Blue Rune Circles in SexyMap

I’ve been getting lots of questions asking me about my mini-map addon that I use in my videos. Its called SexyMap, and its fast become a staple of my interface.

Sexymap may look like it would take a lot of system resources, but it uses spell effects through the in-game engine to achieve its fancy graphics. This gives it a lot of built-in options that have a very low overhead. I’ve been using the default preset “Blue Rune Circles”. There are about a dozen beautiful presets to choose from. If you are feeling creative, you can make your own using several various in-game textures, effects, and more. Do you dig the Route 66 symbol? There’s a map for that, just add your own effects. Want your map to have druid appeal? There’s a map for that too.

Sexymap does much more than just look sexy. Its highly configurable with a lot of rich features. It also controls the graphics for the “armor man” that shows you when your armor and the graphics used for vehicle passenger information. You can move these frames around, as well as the minimap itself.

Perhaps my favorite feature is the ability to control built-in and addon buttons. So many addons throw their own button on the minimap and I don’t want to dig through their config to move hide it. Sexymap takes complete control of all of these buttons. Sexymap allows you to move anything on the minimap, including the built in things like the calendar button, clock, mail icon, battleground queue, and more. In addition, you can set up three levels of visibility: show, show on hover, and hide. If you show a button, you will always see it. I like to use this for things like the clock and new mail notification, which I like to see all the time. Hover buttons are shown only when you mouse over the map, so I use this for things like the calendar and most addon configs that I regularly use. I hide most addons buttons, as I usually use something lie broker2Fubar to put them on Fubar, or pull them up using a script command. I don’t need a graphical button cluttering my interface if I can type /dbm and get the same menu and I open the config only once every few weeks.

There is lots in here, including built in coordinate support, detailed pings showing who pinged and reporting to chat, a HUD that other addons can plug into, and more. I suggest you download it and play with it yourself! Grab it on Curse or your favorite addon repository. I give it a 10/10 for ease of use, high customization, and wide appeal.

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We only provide mirror links for full client patches. Background downloads do not count. You have around 1+ month to download this file so we’re not really worried about your speed.

This revelation comes as I was working on a post predicting the release of patch 3.3 in the coming weeks because of the background downloader and the annoucement of how heavily gated Icecrown Citadel content will be.

I can’t fathom any way that the background downloader is not downloading patch 3.3, so it looks like the earliest we will see the patch is December 29th, as the 22nd is during Winter Veil and I doubt they will patch during a major event.

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Do Some Internet Sleuthing.

Forget about other video games, I find it difficult enough to split my play time across multiple characters.  Despite my best efforts, that is exactly what I have been doing lately.  Over the past month I have put serious time in to not two, but three alternates avatars and my trusty bank alt.  Solidsamm hasn’t missed a beat, as he continues to raise his average ilvl at an alarming rate (for me).  I’ve only been able to manage the juggling act thanks to careful planning, tunnel vision, and of course, an understanding girlfriend.

Solidsamm is doing his best to gear up in an attempt to remain a reliable raider, Solidsagart is trying to get to that point, and the other Solidsagart (original, I know) is busy running through the old content.  My fourth character isn’t really a character per se, but a pre-made on the PTR (again, Solidsagart).  The two alternate Solidsagarts are tied to other players, so I only play them when the rest of the group is available, but the priest and rogue are entirely different.  Honest to god, this is the first time I have ever had two max level characters at once, and that’s the issue.

At this point in time, I wouldn’t consider either of them my main.  I play them nearly 50/50 with the rogue eeking out the percent error thanks to raiding time.  As soon as Solidsagart is fully raid ready, that will change.  The longer I go 50/50, the longer it will take for her to be ready.  In light of that, the holy priest is about to become my main.  I have nothing against my rogue, I still love the gnome to death, but my draenei offers an entirely new experience.  One with new challenges, new things to learn and a new set of numbers to crunch.  I’ve already had enough heroic dungeon experience to know that I enjoy healing, so the change sticking depends solely on my measure of fail.  Hopefully I can keep it low, and people will be understanding.

Oh man, I almost kept a straight face.  People on the Internet understanding. Hahahahaha.

I’ve been rocking the John Kerry approved flip-flop method.  How do you move between your alts?  Reroll out of boredom, or after one is geared to an acceptable level?

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Dedicated Icecrown Citadel Raiders in the upcoming Patch 3.3 will have a new, glorious armored Frost Wyrm mount to work toward.

Blizzard blue poster Ancilorn over on the European forums confirmed Wednesday that the armored Frost Wyrm mount previously data-mined at MMO-Champion will indeed be the next hot raiding reward. Here’s exactly what was posted:

There will be a Frostwyrms up for grabs for Icecrown raiders, achievable in a similar way to previous rewards such as the Ulduar proto-drake.

Not a very long description, but certainly enough to get me even more excited for the upcoming patch and all of its wondrous possibilities. Depending on exactly how similar the process of getting this mount is to the Rusted and Ironbound Proto-Drakes, it may be a pretty rare get.

The latter two super-fast mounts, rewards for completing the Glory of the Ulduar Raider achievements in 10-man and 25-man modes, respectively, originally were reported as set to be removed from the game sometime after 3.2 because of the major gear upgrades that players would be able to get, making the achievements easier to earn. But it’s been several months since then, and back in July blue poster Eyonix said the mounts would remain in-game for now:

After further discussion, we decided not to remove the rusted and ironbound proto-drake rewards for the normal and heroic Glory of the Ulduar Raider meta achievements when patch 3.2, Call of the Crusade, launches, and currently have no plans to remove them in the foreseeable future. However, we will continue to evaluate the situation and if a decision is made to remove these rewards at any point in the future, we’ll provide a one month warning so players will have time to make some final attempts.

There’s always a balancing act between making rewards like this difficult to get without it being utterly impossible for some of the less hardcore raiders. So if Blizzard continues along their current line of thinking, then it’s reasonable to conclude that we’ll have at least a few months to strive for the new mount once Patch 3.3 comes out.

What do you guys think of the subdued Frost Wyrm as a mount? I’m really digging the skeletal look along with that blue, hazy glow. She’s a bit eerie, but in a good way.

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Exciting, isn’t it?!

The pre-patching process allows Blizzard to push information such as texture and environment data (in other words, stuff that wouldn’t currently affect gameplay) well ahead of patch day, so that when that moment comes, the process runs just a little bit smoother. As much as it might lighten the load on the data servers, though, it rarely does anything for the mountain of people trying to access the latest content, leading to lag on live servers, which leads to frustration and disappointment anyway, which leads to the Dark Side.

Of course, the first thing your mind probably jumps to when you hear news like this is “the patch is coming next week,” right? Well, the answer to that is… possibly. Now that we know Blizzard is gating content in Icecrown Citadel, that gives them plenty of time to continue testing encounters featured later in the dungeon in the background while hungry players sink their teeth into the first bites of the instance on live servers. From all I’ve experienced, the first set of bosses is more or less ready to go and itemization is in place.

Nonetheless, it may still be unwise to release 3.3 the week of Thanksgiving, since most players will probably be vacationing, out of town, or otherwise spending time with their families. But either way, with data being pre-loaded, I don’t expect the patch to be more than two weeks out.

Only time will tell, so keep your eyes on the downloader and on Project Lore for more information on 3.3’s release!

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Here are the highlights you should be looking for:

• Each wing will be gated, with several weeks between each release. It has not been stated how long this period will be.
• The Wings are Lower Spire (4 fights), Plagueworks (3 fights), Crimson Halls (2 fights), Frostwing Halls (3 fights, including The Lich King). They will be released in that order.
• Each wing, aside from the Lower Spire, will have a marquee boss fight (Putricide, Queen Lana’Thel, Sindragosa). Every time one of these encounters is opened up, 5 more attempts will be available on these specific fights for a total of 15 (Lich King is included, though he doesn’t supply any additional attempts).
• Once your attempts are expended, these four bosses will despawn from the zone until the next week. Likewise, these attempts only act as a limiter. You will not get any special rewards for not dying or only using up a certain number of attempts.
• As the weeks move forward, the Ashen Verdict’s forces will “grow stronger,” giving players the ability to pick up an optional buff which will make their raiding experience easier if they’re having trouble.
• Heroic difficulty will not be accessible for any boss until the Lich King has been defeated on Normal.
• Heroic difficulty for the Lich King will not be available until the three aforementioned marquee boss fights have been completed on Heroic on a week-by-week basis.

The text of the announcement in full follows:

Icecrown Citadel testing has been progressing very well over the last few weeks, and this has been a huge help to the encounter design team. I want to thank everyone who has logged onto the PTR and tried the encounters there.

As we’re now getting closer to the release of 3.3.0, I wanted to talk about our plans for access progression within Icecrown Citadel. Icecrown Citadel is going to be broken up into four distinct sections: The Lower Spire, Plagueworks, Crimson Hall, and Frostwing Halls. We plan on releasing these four sections of Icecrown Citadel over time and not all immediately when patch 3.3.0 goes live. At this point I can’t give precise dates for these release dates as they are determined by when patch 3.3.0 goes live. Once dates are known with more certainty, I’ll update the community so they can plan appropriately.

The first section that opens will include the Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Icecrown Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang encounters. Progress beyond that point will be prevented for several weeks. Then the Plagueworks will open with Rotface, Festergut, and Professor Putricide becoming available. After another period of time, the Crimson Hall will open and you can then fight the Blood Princes and Blood-Queen Lana’thel. The final Frostwing Halls unlock then occurs after that, making Valithria Dreamwalker, Sindragosa, and the Lich King available. We believe a staggered release of the content will allow players to experience Icecrown Citadel at a sustainable, measured, and ultimately more enjoyable pace.

There are other elements that gate access along the way. Players may not attempt any Heroic versions of 10 player encounters until they have defeated the Lich King in a 10 player raid. Similarly, players must defeat the Lich King in a 25 player raid before they can attempt a Heroic 25 player encounter. So players must master every normal difficulty encounter in Icecrown Citadel before attempting Heroic difficulty.

The Lich King may not be attempted until Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana’thel, and Sindragosa are defeated. Furthermore, the Heroic difficulty of The Lich King encounter may not be attempted in any week unless the three aforementioned encounters have been defeated in Heroic difficulty that week.

The Ashen Verdict provides reinforcements and material for players to assault Icecrown Citadel, but this support is not endless. Raids will have a limited number of attempts total each week to defeat the four most difficult encounters in Icecrown Citadel: Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana’thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King. As these boss encounters are unlocked, the number of attempts available per week will increase. The initial number of attempts provided for defeating Professor Putricide is only five. When Blood-Queen Lana’thel unlocks, the amount of total attempts remaining will increase to 10. Then when Sindragosa and the Lich King unlock, 15 total attempts will be available to defeat all four bosses. After a raid has exhausted their attempts for the week, the Ashen Verdict must withdraw their support and the four most difficult bosses all despawn and become unavailable for the week. The limited attempt system is a feature of both Normal and Heroic difficulty.

There will be no explicit rewards for defeating the Lich King with a specific number of attempts remaining as there was with Trial of the Grand Crusader. There will also not be an achievement to complete Icecrown Citadel without being defeated by a boss encounter, or letting a raid member die. (i.e. A Tribute to Insanity).

In the weeks and months after all twelve encounters are unlocked, additional attempts against the final four boss encounters become available. This represents the Ashen Verdict growing more powerful and gaining a stronger foothold in Icecrown Citadel. To further help raids, Varian Wrynn and Garrosh Hellscream will begin to provide assistance by inspiring the armies attacking Icecrown Citadel. This is represented as an additional zone wide spell effect applied to all players that will increase their hit points, damage dealt, and healing done. This effect will also increase in effectiveness over time. Players may opt out of the spell’s effect if they so wish.

So what do you think about this? Personally, I like it. Gating does make the content last a little longer, and from what I’ve experienced on the PTR so far the “marquee” fights (including Deathbringer Sarufang) are sufficiently difficult, meaning that nobody should feel slighted that they don’t get to pop a cap in the Lich King on the day one.

It also keeps a lock on the “world first” crowd. While they’re certainly free to raid how they see fit, the trend of conquering a dungeon on its first night also has a dangerous side effect on the community, creating the perception that the content isn’t as difficult or engaging as people want it to be.

The only real problem I have is that it feels like the content may be stretched just a little too thin. This entirely depends on what Blizzard means by “several weeks” between each wing is released. One or two weeks is more acceptable than three or four. But even if they do let it go that long, hopefully it’s just to tide us over until Cataclysm and not used as an excuse to delay the expansion any further.

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Those Names Look Suspiciously Familiar...

My adventure into old school instancing has lead me to one definitive conclusion; everyone is a critic.  Everyone believes they know your class better than you, something I can be guilty of when it comes to dagger-equipped rogues.  The five person team that I joined to experience the old world is no different.  In fact, it may be worse.  We wanted to experience the pre-Cataclysm world in a way we hadn’t before, causing us to roll classes we have never played before.

The tank and the healer (me) changed rolls dramatically, going from melee DPS classes to the key parts of the holy trinity.  To make matters even more interesting, I rolled the healing class that I knew the least about, a restoration shaman.  The other three switched from DPS classes to other DPS classes, some switching from ranged or melee DPS for the first time in their WoWing career.  You can imagine how these conversations go.  Tons of “you’re doing it wrong.”

The thing is, we all tend to be right.  We’ve all had small nuances in our new class pointed out to us by a helpful teammate who’s had hours of playtime in the role.  I certainly appreciate the pointers I’ve been given by the former shaman, and I am very grateful for the pointers that the newbie tank has received.  His complete and utter lack of tanking knowledge (get threat on all of the mobs in a pull!) left him open to numerous jabs and burns throughout our various runs.  It’s okay though, he seems to enjoy the good-natured ribbing, firing right back when the opportunity arises.

The class virginity is still a factor thanks to our low level (low 20s).  By the time level 40 rolls around we should be comfortable in our now smelly shoes.  I’m not sure I want that to happen though.  The jibba -jabber is just too hilarious.  Thankfully, we have PTR testing to continue playing classes we have no business rolling.  Let’s just hope the tank doesn’t gem for crit.  Oh wait, he already did that.

/facepalm

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The first few times I ran Vault of Archavon, I was lost. It was my first real foray into 10-man content, and I was trying to keep Archavon, Emalon and Koralon straight. Which one overcharged adds? Which cast a nasty fire that you had to get out of immediately? Is it Lightning Nova or Chain Lightning that you have to run away from? These are three relatively straight-forward boss fights, yet I was having one hell of a time getting them down.

But the learning curve eventually turned in my favor. Somewhere along the way, that little metaphorical light bulb clicked on inside my brain - and I just got it. Since then, I’ve learned that it usually takes me a good three to four successful boss kill attempts before I really know the fight.

The same was true of the new Onyxia. While I had watched videos of the battle and new the basics behind the battle, it took some actual experience with the fight to learn my role. My favorite part - wailing massive FoK damage on the whelps - isn’t the most critical. While I would rather watch my DPS meter run sky-high during Onyxia’s second phase - the one where she’s airborne and sends adds in after you - I’ve learned (the hard way) that the priority goes to DPSing down Lair Guards whenever they’re up.

I’m still in that hazy, starting-to-understand-but-not-quite-there phase for a good number of encounters. I’ve run Naxxramas only once on each 10- and 25-man, and a few of the battles I’m still a little iffy on. I’ve barely touched Ulduar. Trial of the Crusader also is starting to come together, but I still get the two giant Jormungar debuffs - and what to do for each of them - confused in the heat of that first battle. And don’t even get me started on those cursed Twin Val’kyr. I think that particular battle is going to take about 10 times before I really understand all the mechanics.

But there’s an upside to this ginormous learning curve. Once you get down a fair number, bosses seem to each be variations of one another. Some put some nasty crap, be it fire, smoke, poison or other, on the ground that you need to stay out of. Some cast massive AoE damage that you need to watch for - and move the hell out of the way when it comes. Some bring out adds that need to be dealt with immediately. Some teleport away, fly up, burrow down, or otherwise get out of range periodically and find another way to keep you busy for that phase. Some are straight-up tank and spanks. Several put whirling bubbles of spores or light into the raid party that can either give you a buff or debuff. And then there’s every melee’s favorite boss attack to dodge: the infamous whirlwind attack.

My best suggestion for anyone else in a similar stage of learning as I - get Deadly Boss Mods as soon as you can. It helps a ton with reminding you when you need to run away and what you need to watch out for. And it may sound simple, but this also helps: Do your homework before you get to a fight and make sure to listen-up for any boss-strat on what your specific role will be.

How has everyone else gone about keeping boss fights straight? Does it also take you a few tries to get it down? What about those of you with multiple level 80 characters - how do you keep all your different roles straight?

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This was supposed to increase DPS because whenever Deadly Poison was maxed out at five stacks, the mod would switch a different piece of gear with Instant Poison on it to maximize its proc rate. When DP needed to be reapplied, it would automatically switch your weapons again. Naturally, Blizzard didn’t intend for Rogues to work this way and figured that the normally clunky mechanic, (which the add-on made easier, and thus, more popular) would set a bad precedent if it was allowed to continue unchecked.

So they changed Deadly Poison to proc the poison on your other hand whenever it is at five stacks itself. In addition, Deadly Poison now also procs more often. I’m not sure how long this mechanics will stick around since it seems to be a quick fix for the add-on problem, so enjoy the DPS boost while you can Rogues!

Massage your brain-things with the rest of the latest changes below:

Paladins

• Divine Intervention: This ability now also removes Exhaustion or Sated from a target if the recipient is out of combat when the effect ends. In addition, the cooldown on this ability has been reduced from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.

Priests

• Shadowform: This talent also now causes Devouring Plague and Vampiric Touch to benefit from haste. Both the period length and the duration of these spells will be reduced by haste. In addition, the mana cost has been reduced from 32% to 13% of base mana.

Rogues

• Deadly Poison: In addition to its existing effects, when a rogue applies Deadly Poison to a target which has already reached the maximum number of applications, this will also trigger the poison which the rogue is using on his or her other weapon.

Assassination

• Improved Poisons: Bonus chance to trigger Deadly Poison from this talent increased. (4/8/12/16/20% per rank, up from 2/4/6/8/10%)

Shamans

Elemental Combat

• Elemental Mastery: This talent now increases spell haste by 15% instead of critical strike chance while active.

Warlocks

Affliction

• Improved Drain Soul: This talent now reduces threat by 10%/20%, up from 5%/10%.

Destruction

• Destructive Reach: This talent now reduces threat by 10%/20%, up from 5%/10%.

User Interface

• Dungeon System renamed Dungeon Finder

Graphics

• A new feature has been added to the D3D graphics engine to improve texture management (particularly for Windows XP users). If you are experiencing random crashes related to file read errors or out of memory, this new backend may help. To enable the new backend, add the following line to your Config.WTF file: SET gxApi “d3d9ex”. For more information please visit our Test Realm forum: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=11572&sid=1

Items

• Shaman Tier-9 4-Piece Set Bonus (Elemental): This set bonus now does an additional 10% of Lava Burst’s initial damage over time instead of increasing the size of the Lava Burst.

Bug Fixes

• Misc. bug fixes added. Check here for the complete list.

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The weapon was first revealed at BlizzCon 2009, and now that 3.3 is knocking on the door, Blizzard felt it was time to set up a preview page dedicated to one of the latest legendary items in the game (the other being Quel’Delar, though at this point, it doesn’t carry the classic orange name-tag).

According to the site, Shadowmourne doesn’t technically “exist.” You won’t find it laying in a cave or a forgotten treasure chest somewhere. Instead, the dire blade is nothing more than a theory, a remnant of arcane knowledge hidden deep within the recesses of Darion Mograine’s mind. But he’s convinced that Tirion Fordring’s Ashbringer simply isn’t enough, and that Shadowmourne may prove to be the true key to taking down the Lich King.

In order to do this, a player seeking the axe’s power will have to accomplish a variety of tasks which includes collecting souls and shards of the Frozen Throne itself. Indeed, it’s shaping up to be an undertaking similar to that of Val’anyr, where muliple runs through Icecrown Citadel will be required to gather all the materials necessary for forging the blade.

But, once created, what of its power? A weapon nearly as corrupted as Froustmourne itself must still be wielded by a righteous warrior, and who’s to say that Arthas himself couldn’t control it just as easily as he does his currently favored blade? It’s sure to be a sought-after piece of a gear for those who are capable of handling it…

But this is only a mere overview of what’s to come. If it is more stirring questions and information about the lore and formation of Shadowmourne you seek, please check out the official preview at Blizzard’s World of Warcraft Community Site.

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