Curator Down!

Eight Lambdas and two esteemed colleagues waltzed into Karazhan this morning and downed Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, Crone, and Curator in just about 3.5 hours. Nice! Many phat lewts were obtained, including Legacy for our hunter friend and T4 gloves for Crushey.

First, the obligatory "Curator down" screen shot:


Plus, a bonus group photo:


Woohoo!

Nola's Visit to Karazhan

Nola recently picked up her Karazhan key and decided to check the place out. It's quite the intimidating place for a tiny gnome!

Undaunted, Nola walked up to the gate and unlocked it using her shiny new key. The gate popped open, and in she went, only to find herself staring at the front door.

After seeing this door, she has some suggestions for the tower's staff on accommodating their smaller guests. At any rate, nobody answered, so she figured she'd save them the trouble and let herself in.

In the tower's entry, she introduced herself to a friendly and well-dressed doorman, who told her a bit about the tower.

Seems like such a friendly fellow... Now why couldn't he have opened the door? Anyway, she figured she'd start her tour at the stables.

Quite an offer! Can you believe he refused? Nola decided to spare him (this time), but Mr. Midnight is certainly off her Christmas card list. She headed back to the main ballroom but got a bit lost on the way...

Yikes! They should clean out this place a bit more carefully. Good thing those spiders weren't too bright... Anyway, she eventually made it to the main ballroom.

Quite the party! Nola was excited to see so many other partially-visible guests, but they didn't seem to notice her. It's probably for the best--she's not much for dancing with giants, particularly when they look so hostile!

Unfortunately, some of the tower's staff members weren't quite as welcoming as the doorman.

A quick apology (and a Vanish, for good measure) kept things peaceful, and Nola managed to make it to the banquet hall. Seizing the opportunity, Nola tried to dance on the banquet table, only to have her offer rebuffed in a most uncivilized manner.

Honestly, she has never seen worse treatment of a friendly (and tiny, and mostly invisible) guest. Next time she'll be back, and with reinforcements! Pointy reinforcements...

[time passes]

Sure enough, a few months later, Nola is back for a second visit to Medivh's famed tower! She was invited to visit the tower by nine of her closest Alliance friends (well, eight friends and a really surly dwarf), and she allowed them to witness as she single-handedly delivered Midnight's comeuppance. She decided that it was rather rude to take all the fun and challenge out of her friends' visit, though, so she kindly allowed them to fight their way through the rest of the tower without her assistance. Despite the fact that they no longer had the benefit of her legendary combat prowess, they seem to have done well for themselves. Nola visited the tower after their departure for a quick victory lap, and she took some photos while she was at it...

First, we have the aptly-named "broken stair". It's a stair, and it sure is broken. It seems everyone is so enthralled with the opera house downstairs that nobody has managed to maintain the rooms upstairs.

Thankfully, the tower isn't all so unsightly. It soon leads to a quaint hallway ordinarily watched by the so-called Curator.

Honestly, Nola questions the taste of any "Curator" who chooses to display those green-eyed gargoyles. Yecch. But you ain't seen nothin' yet...

HOLY MOTHER OF MEKKATORQUE! They put a giant statue of a freakin' dwarf in this place? Not even Blackrock Depths was this bad. Nola posed in front of it, in order to suggest a more suitable subject matter, should the owners choose to commission some new art.

Next up, we have the library, and what a library it is!

Truly dizzying! Nola was hardly able to take her eyes off the architecture, until she happened to spy a familiar-looking name in the corner.

Sadly, he assured Nola that he has no knowledge of this "Gravalun" fellow [ed: guild 'lock] and fears that he may be some sort of imposter. Oh well!

Anyway, you recall that this is a library, right? The kind where you store books? Well, not this one!

FIRE! It's a fire! They're burning books! What kind of twisted library is this? No help came, though, and Nola felt it would be a bit suspicious to stick around.

Fortunately, the rest of the library contains a number of books that are not currently on fire. In fact, there are a number of distinctly non-fiery books lying around, and I do mean lying around. Honestly, it's enough to cause anyone with a library science degree to rupture an artery or three. Nola made the best of a bad situation.

After that brief detour, Nola pressed on, climbing to dizzying heights in this Escher-esque library. Don't look down!

Even up here, though, the place is littered with the results of what is, frankly, some pretty sloppy bookkeeping.

To be honest, Nola was beginning to tire of all of these ridiculous books. Many of them weren't even legible! When she found a friendly Ethereal fellow lighting another fire, she felt quite sympathetic.

Thankfully, that was just about the end of this ridiculous library. Next up was a quick detour to the observatory!

Don't let the perspective fool you--that's quite the telescope there. Nola couldn't even reach the eyepiece!

Onward to the game room...

Quite the chess board, eh? Nola didn't seem to fit in with those orcs, and despite her encouragement, the footmen wouldn't budge an inch. This chess board wasn't quite what it was cracked up to be.

Beyond the chess room was the entrance to the chambers of Medivh himself.

Seems like some sort of whacked-out wizard sauna. Nola tried to relax, but she could swear one of those statues was looking at her. Anyway, if you're wondering who designed this place, check out the next room:

This is probably where Medivh and his wizard buddies go to get high. That explains so much...

Next, a quick pit stop at a rather large bed.

And finally, we've made it to the top of the tower!

Check out the dragon in the distance. Neat, eh?

You might think that this is it, but apparently Medivh figured out how to add on a whole lot of extra real estate to the top of this place. Need more square footage to sell the place? No problemo!

Whoa. Now that's spacious!

Looks like this is the end of the line, though, so there's only one thing left for Nola to do... Strip down to the tabard and leap to her death in the library! Goodbye, cruel world!

So ends another chapter in Nola's exploration of Karazhan. Tragic! Next time, though, next time...

A Warlock's Dilemma

In instances, minion choice is generally situational. Felguard or voidwalker for off-tanking, imp for +stamina and fire shield, succubus for crowd control, felhound for...something.

But what's the best choice for general questiness? For 30 levels, I've run with a Felguard. I love him. I attempt to keep him alive in instances. He looks really cool. But is he better than the voidwalker for general running around? For 30 levels I thought i knew the answer. Now i'm not so sure.

For those of you who are more baseball statistics-minded (read: not me) here's the stat breakdown for a lvl 70 warlock, 42 Demonology, 19 Affliction.

----	Voidwalker	Felguard
Health	7014	5010
Mana	4658	4127
Str	153	153
Agi	108	108
Stm	457	457
Int	326	280
Spr	122	122
Power	634	630
Damage	139-171	228-282
Spell Bonus	+91	+90
Armor	9384	8503
---	reduces	reduces
---	damage 47%	damage 43%

Felguard does have Cleave and Charge and a better taunt than the voidwalker. Voidwalker has Consume Shadows and sacrifice. When i run with the blueberry, it seems like he dies more, but that might just be an impression.

I don't really play by statistics because I've always suspected they don't give you the whole picture. Looking at the stats for Felguard vs. Voidwalker, it seems that the voidwalker is the better choice. But is it? Am I missing something? I think so. But what?

open letter

Dear Mr. Devilsaur,

Please stop killing me and my pet every time I set foot in Un'Goro Crater. Failure to do so will result in severe repercussions from some powerful and hate-filled gnomes.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Tacostalker

375 Drinking

I decided to start my own booze blog instead of clogging this one with my off-topic posts. sorry to anyone who was annoyed. You can find this one (and more to come!) at 375 Drinking!

look for more posts at Darkmoon Special Reserve

375 Engineering!

With almost enough gold in my pocket to train 300 riding skill, it was time to think seriously about crafting Merial's epic flying machine. Cheaper, more mudane mounts are available, of course, but what self-respecting engineer could pass up the opportunity to zip around Outlands in their very own epic flying machine?

The challenge, of course, is getting to 375 engineering without going completely broke in the process. Usually Lootables is a nice place to start when leveling your profession, but their engineering guide misses a few money-saving opportunities, and they assume that you're just grinding for grinding's sake. If you have a specific goal in mind, you can get skillups for crafting the materials that you'll need later on.

I'm going to focus on 350 and up (since that's what I've done recently and remember well), but for the sake of completeness, I'll start at 300:

• 300-325: Elemental Blasting Powder, Fel Iron Casings, Fel Iron Bolts, and Fel Iron Shells. On my server, Fel Iron Casings are marginally profitable, though they don't move very fast at the auction house. The other items are not necessarily profitable, but you'll need at least 20 Blasting Powder for Smoke Flares (below), and you'll need at least 9 Casings and 12 Bolts for Adamantite Rifles (also below). The Shells will get you to 325 if nothing else will.
  
• 325-335: Adamantite Frames. These babies are profitable, and you'll need a bunch for Adamantite Rifles later on. Load up!
• 335-350: Smoke Flares. Recipes for these flares come in various colors. There's a green one available from the Cenarion dudes, and a plain one available in Area 52. They cost virtually nothing to make and will easily get you to 350. If you're patient, I hear they'll carry you to 355.
• 350-365: Felsteel Stabilizers, Khorium Power Cores, Hardened Adamantite Tubes. You'll need 8 each of the Stabilizers and the Power Cores for your flying machine, and you'll need 5 Tubes for Khorium Scopes later on. If you plan to make your epic goggles as well (and have the requisite Primal Nether), you'll want to make an extra 4 Stabilizers, 2 Tubes, and 1 Power Core, plus the goggles themselves. If you get above 365 while doing all of this, more power to ya.
  
• 365-370: Adamantite Rifles. This recipe is available from the engineering vendor in Shattrath, and it'll carry you up to 370. On my server, they cost 40g to produce and sell for 10g, so the loss per Rifle is 30g. (You did save those Bolts and Casings from earlier, didn't you?) I got a skillup from every one until they turned green at 370, and my sole attempt at 370 failed to yield a skillup.
  
• 370-375: Khorium Scopes. Five of these should hopefully get you the rest of the way. Make sure to use those Hardened Adamantite Tubes you crafted earlier. You'll invest about 150g worth of mats, and you can sell them for about 100g, so that's a 50g loss per Scope. That's more than you lost with the Rifles, but at this point, you'll probably need to make at least two Rifles per skillup, so the Scopes are the cheapest way to go. Here's the catch: The recipe is a BoP drop from Sunfury Bowmen near Manaforge Duro in the Netherstorm, so you'll have to grind them for an hour or so in order to get it.

By the way, Felsteel Stabilizers and Khorium Power Cores can be purchased from the Area 52 engineering vendor in limited quantities. If you're patient enough, you can buy them from him at a steep discount. However, they appear to be profitable when crafted, so even if you can buy them from the vendor, there's no reason not to use them for skillups anyway. (Disclaimer: I never tried to sell any at the AH, so I don't know how fast you can move them.)

Good luck!

Warlock Basics: Damage and Crowd Control

I'm going to divy Warlockry up into three posts: The basics (damage and crowd control), the situational (pets and curses), and development (talents and equipment). We are a sophisticated class, after all, and there is so much to manage.

You say you like to torture your enemies to death with the slow dissolution of their bodies and summon demons with the crystalized remains of their pathetic souls? Excellent, then the way of the warlock may be for you.

Role:
Warlocks excel at two major tasks: first eliminating opponents with a little mana and a fair amount of patience and second keeping enemies occupied while you do it.

Most of the warlock finest damage spells do damage over time (DoT). Curse of Agony (more on curses later), Corruption and Immolate are the basics. The channeled drain life and drain soul spells, as well as the channeled Area of Effect (AoE) Rain of fire and Hellfire all mete out pain over time. Even seed of corruption turns [an] opponent[s] into [a] ticking timebomb[s] (beware the angry mobs!) with a DoT wick. Affliction, which specializes in DoTs adds two to the mix: siphon life, a fire-and-forget trickle of health from your victim(s) to you, and unstable affliction, which makes anyone foolish enough to dispel your DoTs very sad.

One consequence of this DoT mania is that warlocks take their time, even with cakewalk mobs. It takes time to load enemies up with our best DoTs, and the other DPS may given our victims a merciful end before a warlock has really even started playing with them. On the other hand, warlocks who keep their DoTs up on a long lasting opponent and live to tell the tale will rank high on the damage meters.

Warlocks have four crowd control options and can use three of them simultaneously: Fear is first. It sends just about any non-boss enemy running all over the place. It's one of the best crowd controls in the game. You can chain it, you can hit them with dots without losing the fear and a couple of points in a first tier affliction talent make it hard to resist. So you can kill them without them ever getting close to you. On the downside, in crowded environments, it easily has the potential to assemble all your opponents to come eat you together. The brief terror attached to death coil and the brief AoE horror of howl of terror are similar. But they have short durations with long cool downs. The short duration reduces the linking risk, but the long cool downs limit the crowd control value.

The second is banish. It holds a single demon or elemental in stasis. It cannot do anything, nothing can be done to it, and it stays still. It also cannot be broken early and has to break before it can be recast. DoTs lose time, but do no damage, and cannot be reapplied until banish expires.

The third and fourth relate to demons. A warlock's succubus can seduce humanoids. This spell takes 1.5 seconds to cast, and requires the succubus's undivided attention to maintain (humanoids are so fickle). When it does break, whether early or not, it takes another 1.5 seconds of target freedom to recast. Unlike polymorph, it doesn't heal the target, and it cannot be recast before it expires. But it can be broken by damage to the target, or any interruption to the succubus. Additionally, since it is the succubus casting, not the warlock, I don't believe it gains the penetration and spell hit of the warlock.

The fourth is to enlave a demon. The enslaved demon won't be as effective or as loyal as one you summon yourself. But it takes an enemy and makes a (feisty) pet. Unfortunately, your normal pet will head off for other parts when you do this, meaning no simultaneous seduction and enslavement. This is crowd control of last resort.

Now, your victims are seduced, banished, enslaved, playing pattycake with your demon, or running screaming with their hair on fire as their bodies unravel. You can knit, pick flowers, plan your next meal, compose poetry, or just relax. We warlocks are a leisurely class. But if you are in a hurry, you can accelerate the process. Shadow bolts are slow casting, but do pack a punch. They are the main non-DoT damage tool of the warlock. Other tools include shadowburn (requires a soul shard, short cooldown), death coil (long cool down), soulfire (long cast time, requires a soul shard), searing pain (distracts victims from your pet or tank), and incinerate (better with immolate up, but still not amazing from what I've seen).

Destruction warlocks also get conflagrate, which consumes an immolate in a burst of damage (best to cast just when the victim thinks it's almost over) and shadowfury, a quickcasting, short cool down AoE damage and stun. Fun to use on casters and I'm told it's great for detonating Seed of Corruption.

Ah, Seed of Corruption, that reminds of our Area of Effect (AoE) spells. Whenever faced with a great many victims there's no way to strike fear into them more quickly than AoEs. Rain of Fire allows you to select an area in which any hapless victims will be subject balls of fire dropping from above while you concentrate. Lovely, but not always sufficient. Hellfire channels something more deadly, but also dangerous to you. You see, you burn along with your targets, and the fire originates from you. Don't worry though, your party members are safe. Then comes my personal favorite, seed of corruption. This puts a DoT on your victim, and when they are damaged up to a certain level, they explode with shadowy goodness, sharing it with everyone around them, and keeping none for themselves. Sadly, one must choose between this and the usual corruption, but it is a small price to pay. The damage can be truly impressive and will often make you quite popular (with the victims).

So that summarizes the basic tools in a Warlock's toolbox. Next up, the situational tools: pets and curses. Tune in later for more silly exposition on warlocks.