. There are usually a couple of interesting things over at mmo-champ, like some new patch notes and the like. But this time there was something really interesting. Something that got me excited like a german in a wurst-shop (I'd go crazy in a wurst-shop). I'm talking about the new tanking heirlooms. I can't say how many times I've wished upon a star for this to happen, I could barely believe my eyes when it was finally was there. I had actually given up hope on a tanking heirloom set ever being implemented long ago. I had stopped thinking about it. It had become completely natural for me to just ignore the fact that I was the only one not totally decked in heirloom items when I did lowbie dungeons, sometimes having rogues and shamans with more hp than me.

Picture from mmo-champion, in case you didn't notice

I blinked my eyes and pinched my arm, but that bald human dressed in tank heirloom was still on my screen. Not only does the tank set look freaking awesome, it has tank stats dude! Combine this with the newly announced intentions of Blizzards to possibly make BoA truly account bound, and mailable across servers and factions, and I was close to fainting.

Leveling alts has always been one of my biggest joys in the game, and usually I level tanks, for some reason. I suppose there is something about taking command and the challenge that thrills me, actually I am a lot like that outside of WoW as well (when it comes to taking command, not about challenges). Whenever I was in a group for some group project at school, I made sure to be the secretary so that everything was written down the way I wanted it (and also because I enjoy writing). By being the person by the computer, I was usually the one with the most power (muahaha). It really confused me when I realized that Blizzard had completely neglected the tank heirlooms. Considering the tank shortage, I'd imagine designing a set to motivate people to re-play the game as tanks, and maybe find the joy in tanking overall and stick with it, would be top priority. Instead I think Blizzard thought "well no one tanks anyway, why do a tank set?".

The fact that you can tank just great with dps gear from level 15-80 is rather beside the point, although I am sure that too was a reason for why this tank set has taken so long. Anything can be done fairly well with the wrong gear at low levels, that's no reason to simply ignore one whole third of the holy trinity of WoW. Personally I think that there is no better way to learn tanking, and learn to enjoy tanking, than by doing it while leveling. Jumping on at max level isn't something I recommend, and I know that if I had started tanking now, I probably wouldn't have kept at it (especially not as warrior, yes I know, whine whine). But because I know that the class and the role has great potential, I stick with it and try to find fun in the challenge. The key to getting more tanks into the game is to have those people who are trying to find something new to do in the game, interested in re-rolling a tank. I think the availability of a proper BoA tank set is a good way to have people at least consider the option of leveling as a tank, and who knows, maybe even stick with it (and the new CTA changes is another example).

Blizzard shouldn't underestimate the re-levelling market and I can sometimes think it is an area of the game they are neglecting a little too much. On the other hand they're sitting with the statistics, and if I'm really one of very few who enjoy levelling alts, I can understand if they want to put all their focus at endgame, where the players are. Then again, they should have the money to do both *ahem*. Oestrus did a really nice post on the re-levelling value in WoW a couple of days ago, and I am inclined to expand on the subject myself, because like mentioned it is where I spend alot of my gaming time in WoW.

In any case, I am personally really looking forward to this. I can't even imagine the last time I was this excited about an upcoming change. Fortunately, there isn't much about it that Blizzard can screw up enough to make me disappointed. They could announce that they're changing their minds and not implementing the set, but I just can't see a reason for that. They could announce that they won't implement the cross instance/faction BoA transfers, and yeah that would be a bummer for me. They could announce a revamped design for the tank set that looks like shite, but it had to be pretty damn ugly considering I am running around in priest tier 11, and that is difficult to beat in terms of ugly. Overall, to me this is both good and bad news. Good in that it will probably have me level even more little baby warriors, and bad news in that it will probably have me level even more little baby warriors.

Tales from the Random Pug - 3rd story

I raided LBRS on my druid the other day. But not in the conventional way where you've got 10+ people in a group at once, going for some fun together. No no. This isn't a story about some fun lowbie raid where everything was just peaches. This time we were 10+ (11 actually) in the group, but never more than 5 at one time. Because I did a regular instance run, it just had very many drop outs. Welcome to the world of random pugging.

I only queue up for instances specifically nowadays. I don't care much for the satchel loot, since leveling is so easy and you'll probably replace most of it pretty fast anyway. Most of the time I've outleveled an instance too fast to do it more than one or two times, and by doing each instance in sequence I'm collecting the quests and get to experience all the changes made without overleveling any by doing the same instance twice in a row. So I was queueing for LBRS, and since I am a druid with dualspec I queued as everything and got a group pretty fast as the healer.

First thing that happens, the tank leaves. No comment, no nothing. Just join the instance and left immediately. Well people do that. I've done that. If I queue randomly and end up in the one instance I really didn't want to do I might do that. One of the dpsers, a dk, let out some random curse words and left too. Two down. The rest of us, me, a hunter and a paladin, requeued. It didn't take too long before we had gotten us a new tank and a new dps. We clear a couple of groups when the lock says he has to go afk for a short while. Well no suprise there, people go randomly afk in random pugs all the time. I usually endure afkness for a couple of minutes. I mean, people could have to leave the computer a short while occasionally, it happens to everyone. But after a while I kick them. I didn't have to with this lock though, apparently he realized that whatever was taking time from him would take more time than expected, and so he left. Actually I commend him on that, rather than just stay in the group or even worse, just go offline. By leaving he gave us a fair shot at getting a new dps.

Good thing getting a dps rarely is a problem. Enter an elemental shaman after a minute of waiting or so. So we keep on clearing. After having killed some bosses we get a tank neck drop, which the retripaladin needs. The tank asks for it, but gets a "no, kick me if you don't like it". I don't mind people needing gear for their offspecs, but whoever is there with their mainspec really should have prio. Especially if they're doing all the job, like you would be if you're the tank. So that guy was kicked. I didn't initiate it, in fact kicking him was letting him off easy. You don't get a penalty timer for being kicked and he could just requeue if he liked to. Sure he might end up with a long wait, but if he needed the neck he might actually have a tanking offspec and just go for that. On the other hand there's really no other good way of punishing ninjas. You can either kick them to make sure they won't do it again, in your group anyway. Or leave them and need on everything they want to sort of let them taste their own medicine. But none of these are great options. But he was kicked and we queued for another dps, again.

After a couple of minutes we got a mage. We kept clearing on and suddenly the hunter dinged. Everyone says the regular, semi-automated, "grats". And the hunter leaves. He didn't need us anylonger, he had accomplished his goal and off he went. It reminds me of a horror-instance I did with my hunter at 79. We got tank after tank that dinged 80 and left before we finally managed to finish the instance. It was in Violet Hold, so my pet had to tank half the instance since the mobs keep spawning. We had worked through some 5 tanks in the end, not counting my pet. Why can't people just stay the last 10-15 minutes? Well a dps leaving isn't as horrible as the tank leaving, fortunately. So we queued for a new dps... again.

Enter a dk. I told him that he should be proud to know that he was the 10th member of our group! He thought that was funny, when suddenly the mage left the group, mid boss fight. I said "well yeah, that sort of explains what I mean". Requeue for a new dps... again. Before the fight was over we had gotten us another lock. By then we had gotten as far as to Urok Doomhowl, so there wasn't much left of the instance. And that's probably a very good thing or I am sure we would have had a couple of drop outs more. So in the end I ended up having done LBRS with a group that over the course of time consisted of 11 different members, including myself. That's 6 dropouts over about 40 minutes, so a drop out approximately every 6,66 minutes (omg, that's totally a sign). It will be very interesting to see how UBRS will go.