Category Archives: World of Warcraft

Cataclysm U.S. Launch Party

Cataclysm U.S. Launch Party | Blog | Game Boyz

One-hundred thirty-three days. That’s how long I’ve spent actually logged in to my main character in the World of Warcraft. Four hours. That’s how long I had to wait for the release of the newest expansion, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm after getting off work last night. I was definitely excited. Many of the game changes had already occurred in the last patch. I knew I probably wouldn’t see any new content that night because I’d likely go to sleep after purchasing it. But I couldn’t help it. As a World of Warcraft player, the excitement was there in me. It should have been a holiday.

I wrote a piece about the Cataclysm launch over at Gameboyz!

BlizzCon 2010

I never got around to writing about BlizzCon, so I’ll try to write a short version of the event here.

 
Thursday I went with gem, Shaun, and his friend to pick up our tickets. It didn’t take as long as I expected it to take. We waited less than two hours – longer than ComicCon’s processing but much shorter than Anime Expo.
On Friday I met with Antonio and we headed to BlizzCon together. We spent most of the day hanging out together. Unfortunately my phone died, so keeping in contact with people was difficult. We managed to get gem in that day too, which was cool. For the most we watched panels. Learning about the Diablo III was great, and the WoW lore panel was very interesting. I loved hearing more about Thrall! I saw the costume competition but missed the dance competition because I went with Shaun and his friends to Medieval Times. We took a limo over there, which was interesting, and the dinner and show was excellent. We had chicken, tomato soup, bread, ribs, and a apple-pie-croissant-thing for dessert. Tasty! The show was really exciting. Thoroughly enjoyable evening!
On Saturday we spent more time just wandering around. We also got to watch some of the arena tournament. I got really into it and will definitely watch more in the future. We spent a few hours watching and then headed back to the main part of the hall for the Tenacious D concert. I really enjoyed it! The Metal came on stage to dance during the song and even battled the Lich King when he came out! Luckily they became friends! Afterwards I checked the D3 lines, but they were really long. We decided to end the evening by taking a picture with the orc/wolf statue. There were two guys there who apparently were going around posing as each statue and taking pictures. They asked me to take a picture of them I did, and then they asked if we were going to check out any of the game. I said that I wanted to see D3 but that the lines were too long. He proceeded to point to his employee badge and said we could go play together. It was pretty cool! We did some 3-on-2 Diablo III PVP with them! Antonio, gem, and I really sucked! But still, it was a lot of fun. I’m really looking forward to D3 and now the PVP as well!
Over the next week, we also went back to watch more of the stream. We finished up watching some of the WoW tournament. aAa won, but I was hoping Complexity Red would win. Too bad! And I also got my sweet Deathy pet and Deathling Figure Print! In summary, BlizzCon 2010 – really cool!

LK 25 and Halion 25 Down



LK 25 and Halion 25 Down, originally uploaded by theuser.

Saturday night a handful of CFC members, including gem and me, joined
MOONSHINE in downing Arthas in Icecrown Citadel 25 and Halion in Ruby
Sanctum 25! I wasn’t expecting this progression for quite a while! Of
course, there’s always more to do. HM ICC 10 and 25 would be great, as
would achievements for the drake. Ulduar clear and ToGC are also high
on my list of things to do! I’m super happy I got Arthas down in 25
though. MOONSHINE has some great people, and I’m glad they brought us.

WoW and Lynx

I’ve been playing a few games recently. Besides World of Warcraft, I’ve been playing a few different Lynx games. I’ve also been playing some PSP games and a couple console games.
In WoW, I’m now 12/12 ICC 10, 7/12 ICC 10H, and 11/12 ICC 25. I’ve done RS 10 but still haven’t finished 25. I also broke 6k gs yesterday!
As for Lynx games, I’m getting pretty far in Chip’s Challenge. I think I’m about one-third of the way through the game. While I’ve definitely playe more of CC than any other Lynx games, I’ve also put some time into Gates of Zendocon and Todd’s Adventures in Slime World.
I picked up The Club a bit ago for less than $10. It was the first game I purchased since last summer. I enjoyed the more arcade-y take on third-person shooters. I haven’t played around in it much after beating it. I also tried to finish Mad World, but I’m pretty lazy, and the boss battles require a lot of shaking.
Okay, I’m fallng asleep. Good night.

Crimson Acolyte Cowl or Hood?

Recently someone found WebPageless while looking for a comparison between the Crimson Acolyte Cowl and the Crimson Acolyte Hood. This isn’t the first time it’s happened, so I decided to talk about the two of them a little.

 
First, Crimson Acolyte Cowl is the headpiece of the shadow set, and Crimson Acolyte Hood is the headpiece of the healing set. I’m just going to call these the DPS headpiece and healing headpiece respectively.
DPS headpiece
Gains over healing headpiece: 8 crit, 72 haste
(2) Set: The critical strike chance of your Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch spells is increased by 5%.
(4) Set: Reduces the channel duration by 0.51 sec and period by 0.17 sec on your Mind Flay spell.
Healing headpiece
Gains over DPS headpiece: 80 spirit, 1 spell power
(2) Set: Your Flash Heal has a 33% chance to cause the target to heal for 33% of the healed amount over 9 sec.
(4) Set: Increases the effect of Power Word: Shield by 5% and Circle of Healing by 10%.
Let’s break this down by looking at the two headpieces from the perspective of each spec.
Shadow
Spirit is almost worthless for shadow. Spell power is king, and crit and haste are both next in line. Obviously the DPS headpiece has the better stats for shadow. In addition, the healing headpiece’s set bonuses don’t help shadow at all. The DPS headpiece’s set bonuses are pretty nice. This is a no brainer. If you’re shadow, take the DPS headpiece.
Holy
Let’s take a look at the four stats that differentiate the two headpieces. For holy, spell power is the most important of the four with spirit close behind. Spirits provide both regen and a spell power boost. Crit and haste, while helpful, are less helpful. Looking purely at stats, the healing headpiece is slightly better. Take into consideration the fact that the DPS headpiece’s set bonuses don’t help holy at all while the healing headpiece’s set bonuses are quite nice and this one is easy as well. If you’re holy, take the healing headpiece.
Disc
Disc priests will probably have a harder time than holy priests or shadow priests picking their headpiece. I went through this when I first started collecting T10 as a disc priest myself. Spirit is pretty much worthless for discipline priests. Let’s look at the remaining stats that differentiate the headpieces. What’s better, 1 spell power or 8 crit and 72 haste? Clearly the crit and haste are much more valuable than 1 spellpower. Discipline is in the weird position of wanting the same gear caster DPS players want (except we don’t want hit of course).
The problem is that the DPS headpiece’s set bonuses don’t help disc at all. How about the healing headpiece’s set bonuses? Increasing the effect of Power Word: Shield is great. This spell is what makes disc what it is. You should be using it all the time. PW:S should always be on the tanks and anyone taking or about to take damage. For example, when someone gets the Mutated Infection during the Rotface battle, put a shield on them! Once you have enough mana to not worry about mana at all, you should be blanketing the raid in shields whenever you have the free global cooldown anyways. As for the Flash Heal bonus – I think it’s a nice set bonus. In a lot of fights I hardly use it at all, but in a lot of fights I still do use it.
It’s tempting to go for the throughput stats of the DPS set, but you really should be taking advantage of the healing set bonuses. Go for the healing headpiece. There’s also another way to look at it. Let’s assume you don’t care about the healing set bonuses. Then why get the dps headpiece? If you’re going to forget the healing set bonuses anyway, you should go for Corp’rethar Ceremonial Crown (Heroic) from heroic Gunship 25. I realize you’ll have to do a 25 mode heroic and that might not have been what you wanted to do, but (at least on my server) it’s very easy for anyone to get into a PuG that can do heroic Gunship. This gives you a benefit of 30 int, 30 stamina, 114 spirit, 25 armor, 18 crit, and 47 spell power compared to the 8 crit and 72 haste you’d get from the DPS headpiece. It’s even better than the Sanctified version of the DPS headpiece.
There are a lot of other headpieces that are better for disc than the DPS headpiece as well. Another is the Cowl of Malefic Repose (Heroic) from heroic Blood-Queen in 10-man. This is much harder to do than heroic Gunship 25, so let’s forget it. Next up is Thaumaturge’s Crackling Cowl (Heroic) from Deathbringer heroic 10. Next there’s Corp’rethar Ceremonial Crown from regular Gunship 25. Lastly, Cowl of Malefic Repose from Blood-Queen 10 normal.
Some of those are pretty hard to get. Strangely enough, the very best one is the easiest to obtain. Even if you’re just starting out, finding a PuG for 25 man shouldn’t be hard, and most do heroic Gunship. You should go for the healing headpiece, but if you decide you don’t care about the set bonuses (although you should), there are much better headpieces than the DPS headpiece.
Conclusion
So, what you do? Buy the T10 that’s made for your spec! Do it! And don’t sell the set bonuses short!