So, as promised, to those who haven’t read the comments to the last post, is the solution to the reader puzzle.

Remember The Four Piece Bonus?

I mentioned in my last post that the helm was the fourth piece in my set, and allowed me to get the bonus that comes with it. Since there are only five pieces in the set total, and the officer claimed I obtained two of them, all I had to do to prove that I had the helm before was to prove that I had the set bonus before that Tuesday night.

The set bonus allows me to cast multiple Pyroblasts without using up my Hot Streak buff. While it did increase my MPS, it was a huge boost to my DPS (and my TPS!).

Therefore, to prove that I didn’t get both of the tier items on Tuesday, all I had to do was prove that I had four pieces before then, which means I had to prove I had the four piece bonus. Well, let’s do it!

Reference Log (World of Logs)

Well, let’s open up my guild’s World of Logs calendar and see if we can’t find a raid we held recently for reference. Ah, there’s one! Okay, now that we have that open, there are two pieces of information that we need to prove that the four piece bonus was present. First of all, we must ask ourselves how many Hot Streaks I got. To keep our information relevant, let’s only look at Boss Kills, and disregard trash and failed attempts. Select Saladfork, and switch to Buff Gains, and you’ll see that I gained 112 Hot Streaks that night.

Now all we have to do is compare that number to the number of Pyroblasts we got. There are two things that are important to note though.

1. A good mage will never cast a Pyroblast without a Hot Streak proc. It’s not worth the cast time to do so, and you’d rather be doing something else (casting Fireball, Frostfire Bolt, or Living Bomb usually). Although I might not be the best mage there is, I know enough to follow the above rule. Therefore, we can assume that I cast Pyroblast only when I had a Hot Streak proc.
2. There are times when you get a Hot Streak buff and cannot use it. For example, you might get a Hot Streak buff just as the boss dies (adding 1 to your count), but since everything is dead, you cannot use it and it goes wasted. For bosses that require a lot of movement, you may move out of range of the boss and not be able to use your Hot Streak, again artificially inflating your Hot Streak count.

Knowing the above two facts, we can safely say that if my Hot Streak count is greater than my Pyroblast count, I must have had the four piece bonus in effect. If my Hot Streak count is greater than or equal to my Pyroblast count, I’m either a bad mage (and didn’t notice the procs), or I don’t have the four piece bonus.

So, let’s take a look at my Pyroblast count. This is going to be slightly more difficult than the Hot Streak count, because World of Logs doesn’t show you the total count for the spell, but it does show you how many hits, crits, and misses you had. So we just look at those and add them up to get our total Pyroblast count.

(Click to Enlarge)

You can see that I got 52 hits, 63 crits, and no misses (yay hit cap!). Adding those together, we can tell that I cast 115 Pyroblasts that night.

Comparing the two numbers, we can see that I cast 3 more Pyroblasts than I had Hot Streaks. Although not a whole lot more (wow, that’s an unlucky night, explains why my DPS seemed lower than usual), we can see that the four piece did in fact take effect in the above example. However, an increase of 3 isn’t very convincing, is it? Let’s try again with another log. This time with the one  I used as proof.

The Proof (WowMeterOnline)

My guild recently switched to World of Logs, and are loving it, but back before I got the fifth piece, we used to use WowMeterOnline. So let’s repeat the above procedure with the raid that happened on the Tuesday in question (before I traded in the token for the fifth piece). First, we select Defeated Bosses so we ignore wipes and trash. Next we select my character, Saladfork. First, we go to Buffs and Debuffs and check the right column for the number of Hot Streaks I got. In this case, I got 153 Hot Streaks that night.

(Click to Enlarge)

Next up, click back to Damage Done and check the number of Pyroblasts I cast.

(Click to Enlarge)

Unlike World of Logs, WowMeterOnline does show us how many total Pyroblasts of ours landed on our target (it subtracts misses, of which I had 1). So in total, I had 198 Pyroblasts that night.

So comparing those two numbers, we see I had 45 more Pyroblasts than I did Hot Streaks. Considering I’m not a  bad mage (my performance in the log suggests this is true), I must have had the four piece bonus that Tuesday. Not only that, but it was a pretty lucky raid for me!

Conclusion

Although the DKP Master trusted me enough to take my word that I had the four piece before hand, I used my resources and thought outside the box and managed to prove that I did. In the process, I also learned how to use both WowMeterOnline and World of Logs in a little bit smarter way to assess how I did after a raid.

And with that, this reader puzzle comes to an end. I’m ecstatic that you guys managed to figure it out, and I hope to have a few more for you guys in the future to get your minds cranking. For now though, I leave you with a question.

In the past two blog posts, I described a situation that resulted in me using a web-based fight analysis tool (WoL/WMO) in an interesting way.

How about you? Have you used a web-based fight analysis tool recently in an interesting or unusual way?

The officer in question was the DKP Master, and was entrusted with the responsibility of handling all DKP aspects of the guild. While I often assisted (and coded the addon that he used), he was the head DKP guy and had the last word. He was also one of the three people at the top of the totem pole for the guild, and while we’ve had a friendly relationship in the past, this one even threatened the trust we had.

Considering that this takes place mere weeks after a guild merger, the outcome of this conversation could determine my future with the guild. Let me fill you in with the full story.

Back Story: The Guild Merger (Skippable)

Recently my guild <Succession> merged with <Like Warm Mana Pie> to form a new guild called <Metamorphosis>. Both of our guilds were having troubles filling 25-man raids, and we felt that we often ended up filling the raid with “scrubs” — players who didn’t read up on the fights, didn’t know how to play their class well, and ultimately end up hurting the raid more than helping it. The goal of the merge was to combine the best players from both guilds to form a 25-man raid group that had the greatest chance of progression. The merge was very successful, and although there’s still a fairly obvious separation of “them” versus “us,” members are getting along both in and out of raids.

Being one of the highest DPS from either guild and by designing the DKP addon we would be using, I secured my raid spot fairly early on. Instead of the usual group of “good” players, our “good” group was twice as big now, and raid spots became extremely competitive. Instead of the DPS meters showing a few members easily outperforming the rest, almost all the DPS were excelling at their roles and the DPS on the meters varied by only a few percent each time. If you didn’t perform well, or if you didn’t play well with others, finding a replacement was no difficult task.

I pay a lot of attention to how I gear and how I play, as I constantly strive to push my class to perform as best as it can. One of my greatest tools in this endeavor is Rawr, a theorycrafting tool I love and mention frequently on this blog.

Because of how meticulous I am, I know my items inside and out. I can tell you which wand or offhand I’m using off the top of my head. On the other hand, unless I’ve worked personally with another player, their gear is a mystery to me. I might see a shiny sword being wielded and allow my curiousity to win, but I hardly remember which item it was the next day. Ask me what main hand the shaman in the above screenshot is using, and I won’t be able to tell you.

Hey reader, how about you? Do you know your gear well enough to be able to name an item you have equipped (what’s the name of your belt? your boots?)? How well do you know the gear of your fellow raiders and guild members? Let me know in the comments!

Back Story: The Tuesday Incident

One of the biggest upgrades I got recently, that was clearly visible in my performance (and what allowed me to top the charts as you see in the screenshot above) was picking up my T8.5 helm with Emblems of Conquest a few weeks ago. By switching this item in, my set 4-piece bonus was activated, and my potential DPS shot up by ~150-200. The bonus allows me to cast multiple insta-cast Pyroblasts in a row, without using up the Hot Streak buff. This effect was so awesome (at times allowing me to cast up to five Pyroblasts back to back!), that I would often talk about it on vent with friends. Even our guild’s main tank (who’s an officer himself) noticed my sudden threat boost.

Tuesday night, my guild was raiding the first half of Ulduar25, as we do every Tuesday. I was only a few emblems away from being able to purchase the fifth piece of my T8 set which, while not as huge as the fourth piece, was still a significant upgrade. I had been looking forward to this for quite a while now, and had avoiding bidding DKP on any chest pieces that dropped to avoid wasting my DKP on an item that would soon be replaced.

The second-to-last boss of the night, Hodir, fell to his knees in front of my guild at around 10:30pm, and all us raiders eagerly awaited the linking of the loot. One of the items that dropped was a Breastplate of the Wayward Vanquisher. Knowing that I would pick up my chest with emblems shortly after the raid ended, I chose to save my DKP and not bid on the token that dropped.

Surprisingly, the token rotted (nobody bid on it), and the DKP Master looted it to me, with instructions to disenchant it and put the shard in the guild bank (I was the only class on the token that had Enchanting).

Later that night after the raid was called, I happily setup a portal to Dalaran for my fellow raiders, and enthusiastically jumped through it myself. I ran straight to the Emblem of Conquest vendor and picked up my token. I then blinked my way to the cloth armor vendor and purchased two T8.5 chests, and disenchanted one. The other one I gemmed and enchanted, and immediately equipped.

Pleased with my new armor, I logged off for the night. Little did I know that this simple action would leave me in such a conundrum.

The Talk

The following day, the DKP Master (and guild officer) pulled me aside on vent. He explained to me that as a precaution he had discretely inspected my character upon my receiving the token, and had inspected me again right now in Dalaran, and had a few problems.

He stated that he had seen me with some other helm (after some discussion he claimed it was Gothik’s Cowl, which was been sitting in my bank for weeks) and my T7.5 chest on Tuesday night. He said that he had just inspected me, and seen me with both the T8.5 chest, and the T8.5 helm, and had suspicion that I had used the guild’s token to get the chest for free, while using my emblems to purchase the helm for myself.

Now, those of you who have been following along know (as I do) that I’ve had the helm for weeks, but he claimed that he was 99% certain that I was using some other helm. So the question is…

How Do You Prove You’ve Owned An Item?

How do I prove to the officer that I have had the helm for quite a while now, and that I did not steal from the guild by taking the token for myself for free? Well, I found a way to prove it to him, and he let me off the hook. Rather than tell you what I did, however, I’m curious to see what you would have done. So, my dear reader, here’s a puzzle for you. Let me know your thoughts and opinions in a comment, and see if you can guess which approach I used. Here are a few things you should know…

• The solution I came up with will require you to think outside of the box, and may not be obvious.
• All the information you should need has been mentioned somewhere in this post, but please feel free to ask for any more information.
• I’ve placed several hints and clues throughout this blog post as to how I came to my solution, so see if you can pick up on them!
• If nobody finds the “correct” solution, I’ll post a few less-subtle hints in a follow-up blog post.
• In addition to coming up with how I could have solved this specific problem, I’m curious to hear what thoughts you have on the matter. What would you do in my situation? How would you prove ownership of an item? Let me know below!

So, I ask you,

How do I prove I owned the helm prior to Tuesday’s raid?

• Get a few blog post drafts rewritten that were lost in the hard drive crash. I’ve had some excellent ideas for blog posts that have been sitting in my drafts folder for a while that I’ve been working on over time, and while you guys have never seen them, losing them was a huge loss to me. I spent a good part of yesterday rewriting what I remembered while I still remembered it.
• I reinstalled plugins that were active on my blog before the cash. Well, most of them (see below).
• Got this new theme up! This theme, Magazeen, was featured on Smashing Magazine a few months ago, and it caught my eye. Now that I had an excuse to using a premade theme (I really really don’t want to make my own from the ground up again), I applied this one without thinking twice. It turns out that I didn’t save myself much time by using a premade theme. Many aspects of it are not working exactly right, or are outright broken. For example…
  • The date that a comment was made always showed up as the date the post they were commenting on was posted, regardless of when the comment was left. Atlhough a small fix, it was a pain to track down (thanks for pointing it out, readers!).
  • The cool hover effect you see up top there that shows you the blog title when you hover over the image is unbelievably picky. For some reason enabling CommentLuv or WoW Armory (WordPress plugins) causes it to completely stop working. I’ve contacted the author of the latter (CommentLuv has no contact form outside of their forums, which go undread), and hope to figure out what’s causing it and get it fixed soon. Until then, there are a few plugins that remain disabled until that’s worked out.
  • Most of the pink on this page was changed to be blue. Don’t get me wrong, I’m quite secure in my sexuality, but as some readers pointed out, having the color pink splashed all over the blog was just a bit to much for a blog run by a guy.
  • I’ve started using the more tag to show only the first snippet of long posts on the front page. The RSS feed still shows the full post (or should…), so worry not RSS subscribers of mine! This should make the front page a lot easier to skim through. Also, after a lot of hacking around, I got it to only show the “Continue Reading” link if the post has a more tag! Yay!
  • This theme needs an image for each post to display properly. I went through most of my posts and created an image in the proper dimensions for it for the blog to look proper. While I haven’t added an image to all my posts (yet), all the posts on the front page have an image now, so the blog should look and work properly.
• One of the plugins I’ve decided to get rid of (it didn’t play nicely with Wowhead) was one that created item popups for code such as [item]Item Name[/item]. Of course, I now have a whole pile of posts that were using those codes that now look like complete gibberish. Worst of all were posts that were made up of those links almost exclusively (such as my tailoring 375-450 guide). I’ve fixed a few of them up, but it’s an ongoing effort. Should be done over the next few days though.
• I also modified how item links look on the page. While it’s personal preference, I think item links look really really cool now. (Check this out: Bolt of Imbued Frostweave)

The blog is nowhere near as complete as I’d like it to be, but I’m very excited to see it getting closer and closer. There’s something about a new theme and that new shine that re-ignites the spark in me that makes me want to blog several times a day.

Long story short, the hard-drive that my website was stored at on the server crashed so terribly that no data could be recovered. Thanks to Wordpress Automatic Upgrade, an update of my posts was made the last time I backed up the site, which was January. So most of my posts have been restored from backup, but quite a lot has been lost:

• I lost my custom-made WordPress theme which only existed on the server
• I lost all posts made after January 26th, 2009
• I lost all images that were hosted on my blog

Everyone starts this journey at different points, but all are following it in hopes of reaching the same point — having enough gold to get what you want. For some people, this would be an epic flying mount for an alt, or a [item]44234[/item] to show off. For others, it’s making sure you’re never too broke to repair, buy reagents, or buy raiding supplies. And for a select few, just having the gold makes them happy.

Additionally, everyone has their own methods of obtaining gold. This post isn’t here to detail all the many ways one can get gold, but rather how I obtained my recent fortune.

Being a Tailor/Enchanter on my main (my Mage), money wasn’t easy to come by. I was constantly using [item]Frostweave Cloth[/item] to level Tailoring, and [item]Infinite Dust[/item] was being fought over by both Tailoring and Enchanting. I could sell the specialty cloths from Tailoring, but that made me a few hundred every few days at most, and didn’t always sell very well. Enchanting can be a big money maker, but I was using all my mats to try and level up. Between repair costs, flask costs, reagent costs, and being a raider, I was barely breaking even if I did my dailies every day.

And that’s when I decided it was time to change that…

Why Would You Want Gold?

I’m glad you asked! Here are a few of the things you could do if you didn’t have to worry about gold…

1. I spent ~3500 gold on getting my Sons of Hodir reputation to exalted from friendly, and it took me only 2 hours (instead of the usual 22 days)! No more slaving to get all the dailies done!
2. I bought the most expensive high end enchants for all my gear, giving my DPS a very noticeable boost! Who doesn’t want to top the meters?
3. You can buy vanity mounts and show off! Some of my friends have used this information to buy a [item]44234[/item] and/or a [item]Mechano-hog[/item]. How hip and cool!
4. You can buy all the flasks you need for raids for weeks (or months) to come! No reason to get annoyed when the raid is being held up and your flask timer is ticking anymore!
5. You can buy all your alts epic flying mounts and not have to watch their mounts struggling to flap their wings as a giant Tauren sits on their back!
6. You can powerlevel your professions to 450 and never have to worry about skilling them up ever again!
7. You can help friends and guildies when they need a little extra gold to help them get by!
8. You could bribe three hundred gnomes and have them dance naked in Orgrimmar to the beat of I am a Gummy Bear.
9. …. and so much more!

Okay, What’s the Trick?

Simple, mining. I know, I know, I just heard half of you groan. You’ve been mining for months (if not longer), and are wondering where I’m going with this. To be honest, this post isn’t directed at you, unless you find that you’re making very little with mining (or want to make more). I’m making this post to let others know of the amazing skill that is mining. I myself was amazed to find out how easy it is to make money with mining, and was surprised nobody had told me before how truly fantastic it is. Lucky for you, you’ve got me!

So, why mining, you ask? Why not herbalism? I’ll explain with three simple reasons.

1. Mining feeds three other professions — Blacksmithing, Engineering, and Jewelcrafting. All three of these professions rely on you for their crafts. Herbalism feeds only two professions — Alchemy and Inscription. Jewelcrafters buy [item]Saronite Ore[/item] thousands at a time for prospecting, and sell their gems. Players are constantly obtaining new gear, and everyone needs gems. Blacksmithing and Engineering aren’t quite as big buyers, but cannot possibly craft anything without the bars that you provide, and thus rely on miners entirely for their profit. On the other hand, every player only needs one set of glyphs per spec, and most players don’t respec (and thus don’t reglyph) very often. While everyone needs glyphs, players rarely buy new ones, and as such the market for herbs isn’t as big as it is for ore. Additionally, most inscribers and alchemists are herbalists as well, making it even harder for you to sell herbs to them. At least on my server, ore is a lot easier (and quicker) to sell than herbs.
2. Mining gets you gems and eternals, easily doubling your profits. Herbalism gets only [item]Eternal Life[/item], while mining is able to get all the other eternals. While mining, you’re also going to get a lot of gems (something herbalists do not get) which you can either sell for a nice boost of profit, or use yourself (never pay for gems again!).
3. Miners get a Titansteel cooldown every day that sells for a large sum of gold. Herbalists get… nothing.

Hopefully you’re as convinced as I am that mining beats herbalism hands down. If not, let me know in the comments why you still believe herbalism is a winner. I’m all ears!

Also important to note is Engineering. I would highly recommend you pick this up as your second profession. Some of you are probably asking why I chose engineering over an alternative such as skinning. Once again, let me explain.

1. For those who don’t know, engineers get a nifty little gadget known as a [item]Zapthrottle Mote Extractor[/item]. This allows them to zap those weird red/blue clouds you see and get free eternals! These clouds are all over the place, and can be tracked at the same time as mining.
2. By modifying the route you fly when you’re mining, you can track both professions at the same time, and easily zap and mine at the same time, without any inconvenience! This nearly doubles my income on my server, as [item]Eternal Fire[/item] (which engineering gets you plenty of) go for almost twice as much as a stack of [item]Saronite Ore[/item]. Try doing that with Skinning!

How Do I Get Started?

Getting started on mining is surprisingly easy. You’re going to need to only four things before you can start on your way to ultimate wealth!

1. A level 77 character – I personally rolled a Death Knight for no purpose other than to make me money, and leveling from 55 to 77 took me no more than a week or so.
2. 425 Mining and 380 Engineering – This is a lot easier to get than most people think. Leveling mining will get you pretty much all the mats you need to level engineering alongside it. I googled an engineering powerleveling guide, and followed it until 380 engineering, which is when you get [item]Belt-Clipped Spynoculars[/item], allowing you to track gas clouds on your mini map. 425 engineering is enough for Rich Saronite Nodes, and you’ll easily get to 450 mining when you start mining Saronite.
3. The proper add-ons – Although add-ons are not required, I find they help me make my mining as efficient as possible, this making more gold in less time. I recommend the following add-ons.
   • GatherMate – Will plot all the nodes that you know of in your world map and your minimap. On its own it’s not very useful, but combined with the next two add-ons, it’s irreplaceable.
   • GatherMate_Data – Updated weekly (make sure to grab updates!) so GatherMate contains all the nodes that Wowhead knows of, which is pretty much all of them. You’ll have to open GatherMate (type /gathermate) and import this data before it becomes available. Check “Auto Import” to make GatherMate auto-import whenever you update this addon.
   • Routes – Words cannot describe how amazing this add-on is. Use this not only when farming [item]Saronite Ore[/item], but also to create routes when powerleveling mining. This add-on will grab data from GatherMate (above) and generate a route that passes through all the nodes (or close enough to them that you’ll see them on your minimap) in the shortest path possible. Type /routes to open up the config and set it up, and after creating a route, make sure you cluster the nodes and optimize it (in the background).
   • SexyMap – An all around awesome add-on for various reasons (full control over minimap buttons, yay!), but I’m mentioning it here for one absolutely terrific feature it has — HudMap. This cannot be fully described in words but must be experienced to be believed. In short, the author describes it as “a HUD overlay for resource gathering, target tracking, and more.” Best of all, it works fully with both GatherMate and Routes!

That’s It?

Yep, that’s it. Once your route is set up, fly to the zone (I like Sholazar basin myself), switch to HudMap, and just follow the route! When you notice a yellow dot come up, land and mine/zap it! Remember to respect other miners, and they’ll usually do the same for you (unless you’re on a PvP server and can gank them, in which case you should absolutely destroy them!)

Some Final Tips

Here are some final tips to help you make the most out of your mining time.

• Set a limit for your average farming period. I personally keep going until I have a full [item]Mammoth Mining Bag[/item]. Keep track of how long it takes you to do an average farming period, and use this information in the future. For example, I know I can fill said bag in about 2-2.5 hours.
• Use an addon such as Auctioneer to help you not only price your wares, but also to get your items on the auction house faster. I personally use (and love) the Appraiser tab that Auctioneer adds. With one mouse click, I update the data for all the items I’m about to sell. With another mouse click, I put up all my items on the auction house for a reasonable price (that almost always sells). It takes a bit of fiddling around with to get the hang of, but makes the whole process a lot faster.
• Sell Saronite as [item]Saronite Ore[/item], and Titanium as [item]Titanium Bar[/item].
• Make sure to use your [item]Titansteel Bar[/item] cooldown every day.

Screenshots

Here are two screenshots to give you an idea of how easy it is to make so much gold in so little time.

1. An example of about how much I make with every full mining bag.
2. An example of how much money I move on average every week (look at the tooltip on the bottom of the screen).

Image credits to yochim.

• Saladfork is now level 80!
• I’ve respecced to Frostfire so I could begin raiding with my guild, <Succession>.
• I finally finished the last stretch of the race, and got 450 Fishing!
• After kicking butt in raids, I was promoted to Group 1, the guild’s 10-man progression group! Yay for me!
• Finally got geared up to the point where Frostfire started out-DPSing my old Frost spec, and I can now hit 3500-4000 dps on an average fight (eg: Patchwerk). And the range of my DPS really is about 500, due to the silly RNG.
• <Succession> has cleared all 10-man content now, and has Naxx on a 1-night clear, but has yet to try Sartharion with any drakes up.
• <Succession> started doing guild-wide 25-mans, and as of last night, we have cleared Sartharion and Naxxramas up through Sapphiron. Next up, Kel’Thuzad!
• I was promoted to being a guild officer a few days ago! I now hold the title of Mage Lead and Public Relations Officer. Basically, I get to work closely with all the guild mages to make sure they’re doing the best job they can on every fight (helping with gear, tactics, etc.), and I get to make sure that our guild is seen in a positive light by the server (by posting on the forum, keep thing the guild site updated, etc.). The mages in the guild have already taken kindly to me, and I’ve made quite a few good mage friends, yay!
• After looking up the server’s Wowwiki page and gagging at how utterly ugly and useless it was, I completely redid the page from the ground up, including guild and progression pages. I’ve made a post on the server’s forum, and it seems like most guilds are now updating the Wiki as they progress. Yay!

One topic that really has me excited though, is being able to design my first add-on that’s going to be used by more than just myself. After another night of raiding where half the DKP was deducted from the wrong person and had to be fixed up later, a friend of mine IRL, who’s also the raid leader, approached me and asked me if I would be interested in designing an add-on for him that is tailored to the guild’s exact DKP system, to make the bidding and distribution of loot faster and easier. I’ve been thinking about it over the past few days, and already have several ideas that I believe will make the bidding and distributing of loot take no more than 30 seconds to 1 minute!

Since I know I have some readers who are interested in designing and add-on for themselves (or for their guild), I’m planning on posting about each step of the add-on designing process. My next post will discuss the initial design process, which includes me getting together with two guildies in real life to sit down and discuss and plan what we want from this add-on. I’ll also go over some problems I’ll be facing in the design (such as how to minimize looting time), and how I plan on solving them. Stay tuned!

Now that the expansion has hit and everyone’s had a chance to play around with it and get comfortable, many people (including myself!) are looking forward to leveling their professions to their new caps. In this entry, I’ll cover the most efficient method to powerlevel your Tailoring skill from the previous cap, 375, to the new cap, 450.

What is efficient?

As most people who powerlevel, I’m looking for a solution that’s cheap and easy. For the purpose of this guide, I’m going to try and make sure that the items we make at each stage fit the following two requirements:

1. The recipe for the item can be trained at a Tailoring trainer.
2. The recipe for the item takes two reagents: cloth and thread (or any one item easily purchased from a vendor).

By ensuring that each of our items fit the above criterea, we can powerlevel quickly and easily, without relying on the auction house or other players to provide us with what we need.

Tailoring Skill 375-405

Name		Reagents	Skill	Count
	Frostwoven Boots	x4 x1	375-385	10
	Frostwoven Leggings	x5 x1	385-400	15+
	Duskweave Belt	x7 x1	395-400	5
	Bolt of Imbued Frostweave	x3 x2	400-405	5+

We will be using a lot of Bolt of Imbued Frostweave to level up later, so you might as well get all the skillups you can now. Keep making these until it turns grey at 405.

Tailoring Skill 405-425

Name		Reagents	Skill	Count
[itemico]Duskweave Wristwraps[/itemico]	[item]Duskweave Wristwraps[/item]	x8 x1	405-410	5
[itemico]Duskweave Gloves[/itemico]	[item]Duskweave Gloves[/item]	x9 x1	410-415	5
[itemico]Duskweave Shoulders[/itemico]	[item]Duskweave Shoulders[/item]	x10 x1	415-425	10+

If you have easy access to [item]Infinite Dust[/item] and have extra [item]Bolt of Frostweave[/item] to make Bolt of Imbued Frostweave, you can start making [item]Frostweave Bag[/item] at skill level 410. It’s much more useful to you, and can be sold for quite a bit of gold otherwise.

Tailoring Skill 425-450

Name		Reagents	Skill	Count
[itemico]Frostweave Bag[/itemico]	[item]Frostweave Bag[/item]	x6 x2	425-450	25+

We’re going to be making these bags all the way to 450, as it really is the cheapest way to do it, although it may take a while (especially near the end). The bright side is that these bags should sell easily on the auction house, recuperating a lot of your loss.

For those wondering why I didn’t mention the other bags and items you can make, it’s because they all require [item]Ebonweave[/item], [item]Moonshroud[/item], or [item]Spellweave[/item], which are all on an almost 4 day cooldown. If you’re spreading the powerleveling over a long period of time, consider looking into alternate choices, such as [item]Ebonweave Gloves[/item], [item]Moonshroud Gloves[/item], [item]Spellweave Gloves[/item], [item]Mysterious Bag[/item], or [item]Glacial Bag[/item].

That’s it! You made it!

Congratulations, you are now capped out on Tailoring, again! Some of the things you have to look forward to include your own special flying mounts, the [item]Flying Carpet[/item] and the [item]Magnificent Flying Carpet[/item]. Additionally, you have three special cloak enchants that only you can get (Casters – Lightweave Embroidery, Melee – Swordguard Embroidery, Healers – Darkglow Embroidery).

Finally, you can get the two new leg enchants ([item]Brilliant Spellthread[/item] and [item]Sapphire Spellthread[/item]) for yourself at a significant discount (as Sanctified Spellthread and Master’s Spellthread)!

Also, for those curious, here are some miscellaneous statistics pertaining to WowiArmory. Keep in mind that WowiArmory is still in private beta, and the audience is quite limited.

• WowiArmory is caching over 4,000 characters on every single WoW server.
• WowiArmory is caching over 24,000 items.
• WowiArmory’s database is optimized and takes up just under 25MB worth of disk space.
• WowiArmory uses more than 1GB of bandwidth each month.
• WowiArmory loads in an average of 1.31 seconds on a Wifi connection.
• WowiArmory loads in an average of 4.32 seconds on a 3G connection.
• WowiArmory loads in an average of 6.71 seconds on an EDGE connction.
• WowiArmory has an uptime of 99.97% since the first round of beta, going down only when my host switched servers.

There are AppStore alternatives to WowiArmory, but they all have their drawbacks.

1. They all require you to upgrade to 2.0 or higher. For iPod users, this means they have to pay the upgrade fee that Apple is asking for.
2. Several of the alternatives require you to buy them through iTunes.
3. Even after purchasing the application, you can only sync it to your specific iPhone/iPod. If your friend wants to look up characters, they’ll have to go through the whole process of buying the app and installing it themselves.

For all those who e-mailed me asking to test, please do not think I am ignoring you. I have a very large update planned for WowiArmory, and with this update, I’m going to release WowiArmory to the public. I’ll release the URL here on my blog, and you can give it to any and all of your friends.

It’s been a while since I’ve written about WowiArmory, but I was mentioned on WowInsider again today, and as such I’m getting a large surge of people who are interested in WowiArmory. Additionally, I’m getting many questions that I would like to address here.

First of all, if you are new, then I am still accepting testers! Send me an e-mail via the contact page and let me know that you’re interested, and any other information you may think is relevant. I’ll add you to the mailing list and send you an e-mail with further instructions.

Second, I have contacted Rudi from rudi.blog, and the creator of Warcraft Characters, to see if he would be interested in working together in a collaborative effort to make an application that fully utilizies his intuitive and beautiful UI, and includes all the features that are currently in (and were planned for) WowiArmory. He has expressed interest in this, and hopefully I’ll have an update soon with more information. The first item that’s planned to be integrated is full support for character-specific items (full-color item stats with gemmings and enchants!).

Expect to see most (if not all) of the following features:

• The ability to save characters locally for quick, offline viewing. Access all of your “favorite” characters easily, without the hassle of having to do a lookup.
• The ability to search for characters, guilds, and items. All in an intuitive and easy-to-use interface. Want to show your friends the item you’ve been wanting for the past week? Do a quick search and view its full stats!
• The ability to check your realm status wherever and whenever. You can use this to figure out when Tuesday maintenance ends, and when its time for you to login and start playing! You can also figure out if your realm’s down, or if it’s just you!
• The ability to compare two characters on a stat-by-stat basis! No more alt-tabbing between two different armory windows.
• The ability to check guild progression for any guild, and see how far they’ve progressed. Figure out if the guild you’re looking at is right for you, or if “ULTRALEET RAIDERS” really are what they claim!
• Full integration with Be.Imba! Check to see how far someone is raiding-wise, and how you can improve your character!

All this within a nice, compact, and easy-to-use interface on your iPhone or iPod touch. If you have any ideas, comments, or suggestions, please let me know in a comment! I’d love to hear your ideas and what you think.

What’s the most colossal mistake you’ve ever made that you’re willing to admit to?

As soon as I read that question, one instance instantly popped into my mind. This story took place back in March, and my guild had finally reached 5/6 on SSC, and decided to start venturing into TK. We had already downed Void Reaver and Solarian before (putting us at 2/4), but we wanted to finally give A’lar a shot. My raid leader (and my guild leader) specifically requested I be there, as I had demonstrated by ability for being a good add courier the previous raid. I had given him my word. Additionally, I was a little bit behind the rest of the group in terms of gear, as I had been carried to the point where I was. Because of this, I needed as much DKP as I could possibly get.

Unfortunately, I had also just gotten a girlfriend, and it was one whom I don’t see very often. She called the day before the raid and told me she specifically freed up time the next day (the day of the raid) so she could come and see me. You can probably already see the problem I faced. You probably see two options here;

1. Apologize to my raid leader and tell him that real life issues came up, and spend the night with my girlfriend. This is obviously the non-nerdy and unaddicted approach to this situation. This is what everyone thinks they’re going to do if they’re in this situation.
2. Call my girlfriend and explain to her that I had made previous arrangements, and that I would be unable to see her. In essence, ditch her and go raiding. Many see this decision as being the definition of a WoW addiction, and would not recommend it.

I, however, saw a third option. I spent most of the afternoon setting up WoW on my laptop, and arranging all my add-ons. The evening arrived, and my girlfriend showed up at my door. We went down to my basement, so we could have some privacy (and play with the Wii, which she was a huge fan of). Raid time drew near, and I opened up my laptop and logged in to WoW. Wanting to get the DKP for the night, I did something that was highly discouraged; I joined the raid group even though I wasn’t planning on raiding that night.

However, lady luck was not with me this night, and we were low on tanks, and my raid leader requested I go as our first off tank. I’ll spare you the agony of the whole situation, but I’ll highlight a few more interesting moments.

1. In one pull, I was assigned circle to tank. Not being on vent, I didn’t hear it at all, and kept DPSing away in kitty form. Luckily one of our other tanks noticed and grabbed the add. I didn’t even realize I had made a mistake, until I got a whisper from my raid leader with one simple question, why aren’t you on vent? After a public shaming, I pulled out my earphones and logged into Vent, blaming lag issues.
2. I was assigned circle once again, but this time I heard it over vent. I shifted into bear form and tanked away. Surprisingly, all went remarkably well, considering that I hadn’t noticed that I was still in my kitty DPS gear. I wasn’t crit immune, and my armor, health, and defense were all lacking. This is quite a testament to the fantastic healers my guild has. The worst part is that I didn’t even realize it until we got to the boss himself and I went to pot up (and noticed all my tank gear sitting in my bags).

We wiped once on the boss due to our new warrior add tank having line of sight issues. The raid leader called for a 10 minute recess so we can all recollect ourselves. He took me into a private channel, and told me that he knew that I wasn’t giving it my all, and he had noticed I was in my kitty gear all along. He asked me if I wanted to stay in the raid and actually try, or take the night off (he was generous enough to offer me the night off without giving me a DKP penalty for leaving unannounced). I apologized to my girlfriend, ran to get a mouse (I was on my laptop, remember?), and turned on my music. Surprisingly, this is the one fight where I truly proved myself to the raid leader, and the rest of the guild. We all remember it clearly, because of one little thing that happened.

The way my guild does A’lar is to have two tanks leap frogging A’lar from platform to platform. We then have an add courier (my job) that grabs adds as they appear, and brings them to a fourth and final tank who’s sitting on the bottom floor “collecting” all the adds from the courier. I was already fairly well known from our last attempt a few nights ago, as I was doing my job perfectly, picking up the adds exactly when I needed to, and delivering them successfully each time. I was using my abilities intelligently, and I was positioning myself correctly.

However, it was getting late, and we were all a bit tired. Without realizing it, one of our main tanks (the guild/raid leader!) accidentally positioned himself on the platform in a way that he was out of site of the healers. He quickly died. I was nearby getting ready to pick up the add and noticed him fall. I used Feral Charge to get to the boss as quickly as I could, and positioned myself on the edge so the healers could get me. I tanked Al’ar right there the whole time, and the second he flew away, I threw a battle rez (without waiting for a proper brez request from the raid leader) to the fallen tank. I threw a healing touch on him, as well as a quick Mark of the Wild. I then shifted into bear and properly transported the add to our add collector. The tank was in position and ready to take on A’lar the next time his turn came around. That was the first time we downed A’lar.

Just goes to show you, you can completely mess up and let your raid down, and still end up on top. I wouldn’t recommend it though, ;)