Catagasm

OMG

Spent the entire morning pouring over Cataclysm stuffs. I don't even know what to say.

Oh, who am I kidding.

/GASM

Now, c'mon. How can Blizz release this sneak peak and expect me to go back to cold, undead infested Icecrown. Sheesh!

Dirty teases.

Reading over it, I wouldn't even know where to start! I mean, I have enough trouble deciding what to do when I sign in right now. :D Are ya gonna roll up a goblin or a worgen and try the new starter zones? Oh, how about a new race/class combo and run the new 1-60 quests??? Wait, you've got five (rumored slower) level on your main? How long can you wait before you absolutely, positively have to jump into Grim Batol or Hyjal? Been waiting to get in there for going on five years!!!! Heroic Deadmines AND Shadowfang?!? What's first? Gah!

Ahem

So what's in it for Warriors?

I was a little disappointed to hear that the human to worgen transformation will be purely cosmetic. It kinda makes sense, I suppose. They'd end up spending too much time getting people to use one or the other or designing situations where you'd want to switch. Like stances aren't bad enough. Basically, being in human form will be like wearing different cloths. All the action is done in Worgen form. That means no special bonuses for being in one form or the other.

The thing that caught my eye, for Warriors, is the removal of AP and ArP and Defense from gears. At first glance, that sounds divine. It means more gear with base stats like Strength and Agility and Stamina. Which means Warrior gear itemized for... well, Warriors. "Of the Bear" sort of stuff. (Remember those?) The end result is that Warriors will have higher Defense or Attack Power, or what have you, through the new talent system, rather than having to hunt down gear specifically for certain specific stats.

This one small change will solve the problem of a leveling Warrior constantly yo-yo'ing from being uber-awesome sauce to pond scum and back again every 5 levels.

Since certain professions will be able to customize the stats on gear (called "Reforging") it'll mean you can customize the gear a bit for what role you prefer, and still have the stats to be decent at the other role. Yes, that means slapping on a shield will make you a solid Arms tank. :) It also means, instead of carrying around four (or more!) sets of Armor, you'll be more likely to just carry two. One for DPS and one for Tanking. Joy!

As a purely hypothetical example, lets say a chest piece drops that has STR and STAM on it. K, but you're an Arms Warrior and right now you need STR and Agility to, say, increase your chance to Crit. So you reforge the piece to remove the STAM and swap it for Agility. You also pick up Dodge and Parry that will be useful for tanking. True, you're a softer tank, but you get hit less, too. And so on... (Just for illustration, not for real... and probably will work a lot differently, but ya get the idea.)

The new talent system looks interesting as well. Toons will be able to get bonuses and talents based on what you do in the game. That means that, over time, a casual player could ramp up their base stats without having to hunt down very specific gear that would be nearly impossible for them to get. The hardcore player is still gonna have way better gear and way better stats (and rightly so), but in theory, a casual player at level cap can enjoy the sense of accomplishment of seeing their character improve without the maniacal focus on just gear. Very good move on Blizzard's part.

Enough rambling though. Cataclysm is gonna be so much fun it'll be freaky. So far it sounds like everything a lot of other people (m'self included) have been dreaming of for a long time. Azeroth is getting a make over.

I better go do my hair.

-Fri

Little updates for 3.2

I'm still going through stuffs from the patch. So far my verdict: Yes!

MOAR!

Mostly though, I've just been playing. No plan or anything like that. I find myself tanking almost all the time. I WANNA DPS! ARRRRR! And mostly old stuffs for guildies. I have posts for several things going about 3.2. Yah, most it will never see the light of a blog... but everything works its way in here eventually.

I am getting tired of the "look" of the blog, so once again, hang on while I move the furniture around. Could get messy here for awhile.

I'm terribly excited about some of the "leaked" information about the next expansion, but I'll wait for something more official to see what's what. I will, however, mention that if Blizzard does add some new class/race combinations AND add Worgen as a playable race, they'd better be adding some character slots.

I just don't want to go through the pain and suffering of having to delete any of my beloved alts for my shiny new Worgen Whatever and Human Hunter. That would be most sad. Oh, geez... what class can Worgen be? You mean I have to start thinking about that as well???

Oh, who I am kidding. Warrior. :)

Oh, yah we're still in Northrend... Ahem...

Alchemy is looking good but WAY over due for some "fun" stuff. Oh, don't get me wrong I like the useful stuff, and it's awesome! But fun stuff would be a Good Thing, as well.

The new Crusader quests are quite nice. The additional quests make the Argent Tournament a little more like Qual'Danas, but with, you know, ice and krakens and dead vikings guys and stuff. Some of the quests are similar, though not nearly as challanging. Solo'ing these is cake.

The new Dalaran Children's Week quest is cute. This is, unfortunately, a done-it before quest chain. Nothing new other than the locales to travel with and the orphan model. We'll keep our fingers crossed that Blizz updates the Children's Week quests next year.

What can I say about the new battleground. Fun? Amazing? Wicked? Parachute into the enemy fort sometime. I don't care if it's strategy or not... just do it cause it's fun as hell! :D Don't like the changes to Wintergrasp, though. I got passed over twice now. Annoying! The other BG changes are fine. Resilience still needs work, but is a little bit better. Arms warriors are still gonna get obliterated, but just not as fast now. Instead of six seconds, you've got like, say 10 seconds. Get your shouts off and take a dive for the team. /shrug

While I don't know, nor will likely ever know, anything about the new raid, the new Trial of the Champions dungeon is fun romp. If you like the Ring of Blood style quests (and who doesn't) you'll love this. Yes, jousting is required. So nah nah ptttttttpht to anyone who didn't spend the first two weeks of the Argent Tournament cussing at the game trying to learn to joust. :P

Seriously, as long as ya got at least three people that can at least stay close to the bad guys, and hold them still, you'll be fine. The rest of it is fun and the loots are great.

K, it's very obvious that Blizzard is giving everyone a leg up in an attempt to pile as many people into Icecrown as possible. I bet anyone who's run the Heroic Trial of the Champion (or at most 10-man, regular Trial of the Crusader) several times (and grabbed some emblem gear along the way) will be able to step into the beginning of the regular version of Icecrown Citadel, gear-wise.

Yes, this still feels like a move away from the "endgame" and big raids being the culmination of an expansion. If even a smidgen of the rumors about the next expansion are true, it'll be very interesting to see how Blizzard continues down this path.

Actually, it makes a lot of sense. But not in the way many players suspect... Hmmm... I'll follow up on those thoughts later. I gotta go play WoW.

-Fri

How I Missed the Patch, or Big Giant @#$! Kittens

So, I get sick, get a promotion at work, work many many overtimes, stay sick, can't write in blog... don't even have the energy to play WoW. I mean really? F!@k kittens (NSFW).* Naturally, Blizz waits until then to release the patch. So, instead of writing something worthwhile about the patch and all, it's time for yet more random screen shots. Hooray! :D

Leveling a Holy Priest is easysauce! Just getcha one of these.
They work for random food drops and you just stand back
and soak up the XP. Win! :D

New cute hair! :D Ugly VC drops. :/

Level 20 mounts are genius! Now why do I suddenly have an
urge to park on a mailbox?

This boat has some of the prettiest views. Odd but true.

o/` She's just the girl, she's just the girl... The girl you want. o/`

Werk werk werk.

Payday in Stormwind. /sigh

AWWW! Baby murlock. Want!

Vi got her Black Warbear. FOR THE ALLIANCE!

Yes! I actually LIKE jousting. I may suck at dps, I can't tell the bad guy's
crap on the floor from the DK's crap on the floor, and I may spend most
of the rest of the dungeon face down on the floor... but that Crusader
title gets me into plenty of ToCs. :P


Who left the gate open?!? Damn kids.

-Fri

* I have no idea why that phrase makes me laugh so hard. Scout is bad! Bad bad bad! And I still laugh so hard I /cry and/or /spew. NSFW!

Fun with Google

I have lots of draft stuff in progress, as usual, mostly commentary and whining and other stuff. So instead of working any of those to finish, I'm gonna do something completely different and SWIPE! again.

Pixelated Executioner has used his site traffic thing to find how people are finding his site. So last month I signed up for google Analytics, cause I thought that was a very neato idea. :D

This is stuff I find interesting. You? Maybe not so much. :P So, what we got?

The average time on site was 1 minute 4 seconds. Ouch. Course, a Ret Pally could kill a couple dozen other players in that time, so I guess it's not that bad. When you break it out and look at time spent when someone actually searches for a relevant page, though, it jumps up to over nine minutes. Which is enough time for a Warlock to solo Naxx with a VW, I believe. Much better.

Top ten pages in July were:

Main Page (Our Girl Friday)
Journy to the Grim Guzzler
Lazy Days in Dalaran
New Alt and Some Stuff
Bladestorm for Dum Dums
Flower Picking Plate Wearers in 3.2
Building a Better Arms Warrior, Part 2
Fun With Warriors: Heroic Strike
Large Burly Men Picking Flowers

I know that's only nine. Google lists two entries, one is "My Girl Friday" and the other as "Main Page." /shrug

After that the remainder (and several of the top ten) are all looking for Arms Warrior stuff. So I ran a search on google m'self and sure enough, there's really not a lot out there that's current. Pix's site comes up a lot. A few older guides that aren't quite up to date. That's about it!

Basically, most of mah blog's traffic comes from people looking for information about Arms Warriors and Alchemy/Herbalism. And directions to the Grim Guzzler. That's a kinda good thing to know.

Most links come from blogger or google. The blogs that sent traffic here, according to Analytics, were Awakening in Progress, Casual Hardcore, Warcraft Bloggers, Banana Shoulders, One WoW Warrior, and Tank Like a Girl. TYTYTYTYTYTYTYTY! :D

Quicky Q&A from the referral searches:

Q: How to get to the Grim Guzzler?
A: Here

Q: Linzy Blackbolt?
A: She teaches you Alchemy in Dalaran. Here go.

Q: Warriors like me?
A: Hope you found something... um... something...

Q: Warrior heroic dungeon ready?
A: I'm so sorry you got referred here, cause you definitely ended up in the wrong place! But... If you complete the quests in Zul'Drak, Storm Peaks, and Icecrown and run the regular 80 dungeons a few times each on the way, you can do heroics. Will you get to? Check with your guildies. Failing that, you'll have to PuG and that's difficult for a gearing Warrior. Most PuGs want thier warrior rough, buff, and WAY over geared. Good luck, though!

Q: Aesir's Edge for an Arms Warrior?
A: Oh hell yah! Again, sorry you ended up here, though. That's a weapon I'll never even come close to seeing. Go getcha some if ya can, though! Drops of the XT-002 thingie in Ulduar. Good luck and send pix when you get it!

Q: Andrea Kadomi?
A: She's right here. Go on. I'll wait.

Q: Are PuGs good or bad?
A: Evil incarnate. As my dear Sargent Major father always says, it's the biggest clusterf&ck you'll ever see. Which, of course, is what makes them so fun. Sometimes. When you're in the mood to put up with it. Warned.

Q: These search words: arms flowers hippy.
A: This brings up shopping and pictures of hippy chicks frolicking in flowers. I'm guessin' ya didn't get what you were looking for here, but try WoW anyway. It's good for the inner pacifist to let go and chop monsters into little bits every once and awhile. And there is flower picking, too!

Q: Arms Warriors resilience or dps?
A: DPS. For PvE and PvP, as it is right now. Even with piles of resilience, you're gonna die in about 8 seconds (literally, not being silly) in a fight with other players. You won't have time to be skilled, since you'll be dead before you get two or three swings off. Maybe with the changes in 3.2 coming up, resilience will be a better stat. I hope so! But as it is right now: DPS for both.

Q: Bladestorm? And Bladestorm threat?
A: Here. And no idea. Threat from Bladestorm will depend on damage modified by any threat reducing talents. Generally, though, give your tank a 6-9 seconds because you shouldn't Bladestorm at the beginning of a fight. Very bad things can happen. Like, ya know, /faceplant. You'll be putting up Rend, Battle Shout and Mortal Strike first anyhow, so don't worry too much about it. In PvP, you need to 1) have a full health bar cause when you start spinning like a top everyone on the other side with focus you instantly, 2) pop Recklessness first if you can, and 3) hamstring your target(s) BEFORE you pop Bladestorm otherwise they'll just run away. That's the short version.

Q: Elixir of Armor Piercing?
A: Crap. Taste like ass, too. Use this.

Q: Arms Warrior axe, mace, or sword?
Axe. If you're serious about DPS you need Poleaxe spec to get the crit rating you need. I use a sword cause I likes them, the one I have is really purdy, and I don't care what anyone thinks about it. But get an 2H axe if you're serious. Maybe, hopefully someday Blizz will come to its senses and combine the weapon specs into one called "Weapons Master" or something like that. It would be a Crit boost only talent on account many of our abilities rely on procs from Critical hits. Kinda makes way more sense. Oh, and Arms Warriors are the only Class/Spec that are punished for picking up a different weapon. Not only can you not use your shiny new toy to its full potential, but you have to pay 50g to respec at a trainer. Suckage.

Q: Friday Hardcore?
A: Has something to do with the bar scene. Sorry. Um, need directions to the Grim Guzzler?

Q: Is there a macro for Arms Warrior Revenge?
A: Cracksmoker.

Q: Learn to shake booty classes?
A: Um, here ya go. :)

People are funny.

-Fri