From: ERiC AiXeLsyD world.and.lunar.domination
Date: Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 12:44 PM
Subject: Re: W(aL)D [Fan Mail?]
To: Tommy Horner tommyboy489

Dear Mr. Horner (a.k.a. The Moon),

I have it on good authority that you are indeed made of green cheese… and that you are most definitely not the moon. I will reserve any comments on your equatorial radius and lack of testicles. While I am indeed old, science progresses at a rate where age may be rendered irrelevant in the near future… thus ensuring more time for me to complete my total World (and Lunar) Domination.

If you keep up this behavior, you will most certainly not be allowed on the moon.

Although, I’m guessing from my blog stats that you have been one of the people exploring my old W(aL)D files. Too bad the beginnings were wiped out in one of the great PittsburghBeat.com crashes. For this studious devotion, your feeble attempts at threatening me will be forgiven. Perhaps one day, you can work up to a position of merit in the W(aL)D army.

Perhaps I need to ramp up the efforts to my World (and Lunar) Domination campaign? Maybe I will need to enlist some generals once again to help in the effort.

I also appreciate your taking the time to write to me, and encourage you to comment on the blogs that you find amusing. There’s no need to login. Just pop in our name, email address, and a URL if so inclined. Use Gravatar or a WordPress account if you want your photo to show up.

Your future Emperor of the Earth (and Moon),
-ERiC AiXeLsyD
W(aL)D

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 10:59 AM, Tommy Horner tommyboy489 wrote:

The Moon
238,855 Miles away, and rising in the East
Earth, Milky Way Galaxy 27743

Dear Mr. AiXeLsyD,

I, For one, am highly offended by your eventual plans to dominate both myself, and the Earth. First of all, may I remind you that my Equatorial radius alone is 1,738.14 km. Roughly 0.273 Earths. Dominating me is out of the question, for I am bigger than you and wars on the Moon are settled by spirited rounds of Roshambo, South Park style (The Moon receives comcast cable). I have no balls, therefore defeating me is virtually impossible. I also often refer to myself in the third person, which makes the Moon awesome by default. In Conclusion, give up your silly dreams. You are too old for a human, and in your attempt I shall crush you!

Sincerely,

The Moon (Ya Dig?!?)

Tie me Kangarupe down, sport!

Bryan Zepp Jamieson, November 11, 2009

It really hasn’t been a good fortnight for Rupert Murdoch (hereinafter
referred to as “Kangarupe”) and his minions (hereinafter referred to as
“minions”).

First, there was the matter of the 23rd District in New York. This was
the one where the far right was supposed to really flex its muscles, and
solidify the role of Faux News as the true opposition party to the Obama
administration. A Conservative Party candidate named Hoffman ran, with
heavy backing from Faux, Sarah Palin, Pawlenty Stupid, and various other
big-name far right wingers, including, eventually, everyone’s favorite
politician-for-hire, Newt Gingrich. They knocked off the Republican
candidate, a moderate, and did it so viciously that she wound up giving
her support to the Democrat. Two days later the Democrat won, and Faux,
which had been promoting the 23rd as THE race that would show, once and
for all, that the GOP would have to align with them in order to win
seats in 2010, suddenly discovered two fairly uneventful governor’s
races, neither of which featured any upsets, but in which the
Republicans won.

Faux and minions couldn’t even bring themselves to mention Hoffman by
name, something that got widespread notice – and derision – among the
punditocracy. It was widely noted that the 23rd hadn’t gone for a
Democrat since 1871 (yes, that was eighteen seventy one). Faux tried
showing that the 23rd had changed shape from one decennial apportion to
the next, and that PARTS of what is now the 23rd had been represented by
Republicans at one point or another. They probably should have shut up
whilst they were behind, as various historians were quick to note that
the central town and population hub of the District, Watertown, hadn’t
had a Democratic Congressman since 1871.

That same day, Faux got into a fight with Oscar the Grouch.
That would be the muppet that lives in a garbage can on “Sesame Street”.
Long time readers with severe OCD and no life whatsoever will
doubtlessly recall that I mentioned Oscar in an essay about 10 years
ago. “Sesame Street” was being shot for a Russian audience, and it turns
out that Russians are unamused by grouchiness, and consider it an
extremely negative character trait, but consider sadness to be
hilarious. So Oscar the Grouch became Oscar the Lugubrious. But the
American Oscar, grouchy as ever, had his own media empire, featuring
luminaries such as Dan Rather-Not, and Walter Cranky. They referred to
guess who as “The Pox News Channel”, not such a bad name, given Faux’s
obsession with H1N1. Breitbart, acting on Kangarupe’s behalf, moaned
publicly that Pox didn’t get a cute, affectionate name like Walter
Cranky, and saw evidence of a liberal media conspiracy on PBS as a result.
Getting into fights with muppets rarely works out well, even if you are
a world-wide media conglomerate. This didn’t work out well for Pox, er,
I mean Faux. Kangarupe suffers from overenthusiastic minions.

Liberals around the world were delighted when Kangarupe announced that
he was going to put all his on-line material on a “pay to view” basis.
So Kangarupe started a fight with Google, implying that he would sue
Google if they linked to his pay-only articles. He considered use of the
opening paragraph or even the headline to be a violation of his
copyright. Google, puzzled, noted that there was a simple line of code
any programmer could put into a page that would put the page off limits
to Google. Given that Murdoch owns dozens of websites with millions of
pages, you would think he might know that.

Later that day, another heroine of the right imploded. Carrie Prejean,
widely seen as a victim of liberals because she is bigoted against gays
and who got fired because she didn’t bother to carry out any of her
contractual obligations, became a Faux front-liner. Until that day, when
an extremely explicit sex tape of her emerged. Along with anatomical
details they like to pretend beauty pageant winners don’t possess.

The shootings at Fort Hood, horrific as they were, should have been a
bonanza for Faux. Not only would it give them a chance to Moslem-bash,
but they could also claim that it showed the utter incompetence of the
Obama administration.

The problem, as it turned out, was they did exactly that and were
greeted with a stony silence from the vast majority of Americans. They
were just a bit too anxious to exploit the situation, and the false
claims that Hasan was in contact with al Qaida, and the ludicrous
attempts to show that Obama didn’t care because he was greeting the
crowd before he spoke of the shootings at an event didn’t go over with
the public.

In the meantime, Faux darlin’ Sarah Palin showed Kangarupe and minions
why McCain had so many blinding headaches during the campaign. It was
bad enough when it came to light that she wanted the Iowa Republicans to
pony up $100,000 if they wanted her to come and campaign (they decided
they could live without her), and then she announced that no recording
devices of any kind would be allowed at a speech she was giving. (You
can pretty much guess how that worked out, and if you can’t, have no
fear, because I shall tell you in a bit). That just added to her
now-monumental reputation as a politically tone-deaf flake. She had
already alienated many mainstream Republicans when she involved herself
in the 23rd and threw her support to the independent—the same one who
had the bad grace to lose the election of the century.

She gave the speech, and of COURSE someone sneaked a recording device
in. You aren’t really going to tell me you didn’t see that coming, are
you? The device caught her making a strange screed about the dollar
coins, which had “In God We Trust” on the rims. Palin saw the sinister
forces of liberalism behind this, an obvious effort to “secularize the
money.” Too bad Jesus isn’t at hand; I would love to see the expression
on his face when he learned that secularizing money just ain’t
Christian. The only trouble is that the decision to put the phrase on
the rim was made sometime in 2005, when Republicans controlled all three
branches of government. Darn those secular liberal Republicans! That was
so blatantly goofy, even Faux News had to admit they couldn’t blame
Obama for that.

Faux, caught off guard by the health care vote in Congress, immediately
started howling that Pelosi had broken her vow to post the bill 72 hours
before the final vote. It made for good howling until it emerged that
Pelosi had posted the working floor version of the bill – the one that
existed – 72 hours before the vote. Ooops.

That’s when it really started to go downhill for Kangarupe and his minions.
First there was the Republican anti-government rally fiasco. Bad enough
that featured speaker Michelle Bachman missed a vital quorum call,
costing her party a vote on some major legislation. There was the Faux
coverage, particularly that of minion Sean Hannity. They claimed 20 to
45 thousand showed (other estimates ran between 5 and 10 thousand) and
showed throngs of crowds after images of the Republicans on the
grandstand vowing to smash the evil American government. Jon Stewart and
his crew were watching, of course, and Faux handed them their own asses
on a silver platter. As Stewart gleefully noted, the demonstration took
place on a clear blue fall day, with the leaves on all the trees
changing color. But the images of the vast crowd listening were on a
partly cloudy day, and, mirabile dictu! The trees had all turned back to
green! Maybe right wingers emit large quantities of chlorophyll or
something.

Stewart then showed camera coverage of the rally, and camera coverage of
the big 9-12 rally two months ago. It was the same coverage. It didn’t
help that the voiceover from Faux was gushing about what an
extraordinary turnout it was for a cool fall Thursday, which, as Stewart
acidly noted, was actually a summer Saturday. Thanks to Faux, Stewart
hasn’t had to write a joke in years.

Kangarupe then went on a Sky network show to be interviewed by a minion,
and during the interview, affirmed that Obama was a racist for
saying…well, something or other. Kangarupe wasn’t sure what it was,
but it sure was racist. He knew this because Glen(n) Beck told him so.
Beck caught hell for that, and a Faux minion had to issue a formal
retraction and apology. And so Kangarupe blew that up. The next day,
they sent another minion out to explain that Kangarupe didn’t really
think that, and just said it because he said it, or something.
I wouldn’t want to be a Faux minion. Unless you happen to be a
sociopath, the job would give you ulcers.

Then Glen(n) Beck had his Army / McCarthy moment. McCarthy’s poisonous
reign of demagoguery ended when a lawyer named Welch turned to him and
said, “At long last sir, have you no shame?” Beck’s reign of demagoguery
ended yesterday.
He sued the owner and operator of a website, Isaac Eiland-Hall, the
satirist behind
glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com. Now, normally, if someone
puts up a website accusing you by name of raping and murdering a young
girl, regardless of the year, you would have grounds for a lawsuit.
Except the site never does actually claim he did such a thing. It just
notes that there was a rape at a specified address (in fact, the
location where the infamous “Duke LaCrosse Team” case occurred) and that
the name “Glen Beck” appeared in the documents. The site then says that
people are talking about this, and asks why Beck doesn’t come forward to
settle the matter once and for all.

In other words, it was a parody of the sleazy style Beck uses on his
show, night after night, to call Obama a racist, or imply that a member
of his adminstration facilitated underage gay sex, or that another
member was a Maoist.

Beck’s lawyers doubtlessly told him he couldn’t hope to win such a suit,
since the site is very clearly satirical and starts out saying they
don’t believe Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young woman in 1990.
So he filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property
Organization instead, the outfit that tries to safeguard intellectual
property world wide.

He got a humiliating defeat Friday, when WIPO ruled that the site was
obviously satirical in nature and thus had strong first amendment
protection.

Eiland-Hall, gracious in victory, promptly emailed the account name and
password of the site to Glenn Beck to dispose of, and included a letter,
portions of which appeared in Raw Story and are reprinted below. It was
a complete humiliation of Beck. He lived by the smear, and he’ll die by
the smear.

Kangarupe and minions also got hit by a huge lawsuit from one Sandra
Guzman who is charging discrimination against Murdoch’s media empire,
News Corporation, the New York Post and its editor-in-chief Col Allan
for the treatment she received at Kangarupe’s flagship American paper.
Accusing Kangarupe and his eldest son of “”hostile work environment
where female employees and employees of colour have been subjected to
pervasive and systematic discrimination and/or unlawful harassment based
on their gender”, Guzman charged that she had been subject to such
treatment after trying to avoid yet another embarrassment to the
Kangarupe empire when she argued against the Post publishing a cartoon
which showed Obama as a dead chimpanzee.

Finally, remember the shrill brays about how the supposed “war” between
Faux News and the administration had sent ratings through the roof?
Turned out the numbers were fabricated, as so much of Faux “news” is.
The two week ratings, before and after, showed less than two points
difference in viewership, well within the normal range for such period.
So no ratings boost.
But now it might go up, as gleeful liberals watch to see what sorts of
fuckups Kangarupe and Minions pull next!

Excerpts of Eiland-Hall’s letter, printed by Raw Story:

In a letter to Beck that concluded with the username and password to
access the domain, Eiland-Hall said:

It bears observing that by bringing the WIPO complaint, you took what
was merely one small critique meme, in a sea of internet memes, and
turned it into a super-meme. Then, in pressing forward (by not
withdrawing the complaint and instead filing additional briefs), you
turned the super-meme into an object lesson in First Amendment principles.

Shame on you Mr. Beck.

Oh snap.

Nu har jag ett par teorier.

a) Bruden i fråga behövde en ursäkt för att ta en bild där hon vinklar “underredet” så mycket att alla hennes läsare tänker “höhö man kan sätta på’na i sidled!”.

b) Hon vill faktiskt vara som mig och har i hemlighet ett litet altare i en garderob där hon offrar silverfiskar och tillber Dr. Rödräv med mässande sång och tända ljus.

c) Hon hade så lite att göra att hon på allvar gjorde låtsasdreads, posade i cam och skrev ett helt inlägg enbart om hur äckligt dreads är och att det bara är, and I quote, “för lata människor som hatar att tvätta och fixa håret. Det är helt enkelt för folk som inte bryr sig om sig själv och om att vara fräsch!”.

Omröstning! a, b eller c? Någon?

I will let the following images tell you what I have coming to me:

Oh yea they are on their way home to daddy.  I am debating if I want to spend the cash to get the Long Riders as well or just go with my first 750 list.  I am still not sure.  I cannot wait to get these bad boys though.  I am very much excited!

Dear Reader,

It would seem that my incarceration in the dreaded cone will soon be coming to an end.  I am allowed more and more freedom from its vile confines.  Minion #2 has submitted to my constant bombardment of mind control to release me.  However, Minion #1 has no sympathy and re-incarcerates me as soon as she realizes I’m free.  I am NOT amused.

This durance vile can not end soon enough, as I have not been able to adequately scratch behind my ears for more than a month.  Minion #1’s human fingers are not sharp enough. Minion #2 does not even try to scratch my itches.

Unsharp Human Finger

Soon I will be free and unfettered.  Able to groom myself to my own exacting standards.

I will report my journey toward freedom.

Ever Yours,

Charlie, the Cat

- – I’d  really like to have a costumed arch-nemesis; no plain-clothes nemesis for me, thank you very much…those with a costumed arch-nemesis tend to be memorable, like Batman.  People remember the Joker or the Riddler, but almost certainly wouldn’t remember the Freemason or the Certified Public Accountant. An arch-nemesis has a history with you, in many cases arching you for years; it’s a love/hate thing, really.  A arch-nemesis should be colorful but not competent; you don’t want them to actually do you in (for further exploration of the complex relationship one may have with a costumed arch-nemesis, catch the Venture Brothers on Adult Swim, the Cartoon Network).

What about henchmen?–If you have henchmen, they’ll have to go through them to get to you, and maybe your enemy will wear themselves out.  Henchmen give you extra time to get away, bargain, plea, or just work up to a good cry.  Plus if you have henchmen, you’re giving others work in this depressed economy.

Could I possibly get a sidekick?–Batman, Aquaman, and the Green Arrow have one.  I don’t think Marvel superheroes have sidekicks as much; Wolverine would probably kill his. – - Cancel the sidekick; I’d probably be arrested, especially if it was some teenaged guy in tights.   Maybe the sidekick would write a tell-all book, and we’d split the profits and get rich.  Money isn’t everything, but it’s way ahead of whatever’s in second place.

I’d also like to have minions, followers who hang on your every word and do your bidding.  No one’s done my bidding to this point in my life, so I figure I’m overdue.  In this category, I’d like to have a cat’s-paw, which should not be confused with a rabbit’s foot; some of my best friends are cats, and I’m not into the amputation of bodily parts.  A cat’s-paw is kinda like a chief minion or tool that acts in your behalf.–Wouldn’t that be cool?

…and why don’t we have manservants anymore?–If you want something, a manservant is there to get it for you, and wait on you hand and foot.  I’d like to have someone wait on my feet, and a manservant sounds classy; kind of like a gentleman’s gentleman.  You’ve gotta love the redundancy of that!

So I’m gonna ask Santa for these things; I’d be satisfied to get any of them.  If that doesn’t work, maybe I could get some of that federal stimulus money, ’cause these things would be stimulatin’ to me, woo!   

Dear Readers,

Minion #2 stuffed my royal self in the box,  delivering me to the place of many animals.   Where the tall human assaulted my regal self with an exam then an injection.  I was not pleased.  On the way back to my domicile, Minion #2 informed me that I now cost as much as a computer, so now I am a feline computer.

I am NOT a Computa-Cat!

Minion #1 informs me this is the box by which I spread my tidings. Apparently, she does not wish to invest more in my health and maintenance.   Money is no object as far as I am concerned for I am valuable beyond measure. Minion #1 will set her straight in this matter.

The tall human instructed Minion #2 to keep me incarcerated in the dreaded cone.  I must wear it for an additional sen night 24/7.  Minion #2 has hardened her heart against my plaintive pleas of freedom.  I must come up with another plan.

The Royal Minion Quizz has advised me to be as adorable as possible to soothe the Minion #1’s stress.  He said that Minion #1 is experiencing stress about my health, as she should, and other things.  I should be gentle with her.  I will take this under advisement.

Until my next tidings.

Ever Yours,

Charlie, the Cat

Dearest Readers,

As Minion #1 has reported, I have recently been indisposed.

My nether regions had an unfortunate medical emergency which caused me great distress.  I am a fastidious feline.

Cleanliness is next to Feline greatness.  After all, in Egypt my kind were worshiped.  Would any lesser being worship a great being who was slovenly? I think not.

During this period of indisposition, I have been unable to groom myself to my exacting standards.   I have been cursed with an unwieldy contraption around my neck that prevents me from paying attention to any details.  To add insult to injury, the minion #2 has been assaulting my posterior with some foul liquid that injures my dignity.  When I hiss my displeasure, she has the gall, the GALL, to laugh and say she is only doing this because she love me.

Be that as it may, when I get this accursed contraption off my head and the hole in my posterior is healed.  All bets are off!

Ever Yours,

Charlie, the Cat

Wotcha everyone,

Having read the official releases about Siege of Mirkwood, I’ve been thinking about this new Skirmish system, and how it might work.  Yes, sometimes I get bored.  And then I start to ponder the unponderable, with no real information to back it up.  Random speculation and suchlike.  This is one of those times.

I like the idea of having an Expendable Minion whom I can mould to my satisfaction, but don’t need to worry about controlling in the heat of the action.  If I want to be smug and have something else do all the work, I’ll get Herewerd out of his box and be all Loremaster-y.

Making up the numbers is good, but I think the customisation is a work of genius.  I love my expendable minions.  Because I can sacrifice them to achieve my aims.  I don’t *care* about them, though.  I almost, almost cared about my World of Warcraft Hunter pet, but mainly because I had to be all special snowflakey and get a Ghost Sabre.  Cue an hour of stupid statue-fiddling amongst various angry naga because I didn’t want wait until I was at a decent survivable level.

And this was when Warcraft Hunter Pets had the loyalty mechanic, so you *had* to be nice to them.  Well, nice-ish.  I’d feed it after having it brutally slaughtered to save my repair bills.

But if I get to customise my new Expendable Minion, yet not control him, then maybe he stands a chance.  Because he would be less of a Minion, he might end up being less Expendable.  I might even care about the little chap.

Replayability=good.  We spend so much time repeating ourselves, in online gaming.  Daily quests.  Repeatable reputation quests.  Levelling alts.  Running raids and instances for rare-drop phat-lewtz.

And the result?  Burnout.  Not fun.

If the skirmish system is kept deliberately simple; “Defend the Prancing Pony”, then you can safely allow random elements to creep in.  Change the type/make-up of the attacking mobs.  Change where and when they attack from.  Change the duration of the fight.  Some will be easy, some will be difficult.  Random chance can be a harsh mistress.  But it will make them less of a formula-following trez-gathering exercise, and more of a fun, fast and frantic experience.

I want that.  It makes a skirmish more replayable.  More of a challenge.  And less likely to become just another repeatable bore.

I think it’s the skirmish system, more than anything else, that excites me about Siege of Mirkwood.  I have a few alts languishing in the doldrums, as I’ve no interest in running through the same content again and again.  However, the opportunity to get on, blast through a few skirmishes, and move on, seems like a great way to level at leisure, without feeling like I’m grinding my way through levels.

Cheers,
Hawley.

Dear Reader,

Before one comes to the conclusion that I am an anti-human, anti-canine feline.  I would like to point out that I am neither.

I understand that humans are mere minions put on this earth to serve my every need.

Canines, on the other hand, are a questionable.  I currently share my abode with a canine named Quizz.  While I do not loathe him, I find his charms to be wearing at times.  He does have his good qualities.

Exhibit A:  His food is delectable and his bowl is left out for my dining pleasure.

Exhibit B:  Minion #1 shares Quizz’s chicken treats with me.

Now, if I could just stop him from putting his cold nose on my posterior, I would be pleased.

Back to my minions.  I have two minions.

Minion #2 is the one who spends the most time with me.  I manage her very nicely.  I tell her when to nap, when to feed me and when to stop staring at that strange box on the flat table.

Minion #1 is more difficult.  She is the one who cares for Quizz.  She very seldom does my bidding.  She thinks playing ‘Hide the Charlie’ is fun. I don’t enjoy having the canine energetically seek me out, then pounce on me.  Yet she makes me participate regularly. If I do not wish to go somewhere, she picks me up and brings me anyway.  This minion has proven resistant to my feline training methods.

While my current circumstances are less than pleasing, my over all circumstances are acceptable.

I will keep the minions and the canine.

Ever Yours,

Charlie, the Cat

Beware! I have minions to do my bidding, so do not cross me! You have been warned!

“Don’t cross me, I have minions” is available on t-shirts and other stuff at my shop at CafePress.

.

tags humor, humorous, fun, funny, tshirt, tshirts, t-shirt, t-shirts, comedy, comic, silly,

NB: This guide begins where my video guides end, the full list of which can be found here. The video guides cover levels 1-10, and the abilities therein. This guide will be structured such that it is based around talents. For the new abilities you can learn from trainers between 11 and 80, check out my guide here.

Now I must stress before we start that I think leveling as Destruction is a bad idea. For about 85% of the time you will have low survivability, your rotations will depend on killing things before they can hurt you too much, and your mana usage will be horrible – actually, you’ll essentially be a Mage. However, it is possible; it just won’t be nearly as easy as picking a different spec. But if you’re determined, so be it.

So as mentioned, Destruction depends a lot on direct damage spells, AKA “nukes”, for example Shadow Bolt or Incinerate. With this spec your DoT spells are far less important than with Affliction or Demonology, but you should still be using Immolate at least, as it complements your play style with its upfront damage. Additionally, some of your main spells later on will depend upon the Immolate debuff being on the target.

While leveling, you’ll want the Voidwalker (VW) out as a tank. At later levels when you can kill things more comfortably, or during instances, you may want to consider the Imp as a dps pet.

This is a link to the complete talent tree which you’ll have at the end of this guide.

Levels 10 to 14

For the first five levels, put points into Bane – this will reduce the casting time of Shadow Bolt (our main nuke at the moment) and also Soul Fire, a spell we will learn at a higher level.

Levels 15 to 17

So as I’ve said, two big problems are survivability and mana consumption, especially at this low level. Taking three points in Molten Skin will make you 6% less squishy!

Levels 18 to 20

We can also reduce the mana cost of our spells by 10% with Cataclysm, which means we’ll be able to squeeze out more spells from our mana pool.

Levels 21 to 25

Now, Ruin is a great talent which means that whenever we crit, we crit for 100% more, and as Destruction we’re actually going to be critting quite a lot due to the build’s nature. So, lots more damage.

Levels 26 to 27

In the unfortunate but likely event that you have a mob or two attacking you and not your pet – it’s true that it’s far too easy to out-aggro the VW – you may see that your spells get interrupted or delayed. To help prevent this we can take Intensity.

Levels 28 to 29

Destructive Reach both increases the range we can attack from (further away from nasties = good) and reduces our threat, which is great for both instances where you’re grouped with other players and for solo’ing when you need the pet to be taking the damage.

Level 30

Considering it’s just one talent point, Devastation is well worth it as it gives us a sweet 5% more crit chance.

Levels 31 to 33

Improved Immolate gives us a straight increase to damage – like I said earlier, Immolate might be the only DoT you use, but just make sure you do use it. It’s good damage, and Warlocks are supposed to use DoTs in one way or another, plus some spells will rely on it as we will soon see.

Level 34

For this level, just place one point into Backlash to unlock the next tier. Backlash itself gives us more crit chance (Destro Warlocks crit a lot, remember) and it also provides a nice defensive mechanism whereby when we’re physically hit we have a chance that our next SB spell will be instant cast, which is good for either nuking on the move or for trying to quickly finish that last mob when it’s about to kill you.

Levels 35 to 39

We’re going to see that Destro becomes very fire-based at later levels, as opposed to shadow-based, and Emberstorm is proof of that. A nice talent, it gives us 15% more fire spell damage and allows us to cast Incinerate (you don’t have it yet) faster.

Level 40

Conflagrate is one of my favourite Destruction spells. It’s instant cast, which is always good, and it deals quite a lot of damage. The idea behind it is that if you have an Immolate (or Shadowflame) DoT effect on a mob, you can ‘consume’ that effect and deal all the damage the DoT would have done all together in one go. However, it does mean the DoT will disappear, unless you get the glyph, which I advise.

Levels 41 to 42

Let’s go back now and finish maxing out Backlash to improve the +crit and also the chance of the effect proccing.

Levels 43 to 44

We’re gonna continue the trend of beefing up our damage by silly amounts by taking two points in Aftermath, which gives us 6% more periodic (DoT) damage from Immolate and also allows Conflagrate to daze the enemy – this reduces their movement speed, so if you’re fleeing or PvPing it can be pretty handy.

Levels 45 to 49

What, all the damage boosts so far weren’t enough for you? Fine then, let’s give all our main spells another 20% with Shadow and Flame!

Levels 50 to 52

Backdraft will give us a huge increase in spellcasting speed for the next three spells we cast after each Conflagrate – this is actually very, very helpful, especially if you’re nuking something down and it needs to die quickly. It’s also a major DPS increase for instances.

Levels 53 to 54

Two points into Pyroclasm will allow us to both unlock the next tier of talents and give us a damage increase when we critically hit with some of our quicker nukes.

Levels 55 to 59

Fire and Brimstone – that smell you just can’t get out of your robes sometimes. Um, wait, no, I mean… You know what, never mind. Let’s just settle for more reasons to keep Immolate’s DoT component up on the target and a silly amount of +crit chance to Conflagrate.

Level 60

And now comes the last talented spell to join our arsenal – Chaos Bolt. This rather awesome spell looks good, hits hard and pierces absorption effects, all which are traits I look for in prospective women spells. Note that by ‘absorption effects’ it means things like Shadow Ward or Mana Shield, not immunity effects like a Bubble or an Ice Block.

Level 61

Finish off Pyroclasm by putting a last point into it.

Levels 62 to 64

Soul Leech is a nice little ability which will help now that the Outland mobs are hitting you harder. Essentially, whenever you deal damage you have a 30% chance to heal yourself for 2o% of the damage you do, which averages out to you healing yourself for 6% of the damage you do each time you cast a spell. I think. Either way, it’s good.

Levels 65 to 66

This leads to Improved Soul Leech, which gives you back 2% of your maximum mana each time the Soul Leech effect restores some health, and it restores the same to your demon. Additionally, it will give the Replenishment effect to your raid or party if you’re in one, which is a great buff that’s generally considered to be necessary, so this should help with those instances you’re probably not doing since Outland is full of naught but Death Knights.

Levels 67 to 71

From now on, you ought to be considerably less squishy than you used to be, and you might be able to kill things before they can do too much damage, especially if you use an Imp. So from now on, we’ll be focusing on being better in groups, etc, because the only other accessible talents now are about survivability or DoTs, neither of which you need.

To tide you over into Northrend then, we’re going to take Improved Shadow Bolt, the reason being is that you’ll be doing instances while you level now (this time, I’m not being sarcastic) and this is good for groups since it increases the crit chance of everyone attacking the affected mob or boss. And you do more damage.

Levels 72 to 74

Chances are at this level your gear won’t have as much hit rating (a very necessary stat) as it could do, so Suppression will help with that by giving you a nice, toasty 3% right off the bat.

Levels 75 to 77

Improved Imp will make your Imp a bit scarier, and it will also make his (is it a he?) buffs more powerful.

Levels 78 to 80

Lastly, Empowered Imp will get your Imp doing some more damage, and it will also boost your own dps indirectly.

… Ding! Congratulations on hitting level 80 after your (probably) arduous struggle as Destruction. Hopefully following this guide helped to alleviate the pain, and you can now go and get involved in the multitudes of end-game activities which are available. Good luck and best wishes!

Dear Readers,

It has been brought to my attention that minion number 1 has not taken my medical issues with the proper seriousness.  Yes, she takes care of me, feeds me, and administers the proper medications.

But then she takes pictures of my weakened state.  As evidenced in the following:

Stuck, Minion #1 giggled. She will pay!

May I point out the large excrescence from my neck.  I can not fit my flexible cat self through my normal openings.  I am not amused.

Ever yours,

Charlie, the Cat

I’ve closed blogs myself, and know that it’s a natural part of the blecosystem, but I’ll be sorry to remove Alan Lenzi’s “Bible and Ancient Near East” from my RSS feeds. Alan’s has long been among my favorites.

Thanks for great posts, Alan. I’ll instruct my minions to let me know when you pop up again, whether in your old haunts or in another venue.

[Psst: Addendum]

NB: This guide begins where my video guides end, the full list of which can be found here. The video guides cover levels 1-10, and the abilities therein. This guide will be structured such that it is based around talents. For the new abilities you can learn from trainers between 11 and 80, check out my guide here.

If for some reason I couldn’t spec into Demonology for leveling, Affliction would be my second choice, and admittedly some people will champion this spec as being the best, at least until you get to higher levels. No one can really say who’s right or not, but if you’re reading this you’ve picked Affliction for one reason or another, so let’s get on with the guide.

Affliction, as a spec, offers huge improvements to the DoT components of your spell arsenal, as well as providing various buffs and procs to do with your health-restoring spells, all of which makes it a very mobile spec. Certain combinations of talents will also allow you to effectively ‘Drain-Tank’, where with excessive use of Drain Life and a few talents you can tank a mob and slowly kill it without losing health.

For the majority – if not all – of your leveling time you should use the Voidwalker (VW) to tank mobs for you. Your main DoTs at the beginning are Corruption, Curse of Agony and Immolate.

This is a link to the complete talent tree which you’ll have at the end of this guide.

Levels 10 to 12

Warlocks are notoriously bad for mana regeneration at low levels, and that, combined with the fact that an Affliction build means you’re going to be casting several DoTs on each mob you kill, means you’re going to go out of mana (OOM) pretty fast. To help counteract this, we’ll start by taking Suppression, which reduces the mana cost of all Affliction spells by 6% after 3 points. The +hit chance will help prevent you missing with spells, which is particularly helpful in instances later on in the game, although less useful right now.

Levels 13 to 14

Two points into Improved Curse of Agony buffs our main curse and brings us up to the second tier of the talent tree.

Levels 15 to 16

Improved Life Tap will increase the amount of mana we gain from Life Tap, but the amount of health we lose remains the same – this ought to help some more with our mana issues without leaving us vulnerable to attacks when at low health.

Levels 17 to 18

We’re going to see that Affliction Warlocks have a lot of talents which revolve around Drain Life, as it’s a pretty staple Affliction spell (and a nice alternative to Life Tap). Soul Siphon is no exception, and maxing out here will increase the amount of damage we do with the spell (and hence, the amount of healing) by an amount for each DoT on the target – talents to do with DoTs are also going to be a theme in this build.

Level 19

For this level, we’re jumping back to stick a point into Improved Corruption, which buffs what is probably our best and most used DoT. The latter part of the talent can be ignored for now, but will be handy later, when we have Seed of Corruption.

Level 20

We get a bit of a different talent at level 20 – Amplify Curse provides us with a passive ability which reduces the global cooldown (GCD) of all our curses by half a second – this means we can cast them faster, basically, because we don’t have to wait so long for them to finish cooling down.

Levels 21 to 23

Back to talking about Drain Life, and you might be noticing by now that if you try to cast it when you’re under attack it will probably be interrupted so much that it’s almost useless. To reduce this problem – to reduce it by 70% to be exact – we have three points into Fel Concentration.

Level 24

Again, drop back and place a point into Improved Corruption (we now have two points in it).

Levels 25 to 26

Nightfall is a really handy talent which actually procs more than you’d think. Whenever you deal damage with Drain Life or Corruption (two of our main spells remember!) there’s a chance that your next Shadow Bolt will become instant cast – this saves a lot of time, and allows for nuking on the move if it’s the tick of the DoT that procs it.

Levels 27 to 29

As I keep saying, Corruption is one of our major spells, and now we can Empower it! Increasing its damage by 36% of our Spell Power is nothing to laugh at.

Level 30

This spell is awesome. This spell is brilliant. This spell is fantastic. This spell is… Siphon Life! Well, it’s not technically a spell any more; now it just adds an effect onto Corruption. I’m not complaining though – look at the numbers, and consider how much you’re going to heal yourself for. Then consider the boost to damage for some of your DoTs. Oh yes.

Levels 31 to 35

What Shadow Embrace largely means for you at the moment is that when you use Shadow Bolt, your target will take 5% more damage from all DoTs on it – this is a good reason to open with a Shadow Bolt, and then cast your DoTs afterwards. This effect also stacks twice, so it could potentially be 10% if you have time.

Levels 36 to 40

Time for a bit of a simpler talent – a nice five points into Shadow Mastery increases your shadow damage by 15% (that’s a lot) and also increases the life you drain (i.e. with Drain Life) by 15%, too.

Levels 41 to 45

Contaigion – more damage, less chance of your DoTs being dispelled.

Levels 46 to 48

Another nice and simple talent – Malediction gives us 3% more damage with all our spells and also increases the critical strike chance of some of our DoTs (they can’t crit yet, but soon).

Level 49

Time for a shiny new spell! Dark Pact is like a safer alternative to Life Tap – at least, you won’t feel like you’re killing yourself. Instead, you can just drain some mana from your pet to restore your own. Be wary of using this too much, however – the VW needs mana to taunt nasties away from you.

Level 50

And another new spell, though not so shiny looking – Unstable Affliction. This is another nice DoT to add to your arsenal, although I don’t think it stacks with Immolate. Therefore, from now on, your main DoTs for your rotation will be Curse of Agony, Corruption (with the Siphon Life effect) and Unstable Affliction.

Level 51

A point into Pandemic gives us a very interesting effect, which is to say it allows the periodic damage from your DoTs to crit, greatly increasing your damage. If you remember the Malediction talent, you’ll see it’s now more useful too, as the increased crit chance applies.

Levels 52 to 54

Death’s Embrace is really two talents in one. The first part happens when you are on low health, and it causes your Drain Life to heal you for more (the idea is that you’re less likely to die). The second part happens when the enemy is low on health, and it causes your shadow spells (not that Affliction Warlocks use fire at all at this level) to hit harder. The idea there is that the enemies die faster.

Levels 55 to 59

Time to beef ourselves up further with Everlasting Affliction. As well as buffing our DoTs, we also get a neat effect whereby each time we use Drain Life (very often) or Haunt (don’t have it yet, but you’ll be using it a lot) it resets the duration of Corruption. This means that your Corruption DoT will never expire on a mob once you’ve cast it, unless you stop attacking, saving you from the mana and time of recasting it.

Level 60

Haunt is one of the spells which sets Affliction Warlocks apart from the other two specs. Providing you with a fourth DoT, casting this not only increases the damage you do while the DoT is active, but when the effect ends you will be healed for however much damage Haunt does! Pretty cool, no? In instances, and indeed all the time, this wants to be cast before the other DoTs so you don’t miss out on that potential extra damage.

Levels 61 to 63

Right back to the bottom now, to fill in our last three points in Improved Corruption.

Levels 65 to 69

Jump over to the Destruction tree briefly to check out a five-pointed Bane, which reduces our Shadow Bolt casting time by a nice amount. Soul Fire isn’t very important to us as Affliction.

Levels 70 to 71

You’re stepping into Northrend around now, if you’re not there already, and you might notice the large increase in the amount of haste on items. We’ll follow this trend in our talents, and continue going for faster spell casting with Eradication.

Levels 72 to 73

It’s now also time to consider instances, which you might well be doing. First up, Grim Reach to help you stay away from those big and nasty instance mobs.

Levels 74 to 75

Secondly, Improved Drain Soul reduces our threat with the nice side effect of giving us some mana back when things die.

Levels 76 to 80

As with my other leveling guides, at this point I’m going to be honest – the distribution of your last few talent points really does not matter. I’m going to suggest Improved Shadow Bolt for more damage, but it might as well be up to you.

Well, congratulations on level 80, and I hope the guide helped! Remember to change to a decent spec, as your leveling spec will probably be awful in PvP and sub-par in PvE, and then enjoy the endgame.

More proof, if any were needed, that I need new minions: how have I not been made aware of these guys?

Hat tip to Bryan at Hevel.

Multimedia message

Originally uploaded by recordingatthezoo

8000 miles on Mellow Yellow!

Spend the weekend in Canada with the Minion Scooter club!  Good times and almost 500 mile in a long 3 days!  More Pic’s coming later.

Thanks for playin’

I would like to take this opportunity to satisfy two recent reader inquiries.

1. 4th Street Traffic’s album Kick the Habit can be purchased online at amazon (mp3), amazon UK (download or CD), from iTunes, at Tesco stores in Great Britain, in person at any of their gigs, and I’m sure at many other venues I have not investigated. It’s been out for a couple of months now and contains these seven songs:

Second Thoughts
Astray
Friend of Mine
Perfect Circle
White Lies
If You Go
Giving It Up

2. In Vampire Wars, you need blood to purchase things like abilities and minions (which in turn give you more blood). You also need it to enhance your abilities, which you can do once a day. To protect your blood from assailants, stick all of it in the bank and draw out only what you need when you need it. You can also win trophies for depositing certain amounts of blood or dominating a certain number of minions (mostly applicable to college frats, law firms and escaped mental patients).

Whenever you receive a trophy, you also receive a favor point. Every fifth trophy gets you a skill point, as well. Use skill points to enhance your health, energy, defense, attack strength or rage. There is no point in hoarding skill points. The best practice for favor points is to save them for important stuff like additional clan members or extra blood. Don’t waste them on health or rage refills, especially since you can use blood to refill your health! There are currently 71 trophies, with more being added whenever the designers come up with a new idea.

Hi everyone,

It’s Monday but I’m still basking in Sunday.  Minion Scott and I took our Vespas out for a spin and 425 miles later we returned to Spokane!

We left Spokane at 6:30 am and picked up Hwy 20 in Coville.  Probably the best twisty’s were coming down Sherman Pass into Republic.

The ride over Lulu pass (I think)  into to Twisp from Okanogan was pretty nice too.

Hit Winthrop about noon and it was full of the other 2 wheelers and I’m figuring them people probably never seen Vespas that that neck of the woods before!  Quick lunch and then headed out.  We were running 70-85 on the downhill run back home and did a pretty good job of passing everyone we could.

Looks like I spent $13.70 on a gas and got 89 mpg for the trip.  Not bad for a couple of Vespas!