If you follow me on Twitter you know that during the past couple of months I have been in the process of buying a home, which has been the main contributor to my absence from the blog. And while it takes time and energy to find the right home in the real world, it also takes effort and consideration when thinking about your home in game: your guild.

With Cataclysm approaching and some major changes coming to how one approaches the game, now is the time to think about what type of guild best fits you. Whether you want to raid 25 mans, 10 mans, or do high ranked rated BGs, each of these will likely require a different type of guild. While it is possible to have a secondary group of 10 man raiders in a 25 man raiding guild, it won’t be common and will feel more like a guild within a guild. The same is true of raiders participating in rated BGs. Raiding guilds can and will most likely do them, but without attention focused on truly succeeding, they will not do nearly as well as a battleground focused guild. There are obviously exceptions to this, however. For example, many of the best players in the world who are in the top 20 guilds are also repeat gladiators.

How to find the right guild is the tricky part. On each server there will be several guilds of each type. Here are a few tips that will help you find the right guild for you.

• Visit their website – Take a look around and read all the threads you have access to. Forums and websites can give a lot of insight on what type of overall attitude and humor a guild has.
• Talk to the management – Ask them what is expected of members, what activities they plan to do in the expansion and how things will be run.
• Talk to members – Get a feel for how members feel about the guild. Ask how much turnover the guild has had historically. Ask how issues are handled and how management handles things like mistakes and under performance.
• Talk to previous members – Find out why they left. This is one of your few chances to hear the downside of your prospective new guild. Just remember to take what they say with a grain of salt and don’t take it all to heart. Their information may be false or skewed to make them look better.
• Try to get an alt in – This is both the most difficult to achieve and possibly viewed as slightly underhanded. It could also be the best the thing you do. You’ll be able to experience first hand what the guild chat is like, what times the guild is most active and whether or not they match your own play times. It is exactly what it seems: a chance to spend some time in the guild without committing yourself to it. If you are okay with frequent guild hopping go ahead and disregard this tip. However, if you are like me and tend to pick a guild and stick with it this could be invaluable to finding the right guild for you.

Now is definitely the time to make a guild change. Even if you are happy in your current guild be sure to ask what the guild’s plans are for Cataclysm. Guilds will become much more focused their primary goal in game and finding a guild that matches your own will go a long way to making your in game experience as enjoyable as possible. The next most important step in finding your new guild home is making sure you enjoy the people in it. For, even if you love the people, if you aren’t included for whatever reason, you will not be as happy as you could be. And remember that just because you leave a guild of friends, that doesn’t mean those friendships are over. After all, that is what the friends list and RealID are for.

One of my guildies asked me which Warcraft books they should read in order to get caught up on lore for the expansion. I thought this was a really good question and that I’d share my answer with you. The spoiler-free answer will be before the break. Spoilers and more in-depth explanations will be after, so click through if you don’t mind reading some spoilers about both the books themselves and the Cataclysm expansion.

List of books:

• War of the Ancients Archive
• Day of the Dragon
• Stormrage

All three (five if you count the Archive as individual books) of these books have story lines in them that you will see continue in Cataclysm. If you want to know the story to the upcoming expansion I highly recommend reading these books. If you don’t want to read them all, or want a brief run down of how they are connected to the Cataclysm expansion, then follow me after the break. I won’t be covering every little detail, but at least you’ll better understand how a few things fit together.

Lets start at the beginning. Or, more accurately, lets go back in time to the beginning. In War of the Ancients Krasus (the consort of Alexstrasza in human disguise), Rhonin (the current leader of the Kirin Tor and friend/apprentice to Krasus) and Broxigar (a veteran orc warrior trusted by Thrall) get pulled through a strange time anomaly to a point just before the Burning Legion’s first appearance on Azeroth. The three of them, together with the help of Malfurion Stormrage, Illidan Stormrage, Tyrande Whisperwind, and Korialstrasz (a young Krasus in his natural dragon form) work to defeat the Burning Legion, sending them back into the Twisting Nether and causing the Great Sundering.

In this series of three books you will learn about the war itself (which will be a raid instance in Cataclysm in the Caverns of Time), the creation of the Naga and Queen Azshara (who will be a raid boss), along with the transformation of Neltharion from the Earth-Warder into Deathwing the Destroyer. You will also learn more about some past raid bosses such as Illidan and Malygos and how they started on their paths to corruption and insanity.

Moving on to Day of the Dragon. It is important to note that while this story takes place a long time after the War of the Ancients, for the characters that the books share in common, the events take place earlier in their lives than their experiences during War of the Ancients. This book takes place during the Second War and deals primarily with Krasus trying to free his queen, Alexstrasza, who is being held captive by the orcs. How they are doing this, I won’t say. You’ll just have to read the book to find out.

The reason I highly suggest reading Day of the Dragon is that you will learn more about the effect Deathwing has had on Azeroth in the past and just how deep his madness goes. You will learn about the start of the Dragon Mage Krasus, his friendship with Rhonin, and how Rhonin met his wife (who is currently helping him rule Dalaran). You will also see a little bit more of Malygos here as he slides deeper into insanity.

Finally, we have Stormrage. While this book doesn’t directly cover any known raid bosses or major story lines that we are aware of so far in Cataclysm, it takes place in between the death of Arthas and the Cataclysm. This means that its information is current. In terms of the game, it is taking place right now or in the very near past. Last week, perhaps. I’ve already written a review of the book here. And while it isn’t my favorite, it is still well worth a read if your goal is to catch up on lore prior to Cataclysm’s release.

Again, I HIGHLY suggest you go out and read these books for yourself. Warcraft books aren’t always the most well written, but if you are interested in the lore of the Warcraft universe, they are all canon. As always when talking about lore, be aware that it can change and your safest assumption when reviewing two pieces that seem to oppose each other is that the newest piece is now the correct version of the story.

Vanish is arguably the second most defining ability of the rogue class, second only to stealth. It gets you back into stealth instantly and is capable of canceling incoming damage from an attack that is in the air at the time. At least, that’s the idea. Vanish is also broken. Even most people who don’t have a rogue know that. It could be argued that vanish isn’t broken, but is simply trying to do two separate things at once, but that’s an entirely different topic. The goal of this post is to help you get a clean vanish to put you back into stealth to stay alive or, to get a reopen.

Before getting into what you can do to increase your chances of a successful vanish it helps to know who the biggest offenders of breaking vanish are. Pets, Hunters, auto attacks, DoTs and, Faerie Fire/Flare all are great at completely negating your attempted vanish.

Now, how do you help avoid getting immediately taken out of your vanish? Here are a few steps you can take to greatly improve your chances:

• Get some distance – Move away from melee and pets. Putting some distance between you and your opponent will go a long way to getting a clean vanish. The goal here is to get out of melee range so that auto attacks won’t be able to bring you out.
• Pets – Pets are the worst offenders of completely ignoring your vanishes. A pet can react one of three ways to your vanish: they can drop target and return to their master, attack you out of vanish or, worst of all, stop attacking but continue to follow you all around the map. There are only a few ways to combat this. The first is to get some distance from them (which is very difficult against most pets). Secondly, you can use line of sight and vanish in the split second you have where they can’t hit you. Lastly, you can use a gouge or blind to guarantee a clean vanish against them (only really viable on a clutch defensive vanish).
• DoTs – DoT ticks will break you out of vanish if you aren’t paying attention to them. However, there is no need to waste a cloak just get a Cheap Shot off. Pay attention to the interval between the DoT ticks. Even with three or four overlapping DoTs on you there should be a gap large enough to Vanish and Cheap Shot/Sap/etc. Half a second is more than enough time with decent latency.
• FF/Flare – There isn’t a whole lot you can do about these. You’ll either have to move out of range of the Flare, or cloak the Faerie Fire off.
• Hunters – The bane of rogues everywhere. Add two things that are already on the list (Pets and Flare) with a fast firing ranged physical attack (think ranged melee), and you have one very tough obstacle to get a vanish off against. The only surefire way to get a successful vanish against is a hunter is to CC both the hunter and his pet before vanishing. Outside of that there are a couple of other things you can do to combat them. Hunters normally carry slow two-handers, so vanishing in melee range is a lot safer than being at range (this contradicts point one, but hunters are unique). Line of sighting a hunter eliminates the factor of the hunter itself and leaves only their pet to contend with. It is possible to vanish a Hunter’s shot just like you can any other spell, but it’s much more difficult due to no cast time and how quickly the next one will be on its way. You’ll need to vanish as soon as the shot leaves the hunter and before the next one fires in order to get a clean re-stealth in the open.

All of these strategies are what you can personally do to increase your chance for a successful Vanish. If you have some friends around things can get a lot easier. Cleansing of DoTs, extra crowd control and bubbles go a long way. Wait, bubbles? How do bubbles help you vanish? Absorbed DoT damage will not break stealth. If a priest friend puts a bubble on you before a vanish you’ll have until the shield wears away before DoT damage will bring you out.

Another tip for vanishing is to know why you are vanishing. This may seem like a dumb statement but, the reasons for vanishing plays a huge part in the steps you take before and after the vanish. Defensive vanishes are when you’re at low health and need to sneak away to heal up. In this situation, you should know where you have to go for safety (for example, towards a teammate or out of line of sight). An offensive vanish is when you want to get back into stealth for another opener. In this case, make sure you have enough energy pooled so that you can immediately reopen and start doing damage again.

And, finally, if your vanish does fail, don’t panic. Continue to do what you were planning. What happens to a lot of rogues when their vanish fails is they panic. This panic and confusion is what causes most of the problems, not the actual vanish failing.

High Priest Thekal is very slowly torturing me. Once every three days he has his fun with me, leaving me dejected, tired, and frustrated. For over eight months he has kept up this routine. Why do I keep giving him the opportunity?  Well, ever since the first time I saw the Swift Zulian Tiger, I wanted one. The only thing that has ever tempted me to play Alliance was the opportunity for every one of my characters to have a beautiful, graceful cat to ride (well and, the chance to see the lore from the opposite side).

I never became serious about obtaining one until I found my true class: the rogue.  Ever since I hit level 80 on him I’ve been there almost every three days (vacations intercepted a few opportunities) to check. And I’ll go back every three days for as long as it takes until that beautiful orange cat is finally mine.

What about you? Is there any single thing in game that you continually put yourself through torture in order to obtain? How long have you been at it?

This  Shared Topic post was suggested by Nexdominus.

Cataclysm. It’s coming. Not soon, but you can already feel the effects within your server and guild. So, how do you prepare for it? There are several things to keep in mind when figuring out your pre-expansion plans.

But first, there are some questions you should ask yourself:
What will you be doing first? Are you racing to level 85 on your main, then getting raid ready before you start to explore the other changes? Or, are you going to roll that Goblin or Worgen and explore all of the new content? Want to cash in on the new expansion first before starting to level?

Each one of these scenarios has a long list of things you can start doing now to make your life easier come Cataclysm. However, I don’t think I can go into every little detail without turning this into a Greymane Wall sized post. So instead I’ll just run through a few general tips that I hope will get you thinking on what you can do specifically to help you with your goals:

1. Clean out your bags and quest log. Keep only the essentials. Sell, store, or delete anything that you’ve been hanging on to ‘just in case’.
2. Consumables can give you that little bit of an edge while leveling. Whether it is a level 83 quest or a level 13 quest, the right consumables can save the day.
3. Professions. Stocking up on low level herbs for Horde or skinning bags for Alliance should net you some easy gold. Also, remember the days of 100G stacks of cobalt? Get your farmer ready if gold is your main priority.
4. Save some gold. There won’t be any need to reach say, 50K, but keep a little bit more in your bags than you normally do. A lot of people are expecting this expansion to greatly increase how much gold the average player has. Therefore (assuming that turns out to be true) the gold you currently have will be worth less come Cataclysm, so no need to amass a huge amount; just enough to easily cover training costs.
5. Research! Unless you don’t want to be spoiled (in which case, beware of this site), read everything you can get your eyes on pertaining to what you are wanting to do come launch. Knowing what to expect will go a long way towards being ready.

Now, that’s all fine and good, you may say. But am I doing? Well, thanks for asking! Unfortunately, I haven’t completely decided yet. I’m torn between getting raid ready, and then playing around while I wait for the rest of my guild to catch up, or doing several days of serious farming to set myself up rather nicely for the rest of the expansion. Either way, I’m starting to gather low level herbs, and accumulating a nice little bankroll.

However, there is one other thing that I plan on doing to prepare: finish Wrath of the Lich King! I have to kill Lich King on 25man or I will view WotLK as a failure on my part. I set a goal for myself at the start of this expansion to kill him on 25man, and I’ll accept nothing less. I would also like to get the “Battlemaster” title, but after doing some math and realizing I’ll need to play over 160 hours of battlegrounds to get all the wins I need, I’m not sure if that’s going to happen. Besides that, I’m thinking of leveling my warlock up to at least 75 and maxing her Tailoring.  That way, the only crafting profession I’ll be missing going into the expansion is Inscription.

Regardless of what your own Cataclysm plans are, I trust that this post has given you some ideas on where to start. And remember, it’s never too early to start preparing.

With the Cataclysm Beta hopefully starting up soon and the Beta opt-in already active, I have a request to make of everyone who has signed up to get a possible invite:

There is a reason why they call it Beta Testing. You are there to test the new content and to give Blizzard feedback. Make liberal use of the leave feedback feature on the Beta (or any patch PTR). Even if you think the issue is well known, leave a comment about it.

Leave feedback on: your class balance, quests, items, zones, bugs, or anything else that just doesn’t feel right to you. No matter how small you think the issue might be, if it doesn’t seem to fit, let them know.  That is exactly why you’re there. It may not get changed but, at least they will be aware that not everyone likes how something works.

The opposite is also true. If you really liked a certain quest line, leave some positive feedback on it! Enjoy the new battleground? Let them know. Even Blizzard developers like to hear that they got something right even if it isn’t completely finished yet.

Don’t just be a contributor to the server stress tests. Leave your feedback, just remember to be constructive and, give a reason. Saying, “I really like this quest” isn’t nearly as helpful as “I really like this quest, because the objective is entertaining and provided a good amount of challenge without being frustrating”.

I was really trying to avoid this post. The Cataclysm raid change post. However, after catching up on some podcasts I heard a lot of opinions that weren’t taking all of the changes into consideration. So, here we go:

First a link to the blue post over at MMO-Champion; I’ll wait while you refresh your memory…
Now, you can’t take any of these points as separate issues, as they play off of each other (something a lot of people have failed to recognize).  What I’m going to try to do is follow Blizzard’s thought process on the changes.

Let’s start with the loot and raid difficulty. By combining loot tables Blizzard eliminates the flaw that the current system has: 10 mans are a lot easier because they have to make it realistic for strictly 10 man players to complete the raid with only 10 man gear. The 10 mans (while still easier than 25s) are not a face roll if you only have 10 man gear from the previous raid. The reason why so many people view 10 mans as being a lot easier is because they are going into them with the superior 25 man gear. They can now balance 10s and 25s around the same quality of gear, thus making each raid relatively close in difficulty. This is where I believe the Dev team started the changing process at. They wanted to make 10s and 25s a lot closer in difficulty, and by having both share the same loot table, they will be able to do just that.

Of course, if they share the same loot, then under the current system 25 man guilds could (and would almost be required to) run both 25 and 10 man raids. So, in the new system, both raid sizes will share the same lockout. This means that you can only run one version of the raid on any single character per week. This is an obvious solution to the created problem and, in my opinion, one that has some added benefits. Guilds that have 25 people will no longer have to figure out how to break down into smaller raid sizes to do the 10 man raids. It could be argued that doing the 10 man is a choice and, there is no requirement to do so. However, at the start of a new raid everyone is vying for the new gear and not doing the 10 man is leaving extra badges on the table. Besides the logistical issue for guild leaders, this will also take a lot of stress off of the individual raiders who do not have a vast amount of time to spend in game, or (due to work or family) cannot be in game at prime time every day of the week. Once again, this change isn’t punishing those who have the time; it’s simply no longer putting those who don’t at a disadvantage. You could call that catering to the casual, but time spent in game has no effect on whether a player is casual or not. Dedication and research to the game does.

With the new system, we have two raid sizes that drop the same loot and share a lockout. But, with that being the case why run a 25 man when it is easier to put together and, manage a 10 man? There is the idea that 25 mans simply feel more ‘epic’ than the smaller raids and, are therefore more enjoyable to down bosses in. But is that enough to keep enough people interested in 25 mans? Likely not. So in order to solve this issue, 25 man raids will drop more loot per raider than the 10 man. I’ve heard a lot of people miss those two little words when talking about these changes. To make it clear: Take two 25 man raids and five 10 man raids. The two 25 mans will get more drops than the five 10 mans will, overall. So, if you have fifty people in your guild it is much more efficient to do two 25s than five 10s.

Another thing to remember in all of this is that Blizzard has stated that the first few raid tiers will have several smaller raids instead of one or two long ones. Therefore, if you happen to get into a raid that fails or falls apart after a boss or two, you won’t be locked out of raid content for that week. Ulduar was the first raid instance that contained an entire set of tier gear. And, that trend continued in ToC and ICC. I think Blizzard realized that doing the same instance every week, all week gets a bit boring. I hope to see a return to TBC days where each tier was spread out through at least 2 different raids.

Will 25 mans die in spite of the increased loot? No. Take a look at the boards; How many people do you see that are concerned that 25 mans will die? Is it more than 25? Will they still take a hit? Sure. Add the guild leveling system into the equation and guild alliances will be a thing of the past. Why make an alliance when a smaller guild can just do the 10 man version for the same loot?

Overall, this will be a good change for the game. It will give some credibility to 10 man raids while, also giving players more options on how they wish to experience the content.  In the current system there is only an illusion of choice. 10 man raiders can’t do the 25s consistently and 25 man raiders have to do 10s as well if they want to stay on par with their raid team.

I know this is an almost dead topic but, better late than never. After a few weeks of thinking it over, do you have any new thoughts on the changes? Have you changed your mind from your original reaction? I’d love to hear what you think now that the dust is settling.

PvP some people love it, others hate it.  Some raiders don’t care one way or another but, feel that it isn’t worth doing because it in no way will help them with their next boss.  To put it simply, those PvE heroes (I am a serious raider so I use that term in an affectionate way) are wrong.

There are many skills that PvP will help keep a lot sharper than Wrath’s raiding content will. And unless you work at it, those skills will be rusty on the occasions where they are called upon in an encounter.  Let’s take a look at a few:

• Situational Awareness – This is likely the biggest one.  If you want to be successful in PvP you have to know where your enemies are and what they are doing.  Many people find it overwhelming to try to keep track of so much (how many are near you, how many friends are there, what class is everyone, who is moving towards an objective and, who are just there for killing, etc.)  But, if you can start to keep track of all of that information in a  battleground, a fight like Mimiron or Rotface will be a piece of cake.

• Adaptation – Things rarely go as planed in any PvP encounter. You have to think on the fly and constantly adjust what you are doing depending on what cool downs you have and what ones they have. What spec they are and how they are playing it.  Not to mention terrain and other players joining the fight at any given time.  If you are used to thinking on your toes then it won’t be such a shock if you have to do something out of the ordinary in a fight. (say kiting blood beasts or, taking over someone’s role if they die mid fight)

• Knowing your class – PvP requires you to know all of what your class is capable of and how to best use every ability in your spell book. There are very few combat abilities that do not have a use in PvP. In contrast there are several abilities that most think (think being the key word) aren’t useful in PvE. And to be fair, for the most part they are right.  However, Blizzard knows you have them and may require you to use them in a fight. So you had best know how to.

• Key Binding – PvP will teach you the importance of keybinding all of your important abilities.  Both often used and, emergency. And nothing will teach you to mouse turn like fighting a sprinting rogue that is constantly circling you.  Learning how to effectively mouse turn and being familiar with all of your key binds will greatly improve your play in all aspects of the game.  You may think your doing ok, driving with you keyboard and clicking abilities but, you are a lot slower than someone intimately familiar with their key bound abilities and using the mouse to steer.

Those are only a few but, important reasons to try your hand at PvP. Even if you hate PvP I’m sure you know someone who enjoys it and can show you the ropes.  Do it for yourself.  Do it for your raid.

But first, in case you missed it:

“We’re continuing to refine the badge/emblem and PvP point systems in Cataclysm and we’d like to share some of those changes with you today. Please enjoy!

Our primary goal when approaching badges in Cataclysm is to address a lot of the confusion that comes with these currency systems. To that end we’re changing badges to a more straightforward point system, similar to the ones we’ve used for a while for Arenas and Battlegrounds. There will be a total of four types of points you can earn in Cataclysm (two for PvE and two for PvP), and these will remain the same even as we introduce new content.

Here’s the breakdown:

PvE

• Hero Points — Low-tier, easier-to-get PVE points. Maximum cap to how many you can own, but no cap to how quickly you can earn them. Earned from most dungeons. (most like the current Emblem of Triumph)
• Valor Points — High-tier, harder-to-get PvE points. Maximum cap to how many you can own, as well as a cap to how many you can earn per week. Earned from Dungeon Finder daily Heroic and from raids. (most like the current Emblem of Frost)

PvP

• Honor Points — Low-tier, easier-to-get PVP points. There will be a maximum cap to how many you can own, but no cap to how quickly you can earn them. Earned from most PvP activities.
• Conquest Points — High-tier, harder-to-get PvP points. There will be a maximum cap to how many you can own, and a cap to how many you can earn per week. Earned from winning Rated Battlegrounds or Arenas. (currently called Arena Points)

When a new tier of raiding gear is released or a new PvP season begins, your higher tier of points will be converted into the lower tier. For instance, if a new tier of raid gear is released, your Valor points will be converted to Hero points, and similarly if a new PvP season begins your Conquest points will be converted to Honor points. Of course that means with these new releases you’ll always begin without any of the higher tier of points, and thus be unable to stockpile them.

As noted for Conquest points, the Rated Battlegrounds and Arenas will be sharing this same point type. Because of that, it will in fact be possible to get the best PvP items without setting foot in Arena; however, more powerful armor and weapons will of course require more Conquest points, so players who win their matches more often will still gear up faster. We’re removing personal rating requirements on almost all items; they’re definitely removed for weapons. We might offer a few items to the absolute best players based on personal rating, largely as cosmetic or ‘bragging rights’ type items. And you’ll have the option of purchasing the previous season’s gear with the more readily available Honor points.

We do plan to have a way to convert Honor points (PvP) into Hero points (PvE), and vice versa, at a loss. The conversions will be possible, but it won’t be a 1:1 rate, and you’ll have fewer points after the conversion process. We won’t allow the higher tiers to be exchanged for each other, however.

To explain the reasoning for the weekly cap on points for the higher tiers, this is to provide flexibility in how players choose to earn the points without feeling like they have to do all of the content as often as it is available. If your Valor income from raiding is sufficient, you may not feel the need to run Dungeon Finder every night, or perhaps even at all. Likewise, a PvP player could choose to participate in a lot of Rated Battlegrounds but no Arenas, or focus on both, and still be able to earn the points they want.

We realize that with any changes to progression pathways there are going to be questions. We’re eagerly awaiting any that we may have left unanswered. To the comments!” — Bashiok

My thoughts after the break:

First off, for PvP this isn’t much of a change in regards to honor or arena points; it’s just a different name.  What is different is that you no longer have to do arena, or even high level rated BGs, in order to get current season gear.  This is a very good thing that will greatly help new players get into PvP.  Part of the reason why PvP makes up such a limited number of players in the WoW community is that in Wrath it is just too difficult (compared to PvE) to get gear in order to feel competitive.  (An interesting thing to note is that TBC suffered the exact opposite problem).  Anything to help smooth out that transition is a good thing for the game and for WoW PvP.

Moving onto the changes on the PvE side of things.  The obvious thing to note is that badges as we know them are gone.  The multiple sets of badges have been converted into points much like PvP system has been since TBC.  At the start of Cataclysm the point system will work in the same way that the two tiers of badges did at the start of Wrath.  Where it changes is when a new raiding tier is added.  At that point any top level (Valor Points) remaining will be converted into the lower level points (Hero Points).  The same process goes for PvP points as well but, that isn’t too big of a change over the current system. In fact, it is a clear improvement.  The aim of this system is to prevent players from ‘stock piling’ top level points to immediately spend on the brand new gear. I don’t think much else needs to be said, as it is obvious that not being able to purchase 2-3 pieces of gear first day is a good thing.

Where this becomes interesting is if you consider what types of gear will be available for points.  If they keep the current system where all gear can (must) be purchased with badges/points then this is a non-change.  What I am hoping for is a return to the first few tiers of Wrath where only select pieces could be purchased with badges.  This will help eliminate the problem of old tiers of content becoming completely obsolete.

Now to the ‘Hot Topic’ of this news. Which is that this system will limit the number of Top-Tier points a player can earn in a week.  Many people are complaining about this change and can’t understand why it is needed.  However, the reason why this is a good change is because it will help to alleviate the ‘badge grind’. There won’t be as much need to log in every single day and do your random heroic in order to get your points.  This is not penalizing those who have a lot of time to play each day; it is simply not punishing those who don’t.  My biggest complaint about the late Wrath (3.3 and 3.2) badge/gear system was it turned gearing up into a grind for badges. Simply put, it isn’t fun. Granted, it is fun to get gear and to have a guarantee that you will eventually get it, but having to go through a massive grind sucked.  I would love to see Blizzard move away from that model but, even if they don’t, the point limit will help alleviate it at the very least.

I approach this game with a definite hardcore attitude. All the classes I play I keep up with the patch notes and latest and greatest changes.  I play to do the best I can at whatever I choose to do. I currently have 5 level 80s the least of which used to be my old main before 3.2.  And that leads to me to my second topic. I have become an altoholic and an AH player in order to fill the gap that was raiding.

My 80s are:
Mut Rogue, Blood (tank) DK, Prot Warrior, Resto Shaman, Surv Hunter.

As I said, I aim to be an exceptional player with each of my toons.  And, for the most part I believe I am achieving that goal. I still have more to learn and practice on every one of them but, anyone who tells you they have perfected their play is most likely lying to you.

I’ll be writing about my experiences and opinions about every one of my toons and in game activities. And now that you’ve been introduced to the toons and my mentality towards the game I hope you’ll better understand and enjoy the posts that will be coming.