Its amazing how time flies in the good old World of Warcraft.  the midsummer fire festival is here again!

The festival is a great time to jump back into WoW and relight that old flame every WoW player has.  This year players can take part in the usual stuff which includes players collecting Burning Blossoms awarded by completing various quests in order to purchase Fire Festival-related merchandise, ranging from food to the coveted Brazier of Dancing Flames. /dance to that :p

The major addition this year is Ahune, the Frost Lord.  He is a new special level 70 boss which can be summoned from within the Slave Pens dungeon.  Killing him will result in several epic drops including event exclusive pets.

I’ve dropped off playing WoW again recently, this looks like a good time to jump back on the old WoW Train.

You can find all the info you need over at http://www.wowwiki.com/Midsummer_Fire_Festival

Hey all, its patch day again!

Now before you go running screaming into the night and threatening to cancel your account, lets note that its just a minor patch – but it brings some nice changes.

Big General Changes:

• The long awaited equipment manager has made it live.
• Gear now scales SotA and Wintergrasp vehicles.
• Wintergrasp quests are now weekly instead of daily.

A few class tweaks and bug fixes in the full notes included after the jump.

General

• When enabled from the Interface Options menu, this feature will allow players to store sets of equipment, easily swap between saved sets using hotkeys, and pull items directly from backpacks or bank slots (must be at the bank to equip inventory from the bank).

• Equipment Manager
• New art textures have been added for Argent Tournament mounts. Any mounts already purchased from the Argent Tournament vendors will be updated automatically. Argent Tournament mounts with the old textures will still be available for purchase from the Argent Tournament vendors for a small Champion’s Seal and gold cost (standard faction requirements apply).
• Copied Test Realm characters will no longer be copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process.

PVP

• Vehicle health and damage output in Strand of the Ancients and Lake Wintergrasp now scale with the item level of the operator’s gear. Power scaling is now 1% damage and 1% health per average item level.
• All Lake Wintergrasp daily quests have been changed to a weekly format. The honor and Stone Keeper’s Shards rewarded for completing these quests have been increased to compensate.

Death Knights

• Improved Death Strike: This talent now also increases the healing from Death Strike by 25/50% and the tooltip has been adjusted to reflect the actual functionality after the hotfix in 3.1.0.
• Ghoul Frenzy: Now has a 10-second cooldown.

Druids

• Innervate: This ability has been redesigned to grant 450% of the casting Druid’s base mana pool to the target over 20 seconds.
• Improved Moonkin Form: Now grants 10/20/30% of spirit as spell power.

Hunters

Mages

• Mirror Images: The images summoned by this spell will now target the creature that most hates the Mage, and should no longer cast Fire Blast or Frostbolt on targets that are affected by crowd control debuffs that break immediately on damage unless they are already casting these spells when crowd control is applied.

Paladins

• Blessing of Wisdom and Greater Blessing of Wisdom: Now grant 92 mana per 5 seconds to prevent being overwritten by Mana Spring Totem.
• Exorcism: Can no longer be used on player-controlled creatures.

Priests

• Divine Hymn: Healing and healing scaling reduced by 30%. Buff on affected players changed from 15% to 10%.
• Renewed Hope: Effect can no longer be dispelled.
• Soul Warding: Mana cost reduction is now 15% down from 30%.

Warlocks

• Conflagrate updated: Consumes an Immolate or Shadowflame effect on the enemy target to instantly deal damage equal to 12 seconds of your Immolate, or 8 seconds of your Shadowflame. In addition, the increased critical strike chance of Conflagrate provided by this talent no longer requires the Immolate effect to have 5 seconds or fewer remaining on the target.
• Fire and Brimstone: Now increases the damage done by your Incinerate and Chaos Bolt by 3/6/9/12/15% on targets afflicted by Immolate, and increases the critical strike chance of your Conflagrate by 5/10/15/20/25%.
• Nether Protection reduced to 30% damage reduction, down from 60%.
• Sacrifice (Voidwalker) redesigned: Sacrifices a portion of the Voidwalker’s health, giving its master a shield that will absorb X damage for 30 seconds. While the shield holds, spell casting will not be interrupted by damage. 1-minute cooldown.
• Shadow and Flame: Now also includes Shadowburn.

Warriors

• Juggernaut: Critical strike chance bonus reduced to 25%, down from 100%.

Items

• Glyph of Innervate: Has been adjusted to grant the Druid 90% of his or her base mana pool over 20 seconds.
  Glyph of Mass Dispel: Now only decreases Mass Dispel cost by 35%.
  Glyph of Rapid Charge: Reduced to 7%, down from 20% cooldown reduction to Charge.
• Arena weapons with an item level of 239 have had their rating requirements increased to 2350.
• Darkruned Battlegear 2-Piece Set Bonus: The bonus critical strike chance for Frost Strike and Death Coil has been increased from 5% to 8%.
• Furious Gladiator’s Staff and Furious Gladiator’s Greatstaff: The agility values on these two items were too high. They have been reduced by 50%.
• Glyphs
• Guise of the Midgard Serpent: The base attack power on this item has been lowered to balance it against items of a similar quality.
• Increased the health and mana restored from Northrend food and drinks.
• Most scopes now have a level requirement and will bind the item to which they are applied.
• Nightsong Garb 4-Piece Set Bonus: Chance for Insect Swarm to trigger an instant Starfire changed to 15%.
• Scourgeborne Battlegear 4-Piece Set Bonus: The runic power gain has been reduced to 5 runic power from 10 runic power.
• Ulduar 10-player hard mode weapons have been updated to item level 232.

Professions

• Jewel of the Sewers: You can now fish in all parts of the Dalaran sewers for this quest.
  Phantom Ghostfish: Can now be caught from Nettlefish schools in Sholazar Basin.

User Interface

• For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros forum.

Bug Fixes

• Anti-magic Shell: Tooltip error corrected.
• Blood Boil: If no target is available for Blood Boil to hit, the spell will now cast and consume a blood rune but generate no runic power.

• Maim: Rank 2 of this ability is properly considered a stun and can be escaped by Blink.

• Go For The Throat: Explosive Shot critical strikes now trigger this talent.
• Lock and Load: The tooltip has been corrected to display its actual chance to occur.
• Rabid: This Hunter pet talent no longer lists a percentage chance to be triggered, as that chance varies by the attack speed of the pet.

• Divine Sacrifice: Damage done to the Paladin while this is active will no longer cause the effect to break early, and if it is dispelled or cancelled early, the damage counter will reset correctly the next time the spell is cast.

• Shadow Dance: Issues with action bars and ability use arising from using Stealth while Shadow Dance is active have been fixed.
• Tricks of the Trade: To prevent exploits, this ability can no longer be cast on non-player targets.

• Demonic Sacrifice: This spell will no longer appear in any Warlock’s spellbook.

• Swordguard Embroidery: Now correctly increases ranged attack power.
• Tailoring

• Ulduar
  • Hodir should now reset in a timely manner if a group fails to kill him.
  • 10-player bosses that drop Runed Orbs will also sometimes drop the recipes that use those orbs.
  • The Spark of Imagination: Characters that release in part of the boss room will no longer be ported to Westfall or The Barrens.

So there I am, sitting in stormwind, watching the hustle-and-bustle of the trade district all around me, when it pops into my chat window.

“I nedz 10g can i has plz thx” (actual spelling, yes.)

Now being the kind and compassionate light-following paladin that I am, I decided to engage our poor illiterate friend. Join me after the jump so you don’t be this guy.

[Me] “I’m sorry, what?”
[Poorboy] “nedz 10g”
[Me] “For what?”
[Poorboy] (After a 2 minute silence) “train”
[Me] “Training at level 5 does not cost 10g. Maybe, maybe 50s.”
[Poorboy] “I nedz can i has”
[Me] “Im going to ask you a question.”
[Poorboy] “k”
[Me] “What are your professions?”
[PB] “First aid mining”
[Me] “Ok, what you are going to want to do is march into that forest over there, and start mining copper. It should fetch you about 3g/stack on the AH.”
[PB] “whats ah”
[Me] “Auction House”
[PB] “k”
[Me] “Good luck.”
[PB] “can i has 5 g plz”
/ignore Poorboy

Well, I tried. OK, so it wasn’t an actual conversation, but it was based on a real one, with that same spelling and line of questioning. There was a guildie (we can just can just call him poorboy for now) who would ask – everyday- to borrow 3g. And everyday, I would get into the same line of questioning and conversation, like clockwork.

So I’ve decided, in an effort to stop these people, to help you crit your wallet as a low level character.

Questing

Now, while I shouldn’t have to say this… questing is a huge source of money, gear, rep and xp.
Its kind of a one-stop shop for everything you need while leveling, and there are so many quests to do.
Poorboy would often reply that he did not want to quest, because it was too hard.
So lets assume that you, like poorboy, cannot stand questing.
Since questing is such a great rewarder of all things, you are leaving yourself at a great disadvantage by not doing it.
But, you can use your professions to help make up that money.

Killing Humanoids

Killing things is one of those nice by-products of questing, and killing humanoids will net you a modest income. They drop money, cloth (which always sells in the auction house), grey trash (vendor it for more money) and greens/blues (Do not vendor these – put them in the auction house or disenchant.) See the Auction House topic further down.

Professions

Your character has the ability to learn two primary professions and unlimited (well up to three because there are only three) secondary professions. Some are better for money-making than others. You see, the professions themselves, they generate income. Its complex. (100 internets to anyone who gets the joke.)

Primary professions

There are eight primary professions to choose from and they are split into two seperate types: Gathering and Crafting.
Repeat the following after me:

• Gathering skills will give me money now and later. Income is steady and mostly reliable.
• Crafting skills will give me a good amount of money later, but will be a money sink early on. Income is great for higher levels, but can be sporatic.
• Crafting skills will allow me to enhance my own character and my friends.

Did you get that? If your goal is simply steady money – pick two gathering professions. If your goal is to enhance your own character – I highly suggest taking one gathering profession and one crafting of your choice (They all have their own benefits). Try to choose a gathering skills that funds your crafting skill to soften the blow.

• Mining (Gather)

  • Mining is a great gathering profession, as ore and bars are always needed by blacksmithing, engineering, and jewelcrafting.
  • Copper is easy to gather as a low level character and will give you about 3-5g a stack.
  • Always sell the ore, rather than the bars. It gets a higher price due to it being used by more professions in that form.
  • When you hit 450 – you can smelt titansteel once a day for a decent fee.
  • Each “level” of Mining gives you a passive 3/5/7/10/30/50 stamina. (Toughness)

• Skinning (Gather)
  

  • You see that beast you just killed? Skin it. Extra income. The easiest of the gathering professions.
  • Skinning produces leather, which is used for leatherworking and occasionally tailoring, blacksmithing and jewelcrafting.
  • You get good xp while farming due to the fact that your gathering requires you to kill things.
  • Each “level” of skinning gives you a passive +3/6/9/20/32 critical strike rating. (Master of Anatomy)

Herbalism (Gather)

• Enjoy the scenery as you walk through picking flowers.
• Herbs are used in alchemy, inscription and occasionally enchanting.
• Glyphs are big business right now, and potions are always in demand. (Glyph business will eventually taper off, but should still be steady income)
• Free heal over time spell, regardless of class. Lifeblood (Rank 1)

Thats all for right now. Join me for part 2 in a few days when we will discuss how to make money using crafting skills.

Last week I went over the stats of the new legendary healer mace Val’anyr.  A lot of people have been unsure of whether the proc on this mace is worth the effort and who should get it in their raid. Bornakk was nice enough to give us a good overview of how the proc actually works over in the official forums.

Here’s a quick TL;DR:

• It can proc off both HoT ticks  and Direct Heals (as long as they actually heal the target).
• It has a 10% proc chance and a 45 sec internal cooldown.
• The healer gets a buff for 15 secs that allows them a chance to cast the shield on any targets they heal.
• The shield absorption is 15% of the heal, rather than just what the player received. [This means overhealing will still produce good shields.]
• The shields  stack. Meaning if you have a 1500 damage shield up on someone, another heal will proc another  shield (lets say also for 1500) which would be a total of 3k damage absorption. All heals cast on a shielded target contribute to the shield while the healer is buffed.
• It stacks with Power Word: Shield.
• The shield last 8 seconds and is refreshed on each heal while the healer has the buff.

(Source)
So thats the official word. Now, opinions on over or underpowered?
I know I would be pretty happy to have my pocket healer carrying one from the tank standpoint.

The Argent Tournament has been out for some time now.  I’ve enjoyed running my characters through the quests.  Its been good to get back into some type of gold daily farming routine, but the question is……

What rank have you managed climb to?

Answers in the poll please!

I’ve only managed Valiant, such a slacker!

We have come to the start of a new era in the World of Warcraft. With the implementation of Dual Talent Specialisation, everyone can do everything that their class was made for. Mages can go down the Frost tree for some PvP, leave the Battleground, hit a button and be ready for raiding Ulduar, Frostfire build and all. Paladins can switch from healing to tanking in five seconds. Warriors can either be useful and do what they were intended for, or DPS instead. But in all of this wonder and diversity, there is a very, very serious problem lurking in the background, just waiting to destroy that decent PuG run you’ve been enjoying.

“It’s for my other spec.”

With every player and their dog running around with two specs on hand, the question of loot has become even more problematic. For instance, my Priest has Shadow for levelling, and Discipline for instances. Discipline calls for crit and intellect, mainly. Shadow calls for spirit, and a hell of a lot of it, as does Holy I believe. Already, I have an issue. I have two specs, and they require two different types of gear. Technically speaking I require two different sets of gear, and so I could say that I need every piece of cloth that drops in a given run.

I don’t need to tell you that that is unacceptable. It astounds me that some people believe that just because they’ve spent 1000 gold voluntarily, that they deserve twice as much loot as everyone else. There are people already saying that they intend to need on anything that drops that fits their two specs. Why stop there? 50 gold is all it costs to respec one of their specs again, so why not need on everything? My Paladin can tank, heal and dps. So, by the reasoning of others, I should get first choice of cloth, leather, mail and plate, regardless of the stats on them. I should also be allowed to need on every weapon I can use.

Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? Well, I’m afraid to say I can see this sort of behaviour becoming standard practice for some.

With this in mind, I think its worth drawing up rules when you go into groups. I was discussing this issue with Grim as we slaughtered our way through Grizzly Hills yesterday, and we both came to the same conclusion:

You need on the spec you’re using now. If something you need drops, and it’s for your other spec, you get second choice. If no-one else needs it, you can take it. That has been standard practice for us, and no doubt millions of other players for years. Attitudes shouldn’t change; unless stated otherwise, your “other” spec is your offspec. At the moment, I need on gear that’s relevant for my levelling spec. Tanks we’ve run with have needed on gear for their tank spec.

Don’t let other people who have a fale sense of entitlement take more than their fair share.  You wouldn’t have let them do it before, don’t let them do it now. Nothing has changed.

A bit of digging through the official armory over at MMO-Champion has revealed the stats for the new legendary healer mace.

The stats have been updated into wowhead – but here they are anyway.

Val’anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings

• Main Hand (93-298 dmg)
• 1.8 Speed/108.6 dps
• +52 Stamina
• +54 Intellect
• +47 Critical Strike Rating
• +46 Haste Rating
• +587 Spellpower

On Equip: Your healing spells have a chance to cause “Blessing of Ancient Kings” for 15 seconds, allowing your heals to shield the target, absorbing damage equal to 15% of the amount healed.

Tooltip: “The power of creation courses through this weapon”

Ghostcrawler’s comments included:

The proc is probably better than you guys are assuming (even for druids). I’m not going to spoil it though.

and

It’s our intent that it is useful to all four healing classes. That’s about all I’m going to say.

(source)
I’m not a healer myself, so I can’t pretend to know if this is amazing or poorly done … your thoughts?

So its easter time again…no wait, that already happened. Ok, so its delayed Noble garden time! We can’t be mad about the delay since it brought with it this wonderful new (occasionally buggy) patch. Of course like all holidays, blizzard has blessed us with yet another title to wear proudly over our heads, “The Noble”, and this time they have given us seven days to do it instead of one!  I got it an hour ago so join me after the break for a breakdown of what you need to do.

Quests:

There are only three quests available for this holiday and they are both pretty easy. Head on over to your favorite level five starting zone and pick up A Tisket, a Tasket, a Noblegarden Basket (A/H) and The Great Egg Hunt (A/H) – from the Noblegarden npcs in the area.

The Great Egg Hunt:

This quest is easy provided you can find the eggs before someone else grabs them. You need to turn in 20x Brightly Colored Shell Fragment, which is a 100% drop rate from Brightly Colored Eggs. Simple enough if you can manage to get to the eggs.

The eggs also have a pretty constant droprate of Noblegarden Chocolates
which are used for

• Buying Noblegarden items (see table at bottom)
• 25% of your level stamina/spirit buff.
• Chocolate Lover and Chocoholic achievements (see achievements section)

The eggs also have a chance to drop any of the items that you can buy from the Noblegarden vendor (including the Spring Rabbit’s Foot pet).

So just go out and start collecting those eggs to complete both quests and possibly get the items you need for other achievements.

Note: Eggs are being heavily camped the first few days, so you may not have much luck getting to them. Keep trying and don’t get discouraged when you get spit on and slapped by campers. There is no such thing as “their spot” and “their eggs”, so don’t let them stop you from trying to get eggs.

The Achievements:

The following are required for the Noble Gardener meta-achievement (which is now required for What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been.

I Found One!

Very, very easy. Just loot an egg from the ground.

Noble Garden

Buy a Noblegarden Egg from the Noblegarden vendor and place it anywhere in stormwind – another easy achievement thats only going to set you back five pieces of chocolate.

Chocolate Lover

Eat 25 pieces of chocolate. Piece of cake. (I think 1 piece of cake is equal to 25 chocolates?)

Chocoholic

Eat 100 pieces of chocolate. This just became a child’s fantasy. Easy enough, provided you can find enough eggs to get 100 pieces of chocolate to eat.

Blushing Bride

Hopefully you have been lucky in your egg looting and have yourself a White Tuxedo Shirt and Black Tuxedo Pants, maybe even a Elegant Dress. (if you haven’t you can always buy the tuxedo pieces at 25 chocolates each and the dress at 50 (or pay the insane auction house fees if your really unlucky)).

But anyway, put on your tuxedo, kiss someone wearing a dress and there you go! None of these cloth pieces are Bind-on-pickup so you may want to trade them around with your friends to easily get the achievement.

Desert Rose

Again, maybe you have been lucky and got the Spring Robes from an egg. Or maybe you did what I did and bought them for 50 chocolates. Either way – Put your

Spring Robes on and head out to anywhere in the following locations and use them to plant a flower in:

• Badlands
• Desolace
• Silithus
• Tanaris
• Thousand Needles

Easy, but slightly time consuming flying around.

Hard Boiled

If you completed The Great Egg Hunt you should have a Blossoming Branch in your bags. The best way to do this is with a partner, once you both have your Blossoming Branch. Head out to UnGoro Crater (You can take the portal to Caverns of Time from Dalaran or Shattrath if you are a high enough level.)

and ride down to the hot springs. Once there – transform each other into a rabbit and sit in the water (not swimming) for a minute until you lay an egg.

Note: If you dont have a friend to do this with, you can simply portal to CoT and run over. Mounting and flying will break the shapeshift but portals and hearths will not.

Shake Your Bunny-Maker

Now this one is tough. You have to obtain some Spring Flowers and use them on a female of every race.  Keep in mind how often you see dwarf, tauren or orc females, as opposed to night elves, blood elves and humans. This probably took the longest time – partly because of the 5 minute cooldown on the flowers, and partly because of the rarity of orc, tauren and dwarf females on my server. What I did, being alliance, was mount up and ride over to Razorthorn Hill, where there were tons of horde looting eggs. Make sure if you do this you are careful not to flag as pvp and to appear as non-threatening as possible, I put on the tuxedo pants and shirt, removed all other armor, and equipped only my flowers, just to let them know I had no intentions of harming anyone. Well after about an hour of waiting and flowering and running, I had all the horde I needed. Ironforge is a good place to find dwarf women, stand by the mailbox and soon enough, one should come by. Oh and prepare to get spit upon and threatened while you stand outside razorthorn. A lot of getting spit on this holiday.

Spring Fling

At the steep price of 100 chocolates you had better hope you get lucky and find a Spring Rabbit’s Foot in one of those eggs. This will give you the Spring Rabbit pet which, when you summon, will proceed to get busy with the nearest Spring Rabbit it can find. Your goal is to let it do this in each of the areas that contain eggs (Kharanos, Dolanaar, Azure Watch & Elywnn Forest). Hooray for rabbit STDs.

Do all of these and you will have your new title!

The following are not required for the meta-achievement but are still nice to have:

(Note: Buying these items will not give you the achievement, you have to loot them from an egg.)

Dressed For The Occasion

Loot an Elegant Dress. You will get it if luck is on your side.

Sunday’s Finest

Loot White Tuxedo Shirt and Black Tuxedo Pants from an egg. Same as above – its all luck.

What you can buy from the vendor

• Noblegarden Egg – 5 chocolates and used for the Noble Garden achievement. (This you can place, then loot.)
• Blossoming Branch – 10 chocolates – Turns your party members into rabbits. (You get one for free by completing the daily quest The Great Egg Hunt.
• Spring Flowers – 50 chocolates – Used to give players bunny ears. Used for Shake Your Bunny-Maker.
• Spring Robes – 50 chocolates – Used to plant a rose for Desert Rose.
• White Tuxedo Shirt and Black Tuxedo Pants – 25 chocolates each – A nice tuxedo set to be used while getting the Blushing Bride achievement. Also great for RP.
• Elegant Dress – 50 chocolates – A very bright pink dress. Also used in the Blushing Bride achievement, and great for RP.
• Spring Circlet – 50 chocolates – Get your very own bunny ears! No use in the holiday, these are just for fun.
• Spring Rabbit’s Foot – 100 chocolates – Used in the Spring Fling achievement, it summons the Spring Rabbit pet.
• Tome of Polymorph: Rabbit – 100 chocolates – This is for mages only, so be nice to that mage near you desperately trying to get eggs, they have even more to save their chocolates for.

Well thats it! Enjoy your Noblegarden celebrations and check back later this week for an article on Children’s Week (which starts Sunday).

This, ladies and gentlemen, is Calanthia. Discipline Priest and pocket healer to Icecomet, Grim’s Fire Mage, and former male Blood Elf Korrax. That’s right, recently I spent a tenner of my hard earned money student loan, and completely reworked one of my characters. I then did it again for another one, but that’s not the focus of this article. That focus for this is more about the new lease of life you can give to your toons through the Character Recustomisation feature, and how to fit this in with your playing habits and the way you see your characters in the world of Azeroth.

I think one of the first things to address here is how you see your characters. People tend to take two different views on the characters they play in Warcraft. You have those who see the characters as an extension of themselves, and those who see them as entirely seperate entities. To help me out with this, I’ve enlisted Grim with giving me his views on his characters, and the way he sees them in the game.

Kiri: So Grim, thanks for helping me out! Here goes the interrogation. Do you see you most of your characters as an extension of yourself, in the game?

Grim: I think to some extent I see them as an extension of myself in Azeroth, maybe more of an extension of my wild side, given some of the things I do with them!

Kiri: I think I can attest to that hahaha. So when you speak to other people, do you speak as yourself, or give things a spin depending on the character you’re using? Is there any distinction between talking to Grimhammer the Orc Warrior, or Icecomet the Undead Mage?

Grim: No not really.  I tend to act the same on whatever character I play.  I’ve not really been one for the whole rp side of the game.

Kiri: I know we’re not on an rp realm, so we don’t see a lot of it, but do you find yourself put off by people who behave differently when they play different characters?

Grim: I dont really know, the people I play with tend to act the same on whatever character they are playing.  It would be hard for me to judge people if they ‘acted’ in a different manner to what they actually are in rl.  I think for me I tend to want to get to know the person behind the character and not the character itself.

Kiri: Ok, thanks for that boss!

And there you have it. Grim is the kind of guy who plays as himself, and behaves in the game as he does in real life. Although I can tell you from personal experience that he doesn’t run into clearly fatal situations expecting me to keep him up when we’re wandering about the town, obviously. For Grim, switching to a female character isn’t unlikely, it’s just not going to happen.

I used to be in the same camp as Grim. My first character, an Orc Rogue named Carnival, was pretty much just me. I didn’t see him as a character, I saw him as me, in the game. Then as I started rolling alts, I got more detached from them as time went on. My second main, Kirioth (now Cthonica), was mostly me, but with some RP edges. He was a bit meaner than me. Not impolite, but confident in his abilities. He took risks as a healer where my personal preference would dictate that I stand back and watch. Then, I rolled a Shaman, who is still languishing at 54. I felt no attachment to this character whatsoever. There was no personality to it. That’s one of the main reasons he’s never been levelled any further.

It was only when I started playing my Priest again that I realised that I no longer really saw my characters as an extension of myself. Over the course of my many rerolls, I’d begun to see them as seperate entities. When I realised last week that I was utterly sick of looking at the back end of a male Blood Elf (and I’d had enough of the casting animation, or the “fondling an imaginary giraffe technique” as I call it), I was a bit stuck for ideas. Then it struck me. Recustomisation was the way forward. I paid my dues, and loaded up the game. Within minutes, I had a female Blood Elf Priest.

Already, it feels like my “new” character has developed her own personality. The reactions from other players when we run instances have changed slightly, making her less forward and sharp. I tend to take a few risks, and try different strategies more. I do things differently. Sorry, she does things differently. When I’m talking to Grim through Teamspeak, I talk as much rubbish as I always have, maybe more when I’m doing something I know won’t work but want to try it anyway! I still spew curses like there’s no tomorrow when someone dies, or splutter in indignation when a mob has the sheer nerve to slap me when I’m trying to heal the tank up. But Calanthia is a little more reserved, letting her actions do the talking, while the daft sod controlling her shouts obscenities.

All in all, the recustomisation feature has given this character in particular a new lease of life.

In the next part, I’ll be interviewing a die hard RP’er, and getting their thoughts on their characters and the idea of changing them.

As many of you may know, there is a slight war going on regarding raid content. I’m speaking of “the casuals” versus “the hardcore”. Now I don’t believe too much in these extremes…everyone who plays this game is casual and hardcore in their own way. But that is not todays topic, todays topic assumes you are an officer who has just been tasked with leading your ragtag group of semi-casual heroes into the fray of a 10,20 or even 40 man raid! These people may not have the gear, but they have heart! So let’s talk about how to get your casual guild raiding and keep interest long enough to get things done.

Join me after the break!

The Attitude

These days, all you seem to hear about is how easy the content is. But let us take a step back. IT IS EASY….for people who min/max, know their class very well, are familiar with the concept of “don’t stand in the fire”. But for those who have never stepped foot in a raid…who don’t have Best-in-slot gear..are not seasoned fire-movers…it can be very hard and frustrating to do.

What you can do for your raiders:

1. Have a positive attitude. First and foremost – remember – you are the leader, and these people are expecting you to lead. Not just into the dungeon, but as a beacon of light to slice through the darkness ahead. That means not saying “YOU GUYS SUCK – IM OUT!” after that 10th wipe. Instead – take a look at what you guys are doing wrong and see if you can swap roles for people or try a new strategy.

2. LISTEN to your members. This goes for any leadership role, your members are your people and they deserve to have a say. Maybe one of them has done this raid with a pug and knows a trick, or maybe they just have a creative new strategy no one thought of. Either way, the raid leader does not know everything and should be open to suggestions.
This also goes for picking the raids – listen to which raid your members really want to do. (If they are completly not ready for it – then say so nicely but pay attention to their wants too.)

3. Squash the seed of doubt. There is always that one member who after the aforementioned 10th wipe will insist “We can’t do this”. It is at this point that a few more of the raiders will chime in with “yea….I don’t think we can either…”, and by the 11th wipe the seed of doubt will have bloomed and people will start leaving, disheartened. As with any leader – this is your time to inspire them back to the vigor they had when they came in. Make sure to keep on top of this – nobody likes dying, and many will bail after the first wipe. If people are quitting over the repair bills – offer to pay out of the guild bank.

4. They will get better. Most players, in their first raid, will be abysmal. It’s not their fault, its new to them. You have to remember this. These members will need extra encouragement. Just make to remind them ahead of time to stay out of the fire.

5. Schedule.
Most people are not in raiding guilds because they cannot commit to it. Thats perfectly fine – IRL > WoW – and we as leaders need to accept that. If the nature of a guild is a casual one, you cannot get mad at your members for having prior obligations or new plans the night of the raid. It happens. Try to find a night or two that everyone can agree on to raid. This will help people. In my guild we typically run Friday and Saturday nights after 7 server, so as not to interfere with people’s dinner and homework duties. And be ready to pug or cancel if need be. You cant run Naxx with 3 people, don’t try.

6. Strategy.
As the raid leader – do not expect your members to be reading the strategies right away. Be prepared to go over it pre-fight and expect to be asked a lot of questions. Posting the strategy on the guild site is a great way to get people reading too.

7. Loot.
Ah shiny pixels…the glory and the bane of our wow existence. Whether your constantly grasping for purples or you hate the pixel war, you can’t ignore new gear. As is the nature of a casual guild…you cannot expect 100% attendance on the raids. In fact, some people may only ever attend 1 or 2 nights out of 7 or 8 in a month. You must remember to be fair to everyone. In my guild I have adopted a “pugroll masterloot” system. Meaning the master looter will simply raid warn the group to roll need or greed and award based on that. Its fair to all who attend for that night. All greens or reagents get placed in the guild bank.

8. Poaching.
It happens, you have been running successful raids for a while and everyone is getting pretty good at it. Next thing you know you just lost a healer and a tank to a hardcore guild who raids 5 nights a week. Well, unfortunately I can’t help you much with this one. It’s going to happen. The best thing I can tell you is to convince your players to stay based on the friendships they have developed within the guild – are the friendships worth more shinies? There is also a good chance – and it has happened before – that said members will return after they have gotten their fill. If your raid is full, I suggest not bumping anyone for these members, but letting them wait til a slot opens again before putting them back in.

9. “Ive got my loot, I’m not going tonight”. Ok, so I know what I am about to say goes against #5 again, but this is a different situation. This person has been a mainstay at all your raids and is now all epiced out. They have also decided that they no longer need to run because of this. Make sure to remind them that their absence will adversely affect the rest of the raid. By not attending they are leaving an empty slot (which depending on your group – you may not be able to fill) and setting a bad example for the other raiders. This will make your job much more difficult.

10. Old Raids.
Don’t be afraid of the old world raids. A lot of your members have probably never seen them, and would be aching to get the achievements. These are GREAT ways to train them. UBRS, Onyxia and Molten Core are great for team coordination, listening to directions, and creative strategies. And again – do not be afraid to wipe – skill develops over time.

11. Class knowledge.
Openly encourage questions about gear choices, stats and other character concerns. Your members want to do their best, but maybe they just don’t know about the synergies of their character. Help them out. Appointing class leads is a great way of doing this.

12. Recruit Recruit Recruit.
In a game of 11 million players – there are a lot of casual raiders out there. Keep recruiting, a big pool of potential raiders will serve you better than a few who miss half the raids.

Thats all I can elaborate on today, but if you have any questions, comments or flames to throw my way – please don’t hesitate to put them in the comments I hope this has inspired some officers to take their group in, or helped out someone.

Ederlinban / Scarlet Crusade