Friday, October 31, 2008

The Scarlet Dawn

6 comments
In a land plagued by undeath, one individual makes her vow to restore life, and another seeks to understand it. But a corrupted organization stands in the way of their goals in the...



Leyola Swiftwillow, a druid with a storied family history, makes a name for herself by enlisting with the Argent Dawn in their fight against the Undead Plague.

Wimzig Wintersprug, a gifted gnomish mage, seeks to discover his place in the world by embarking on a journey to find a cure for a disease that afflicts his cherished race.

Little do they realize that fate will cross their paths. In the midst of a recent plague wrought by the Lich King, Arthas Menethil, this unlikely duo will have to learn to work with each other as they uncover a grand conspiracy that threatens to destroy all of Azeroth.

Will they succeed? Only time will tell, as they strive to prevent the coming of...

The Scarlet Dawn

Featured only on Frost is the New Black, from November 1-30

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

The Big Bang Theory

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The Big Bang Theory is this terrible wednesday night filler sitcom on CTV channel 8 in Toronto. I'm not exactly sure of its syndication status right now in the US, but well...iunno. Let me quote the description by the CTV website.

"Leonard and Sheldon are brilliant theoretical physicists, the kind of guys who understand the nuts and bolts of how the universe is put together.

But none of that genius helps them deal with people--especially women. When a free-spirited beauty, Penny, moves in next door, sensitive Leonard realizes that she could represent his best chance to live in the real world.

Even Leonard's pragmatic roommate, Sheldon, whose idea of meaningful social interaction is gathering "friends" on MySpace and playing Klingon Boggle until 1:00 a.m., can see that Penny might just change both of their lives.

This comedy was created by Chuck Lorre ("Two and a Half Men," "Dharma & Greg") & Bill Prady ("Gilmore Girls," "Dharma & Greg")."


So yeah, 2 nerdy guys and a total babe. Except that the two nerdy guys are terrible nerds, and the babe is, well, okay, she's pretty hot. The characterization of the former two is overly stereotypical.

Why is this worth mentioning on the blog? Well, the latest episode tonight features Penny dealing with unemployment and general life failures by playing an MMO played by Leonard. Guess which one?

Nope. Not WoW. Age of Conan.

And boy, if success of an MMO is reflected by its promotion by mainstream media, then this fits the bill quite well. Where WoW has gotten exposure by the big boys in South Park, all AoC can muster is a terrible produced episode in the BBT.

Some points to consider:
- better usage of MMO-lingo by the writers of South Park. For writers supposedly trying to characterize geekwads in Leonard and Sheldon, they do a piss-poor job of being leet haxxors, using the word noob ONCE, and Leonard not knowing what "OIC" stands for. blah.
- in-game production values are superior in South Park's "Make Love, Not Warcraft." In-game was represented by actual WoW machinema, while AoC was represented in TBBT simply terribly.
- Still watching just now, I notice that Penny is using the same Logitech headset that I use, except with the red-colored plates for the earphones rather than my blue ones. I'm all of a sudden much more attracted to her, haha!

Extra Content: What I've been doing lately in WoW, all in one Screenshot!

In the screenshot:
-Hallowed Helm
-Sinister Squashling
-Magic Broom
-Tabard of the Argent Dawn
-Argent War Horn
-Argent Dawn Banner
-(Not Included, but worth mentioning that I currently own): Gloves of Undead Cleansing

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

State of the Blog

4 comments
Gee, it sure is getting cold up here in Sunny Canada. The days are shorter, the air is chillier, and work is getting a lot more demanding. And with NaNoWriMo coming up, I'm actually finding myself with a very crazy task of using whatever free time that I have after work to write and grind it out.

I'm quite sure that I'm not exactly looking forward to the expansion, not because of the content itself, but more along the lines of the sheer population and traffic. Considering that a.) even a week or so after the patch, my server is still qeueing up, and b.) Arygos was not listed as one of the Free Transfers that was announced by Blizzard, I expect traffic to shoot up drastically, making the experience more uncomfortable.

There are a few things to consider from here on out:

- How much time do I focus on NaNoWriMo?
- How much time will I get with my characters?
- How soon do I want to get to 80?
- Which characters get to 80 first?
- How many 80's do I want to have?

It's a myriad of questions to which I have hardly any answers, except:

- I really want to hit 50k words for NaNoWriMo.
- I want to go fast to 80, but as smoothly as possible (avoiding tagging contests).
- At the very least I want an 80 of each type of role (Mage, Druid, Death Knight).

From the looks of it, it seems that this schedule pinch that I'm in will result in a somewhat noticeable change in the way this blog is run. For the month of November, you will see a lot more of NaNoWriMo excerpts, which is completely fine by me.

That said, it doesn't mean that I will be completely ignoring WoW. But when Lich King does come out, watch the priority shift back and forth between Bashertin and whoever this new Death Knight will be when November passes. The title of this blog is indeed Frost is the New Black, so I want to really represent what it means to rain icy death, whether it be from a mage's perspective, or from a Death Knight perspective.

Does that mean that I will no longer be a mage guy? No way! It's probably more that I will not only be a Mage man, but hopefully a death knight dude as well. If anything, think of me as the Frost guy, as the blog suggests.

So, for the remainder of '08, get yourself a nice warm cup of coccoa, since things are about to get a lot colder. November will bring a really cool story along the likes of A Stab in the Dark, and December will unleash the full fury of frost! What is in store for Krizzlybear as he continues to hone his icy sorcery alongside learning from an unspoilered clean slate the ins and outs of death knighthood.

I truly look forward to it, and I surely hope you will do so as well.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

A Sunday Hangover Post

3 comments
I went to my cousin's Halloween party. Got pretty wasted. I'm still at his house, and I'm quite sure that I'm going to miss my guild's afternoon raid.

I told an officer ahead of time that I might not make it, so they know if I'm not there. And it's TK, so I'm already saved anyways (hence, why I got pugged by another guild the night before).

But back to the party. I went as Super Mario. It was pretty nice. Ran into a Link, that was pretty cool.

This one guy dressed up as a demon, and his girlfriend dressed up as a sorceress. I kept laughing in my mind that maybe they went as a WoW warlock/demon couple.

Thinking about it a bit more, I suddenly noticed that my hatred for warlocks has waned somewhat over the course of the latest patch. Perhaps it's because they got nerfed somewhat with the new patch, or maybe I recently added a lot of warlock blogs to my RSS. But as it stands now, I'm actually tolerant of them, and respectful of them. Gotta update my power rankings.

1. Mage - Duh, by default this is a lock.

2. Druid - Moonkin form is my favorite non-mage dps caster class. My favorite healing class as well!

3. Shaman - Same as druids, except I'm kinda blah about their healing. Maybe I should level one to the point where I can use chain heal. That might change things.

4. Paladin - hrm, I'm starting to see a trend here. Maybe I'm a closet Hybrid lover.

5. Priest - I don't care about their healing abilities. I'm a fan of shadow spells.

6. Rogue - My favorite melee dps class, which doesn't mean much since I'm a caster type.

7. Warrior - Tried levelling one on Bleeding Hollow, but now it's a bank alt.

8. Warlock - By default, they're supposed to be a lock for last place, but iunno. I kinda feel sorry for them now.

9. Hunter - I love good hunters. Too bad I can't seem to find one in-game. Too bad I'm not one myself.

Unranked, Death Knight - expect this to shoot up to #3 or #2 when Lich King hits.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Dear Kael'thas,

3 comments


You just got served, bizzatch!

25-man style!

Sincerely,
Bashertin

p.s. Please tell Loot Reaver I said thanks for the shoulders!

Friday, October 24, 2008

Dr. Phil Can Kiss My Gnomish Butt.

5 comments
Feel free to play along.

1. Do you feel that you need to play online games as a way of dealing with anxiety or depression in your general life?

No. I blog about it instead. But guess what? It makes me feel better than any video game ever could. And since then, I haven't been depressed or anxious lately, so screw you Dr. Phil.

2. Are you preoccupied with gaming so much that you are distracted from the priorities in your life, such as relationships, school or jobs?

School is not yet. I got warned once for blogging at work. I stopped doing so, and less than a few days later, got a work duration extension. Up yours, Dr. Phil!

3. Have you lied to your friends or family to conceal your obsessive thinking about gaming?

I'm out of the WoW closet actually. I've skipped a family get-together once or twice for a raid, but I stopped on by as soon as it was over.

4. Do you get restless and irritable when you are away from gaming or feel that you are restricted from your next gaming event?

Not so much irritable as I am tired, but that's due to reading in bed for a long time after the computer is turned off. I'm reading the WoW books again. What can I say? I have a particular Knaak for wow lore! /BADPUN

5. Have you attempted to stop or cut back your gaming behavior, but failed because of the anxiety, depression or general stress you experience?

Never tried. Never needed to. Went on a trip to Boston for a week or so, and didn't go crazy. Omg, I'm actually kinda normal? o.O

6. Do you feel you need to play online games because it gives you the self-esteem and confidence other activities don’t?

I don't play games to give myself self-esteem and confidence. I get my self-esteem and confidence from elsewhere, then apply it to my games. You don't know me, you Freudian Fraud!

7. Have you lost or damaged a relationship, such as affectionate, sexual or parental connection because of your obsession, lying or distorting your behavior of gaming?

I have postponed a date to do a podcast, but oh my goodness, I'm actually going on that very date this weekend? What has this world coming to? I desperately need help!

And besides, it's YOUR twisted view and prejudice against gamers that make you assume that we all have these weird anti-social tendencies. Here's a middle finger for your birthday Mr. Phil. /middlefinger

8. Have you diminished your goals, such as grades, sports, money, etc. because of your obsession with gaming?

I have diminished grades because I'm too lazy to put in an effort to study. But appaently to some people, a B-/C+ average is considered diminished grades. And this was before WoW, and it hasn't changed since. At least I'm smarter than you, Dr. Phil, you jerk!

9. Have you lost or damaged job opportunities because of your obsessive gaming behavior?

I'm still in school, and I have been paying for my own tuition since second year! And that was amidst nightmarish time sinks such as Harvest Moon. But wait, what? Harvest moon actually teaches you how to manage your money and become a decen budgeter? What a miracle!

10. Have you lost or damaged family and community relationships because of your gaming behavior?

If "Kriz, you're a weirdo" counts as damaged family relationships, then holy crap I need to go ahead and skulk in a corner for being a weirdo and a loser in life! Dr. Phil, you can go shove it. Actually, never mind. Come over to my house so I can eat your brains!

Conclusions

Yawn. What a joke. If anything, I've actually become a better person after wow and even moreso after the blog. This was a waste of time for me, but I just wanted to make a point that Dr. Phil thinks he knows gamers. So instead of turning this into a self-defeatist post about having no life as a gamer, I turned it into a retrospective, with lots of self-link love for articles that I remember fondly. Think of this as a follow-up to the anniversary post, under the guise of a rant aganist a lunatic know-nothing baldface.

I actually shouldn't say bald, or else Wimzig would beat me up. Or turn me into a penguin.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

A Less Original Hundredth Post

8 comments
I'm so honored to have been through this wonderful ride. Back in July, when I stumbled upon a neat little thing called Blog Azeroth, I had discovered a quaint, yet strong community of intellectuals who, through their dedication to both the game and to blogging, possessed qualities that resonated with my interests.

You see, originally, I liked to write fanfiction back in the day. That isn't to say that I don't do it now; if you squint, you could probably say that I'm about to embark on a very grand project that extends into the realm of fanfiction, but otuside of the fanfiction.net community.

But it wasn't just about writing. It was about a game that I also curiously tried out during the boring old days of reading week (spring break in the US) of 2008. What started out as a number of deleted alts, and the beginnings of an awkward looking little gnomish mage named Bashertin.

And the rest is history.

I truly believe that what I've become today is but a sample of what's to come. I'm in this zone of stability in my life; work, home, only one class left for university, and a little bit of the dating game, amongst others.

This lifestyle has permitted me to be a part of this grand little thing known as Frost is the New Black. And after only 100 posts, it has become quite a part of me. Regardless of whether or not the day's post is something as small as a screenshot, as ambitious as a amalgamation of Karazhan Boss Strategies wrapped up into a spreadsheet, or as serious and personal as contemplations towards moving onto another guild/realm, I've always been open to sharing it with whoever was curious enough to read it.

And I can look now how far I've come. Blog-wise, I've gained a nice little readership, compared to maybe the one or two subscribers that I had when I first registered for a blogger account. Game-wise I've reached 3/5 T4 and a Be Imba! rating appropriate for SSC/TK, and for MH/BT trash, and with the recent nerfs, maybe more.

At the same time, all of this has not been at the cost of any sort of personal sacrifice or downside. Despite moments of obvious obsession and addiction (I blame achievements!), I am yet to make a terrible life decision due to WoW or blogging, even though I've had my share of comments of concern from higher ups and parents.

But I still have my job, my blog, my social life, my WoW account, my health, and my sanity.

Looking to the future, there's plenty on the horizon to look forward to. There's a looming expansion, and server issues aside, it looks to be the most amazing thing yet. There's National Novel Writing Month, an opportunity to get back to my most basic interests: creative writing. There's a school semester with only one class to worry about. There's a trip to Japan that I've been saving up for as a reward for completing school. And there's another 100 posts, probably more, to make, consisting of my thoughts, desires, and moments of both enlightenment and utmost silliness.

It's just so much to look forward to. And I just want to take this moment to tell everyone reading this that I surely hope that you've enjoyed the ride so far.

Thanks for the kind comments. Thanks for the encouragement. Thanks for the feedback. Thanks for your dedication to not just follow my blog, but to keep up with your own if you happen to have one. Thanks for the recognition. Thanks for pretty much everything.

As much as I often think that this sort of thing belongs in a personal livejournal or anything, I feel that living vicariously through others is what makes life worth living, games worth playing, places worth exploring, relationships worth developing, and more.

And I hope that I continue to express this attitude as we as a community continue to pursue our goals for the future whatever they may be.

I wish you all luck, and I hope you're as excited as I am for what we are about to embark upon.

It'll be something worth blogging about indeed.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

AoE Grinding in the New WoW: Leveling Talents 1-18

4 comments
Yeah yeah, quest rewards provide better XP than anything else while levelling. So what? I've seriously walked through Jame's alliance levelling guide I don't know how many times from 20-30, and I just hate having to go from one spot to another to another and turn quests in chunks at a time.

I like my slow painful grind. I like staying in one place and killing a billion things at once. I like having passers-by stop in their tracks as you perform your elaborate dance. I like making oodles of money from cloths, skins, and greens.

With the change in 3.0.2, we have ourselves a few things that completely change the AoE grinding process. For the better, of course. Three things come to mind:

- The removal of the natural 1% miss rate. As long as you group up with mobs at your level or lower, you will never whiff a Frost Nova on a random mob in that group. You will never ever go "OH SH-" and scramble for the Cold Snap button.

- Reconfiguration of the talent tree. Some good AoE talents come a lot sooner than usual, and some require less points to max out. With this adjustment, you can have a really good baseline talent set-up to grind with as early as level 25. At higher levels, introduction of talents that further increase your snare will result in even more control over your mobs. I'll explain what those talents are later.

- The ability to crit with Blizzard. Holy crap, this is what will make me AoE my way to level 80, with dungeons and instances on the side. Now that Blizzard can crit, you will NEED to put talent points into spells that increase your crit chance and damage.

A combination of the three points above, it is now much easier and smoother to go through the motions of the Blizzard sequence, and your damage capabilities can shoot REAL high.

AoE Levelling Build: 10-27

It was an omen, I suppose, that when the patch hit, the only functional realm that I could access was Wimzig's. He surely has been neglected somewhat with his levelling, but I suppose that in between making acquaintances with Bre's guild, levelling up with Leyola, and my raiding schedule with Bashertin, there wasn't much time.

That's besides the point though. I am now presented with an opportunity to do what I've always wanted to do with Wimzig; AoE grind. I already have a plan set up with his talents as he goes through the motions once again. Here's what I plan on doing.

Lvl:
10-12: 3/3 Ice Floes. Shortened cooldown on your Frost Nova is more important for AoE grinding in the long run than Improved Frostbolt. At these levels, your cast time is pretty short anyways, so it's not such a big deal.

13-14: 2/5 Improved Frostbolt. If you don't like the cast time on your frostbolt, you can switch this with Ice floes, but only take 2 points here, since you're going straight to the second tier at level 15.

15-17: 3/3 Permafrost. At this point, all you should care about is single-mob kiting. This really helps in that regard.

18-20: 3/3 Ice Shards. The crit is pretty good, but you won't see it too much for now. This is just in preparation for when you start grinding it out.

21-23: 3/3 Improved Blizzard. Technically, you could start grinding at this point, but I seriously doubt you have the sufficient Intellect and Stamina to do so, unless you've been buying out "of the Eagle" gear at the AH.

24: 1/3 Piercing Ice. We need one more point to get into shatter, and then BAM! it's paradise city from here on out.

25-27: 3/3 Shatter. Once this talent is maxed, you are essentially good to go with your blizzing with this resulting spec. From here on out, grab all talents that help increase your abilities to AoE grind, including:

- Arctic Reach
- Frost Channeling
- Cold Snap
- Winter's Chill (even more crits!)
- Cold as Ice
- ICE BARRIER (very important!)
- Shattered Barrier (optional. I myself will have to see how this goes, to see how easy it is to control when your barrier pops. Most likely, this will involve waiting a bit for the cooldown before starting the pull.)
- Water Elemental/Improved Water Elemental (Free ranged freezing effect ftw!)
- Chilled to the Bone

In a future edition of this series, I'll flesh this out in more detail, depending on how the grinding goes.

Conclusion

Maybe if I get off my butt and start levelling Wimzig again (in between NaNoWriMo, Leyola, and raiding with Bashertin), I can provide even more information with first-hand experience at the lower levels. My plans for this series of posts regarding AoE in the new WoW will hopefully include:

- 3.0.x grinding pre-Wrath at 70
- levelling build from 28-80
- choice grinding spots, as well as commentary regarding those spots

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Wimzig's Whimsy: AoE

2 comments
((Apologies for not posting the 3.0.x AoE guide. This is probably the next best thing, though!))

Wimzig was trapped.

He had expected himself to get into this particular situation. He peered outwards from the mine, and saw a band of kobolds setting up camp in front of the cave's entrance.

A surveying party, he thought to himself.

There were seven, maybe eight of them, from the looks of it, and to simply try to sneak through was an unwise idea for the mage. In moments, the group would start their rounds towards the mine and discover him anyways. There was no getting around the fact that he would have to face the entire group by himself.

In the heat of the moment, Wimzig formulated as precise a plan as he could. Considering his limited arsenal of spells, he re-examined the opposition one last time.

None of the kobolds were armed with ranged weapons, he noticed. If they were going to take him down, it would only be with mining picks. They weren't bright either. Wimzig assumed that they would all chase him in some uniform fashion, eschewing any form of organized pursuit.

With those facts in mind, he settled on a surefire strategy to escape.

Wimzig closed his eyes, sensing the flow of the arcane around him. He concentrated the flow to his outstretched arms, forming circular orbs at each of his palms.

With his specialty in the arts of frost magic, he concentrated on the energy that had formed, and finally imbued the orbs with deep cold. Casting his spell, the energy spread around the tiny gnome, forming a thin protective sphere, laced with ice.

This sudden burst of magic drew the attention of one kobold standing outside, who had noticed a sudden flash of light blue emanating from the nearby mine. He wandered towards the entrance in curiosity.

Wimzig immediately ran out of the mine, zipping by the one who had wandered, immediately grabbing his attention.

"Intruder!" The Kobold initially reacted and began to give chase to the gnome.

Wimzig continued to pump his stubby legs as he shortly reached the remaining group. He ran a full circle through the group, grabbing the attention of the entire band.

"You take no candle!" said one.

"You die now!" said another.

As expected, the entire camp of kobolds, including the one who had initially wandered into the mine were now pursuing the ice-laced gnome. They begun their chase with short-sighted killing intent, but was halted by an unexpected maneuver by their enemy.

Wimzig stopped in place and began to concentrate. He visualized a ring around him, and channeled the surrounding arcane energy throughout the area enclosed by the ring.

Just a bit longer, he thought.

The group of kobolds had closed on him, and began to swing their pickaxes at the gnome, but to no avail. The energy of the icy orb surrounding their target braced the impacts of their makeshift weapons.

"Harder! He die now!" said one.

"He no take candle!" said another.

A few more seconds, and the energy of the orb gave to the repeated impacts from repeated swings. But it was too late. Wimzig cast his second spell. A concentrated blast of arctic energy spread out from him, hitting each kobold. The impacts were not damaging, but managed to freeze each one in place.

Wimzig immediately stepped back in time as his initial barrier spell wore off, and began to concentrate at a spot of land approximately twenty or so yards away from him and the group. He visualized himself standing on that spot, and in an instantaneous blink, he was already there.

The kobolds remained rooted from the knees down, their close-range weapons no longer a threat to the distant gnome. They struggled in place in an attempt to break free, but failed.

Wimzig turned back to the group, and sensed the arcane energy emanating from the open environment. He mentally drew a series of leylines, and channeled the arcane energy into a circle above the group of kobolds. He channeled his spell, imbuing the arcane flow with ice once more.

A torrent formed above the hapless group of kobolds, as they began to be pelted by a violent, yet concentrated blizzard. The sheer impact of the pellets shattered their icy shackles, freeing them. Their sights still set on the source of the cold pain, they forced themselves towards the caster.

Wimzig continued to concentrate on his spell, channelling the remains of the surrounding energy into the storm. The kobolds continued walking towards him, albeit very slowly, as if hampered by the cold. By the time they had reached the mage, they were terribly damaged by the spell, and had but a tiny opportunity to have their last whacks at the gnome.

But Wimzig had anticipated their actions, and immediately cast another quick spell around him. A second short blast shot out from him to the now nearby kobolds, freezing them in place once again.

Estimating the amount of energy he had left remaining, Wimzig elected to strafe away from the group instead of using his instant travel spell. Once he had obtained adequate distance, he began to mentally form another circle above the group.

Now in a new area of the field, he redirected more arcane energy into the lines above the group of kobolds. He cast one final spell, forming another blizzard, this one more violent than before.

The storm pelted relentlessly at the kobolds, once again binded by ice. Unable to defend themselves, they were critically wounded by the miniature blizzard. Simultaneously, the eight corpses collapsed onto each other, making a neat pile.

Exhausted, Wimzig lazily walked towards the pile, taking out a long stick of wax from his pockets. Examining it once more, he concluded that the item he had held was of no value, and was not the relic that he was looking for. He tossed it onto the heap of dead kobolds.

"Fine," he muttered, "you can have your damned candle!"

Monday, October 20, 2008

What a Wild Weekend!

1 comments
Some crazy server population going on in US Arygos! It must have taken at least half an hour before an instance server freed up a spot for the Ironwill Mercenaries to have their slightly-pugged guild run at Magtheridon on Sunday. Makes me really look back at my slight dissatisfaction with my personal and guild raid progression.

Then Blizzard nerfed the bosses to the ground. I end up one-shotting Gruul with a pug, and we two-shot Maggys! Hooray!

But while I'm on the subject of Gruul, I must mention that the Warrior/Priest Druid tokens dropped ALL six times on Saturday. The loot gods must have taken notice, since maggy dropped the T4 Token for Hunter/Mage/Warlock. Twice.

And I lost roll. Both of them. Terrible rolls btw.



LOL. Just kidding! I love pulling yer leg, dear reader. I surely hope you forgive my jest. Maybe some sparkling teeth might swoon you back.



Shiny teeth, Tier 4 Robe included. Seriously, I've done so many Hallow's End achievements, and it's only day 3 of this holiday. I'm just a Squashling away from "the Hallowed." I'm loving this game all over again! /hug Blizzard

Come back again tomorrow, I'll be making a more thoughtful post about the state of Blizzard AoE grinding in the new patch.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Screenshot: Bashertin the Gruulkiller

2 comments

Gruul down! With a pug no less.

Tanked HKM with 12k HP. With a solid Frostbolt/Ice Barrier/Spellsteal rotation, I didn't take any more than 2k damage.

Maulgar Dropped not one, not two, but THREE Pauldrons of the Fallen Defender. Dammit, lol.

And to top that off, Gruul did the same thing, dropping not one, not two, but THREE Leggings of the Fallen Defender. HOT DAMN, LMAO!

Bonus Screenshot!



Broom + Hallowed Helm = AWESOME

Friday, October 17, 2008

Friday Five: Leyola's Lore

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I love Fridays. It means another F5 from Too Many Annas, and it means I can take a bit of an easy breather with regards to blogging and with what's going on in the World of Warcraft. Today I'm going to feature Leyola Swiftwillow, since it'll be a good exercise to think more about her character as I prepare for her story in November.

What is your character most proud of?
Leyola is proud of the accomplishments of her parents, two veteran Druids from the third war. The both of them survived and played a crucial role in the battle of Mount Hyjal. As a Druid herself, she aims to live up to the reputation of her parents.

What traits does he or she really respect in another person?
Although it may come off as superficial at times, she is fascinated by the family histories of others. Whether it be a long line of nobility, or modest traditions (such as the Wintersprug Emporium), she respects those who wish to extend and solidify their family tree (somewhat coincidental for a person who spends most of her time in the form of a tree).

Does your character have any titles, and if so, does he or she actually use them?
Leyola currently is not experienced to be able to carry a title. If she were ever awarded one, she would proudly wear it.

Is your character looking to get any recognition through the new system of achievements?
As a Druid, she is compelled to gain the utmost recognition from the Cenarion Circle and Cenarion Expedition. As a healer of the land, she wants to travel all around Azeroth, preserving and restoring every inch of the land that she desperately wants to protect.

In her travels, she was told a particular folktale of a human named Leroy who valiantly took on a room of Whelps and...well, perished. It was the wat the story was told that amused her so much, resulting in her deep empathy for this tragic hero. Hearing of such an achievement now motivates her to succeed where he has failed.

When the time comes, she'll be prepared. She even has chicken.

What’s one silly, irrelevant, or otherwise not in character achievement that you think you’ll get, even if your character would NEVER do something like that?
Leyola does not have a penchant for exotic and/or alcoholic beverages. She prefers the purity of water, but has a terrible feeling in the pits of her stomach that someone could easily influence her otherwise. A particular gnome comes to mind, but she feels her self-discipline will prove effective against the offbeat, yet calculating logic of said gnome.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

3.0.2 Blizzard AoE Dummy Test - 3.3k DPS

2 comments
Essentially, I went to Theramore, and stood in the middle of the 6 dummies near the castle. My rotation was [Frost Nova, Blizzard, Blizzard] x 3, as to simulate an AoE grinding sequence.

See the Recount below. Note that the relevant stats are 18% crit with Molten Armor on and ~1k spell power.



50% crit rate CONFIRMED. Freaking sweet. Kings of AoE? I think so.

Went all out on Curator, but managed to discover that Ghost hit was indeed removed in this patch.



10% miss rate confirms it.

Overall, about the same damage as before; but once I hit cap, that shouldn't be such a problem.

In a way, I'm a little too lazy to gem/gear up some +Hit...Maybe I'll respec arcane for fun. Everyone's into Frost nowadays, and Larísa's gone back to her standby with fire, so maybe Arcane would be a nice chage of pace. I don't know what I'll ever do without Squirtle, being there for me almost half the time.

3.0.2 Frost First Impressions - Raid

5 comments
Frost spell rotations are a bit more "tricky" this time around.

It's not to say that Frost is a difficult raiding spec; while cooldown management is of utmost importance, the actual spell-casting part of Frost raiding is more demanding than before.

Brain Freeze

Brain Freeze, when procced, will give you a buff that makes your next fireball an instant cast. This buff only lasts for a limited amount of time, so you need to keep an eye on your buff timer to make sure you can throw a Fireball in your rotation.

The fireball will take up a global cooldown as normal, but because of the instant cast, you can cast it on the move. In fights that require mobility, you may want to reconsider when you want to throw your fireball. Time spent moving without casting any sort of spell will be a hamper to your DPS. This ability is a godsend for mage mobility, so use it wisely.

Fingers of Frost

When FoF procs, your next two spells will treat the target as if it were frozen. All of a sudden, Shatter becomes useful to all facets (PvP, group PvE, solo PvE) of a Frost mage's gameplay.

In PvP, Shatter was used for Shatter combos, in which an Ice Lance was cast right at the end of a Frostbolt cast, causing both spells to hit the target at approximately the same time. Due to latency, both spells would be affected by shatter, despite the intended mechanic of having the frozen effect break upon the first instance of damage.

For PvE raiding, this is the same case, since the target is considered frozen for both spells. But simply due to the fact that FoF will apply to TWO spells cast, you will want to cast two frostbolts and then Ice Lance. For reasons stated in the previous paragraph, you can have all 3 spells crit before the buff wears off. This is the ideal rotation during FoF for maximum DPS.

Due to the nature of your spell rotation, by the time you get the buff, you're already in the middle of casting another Frostbolt. At the end of that cast, it will count as the first spell of the buff. So if you notice your buff too late, you may mistake your second affected spell as your first, and waste a GCD on Ice Lance, thinking it would be affected by FoF.

Likewise, if you have both the Fingers of Frost and Brain Freeze buff at the same time, it is possible to get your Fireball to crit if it is cast within the first two spells of the FoF proc, but it will use up a spell. However, since Ice Lance does more damage anyways, it is unwise to do so. Thus, if you have both buffs up, you want to make sure that you get the Fbolt-Fbolt-ILance off first before casting your fireball.

Mobility

With FoF and BF as the new additions to a Frost mage's arsenal, it is possible to have a spell that you can cast instantly while on the move, and still keep your DPS reasonably up while on the run. However, since both abilities are proc-based, passive abilities, it requires you to remain on your toes and to pay attention to your buff status.

That isn't to say that you HAVE to wait for the proc to occur before you move. Your main priority is to move if you have to, otherwise you will belly up and die. The point I'm trying to make is that if you do have to move, or anticipate a time when you have to move, awareness of these two procs will help you keep your DPS up.

For example, in Nightbane, if Scorched Earth is up, you need to move out of it, regardless of whether or not you have a proc. However, as you move, if you notice that you have a proc up, you can cast an Ice Lance or Fireball depending on what your proc is, and do some damage while on the run.

Likewise, in Netherspite, if you are required to step into the blue beam after someone else, you can start anticipating your proc several seconds ahead of the moment when you are required to actually step in. If you manage to get that proc, it won't hurt to step in a tad early so you don't waste time moving.

Water Elemental

Fully talented, Water Elemental lasts a VERY LONG time. Because of the talent point restrictions at 70, it is difficult to put points into both Improved WE and Arcane Meditation. But even in the absence of Arcane Meditation, having a Squirtle around for essentially 50% of the time to help regenerate my mana is something of absolute beauty. This, combined with Acane Meds at 80, as well as emphasis in Spirit, as well as having both Student of the Mind and Focus Magic available in tiers leading up to the talent, Frost mages seem to look really good when it comes to both their DPM and DPS.

Ghost Hit

I'm not exactly sure if the removal of ghost hit was taken into effect this patch, or if it will go away during Lich King. Any feedback on this would definitely be appreciated.

Conclusions

I noticed that my Spell Power has gone down due to the nerf to items that used to increase specific school damage. Right now I'm using 3/3 Frozen Shadoweave as well as the Frost Damage off-hand, so my Frost Damage went down about 40-50 points due to the nerfs. However, with the new talents in place, the increase in overall DPS seems to make up for it and then some.

All in all, raiding as Frost feels "more of the same," but due to increased synergy with Shatter, the word "more" in that phrase ends up being emphasized quite substantially. Quite exciting indeed.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

3.0.2 Frost First Impressions - AoE

1 comments
So um, blizzard can crit now.

I crit my mobs for almost 1k damage, which occurs 50% of the time btw, thanks to Frost Nova/Shattered Barrier.

Plus Fingers of Frost procs. Which procs essentially every tick of blizzard if you have enough targets in your blizzard.

Even if Fingers of Frost doesn't proc, all mobs still get winter's chill. +10% crit and you still have about half your blizzard left to channel. Assuming you don't proc FoF. Which is often btw.

Oh, have you seen these new glyphs? Like Glyph of Frost Nova, which increases the damage taken by mobs before a Nova breaks? Seems like it's good enough to keep them rooted to take TWO CRITS before breaking.

Oh, what about Glyph of Blink? Farther Blink means extra time to get hit by blizzard. More Procs. More Crits.

Unless Seed of Corruption was a lot more OP than I am led to believe, I have no problem being convinced that Mages are once again kings of AoE.

I'm critting almost 1k, but I think I already said that. And that's only with barely under 1k spell power.

Bah, realm went down. Can't get back in, stuck on loading screen. I think I'll go to bed.



...Well maybe a few more minutes. /swoon.

The Best Thing About Being Unable to Log In?

5 comments
Those new loading screens. Damn, I could just look at those forever.

Forsaken - Good day, good sir! Care for a toffee? Very well!

Gnome - OMG so cute, but I'm quite sure she'll rip my head off!

Human - Serious Business

Dwarf - Hooray for female dwarf love! I was starting to get sick of that hunter in the previous version.

Blood Elf - I have to remind myself that I'm not a 14-year old boy, but sometimes that just doesn't work...

Night Elf - See Blood Elf

Tauren - More or less the same, but I've never had anything against taurens, other than their tendency to punt gnomes. GNOME PUNTING IS BAD, KAY?

Draenei - I'm convinced he can cure my woes with the power of the Naaru.

Orc - If you haven't noticed, /cower has an animation in the new patch. Now is a good time to start using it.

Troll - So freaking badass. If I rolled horde, I'd have a troll.

Posting up screens when I get a chance, either via google during lunch, or when I get home.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Wimzig's Whimsy: A Different Kind of Debate (Part II)

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((The Canadian Election draws to a close today, and the Polls have been open since this morning. I shall uphold my civic responsibilities and vote at the Catholic school down the street from my house. Makes me wonder which party Rip and Matt are voting for, if at all.

In the spirit of politics, therefore, here is the second part of my neat little roleplay debate between Leyola Swiftwillow and Wimzig Wintersprug. Part 1 can be found here.))


Krizzlybear: Welcome back to part 2 of our debate between RP alts! We have Leyola Swiftwillow and Wimzig Wintersprug in our presence today to debate the merits of their existence in my stable of active alts. My time is limited, and I need to decide on a hierarchy of playing time between alts, especially with the looming addition of a Frost-specced Death Knight to the ranks.

Wimzig: Speaking of active alts and limited playtime, you seem to be hiding the fact that you've started another alt, Mr. Kriz.

Kriz: *chuckles nervously* Yeah. I'll admit it. I started a Paladin on US Bleeding Hollow.

Leyola: Such blasphemy! Here you are, torn between the two of us, and the only way you could decide is to just abandon us altogether? How could you!? /disgust

Kriz: I'm sorry, Leyola and Wimzig! I've just been active on another server because I am currently spending some time with Breana's guild, just to get a sense of what it's like.

Wimzig: Breana? That Dwarf chick who apparently loves guns? I have nothing against Dwarves. They're quite kind and hospitable. Believe me, I would know! I wouldn't think Ley would take kindly to Dwarves though, or any other race for that matter...

Leyola: You are mistaken, Gnome! Unlike most of the elder Night Elves, I don't harbor any feelings of mistrust to your kind or others. In my journey, I have develloped an understanding and respect for all the different races that I met.

Kriz: So the two of you are okay with the existence of a Dranei Paladin in our stable of alts?

Leyola: No. I still don't forgive you for doing that.

Wimzig: Unlikely. Religion just ain't my thing, buddy!

Kriz: Well, fret not, the two of you. Kryz, the Paladin is merely a placeholder member for Bre's guild. If things keep going along nicely, I will either put the Death Knight in there, or server transfer Leyola and Bashertin, all made possible with allowable PvE to PvP transfers.

Wimzig: I for one welcome our player-killing overlords.

Leyola: If that's what the master wants, then I won't object.

Kriz: Well, I'm glad we settled that matter. But either way, the two of you are still going to compete for playing time. Continuing our little debate, please tell the readers and I what you plan on doing for patch 3.0.

Wimzig: Have you visited Stormwind Harbor yet? My goodness, that place is an architectural wonder! I'm quite sure that there will be people there "looking for contact" who I can talk to.

Kriz: Indeed. There's potential encounters abound wherever new content is added, particularly in regards to capital cities and towns. Leyola?

Leyola: I think I will remain specialized in Restoration spells. I look forward to being able to cast Healing touch while in my Tree of Life state, amongst others. This will definitely be an exciting learning experience.

Kriz: Well, I'm looking forward to both of those things that the two of you mentioned. It certainly makes my decision even more difficult. I could always just split the time between the two of you more evenly.

Wimzig: If you analyze the situation, you can certainly conclude that there is a niche for all of us. If you want to DPS, Bashertin is your guy. If you want to heal, Leyola is the lady for the job. If you want to tank it out, Mr. Gnomish Death Knight will provide his services when the time comes. I'm always good to experience Azeroth through characterized interaction with its numerous denizens.

Leyola: That's a good point, Wimzig. You are actually quite smart for a gnome.

Kriz: Do my eyes deceive me? My toons are actually getting along?

Leyola: Well, at first, it seemed to me that Wimzig was the kind of person who wouldn't interest me. He's a little too different from me for my liking. But I suppose if given certain situations, that sentiment could disappear quickly over time.

Wimzig: As they say, Krizzlybear, opposites do attract! I learned that from observing others. If anything, Ley and I would make quite a team! We could go around solving mysteries and stuff! It would make for an awesome novel!

Kriz: omg...

Leyola & Wimzig: ...what?

Kriz: ...BEST IDEA EVER! HOLY CRAP GUYS! HOW DID I NOT THINK OF THIS BEFORE! THANK YOU SO MUCH!

*Hugs the both of them*

You know what!? Forget about playtime and stuff! You two will be just fine! BUAH HAHAHA! *runs off to plan out his NaNoWriMo*

((LOL! OMG, I just realized what I am going to do for NaNoWriMo! I'm gonna write a story that takes place in the Warcraft universe, and use the two of them as main characters! Seriously, I JUST thought of this as I wrote the post, so I'm actually super excited! I'll see y'all again soon!))

Monday, October 13, 2008

OH, SNAP!

6 comments
No, Larísa and Gnomer. I have did not cast invisibility and walk away from the battle over the current state of mage specs. As we all know, the pre-invisible phase is quite tricky to time if you truly want to get yourself out of a wipe situation. Even if I tried, the AoE damage from Larísa's Arcane Explosions would have certainly elminated that possibility.

Surely, at this point, however, Larisa's run out of mana due to Arcane Blast spam, and Gnomer is squeezing every last drop of his increased DPS for the past 19 or 20% of the duration of this event. What about me? Have I used all my cooldowns and arguments to warrant any consideration for Frost as the raiding spec of choice?

Simply put, yes. I have said what I needed to say to garner some semblance of support for my frosty friends.

All I have to do now is cast Cold Snap and do it all over again.

Ideally, to use Cold Snap at the very last leg of a dps race is surely an unwise tactic in making the most of your cooldowns and maximizing your DPS, but for the purposes of making a typed online argument about the merits of spec in a raiding environment, repeating arguments is not as effective as repeating damaging spell effects.

On Cold Snap Itself

Cold Snap is the 21-point talent on the Frost talent tree. It is a spell in itself, that costs ZERO mana. It finishes the cooldown on all of your Frost Spells.

Water Elemental expired (all you frosties out there made sure he used up all his mana and didn't die, right?) during a raid fight? Cold Snap, and summon him again.

The Shaman in your group cast Heroism? prolong your Icy Veins with Cold Snap, and proceed with your utterly stupid 1.6-second Frostbolts for up to 40 seconds.

Did Moroes/Maiden/Illhoof just Garrote/Holy Fire/Demon Chain you for the second time? Cold Snap your Ice Block, and block your way out of another duration of considerable damage, saving your healers some critical mana.

AoE grinding on a bunch of mobs, and your Frost Nova got randomly (Damn that 1%!) resisted by one of them? Cold Snap, and root everyone again, thus saving your AoE pull.

Taking a little too much DoT damage from the boss fight? Cold Snap your Ice Barrier, and put up another bubble immediately after the first one fades, and save your priests even more mana worth of healing!

Just to top everything off, Cold snap does NOT use a global cooldown. Simply beautiful. And to think that at one point, this was merely an 11-point talent. And when it got moved, its talent spot was replaced with the remarkable Icy Veins.

The downside? A pretty long cooldown, at 8 minutes untalented. With 2 points in Ice Floes, however, you will be seeing your Cold Snap ready in just 6 minutes and 24 seconds.

On Cooldown Management

With all these neat tools that Frost Mages are given, proper management of their cooldowns is the make-or-break factor that determines the amount of damage that particular mage can put out.

When it comes to Cold Snap, the dilemma comes where the mage has to decide WHEN to use it during a boss fight. Simply put, to maximize a Frost mage's DPS, one needs to cold snap as early and as opportune as possible, but at the same time, use the spell to remove as many cooldowns as possible, to maximize the effect.

On trash, use Cold Snap liberally. Snap back your Squirtle and your Icy Veins. On AoE pulls, Snap back your Frost Nova and Ice Barrier if you generate the most threat in the group. Use it at every opportunity, and your control over others, as well as the capability for dealing damage, will effectively double.

On Boss fights, the mage needs to really study the fight to determine when to use cooldowns and when to Snap back those cooldowns. Keeping in mind the duration of a particular fight, it is ideal to use up your Cold Snap as SOON as possible, since there may be an opportunity to use it again towards the end of the Fight. Consdering that the cooldown for other spells are shorter than Cold Snap itself, you can potentially summon your Water Elemental up to 4 times in a fight. Simply absurd.

Conclusions

While the Water Elemental is the penultimate damage dealing spell in a Frost Mage's arsenal, it's Cold Snap that serves as the heart of a cryomancer's reportoire. With the arrival of the upcoming patch, Frosties will be getting another cooldown in Deep Freeze, just another in a long line of potential cooldown spells that Frost Mages will be getting. With every new spell added to the school of icy wrath, proper judgment in the use of Cold Snap becomes increasingly paramount, meaning that this spell is certainly here to stay.

BONUS! Pimp My Frost Mage for 3.0

Frost is a wonderful tree with multiple tools and talents that can be picked-and-chosen by players based on their playstyle needs. But with only 61 points to spend on a tree designed for 70-point use, one cannot simply have it all, perhaps until 80. So rather than go the Euripides route and go through all the talents and evaluate them on a PvP/PvE/etc basis, I'll just list suggest talents for the different playstyles.

PvP: You want control and survivability. You want to maximize the use of stuns, roots, and snares, while at the same time have a security blanket with defensive cooldowns and passive abilities. Top it off with some freaky-ass burst damage via Shatter Combos. Just be aware that you cannot spec both Improved Counterspell and Deep Freeze due to the talent cap. Both have their benefits, so it all depends on preference.

Useful talents include Frostbite, Ice Shards, Permafrost, Shatter, Improved Cone of Cold, Ice Barrier, Shattered Barrier, Arctic Winds, Summon Water Elemental, Chilled to the Bone, and Deep Freeze.

Solo: You want control and survivability as well, but make better use of Frostbolts and your AoE spells. While the casting cost of your different spell ranks have been unified, it does not negate the effectiveness of your 1.5s rank 1 Frostbolts when kiting much higher level mobs. You also care about reducing downtime, since Frost is a very mana-efficient school compared to the other two specs.

Useful talents include Improved/Empowered Frostbolt, Ice Shards, Shatter, Permafrost, Arctic Winds, Summon Water Elemental, and Chilled to the Bone.

AoE Grinding: Your spell sequence consists of Ice Barrier, Frost Nova, then a repeated sequence of Blink, Blizzard, Blizzard, Cone of Cold and Frost Nova until the large group of mobs dies. Your talents prioritize on minimizing the resist on your Frost Nova (via Hit Capping), reduced cooldowns of your Frost Nova and Ice Barrier, and increased snare effects on your Blizzard and Cone of Cold Spells.

Useful talents include Ice Floes, Elemental Precision, Permafrost, Improved Blizzard, Arctic Reach, Frost Channeling, Cold Snap, Improved Cone of Cold, Shattered Barrier and Chilled to the Bone.

Group: You will take up the DPS role in your group. Depending on the nature of the instance, you may or may not be responsible for some encounters that require Solo skills (such as handling adds or AoE pulls). Assuming single target DPS, your main talent priority is placed on maximizing your DPS via cooldowns and procs, while minimizing your threat on the target.

Useful talents include Improved/Empowered Frostbolt, Ice Shards, Shatter, Elemental Precision, Icy Veins, Cold Snap, Frost Channeling, Arcitc Reach, Summon/Improved Water Elemental, Winter's Chill, Fingers of Frost, Chilled to the Bone and Brain Freeze.

Here's a spec that I will be using in the upcoming patch. It is essentially a 0/0/61 build with Shattered Barrier. This talent simply does not get enough credit. It makes you a god of AoE grinding, as well as AoE trash pulls in raids, such as the beginning of ZA, or the dining room pulls in Kara.

Well, that's it for my Monday post. It's supposed to be my day off work to prepare for 3.0, but I'm still at a relative's house, and relatively hungover. Whatever. I'll be getting into the nitty gritty of the new patch tomorrow night, so I look forward to posting my impressions, particularly with regards to AoE grinding. Because well, Shattered Barrier is THAT awesome.

I'm just waiting for the patch to come, so I can fire off a salvo to begin the second battle between mages.

So it was inevitable

1 comments
yeah, it was inevitable that I would end up getting smashed at someone's house during the Canadian Long Weekend (HAPPY TURKEY DAY MY FELLOW CANUCKS!) But it was another thing that I ended up with access to someone's computer and take advantage of internet access to post something meaningless and random.

But no. That's not living up to the responsibility of a blogger who actually has a readership. A small readership, but a readership no less. Did I ever tell you guys that I love you guys?

So um, staying on topic with the nature of my blog posts, let's talk about 3.0. You know, that thing that's coming up on Tuesday, but I'm going to be at work to miss most of the download. I'll leave for work in the morning, turning on the computer and leaving it on for the background downloader to do its thang, but at work, I'm just going to be all "OMG I NEED TO GET HOME AND SPEC!"

So here are a few things that I'm looking forward to in 3.0, and Wrath in general.

Fingers of Frost. Free fireballs are pretty neat. And it's not like they're going to be totally gimped. With the merging of all sorts of damage and healing stats into a universal Spellpower stat, my Frozen Shadoweave set will definitely be gimped, but at the benefit of making all my other non-frost spells that much better.

Student of the Mind. Supposedly, Spirit is the new Stamina. Either your mana regeneration is going to go wayyy up, or your spell damage is going to take a considerable increase. But in a tree with Arcane Meditation, I find it VERY convenient that this talent goes right before the tier with AM.

Feck. Some guy is kicking me off. Part 2 on Monday, followed up with my Frost answer to Gnomer and Larisa's final thoughts on the big bad battle of the Mages!

I apologize for my conduct.

Friday, October 10, 2008

True Story

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I called this girl Wednesday. She's a very cool person, who I haven't seen in a long time. We've been chatting it up a lot on msn and on the phone lately, but it never reached that point where I could ask her out to coffee or whatever, until a few days ago. Here's how the conversation went, approximately:

"So um, I was wondering if you were available anytime soon. I would love to go out with you sometime. For coffee/drinks/whatnot."

"Sure. When are you free?"

"I'm free anytime after work. What's a good day for you?"

"How about this Friday?"

"Oh. Well, I'm actually a bit busy. I have a podcast recording that I happen to be a part of. It's at night, but I still need to set up the computer for it."

"Aww, too bad. Well, I've got midterms afterwards, so let's put it off for two weeks for now then."

"Alright."

I felt like a total nerd afterwards. It's not really a date or anything, but this is as far as many dorky guys go with regards to interacting with females, and I put it off for two weeks because I had a "podcast" to record. TOTAL DORK, ANYONE?

/strikeout

The squeaky little sneak that I am, I managed to "persuade" Bre and Fim to squeeze me in on the live recording of their upcoming blogcast, which happens tonight at 12:30am EST. I appear out of the shadows somehow for this episode. I suppose there's a little bit of Rogue in me. I anticipate a great show, even if I end up d/c'ing multiple times.

You can catch the live show on the TNB Ustream show, use the password tnb73 to get in. Check out the official announcement at the twisted nether website for further details.

Cute girls come and go, but blogcasting is serious business.

Friday Five: Not Exactly Ideal for Living Arrangements

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Cop-out Friday Five response! Anna has her F5 up, so here's my response for both Wimzig Wintersprug and Leyola Swiftwillow.

1. What does your character’s living room look like? (If they don’t have a stable home, describe an inn room that he or she has rented steadily.)

Wimzig is constantly travelling from place to place in search for customers. After a long day of business, he unwinds at the nearest inn. Recently, he has been seen in the Thunderbrew Distillery, in Kharanos. Unfortunately, it was Brewfest at the time, so he can't exactly remember what the room looked like.

As a druid, the great outdoors is a natural home for Leyola. Despite recently re-rediscovering her more animalistic talents, She's always trying to restore the beauty of nature. The last place that she has rented out recently was a wooded area east of Everlook, in Winterspring. The foliage of the evergreen, contrasting to the blanche of snow, is an appealing and homely sight to Leyola.

2. Does your character have any pets?

Wimzig keeps a prairie chicken as a companion. The chicken's name is Doug, and is often subject to Wimzig's various antics. Most notably, he was vomitted on during Brewfest, a memory that Doug does not want to keep for too long. Why he remains faithful to Wimzig is a mystery. Most likely, it's because of the prospect of more feed from the vendor from Saldean's farm; it's the reason he joined, and likely the reason he'll stay.

Leyola does not keep any pets, but tends to the various critters that she meets on her journeys. She would never harm a living thing, unless it didn't belong to the order and balance of nature.

3. Does your character collect anything? Is that collection of any value to anyone other than them?

An avid hydrophile, Wimzig obsesses over the quality of water in the places he visits. He likes to keep samples of the local water in tiny vials that he keeps in his pockets, for the purposes of examining later on with his self-created Hydromatic Qualitificationator.

Leyola has a fondness of seeds. Many species of seeds make for valuable reagents for her druid spells, so this hobby tends to save her the trouble of going into town to buy said reagents from vendors.

4. Does he or she have any “side” jobs or professions, other than their class and/or talent professions?

Wimzig's main non-class/profession job is water vendoring, but he has a few side interests that generate periodic spurts of income. Namely, his hydromatic qualitificationator finds a few tainted samples originating from the inns he visits. A frank discussion with the inkeeper regarding threats to report said inn to the Azerothean Health Ministry often results in a free stay for a night or two. In a way, Wimzig's exploits make him notorious to inns as a maverick health inspector.

Other than her two main professions, Skinning and Mining, Leyola has no other jobs. Her income is steady enough that she can afford to focus on her task at hand as a restoration druid.

5. What would you find in his or her sofa cushions?

Wimzig is always travelling, so the various sofas in inns he visits will vary in sub-cushion content.

Leyola is at home with nature, so sofas are not a part of her furnishings.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

I'm Not Going to Lie to You...

3 comments
From the start of November all the way up to the release of Wrath, most of what you're going to be hearing from me is Frostsaber rep and NaNoWriMo. But is that really a bad thing? I think not. Both have a few things in common.

1. A hellacious, nightmarish grind.

Going from neutral to exalted is 42,000 reputation points. The goal of Nanowrimo is to grind out 50,000 words worth of a novel/novella. No matter how you look at it, that's a lot to cover. Considering that both the time before wrath hits and Nanowrimo are approximately 30-ish days in duration, that's 1400 reputation points a day, and about 1667 words. Not to bad, but once you realize that you have to sustain that pace for thirty days, it gets pretty bleargh.

2. Both are perfectly bloggable.

It's only been day two of my Wintersabering exploits, and it feels a bit faster than say, doing SSO dailies, since the rep gain comes in with turn-ins that don't count towards the daily limit. So instead of a giant surge in rep gain at the end of a day, it's a steady stream of rep that can stop and start at a whim, allowing me to blog about whatever is on my mind.

Coincidentally, one tends to think about a lot of things when going through repeated motions.

With regards to the writing project, just by reaction alone, as well as the small subset of bloggers participating in said project, I believe that it is perfectly understandable to be able to post snippets of what I'm writing in my off-wow time. Besides, it's good writing practice, and it should help me improve as a blogger as a result.

About That Novel

I still haven't settled on an idea for what I want to write, since there are a few things that are contributing factors towards what I want to write:

Firstly, the allowance of writing derivative works means that I could spend the month writing fanfiction. This may seem like the easy way out, since I write about what I know and particularly like, but that's something that I'd do anyways.

Secondly, the (extremely) thin chance of finding representation for publication of works done during NaNoWriMo is an intriguing inspiration to write and see how far I can go as a writer. For me, I understand my skills as a novelist; bad at usage of literary devices, but a good command for continuity, and extremely creative/experimental storytelling. If I am capable of improving my weaknesses (simply by reading and writing more), then I'm sure that one of my stories could be interesting or intriguing enough for someone out there to take a chance.

Thirdly, my attraction to both roleplay and fanfiction has combined into this blurred where a lot of my post ideas regarding my RP characters, particularly Wimzig Wintersprug (and Leyola Swiftwillow especially, since she is not on an RP server) has shifted into this sort of stab-in-the-dark-like quality of a post, that feels like fanfiction of a character that I play, often based on RP encounters that occur in-game. It's a strange thing, but to actually use one of these two characters in my november novel is not actually a bad idea at all, especially considering the first point that I made about fanfiction in the first place.

So where does that leave me in regards to a general idea of the noval that I am about to write in a few weeks? I mentioned the following ideas on the wow blogger Nano group:

- a video gaming champion's rise to fame, mostly narrated through the meta-ficticious games that he plays.
- a big bank heist, narrated multiple times from differing character's viewpoints.
- a murder-mystery in a fantasy setting (think LotR meets CSI)
- the fall of gnomeregan

It's a somewhat varied list, but the bad part is that there's more going on my head plot-wise with other ideas that are just as, if not more, enticing to write about. ARGH. Just watch, the day I actually settle on an idea is the day that I get stuck on how to go about writing it. It always happens.

Such is the life of a writer.

Random Thoughts While Grinding Wintersaber Rep

There's only one NPC present on Frostsaber rock, but the faction name is "Wintersaber Trainers." Where are the other trainers? Does his pet count as another member? If so, does that mean that this pet teaches other pets as well?

I really ought to switch to skinning. All these guys going down fast makes me feel bad about wasted hides.

Winterspring is just beautiful. I can only imagine what Northrend will bring. A cryophile's wet dream, for sure.

If I ever level a hunter past 60, those chimaeras would make pretty neat pets.

I switched back to 0/0/61. Despite Arcane Meditation, I'm still getting some intense damage per mana. Instead of passive regen, I'm getting shatter combos like nobody's business. With the reduced aggro radius, I can stand a few feet away from my target, Nova, then shatter combo for a one-shot kill. The distance between mobs also helps with mana regeneration.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Some Choice Words

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1. Wordle

As in, I has it!



2. Lunacy

Not the Darkmoon deck. But the type that you are. I've joined Bre and the others in the absolutely nutso writing thing. I haven't written fanfiction in a VERY long while, so this is another opportunity to get back into writing, original fiction or fanfiction, or otherwise.

3. Frost

Something was missing in my quest to become totally epic frost. And I just realized that I'm missing myself a Winterspring Frostsaber. Yep. From now until the expansion, I will be grinding Frostsaber rep, so I can get into Northrend with style. Forget about the Champion of the Naaru or the Zul'Aman Bear Mount. You just can't spell frostsaber without "frost."

4. Roundtable

Well, technically it's supposed to be round table, but I wanted to continue the theme with headings of only one word. And well, if I used one of the two words, it just wouldn't make any sense. So um, yeah. I'll figure it out, how to invite my uninvited self into next week's roundtable blogcast. We'll see. We'll see.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Exercises in Creative Design: The Storm

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Today, I have 30 minutes to write about any topic that comes to mind at the moment. This "exercise" actually comes from Matticus' post over at the twisted nether blogcast (I apologize for the lack of link love, but to actually click my way over there would simply eat into my thirty minutes, which by now actually twenty-seven)

Anna over at Too Many Annas (I actually remember this address, so I linked it. So sue me for being inconsistent!) had a nifty little challenge while she was gone running away from one of the many hurricanes that ravaged the southern area of the US. Make a T6-equivalent raid encounter involving the use of a Hurricane.

Beautiful. For some reason I'm good to go on this one. I should have done this sooner, but oh well. Better late than never. Speaking of which, how much time do I have left? twenty-five minutes. Ok. Sounds alright. Let's get this started!

Raid Instance: The Hurricane

A hurricane is fast approaching the western shores of Kalimdor! A council of elders from the Cenarion Circle felt disturbances coming from the Hurricane, suggesting that the cause of the storm is not natural. It is up to you and 9 friends to investigate!

Upon accepting the initial quest from a Druid NPC in moonglade, he will give you a trinket that has special powers. The first time you use it, you to turn into a Druid's flight form. Using it will allow you to fly directly up into the air, where the isntance portal lies.

After passing through the instance portal, your party appears in flight form in the middle of the great sea. A bird spirit appears in front of you, asking the party to follow him. After a short flight, you arrive at a giant rock sticking out of the water, with enough standing space for a raid group to run around in.

"Stay here. The storm approaches!" The spirit says, then disappears.

The storm approaches, you brace for impact. The fight begins!

Raid Boss: Storm King Nolorkam

Well, what'ya know. It's another darn troll that's gone nuts-o. He rides a Dragonhawk, wielding voodoo powers that are the cause of the storm. Debris flies around everywhere, so watch your step!

For the first thirty seconds of the fight, flying Debris randomly hits 2 of your party members for 4k damage each second.

PHASE 1

Storm Lord Nolorkam appears. He's pretty pissed, so he lands on your rock and starts wailing at the party.

His melee swings hit for an arbitrarily large amount of damage. Main tank needs to be healed by a dedicated healer, while the second and/or third healers look after the raid.

Debris continues to hit party members, but only for 2k damage each second.

Continue tank and spank until he switches phases. If DPS isn't fast enough, he switches to...

AERIAL PHASE

SLN lifts up and flies into the air, summoning violent winds. The party has to use their flight form trinket to fly around and dodge debris that soars around during this phase. Members that get hit by debris get blasted for 6k damage. Lasts for forty-five seconds, then returns to his regular phase on the ground.

PHASE 2

At 66%, storm Lord gains a buff that grants him immunity from ranged damage, and will start casting thunderbolts at random people for 3k damage. He also summons dragonhawks that appear in small numbers. Ranged DPS needs to damage these dragonhawks. When they are sufficiently damaged, they will fall to the ground, and become mountable. Right-click the birds to be able to fly into the air. Those who are in flight can use their trinkets to cast thunderbolts at the boss for considerable damage.

DPS him quickly, or else he'll go into aerial phase.

PHASE 3

At 33%, Storm Lord Nolorkam performs a voodoo self-sacrifice, and transfers his essence to the storm. His form is now immune to all damage, but his health diminishes over time and no longer attacks raid members. At this point, random debris hits for even more, and dragonhawks are summoned by the swarmful. Most are non-elites, but the larger ones are elite, and need to be picked up by the tank and offtank. They hit for considerable damage. In this phase, he stops switching to Aerial Phase

PHASE 4

At 5%, SLN is desperate and has his last stand against your raid party. The storm dies down, but he enrages and hits for a BUTTLOAD of damage. All healers need to overheal the tank to keep him alive. DPS him down for the last 5% to kill him.

Conclusion

That exercise ended up taking 40 minutes because of a very delicious office lunch potluck. Oh well.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Frost Mage Tears Make Delicous Popsicles

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A wise Frost mage once told me, "When life hands you lemons, summon lemonade elementals."

Ok, well, I thought of that saying, and right now, I'm in the mood to change my blog description to that very saying. This is a Frost mage blog first and foremost, with stuff on Frost death knights soon to come when the expansion hits. So while we wait for those good ol' DK's to arrive at my doorstep, I only have things to say about the Frost mage class.

I love my class. I love everything about them. I love the spec even more. The sheer control over your enemies. The cold heartedness of your temperment when staring down against another enemy in player versus player combat. The companionship of your own summoned elemental. Just don't target the wrong monster in kara when sending him out to attack, like I did a few weeks ago.

I love the state of the frost mage as it is now, and how it look to be when the expansion hits.

But when I see another mage dislike things about his or her class, it kills me inside. My heart simply goes out to them, because as soon as their feelings are made public, the whole world screams "QQ MORE, WHINY ASS MAGE!"

I feel bad for Christian Belt. He's a fantastic writer, and the contributions that he has made to WI are surely important. His passion for the game and for mages is surreal, and I only hope to emulate it. But because of his status as a mainstream-equivalent mage blogger, he's prone to criticism, and this post is no different.

To summarize a recent post he made regarding the state of the 51-point talent, Deep Freeze, he states that the talent is simply useless and broken, and the dev team at Blizzard need to do something to bring it back to respectability. Well, it was something like that. Let me highlight a few points that he has made, and discuss from a cryophile's viewpoint and make opinions on the subject.

"Let me preface this by saying that if you are one of the many who label anything written by a Mage that isn't full of sunshine and candy canes as complaining, crying, or QQ, you may want to just stop reading right now. Thanks for coming, post your "UR TEARZ R DELICIOUS" nonsense in the comments section, and then go back to tea-bagging your kills on Halo or whatever. This column is not for you."

This is a valid preface and warning to those who like to make stereotypes of QQ'ing mages everywhere. The thing that irks me is that the way it was written only encourages said trolls to continue reading and further justify said stereotype. Remember that bully in elementary school that always made fun of your braces? He only did it because you were self-conscious of your braces. He knew you'd cry about it, so he'd keep doing it for kicks. Christian, never do this again, or else you're just asking for it.

"In PvE, though, Deep Freeze is no longer even worth spending points on. It affords no tangible DPS increase, isn't usable on bosses at all due to stun-immunities, and even if it was, wouldn't be worth the mana cost and global cooldown simply to apply an extra five seconds of frozen status."

Simply correct. As of the current beta build, Deep Freeze does not have any damage component, thus rendering it useless. But, Deep Freeze was never even worth using in spell rotations. The author was under the assumption that the Fingers of Frost proc applied to spells cast within a certain time limit, hence utilizing Deep Freeze's instant cast over the inferior Ice Lance. But now that FoF creates charges that are spent when casting the next two spells, fitting in frostbolts for the two charges means that Deep Freeze wouldn't be used anyways!

Does the absence of DF in rotations mean that Frost mages or no longer PvE viable? Not exactly. From day one, this looked to me like a PvP talent to the bone, and it only makes sense that the PvP class gets another PvP tool. I'm not an expert on PvP, but an instant cast spell that causes a stun seems pretty neat, even if it does have the requirement of having the target frozen first.

Talent-wise, this only means I get to spend this point on something more worthwhile, maybe in another tree. Investing all the way to Focus Magic becomes much easier to do, but the buzz in the mage beta community seem to suggest that FM isn't as great as it looks. Either way, it's miles better than DF, and the clearcasting talent that you get along the way is a reliable way to save mana in the new cost-heavy environment.

"At the heart of the issue is Blizzard's design philosophy for 51 point talents. Looking at the 51 point talents for other classes, they share a common theme. For healing specs, they increase healing by substantial amounts. For DPS and tanking specs, they almost universally increase damage output."

In simplicity, isn't that actually a no-brainer? Spells are meant to provide damage/helaing or have some sort of utility. But again, Christian is under the assumption that there is a precise correlation between talent tier and raid/pvp performance enhancement. But looking at talent trees as a whole across the different classes, a lot of specs have their most important 1-point talents in the 31 and 41 point tiers, the ones that really define their role in a PvE or PvP setting. (note: When I mention PvE, I also mean both 5-man as well as raid instances)

At 31 points, there's Moonkin Form, Trueshot Aura, Shadowform, Soul Link (PvP), Leader of the Pack and a few others. At 41 points, there's Circle of Healing, Avenger's Shield, Vampiric Touch, Shadowstep (PvP), Tree of Life, Mortal Strike (PvP), and most relevant of all, Water Elemental.

I am of the opinion that Water Elemental is the most important source of a Frost Mage's damage in PvE, and is a significant presence in PvP as well. Proper Squirtle management is what seperates the pros from the scrubs in both sides, and with the Improved Water Elemental talent, this line of thought is even more convincing.

With the existence of such talents, I am also convinced that Blizzard's design philosophy regarding talent trees have not changed since vanilla. For each release of the game (normal, BC, and LK), Blizzard's revision of the talent tree emphasizes a definitive talent for a particular school, and in subsequent installments of the game, that particular talent is fleshed out even more, further defining the class around that talent. Case in point, for BC, Blizzard added Improved Leader of the Pack for the Feral tree, while Improved Moonkin Form in Lich King adds a increased haste effect to its critical strike effect.

"The essential question when judging a 51 point talent should be: is it worth spending the 51 points necessary to get here? You tell me, Frost Mages. Is it? Though I am not a Frost Mage, I know what my answer would be."

As stated above, it's definitely not worth taking in a PvE spec. But I don't look at it as a "waste of a talent point," since I'll spend that point in another area anyways. It's not like Frost Mages were given 70 points compared to everyone else's 71, which is the impression that I got from reading the article.

Knowing that Mr. Belt is an arcane mage, the same could be said about Slow in Burning Crusade. It was a no-brainer that the talent wasn't worth taking in PvE, but Arcane Mages coped with using other spells in their rotation, and they competed with the other mages, thanks to their amazing 2-piece Tier 6 bonus.

"There is a comparable spell out there called Hammer of Justice. Like Deep Freeze, it is an instant-cast short-duration stun. Deep Freeze has a longer range, but Hammer of Justice can be used on any target, regardless of status. Deep Freeze's cooldown can be talented down to 24 seconds, Hammer of Justice can be talented to 30 seconds. Hammer of Justice stuns for 6 seconds, Deep Freeze stuns for 5. Deep Freeze applies frozen status to the target (assuming the target was already frozen), but Hammer of Justice does not. Deep Freeze is a 51 point Mage talent, available at level 60. Even at its highest rank, Hammer of Justice costs 3% of base mana, while Deep Freeze costs 9%.

Hammer of Justice is a Paladin spell, trainable at level 8.

To me, that says all that needs to be said about Deep Freeze's comparative value. Is it worth 51 points and 60 levels of experience to get? All things being equal, it appears to be worth 8 levels, no talent points, and about 90 copper."


Christian is not mentioning the design philosophy that Blizzard implements with each class. Regarding spells, gear, and talents, they try to quantitize balance between classes using a points system. There exists an value selected by blizzard to represent the strength of a talent or spell. Ultimately, each class should be balanced with regards to the total value of these supposed balance points.

And it holds true with the design of Hammer of Justice. A paladin spell that provides such awesome control is balanced to the many spells in a Frost Mage's arsenal simply by virtue of the fact that HoJ is only one spell, and Frost Mages have plenty of spells that contribute to control.

"Comparitive value" cannot be made based on a spell-by-spell comparison, since the context of the class in which those spells are used needs to be evaluated as well.

"First--and probably easiest--solution? Put the damage back. Fixed."

It's the easiest value to fix for sure, but only time will tell if Blizzard will implement it. After all, numbers are the easiest things to adjust for class balancing purposes. If this spell gets "fixed" at all, a damage component is the most likely means for that to happen.

"Make the spell allow the caster to turn into a cheetah, run behind a pillar, apply an instant cast HoT effect, then sit down to drink.

Ok, so I was kidding about the last one. Sort of."


It's lines like these that keep me coming back to Christian's column. You sir, despite my criticisms, are full of win.

But I don't know. Up until this point, his points have been all arguable, yet valid. Had this been any other class, you could even say it was an effective piece capable of starting debates regarding the state of this class in beta.

But afterwards, for a length that almost exceeds the content discussed above, he went on to plead to a hypothetical blizzard employee to fix the spell. Not any employee, mind you. An employee who was supposedly the exception, and was well aware of the supposed gripes of the mage community.

Certainly, if the trolls have not been lured out, they certainly have now. All of a sudden I was reminded of preschool, with the bullies playing keep away with the loner kid's lunchables. Damn, as much as I miss lunchables right now, I don't think that rant was warranted.

As much as he did warn that there was going to be some form of expressing complaints regarding this spell (necessary, valid), he perpetuated the stereotype of the QQ'ing mage (not necessary, unwarranted).

So as a result, we are left with a post that, with all of its potential of sparking debate about a valid issue, it spurned a debate of the nature of the post itself. Instead of discussing the merits of a 51 point talent that may or may not even be intended, or hell, even has already been fixed for the upcoming beta build, it has grown this unattractive aura that would turn away developers (who probably do turn to columns like these, as well as blogs on the web, just secretly).

We as mages can only learn from this. We must do what we can to not perpetuate the stereotype of the QQ'ing mage, but at the same time not be affected by this stereotyping, as Christian unfortunately shows in this post. It's a delicate balance that must be kept, but for what it's worth, we need to be grateful for what Blizzard has given us. Forget the 51 point talent. It's the 41-point talent that really counts, and I can't really thank Blizzard enough.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Wimzig's Whimsy: A Different Kind of Debate (Part I)

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Krizzlybear: Welcome, kind readers, to a special edition of WW. Firstly, I would like to present to you conundrum that I have faced in my WoW gaming career.

Lately, I've been doing a lot of work on Bashertin, my main, but have distributed playing time between Leyola and Wimzig as my alts. With an expansion coming around the corner, a Death Knight is expected to join the ranks as co-main, leaving very little playtime to be distributed between the remaining two.

As such, in the spirit of yesterday's US vice presidential debate, I have summoned the presence of both Wimzig Wintersprug and Leyola Swiftwillow to debate the merits of being the third wheel in the upcoming expansion. I will be acting as the moderator. Without further ado, let's bring out the participants, shall we?

*Enter Leyola and Wimzig, audience applause*

Krizzlybear: Greetings Leyola and Wimzig. To be blunt, this is going to be a debate for more playtime in the upcoming expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. I will be asking questions to the both of you, and you will be given only a paragraph or so to make your point. At that time, the other individual will be given the opportunity for a rebuttal. Are the rules understood?

Leyola: Yes.

Wimzig: Indeed!

Kriz: Excellent. I have flipped a coin prior to the start of this event, and Leyola will be answering first. Let's begin.

*applause*

Kriz: The first question is very straightforward. Please introduce yourself to the audience with a brief character history, in-game or otherwise. Leyola, you first.

Leyola: Thank you, Kriz. I would like to first state that it is an honor to be a part of your blog, despite not being a mage myself. My name is Leyola Swiftwillow, and I was born around 300 years ago in the forests of Ashenvale. My parents fought in the battle of Mount Hyjal, and now live as retired veterans of the third war. Thanks to their respected position, I was allowed permission to learn the arts of druidism in Teldrassil, and have developed a penchant for the restorative powers of nature. I am in my 52nd season.

Kriz: Thank you Leyola. Wimzig?

Wimzig: Very well! My name is Wimzig Wintersprug. I am a water vendor from Ironforge. Originally from the underground city of Gnomeregan, I inherited my family's business. Then the troggs came. The folks and I escaped unharmed, but our legendary business has been reduced to nothing. Thus, I have decided to take the shop on the road, and taken up cryomancy to complement my hydration services as well as protect me on my travels. So far, it has been 17 seasons since I last left Ironforge.

Kriz: Thank you for the responses. The two of you are indeed interesting figures. Following up that question, what have the two of you been up to recently? Wimzig, let's start with you.

Wimzig: Well, um...*laughs*...to be precisely honest, I don't actually remember much. Supposedly I was recruited to help the Westfall militia deal with the defias threat, but those efforts were halted indefinitely by none other than brewfest.

Lots of drinking to be had, I'm quite sure of that! Not great for business, I presume.

Leyola: Some of the elders of the Cenarion Circle have felt strange omens originating from a distant land. They are convinced that a shadow looms over Azeroth, threatening to wipe out that which we have worked so hard to create.

I have volunteered to work with the other alliance journeymen as they venture into the depths of dungeons such as the Sunken Temple of Atal'hakkar and the depths of Blackrock Spire, in an attempt to bolster the spirits of those who are prospected to be a part of a future effort against this threat.

Kriz: Very well, Leyola. Speaking of looming threat, have either of you heard about these individuals known as Death Knights?

Wimzig: Of course! Word from the Thunderbrew distillery says that there exists a group of people who were dominated by their own lust for power, resultingly losing their very freedom.

A tragic story, indeed, but within lies a very intriguing power. Some of which resonate with my own.

Kriz: You mean, frost.

Wimzig: Bingo!

Leyola: I object to Mr. Wintersprug's statement, Kriz.

Kriz: Why so?

Leyola: Because, the individuals that Wimzig speaks of are a force of death, one that threatens all that is filled with life!

Wimzig: A redundant statement, quite frankly.

Kriz: Now now. Let's have some order here. Leyola, please. Now is your opportunity for a rebuttal.

Leyola: Certainly. Wimzig is grossly misinformed. The information that he relies on come from an unreliable source. Rumor? from a bar? Not exactly reliable information.

According to the Cenarion Circle, these individuals are known as Death Knights, and from their experiences in the Third War, they wrought disease and death to everything they touched, and soiled the ground they have walked on.

Kriz: I understand your concern, Leyola. But as the moderator, it is my duty to inform the both of you that a Death Knight will soon be a part of Krizzlybear's WoW team.

*audience gasps, applauds*

Kriz: Yes. Death Knights will be joining the ranks of the Alliance. Regardless of your opinion of them, you will have to cope with coexistence. How do the two of you plan on doing so, if at all? Wimzig, you first.

Wimzig: Well, apparently, these people are extremely seasoned warriors. I suppose I have no alternative but to go with the flow, depending on how the situation goes.

I estimate a 98 percent chance that this new recruit is going to specialize in frost. If that is the case, I for one welcome our icy overlords!

*audience laughs*

Kriz: That could mean the beginning of a frosty friendship. Leyola, your thoughts?

Leyola: If they are a part of the solution, then they won't be a problem. But the fact remains that they are destructive to the earth. It is my duty then to nurture that which they don't mean to destroy, even if it means healing Death Knights themselves.

At the very least, they will become powerful allies who are capable of protecting others from harm. It is then my duty to mend their wounds, if they feel pain at all...

Kriz: Miss Swiftwillow, you certainly live up to your name, quick to bend and adapt to your surroundings, regardless of their nature.

Leyola: All in good nature, my friend.

Kriz: Okay then. Let's shift the perspective away from Azeroth, and a little bit beyond the game itself. I write a blog, and so far, I have settled myself within a wonderful community in the internether. What dynamic do you feel you bring to my blog? Leyola, you're first.

Leyola: I certainly haven't had the same exposure on your "blog" as my opponent, but I feel that I can bring a different perspective to your content. Considering that you are a mage specialist, my opponent does not bring anything new to the table, since your main member, Bashertin, is the source of your knowledge as a Frost Mage.

Now, my opponent also promised that he would provide a unique take on slaying multiple enemies, but he himself has yet to fulfil that promise! He is not even seasoned enough to have the tools to successfully carry out his plan.

Kriz: Wimzig, your rebuttal?

Wimzig: We don't need more information about druids on the internether. That is all I have to say about that.

Now, I on the other hand, have much more experience as the focus of the moderator's blogging content, providing a fresh take on a class he knows and loves. To simply chronicle my adventures in Azeroth, particularly with other aspiring individuals such as myself, is an attractive premise to a good portion of the moderator's readership. My opponent isn't experienced enough to do what I do.

Kriz: Seems like the debate has just started to heat up. Now is a good time to have our intermission. We will return with part II of the debate, where we will discuss issues such as the economy, foreign relations (death knights) in greater depth.