Hi BB Users,

Blackberry Onyx just launched in several country including Indonesia.  There respond of market is positive as we know there are improvements in technology at Blackberry Bold 9700/ Onyx. What is the new features at Blackberry Onyx ?

Available Features Blackberry Onyx 9700

• Trackpad navigation
• Bright, hi-resolution screen
• Full QWERTY keyboard
• 3G technology
• Wi-Fi® and Bluetooth® enabled
• 256MB flash memory
• 3.2 MP digital camera with
  video camera
• Multimedia player
• Wireless email
• Organizer
• Browser
• Phone
• SMS/MMS
• MicroSD card reader
• Learn more about the features available on BlackBerry® smartphones

Size and Weight

Height:
4.29 inches (109 mm)

Width:
2.36 inches (60 mm)

Depth:
0.56 inches (14.1 mm)

Weight:
4.30 ounces / 122 grams
(including battery)
3.17 ounces / 90 grams
(without battery)

Battery & Battery Life

• Battery: 1500 mAh removable/rechargeable cryptographic Lithium cell
• Talk Time: Up to 6 hours (GSM and UMTS)
• Standby Time: Up to 21 days/504 hours (GSM), Up to 17 days/408 hours (UMTS)
• Music Playback Time: Up to 38 hours

Display

• High resolution 480×360 pixel
  color display
• Transmissive TFT LCD
• Supports over 65,000 colors
• 2.44″ (diagonally measured)

Camera & Video Recording

• 3.2 MP Camera
• Auto Focus, Image Stabilization
• Flash
• 2X digital zoom
• Video camera recording:
  Normal Mode (480 x 352 pixel),
  MMS Mode (176 x 144 pixel)
• Learn more about camera and video recording

Maps & GPS

• Includes BlackBerry Maps
• Integrated GPS with A-GPS
• Learn more about BlackBerry Maps and GPS

Data Input & Navigation

• 35 key backlit QWERTY keyboard
• Dedicated Keys: Send, End, VAD (User Customizable), Camera (User Customizable), 2 x Volume/Zoom
• Trackpad – Located on front face of device, ESC Key to the right, Menu to the left
• Intuitive icons and menus

Voice Input & Output

• Integrated speaker and microphone
• Hands-free headset capable
• Bluetooth headset capable
• Integrated Hands-Free Speakerphone
• Rating for hearing aids (PDF): M3, T3 (in cellular bands only)

Media Player

• Video format support: XviD partially supported, H.263, H.264, WMV3, MPEG4, Sorenson Spark & On2 VP6 (Flash support)
• Audio format support: .3gp, MP3, WMA9 (.wma/.asf), WMA9 Pro / WMA 10, MIDI, AMR-NB, Professional AAC/AAC+/eAAC+
• Learn more about the BlackBerry smartphone media player
• Learn more about BlackBerry® Media Sync

Ringtones & Notifications

• Tone, vibrate, on-screen or LED indicator
• Notification options are user configurable
• 32 Polyphonic Ringtones – MIDI, SP-MDI, MP3, WAV
• Learn more about ringtones

Bluetooth

• Bluetooth® v2.1
• Mono/Stereo Headset
• Handsfree
• Serial Port Profile
• Bluetooth Stereo Audio (A2DP/AVCRP)
• Bluetooth SIM Access Profile supported
• Learn more about Bluetooth

Security

• Password protection
• Screen lock
• Sleep mode
• Optional support for S/MIME
• Learn more about BlackBerry security

Wi-Fi

• 802.11 b/g
• UMA support
• Wi-Fi Alliance Certifications: WPA, WPA2, WMM, WMM Power Save, Wi-Fi Protected Setup, Cisco CCX
• Learn more about Wi-Fi

Wireless Networks

• 3G (HSDPA) compatible
• UMTS: 2100/1900/850/800 MHz (Bands 1,2,5/6), 2100/1700/900 MHz (Bands 1,4,8)
• GSM: 1900/1800/900/850 MHz
• Quad-band support: GSM 850; GSM
• Learn more about wireless networks

Source : Blackberry website

today was a good day. i got up early. i cleaned my room. i got all cute. i got coffee and a muffin. yum. i made an appearance on campus. handled some business in the a-building. saw that new boy, we’ll call him “mr.313″. ate some sour patch kids. spoke with my teachers. visited my advisor. kicked it with two crazy people for the afternoon. came home and took a nap with rabiyah. talked to brownsugar before his big game tonight. his parents are there to support him so i don’t feel as bad. i even talked to the spec today .

although i didn’t see, speak to, or hear from him at all today,

not once did i think about HIM.

and that’s a day well spent.

somebody asked me about thanksgiving. umm. it might be a little weird, but then again, maybe not.

we’ll see.

then i found a song that made me smile. alicia keys–try sleeping with a broken heart.

that’s real.

that takes some practice.

ask me.

i would know.

“Munch, I am going to grab some water, do NOT touch the frag belt I just modded, alright?” Says a goggle-wearing Death Knight…

*Boom*
What part of do NOT touch did you not understand!?
The part… with you being … a Blood Elf…

Welcome class, my regrets for your classmate, he should have known not to stand near Munchy in the middle of an explosives lab. Worry not, Gnomes will be even more replaceable once we get access to Goblins! Trust me, he will be in good hands.

As any character, you should pick up two professions. The first reason for this is to simply make some quick cash, because face it, you can not repair all that plate gear on you without any cash, students! Secondly, professions have an indirect and/or direct effect on our performance as a Tank. Each profession has gear that can be created for any player in WoW, but they also give special bonuses for you to boot!

There are 3 gathering skills (skinning/mining/herbalism) and 8 crafting professions, each of these gives a flat-out buff, special ability, or gear enhancement specifically for the player. Any combination of these has a chance to be beneficial for a class in WoW, but as a Death Knight Tank, what should we be looking for out of our professions’ bonuses?

Well, with 24 different combinations of skills available to a single player,  and the ability to only pick 1 of those combinations, it can be quite a challenge to pick which is beneficial to both your income of Gold and increased performance as a Tank. Let us cut into this so-called chase and explore which skills will be beneficial as a Tank, but do remember, you are entitled to your own opinion! (Just your opinion may not be most beneficial as a Tank).

Note: The benefits listed are based upon 450/450 skill in them!

Gathering Skills

Simply put, each of these skills allows us to take from the world. Whether it be picking flowers, finding ore inside of a rock, or ripping the skin off of an animal, each acts as a base for practically every single profession in the entire game. All are simplistic to level up, as well as great ways to rake in the cash.

Herbalism
Pickin’ flowers eh? Fine, if you want to frolic amongst the Priests you may. As a Herbalist the ability Lifeblood is granted to your worthless soul! Once clicked it allows you to be a Resto Druid for 5 seconds, every 3minutes. This meaning that you can heal yourself for 3600 HP with a bunch of pretty little flowers placed all around you. How  useful! Hell, another free Heal is never a thing to pass up, so in that case it is  certainly an O.K. profession to fill in the void.

As a Herbalist, your Herbs are needed by Scribes and Alchemists in order to create potions, flasks, glyphs, and scrolls. Since there is constantly a great market for all of these items it will rake in the cash substantially. Even if you do not AH your findings and instead use them to craft your own items you will be able to save a KILLING on some very pricey Raid Flasks/Glyphs!

Elno’s Word: Alright, it is certainly an easily defended choice of profession. The Lifeblood ability produces a noticeable amount of HP, and it is very simple to level. Is it my top choice? No, but it is definitely a good option to consider as a Tank.

Mining

If bashing a rock, armed only with a tiny pick, does not sound manly to you, then I have absolutely no clue what would be. Out of all of the gathering skills combined it is the proud owner of the most useful “ability” for a Tank. Toughness at its max level of 450 adds an extra 60 STAM to your stats. A little over 600 HP by leveling one of the easiest trade skills in this entire game? Sign me the hell up!

From a money perspective, you will be able to mine Ore needed by Jewel Crafters, and turn that ore into bars for the Engineers and Blacksmiths (Jewel Crafters as well) on your server. Titanium and Titansteel bars will sell for an absolute killing, and the gems you gather as you scour the regions for these nodes will be able to be turned into useful gems to place into gear.

Elno’s Word: Honestly, I would be hard-pressed not to take up Mining as a Tank. It is practically brainless to level, produces an excellent amount of cash, and gives 60 STAM to boot! What is not to like about this?

Skinning

The Native Americans used practically every part of any animal they would kill. It is a damn waste to leave that Rhino laying there to decay! Luckily Skinners will take these rotting carcasses and recycle them into useable pieces of fine leather. The bonus it gives, however, is the least-desired out of all of the Gathering Skills. Master of Anatomy, despite having a badass name, is not desired for a Tank. We do not need Crit, if it comes off of the 2H that is perfectly fine, but we should not be gemming/enchanting/leveling trade skills solely to get the extra Crit. However, as a DPS the extra 40 crit is not half bad.

As for being a tycoon as a Skinner, your audience is not horrible. You get Leatherworkers and maybe a Tailor to consume your dead animal skins as they make “stylish” clothing articles for everyone to wear. Yes, you are the sole reason RPers look so good, congratulations!

Elno’s Word:  Despite being useful, I would rather pick flowers than skin wild beasts, the benefits are just not worth my time. Although it is the easiest Gathering skill to level, a Tank should not be touching this with a 10 ft pole.

We can dance if we want to!

Tradeskills

At this point in time of WoW there are 5 different Trade skills to choose from. All of which have their uses and perks in-game. Most of the trade skills require gathered materials that one (or more) of the three Gathering skills can acquire, because of this many people level a gathering skill and a trade skill that cooperates with it well. The perfect synergy, but what Trade skills (if any) will we be choosing!?

Tailoring

What could be less many than picking flowers for a living? Why making dresses of course! First of all, as a Death Knight we do not even bother wearing Cloth, and as a Tank this goes double do to the lack of useful Stats and armor. This is solely needed for the clothies, and just incase you have not noticed, we wear PLATE, especially as a Tank. The only use we would be getting out of Tailoring will be the bags, so if you are that dead set upon leveling it, go make a Priest for Christ’s sake.

Tailors can make leg enhancements for everyone, but as a perk for a Tailor these leg enhancements only cost a mere 1g thread to create. These enhancements are called Master’s Spellthread and Sanctified Spellthread; they give 50 spellpower and 30 STAM, and  50 spellpower and 20 Spirit respectfully. Just to burst your bubble, despite the fac that we do have Spells as Death Knight Tanks, they do NOT scale based upon spellpower, instead they work off of our Attack Power. That perk? Useless, but hey, you can make a Magic Carpet mount which makes it totally worth it! (Seriously, it is pretty epic)

Edit: Thy whom make bags also have an embroidery for their cloaks, on top of the Spellthreads for their legs. Shadowguard Embroidery, Darkglow Embroidery, and Lightweave Embroidery would be their names, and of course the mats are pretty cheap and worthwile. However, if you are a Tank, it is TOTALLY not worth your time to go for any of these. First, Darkglow and Lightweave are completely useless because once again, we do not use spellpower and do not even have Mana as a rescource. Shadowguard is not half bad however, but for the amount of time to get to that point in Tailoring is just not worth a 400 AP chance on hit proc on my cloak.

Elno’s Word: For Christ’s sakes, I know it is extremely easy to level, but there are absolutely no perks into leveling Tailoring. Even if it was useful, do you really want to be THAT GUY who makes dresses at the Ebon Hold?

Enchanting

Everyone who wishes to accomplish anything end-game will find your name and make you their new best friend, seriously. You are the guy that can boost their performance, and you can make a killing off of doing so. As an Enchanter you suck the life out of all of the useless Green/Blue/Epic items of the world and turn them into useful materials needed to put powerful spells in your’s and other’s gear. So pick up that rod and let us get to work!

As a perk for Tanks, you can Enchant Ring- Stamina to both of your rings. 30 Stam x 2 = 60 Stam! Yes, about 600hp solely off of Enchanting, and that is pretty frickin’ sweet. Plus, you do not have to go out of your way to buy mats for your own personal enchants, so you will be guaranteed to save a killing off of that.

Elno’s Word: YES! 600 HP extra is certainly a magnificent bonus, just a small price to pay for being the “enchanting bitch” and staying at the bank after Raid nights enchanting guildy’s gear. Trust me, it is made of pure win, and some arcane.

Conclusions Part 1.

As I said earlier, you can make great cash off of any of these gathering skills/trade skills, but which ones should you choose from a Tanking perspective? So far Mining, Herbalism, and Enchanting are the only “viable” options that we have explored so far. Do not worry though, next week we will take an in-depth look into Black Smithing, Jewel Crafting, Engineering, Leatherworking, Inscription, and Alchemy. I hope to see you all there!

Do you have a Death Knight Tanking question you want answered in The Death Knight Tank and You: weekly miniguide? Drop us an email at Plaguedcandles@gmail.com !

Happy WoWing!
-Elno

The first ever NEoN Digital Arts Festival got off to a flying start in Dundee this morning with a brilliant session from Realtime Worlds’ Colin Macdonald and E.J. Moreland, part of the fantastic development team behind Xbox 360 smash Crackdown and forthcoming crime MMORPG All Points Bulletin.

But before talking about what is on the horizon for the developer with APB, Colin took the almost-200 attendees through the history of Realtime Worlds, starting with the creation of DMA Design, who you might know as the creators of rodent genocide simulator Lemmings and a game called Grand Theft Auto that you may have heard of before.

The rest of the Dundee game development sector was borne from DMA Design, with all the key players setting up their own development studios and the rest, as they say, is history (the short, short version).

Also, Colin reiterated that GTA IV was the biggest media launch ever, raking in a whopping $310 million and only bettered by Modern Warfare 2 at $400 million. That Scotland has managed to retain IP this massive speaks volumes about what the NEoN festival was established to achieve; to show the world that Scotland is one of the best videogame-producing countries in the world. Fact.

Right, on to APB…More below the jump…

The game was conceptualised by Realtime Worlds founder, the incredibly talented Dave Jones, around three key standards; Conflict, Creativity and Celebrity. With each of the online cities holding a maximum of 100 players at any one time, you can bet that there will be a lot of conflict breaking out sporadically all over the vast play area. The main hook of APB is ease of accessibility, meaning there are no cumbersome lobbies, instead replaced with seamless matchmaking that works magically in the background.

The in-game clip shown depicted two ‘Crims’ cruising the city streets in a van, looking for cars to steal. After they attempt to hijack a souped-up vehicle, an APB goes out to any law enforcers in the local vicinity. The beauty of the games’ matchmaking system then springs seamlessly to live, pitting the Crims against a perfectly balanced squad of human-controlled cops and throwing them head first into a fire fight. It’s an ingenious system and proof of the scale of technical wizardry at play.

The gameplay itself looks incredibly slick, utilising a neat Gears of War-style cover system and over-the-shoulder aiming mechanic that smacks of Resident Evil 4. This new footage also shows off how you can use the in-game audio creation kit to further your bragging rights by creating personalised five-second taunts. The clip showed a Crim being gunned down in a derelict train yard to a hilarious remix of Queen’s ‘Another One Bites the Dust’. Ooooh, sick burn!

Moving into the second area, Creativity, custom audio playlists can be transferred into the game, so the potential is there to cruise around the streets in your tricked-out sports car with William Shatner covers blaring out the windows…If you really wanted to do that of course, not that I’d advise it.

Celebrity is the third key standard of All Points Bulletin, as shown in the slick trailer. Players will really have a chance to carve out their own legend online through pulling off crimes and evading enforcers time and time again. Similar to Warcraft, these players will work their way up the food chain, create new crews and dominate cities. This kind of bleeds into the customisation ethos, where you can create gang colours and create a threatening presence online.

While no solid spec was revealed, we were given some pretty vanilla-flavoured particulars. The game will run on Unreal 3 Engine, should ideally run on a quad-core processor, but a dual-core should suffice. Also, the game will run at the high-end of 4 gigs of ram, yikes.

Finally, E.J. stepped in to stress that the game does not have a deep, overarching narrative as suggested in the official trailer. E.J. said: “We don’t feel a story is important here, we don’t have a story here as we want players to create their own stories and shape the world.” He also confirmed that the game will be constantly supported post-launch with new updates and additions that will ‘evolve the world’. Nice!

So that’s your lot, the game is shaping up to be a strong contender for MMORPG of choice in 2010. Good times.

I am loving the new Postman Pat advert for Spec-savers. If you haven’t seen it yet .. here it is….

There is also a fascinating making of too …..

I grew up on Postman Pat. It was one of my first introductions to animation as a child and what probably got me hooked on doing it myself. So was delighted to see this advert and am very envious of the people who got to work on it.

I’m debating whether or not I should switch one of my specs to 18/0/53 when 3.3 comes out.  The hard part is deciding what points to give up in the resto tree.  I currently run with a 11/0/60 spec.

Looking at my spec it appears there are 4 pretty easy points that I could drop.

• 1 from Revitalize
• 3 from Living Seed

I think my best option for the last 4 points would be removing them from Tranquil Spirit.  By and large, I’m mostly a raid healer.  I still use Nourish, but definitely not as much as Rejuv and Wild Growth.

What are your thoughts?  Do you plan to get Celestial Focus in 3.3?

I’ve been feeling out of sorts for the last week or so, fighting off some insidious bug that has been attacking my immune system from all sides.

To avoid letting the guild in on what a bitch I can be when I’m not feeling well, I’ve devoted a little time to my priest and my warrior.

(Not to mention I’ve got Wonderfulretributionpally bugging me to level so we can tear up Outlands. He’s sitting at the portal and chomping at the bit to have a healbot I think.)

One of the things that I’ve sort of missed on my mage is getting talent points to spend.

Oh sure, I can respec, and do periodically, but it’s not the same as getting a shiny new talent point to spend for the first time.

Just after hitting 54, spending yet another point in Holy because I’m crazy like that.

Is that sad?

I mean, my HoT is averaging about 1200 over its full course.

My Flash of Light is pushing 1k and my Greater Heal is over 2K.

Now, to an 80, that’s pissant healing.

But take into consideration, I have a little over 3k life and have healed tanks with fewer hit points than me.

If I crit, it’s possible for me to take myself from ZOMGGOINGTODIE to IHADITUNDERCONTROL in one global.

My overheals at this point are retarded.

I don’t have a heal small enough to just “top off” someone.

I can shield them and overheal because of my PW:Shield glyph.

Speaking of which… I’m sure I’ve opened up a new glyph slot by now… I should really look at that…

And speaking of retarded healing in general…

What is up with Lesser Heal and Heal?

A couple levels ago, this is how it broke down:

• Flash Heal – 217 mana, 1.48 seconds, 664 – 787 healed (base)
• Lesser Heal – 371 mana, 2.47 seconds, 145 – 169 healed
• Heal – 371 mana, 2.47 seconds, 749 – 844 healed
• Greater Heal – 371 mana, 2.47 seconds, 1464 – 1642 healed

For a fast heal, nothing compares to my Flash. (I have a haste enchant on my gloves in case you’re wondering about the funky cast times.)

But let’s see… for my next type of heal I can do Lesser Heal which costs more mana, takes longer to cast AND heals for less! BARGAIN!

Or plain ol’ Heal, which costs more mana, takes longer to cast and heals for MARGINALLY more! The deals are hot tonight!

Or… I can cast Greater Heal for the same cost as the two previous lame-ass spells, with the same casting time, and TWICE the healing power! Lemon Scent, too!

Hmmm… I’ll take what’s behind door number 3 there…

I’ve been up and down the talent trees looking for a “Oh! THAT’S why that spell exists!” talent and I’m coming up empty.

I can get Divine Fury, which will reduce the cast time of Heal. But it also reduces the cast time on Greater Heal. No edge to Heal.

How about Inspiration? That reduces the target’s physical damage received after one of my critical Heals… OR Flash Heal or Greater Heal.

Improved Healing? Reduce mana costs on Lesser Heal and Heal… AND Greater Heal.

Surge of Light makes my next Flash Heal (or Smite) instant and mana free but removes the possibility of a crit.

Holy Concentration gives mana regen in relation to Flash Heal and Greater Heal – bypassing the two red-headed stepchildren in the middle entirely.

Empowered Healing gives bonus healing to the two favored spells again.

And lastly I found Serendipity, which uses Flash Heal to reduce the casting time of Greater Heal.

Lesser Heal and Heal got hosed.

This of course, makes me very nervous.

I use just about every ability I have as a mage, with the exception of the fireball, frostbolt, and frostfire bolt simply because those are the main nukes of other builds.

But here as a healer, I have two healing spells that seem to be useless. Beyond useless.

Surely, they could not have given such an important role 2 out of 4 spells that should be vital to the role and make them utter garbage?

Could they?

Or am I missing something?

Edumacate me, pl0x. kkthxbai.

On this blog, I’ve often written about my plans to leave finance and pursue a career as a starving writer.  Of course, like forgiveness, skydiving, or not-cringing-when-viewing-an-ugly-baby, it’s easier said than done.  However, over the past few months, I have been hard at work to try and actually make it happen.

So, attached is a registered WGA spec script that I wrote a couple months ago for the TV show 30 Rock.  If you’ve seen the show and have some free time, I welcome you to give it a read.  Any comments, thoughts, and suggestions (like “don’t quit your day job,” or “my cat could craft better plots with his feces than you,” or “you are a genius sent straight from heaven to shine light in my life”) would be greatly appreciated.

And if you do reference your cat’s bowel movements, I will forgive you.  Or, at least I’ll try.

“Easy Birth Oven” – Copyrighted and registered with the WGA, 2009

The Premise: Jack unveils a new GE product for aspiring mothers.  As a result, Liz and Jenna fight over who would be the better mom.  And Tracy decides to take the SATs, to the delight of the writing staff.

“No Munch, do not touch that, I have been working on this for…*zap*! [Censored]!!! What in the Hell was that for!?” says our Death Knight Hero with some quite complicated equipment…

Good day students, how goes the journey into Tankhood? Excellent, so now that we have talked about Specs, Gear, Stats, Caps, Rotations, and how to play a Death Knight (basics mind you), you are ready for a bit more personal lesson in Tanking. No, I do not need any tissues, what we are talking about is your User Interface, or UI for short.

Disclaimer

As with Death Knight Tanking, there are many choices to pick through, and each should be carefully chosen.  What may be the best UI since sliced bread to me, may be unethical and down right impossible to work with for others. Is there anything that we can all mutually agree on, possibly, but for the most part mine will look much different from yours even if we have the exact same addons.

That being said, how about we set some ground rules for what a UI should do for you, in my own opinion!

Ground Rules

• List additional information that Blizzard does not already (or does not easily) show in the base UI
• Condenses bars and information into a more viewable space
• Clears the center of the screen to allow a more viewable area of your character (allows you to see fire/aoe/circles of doom/ect.)
• Better Raid Frames
• Changing the look of the Blizzard basic UI

The Basic Blizzard UI is not THAT bad, unless of course you are trying to do something in-game. As a Raider, we need to be able to see how much Threat we are pulling, what is our DPS like, and of course Raid Frames. DPS is downright impossible to calculate without an addon to do so, and Threat is only accountable when you have the boss on top of you without an addon as well. As for Raid Frames, sure you can take the ones that Blizzard provides as a base, but generally we want something that is tailored to our needs, and catches the eye for when we need it.

Another problem I have with the Blizzard basic UI is simply that the Bars are all over the place and are far too big for my eyes, I like a small and condensed space that does not take up most of the middle of my screen. During any Raid, quite af ew bosses will throw down AoEs and the like, we want to be able to see these things easily, so how does one do that? We need the center of our screen free of space is how, so sorry Blizz, it’s workable for pretty much very low levels.

Will the Blizzard UI work for Raiding?
Sure, but for me it is the difference of using a bike with two wheels or a unicycle, you will get to your destination in the end, but one is significantly easier and more sought after than the other. In this case, a custom UI is the Bike, we are not all robots that can suffice with the same UI as everyone else, so we may have to get creative and create our very own UI.

Elnoriah, show us “the money”!
First of all, I based my current UI heavily off of Lore’s from Tankspot.com, but of course with a few more “tweaks” to better suit my wants/needs.

Do note, I am going to tweak the View Ports and such to look much more appealing than just two large black bars. Also, that large black space on the bottom is where Omen should be, and it will pop up when I am Raiding and not just being a Tool in the middle of Dal.

It is efficient, I can see any major mechanics in a boss fight, and it is simple to perform as a Tank. The only time I ever need to look at my action bars is when I am doing something nutty with my Engineering, (Jeeves, Wormhole, Mailbox, Goblin Switch Blade of Rezzness) or mounting up.  To me this is a simple, but pretty UI, I like seeing Elno all punked up and ready to kill on my Unit Frames, and I love the Skinner Addon, it is simply delicious!

Pros

• Because of Skinner, I have a workable UI with widescreen viewing ability. It is a bit of work to set up, but certainly worth it! Think of it as viewing a movie in widescreen, you actually see MORE of the film around you, and the exact same goes for my UI.
• It is easy to Tank with. I can move around and view the rest of my group with ease (look at the top left corner for Grid)
• It is appealing to the eye, which to me is a big factor when going through my UI, I want to be able to have a bit of appeal when I am playing. Hey, I am an artist at heart! (Despite the fact that I’m not good at art)
• My diseases and procs are easily kept track of do to ClassTimer (the addon to the left of Elnoriah). It can keep track of my buffs/procs as well as diseases that are on the target. Although I use Death Knight Info Rune/Diseases for disease tracking, it stands out much more, making it easy for me to glance at the diseases.
• Runes, RP, and HP are easily viewed. I have Death Knight Info Runes above my Player/Target/Target of Target frames, and large frames for Elno to be viewed in. Damn straight that is some kung foo text!
• My buffs are at the top-right of the screen and are exactly how I like mine!

Cons

• It needs something on the top portion of the screen, that black chunk between useless abilities/food and the screen is certainly annoying. I am thinking of putting FuBar on there to list my Gold/Repairs and some other useful bits of out of combat information.

Basically, this bad boy presents everything that I want and need out of an UI, thus making it appealing and kickass for my tastes. It is not completely wrong of you to disagree with my thoughts on a UI, after all it is YOUR game, not MINE.

Addons Used

Each of the addons that I use can be found from the Curse Client, or even Curse.com. Yes, I am a lazy bastard!

Chinchilla Minimap- A simple minimap with a clean feel to it, also has great amounts of customization.
Skinner/View Ports- Changes the basic Blizz UI to whatever your heart desires. View Port comes with Skinner and allows you to change your views of the WoW screen. (For example, my widescreen mode)
Pitbull Unit Frames 4.0- Unit Frames, EXTREMELY customizable. Highly suggested!
Omen Threat Meter- Displays TPS/Total Threat of the Raid/Party members on each individual mob.
Recount- DPS Meter, can view more than just DPS/Damage done though.
MikScrollingBattle Text- Scrolling text that shows how much damage I do, if an ability comes off of C/D, Healing Received, if the Target Avoids the attack,ECT.
Prat 3.0- Easily organizes chat, will show the class color and level of every player chatting.
Quartz- Cast bar and swing timer
SatrinaBuffFrame- Buffs and Debuffs
Dominos- Action bars, comes with 10 regular Action Bar, a Pet Bar, Vehical Bar, Roll Area, and a Cast bar (not used).
DBM- Basicly reminds me of the encounter, yells at you if you are in fire, and warns you of incoming special abilities that bosses use. (DXE and Bigwigs work as well, if you Raid you NEED one of these).
DeathKnight.Info Runes- Runes and Diseases
ClassTimer- Shows a timer of procs/diseases/DOTs/Pet Abilities (Customized to your liking)
Button Fascade- Prettier Buttons
Grid/GridManaBars- A Raid Frame that is HIGHLY customizable, easy to set up and highly recommended.

If there are any other questions about my Addons feel free to leave a comment or drop me an E-mail!

"ENERGY LEGS" Macro caused some win in /2

What does a UI do for Tanking?
In my case, clearing the middle of the screen of useless crap allows me to view the boss fight, as well as Skinner’s View Ports in the sense that my wider screen lets me see much more of the game than the basic settings. Tanks need to be on their feet, we have to see everything that is going on around us, or else we will not be able to react successfully towards it. I also like to view a bit more information than the general Blizzard Frames. It is a bonus for me to get alerted when key abilities are off CD, and when they are currently on me when I am getting wailed on. If I know what is and isn’t available, I can act MUCH quicker and more efficiently than searching my bars for something that is or is not on a C/D.

When I Raid Lead, addons like  Recount can give me a basic idea as to who the problem can be/is in a Raid. Correcting a problem is 1/2 the battle, because let’s face it, not very many people like to “fess up” if they did something wrong, so if I can physically see this out of their DPS/Combat log I can correct it. Omen does a bit of the same thing for me, although more useful as a Tank, I can call out if someone needs to slow down on the aggro for a couple of seconds, rather than not knowing and letting the group burn and crash.

Efficiency and being able to evaluate your raid are key qualities for Tanks and Raid Leaders need to have, Addons just make these qualities easier to use.

Conclusions

Do remember, your choice of addons/UI is yours to make, I will not go all Dictator on your sorry asses if you still use the Blizz UI. If you are extremely comfortable and efficient, that is your choice to make, NOT mine. If you want to critique mine, or want me to critique yours, feel free. This is a relatively new setup for me, so some criticism would be ideal. Either way, go toy around with some addons, class, you can’t judge until you tool around for a bit!

Return around the same time next week for more knowledge of the Death Knight Tank!

Happy WoWing!
-Elno

P.S. If the site blows up within the course of the week it was not because Aifel/I were touching the layout, no sir!
P.S. x 2  Sneak Peak of Aifel’s Avatar!

In all his badassery

One thing I’ve noticed traveling in Azeroth and what’s left of Draenor (that’s Outland for the lore challenged) is that a lot of Rogues don’t completely understand what’s going on when you use Envenom and Eviscerate.  I’ve known more that one Rogue that had never used Envenom during Burning Crusade, and was halfway through leveling in Northrend before they used it for the first time.  If you’re not a theorycrafter, you might not care what’s happening mathematically when you press a button, but that knowledge can help you decide exactly what you should be doing in your DPS rotation.  Today, I’ll break both Envenom and Eviscerate down so that you can decide for yourself which one is better for you.

Eviscerate

Eviscerate is the first finisher a Rogue gets, and it’s a little easier to explain, so I’ll start with it.  Eviscerate scales with one stat, Attack Power.  In fact, if you’ve got a 200 DPS main hand that for some odd reason doesn’t have  any Attack Power or Agility on it, Your Eviscerates would hit for the same amount as the dagger you started with back at level 1.  That’s actually one really nice thing about Eviscerate; it’s not reliant on the type or speed of weapon you use.  The only negative thing I can say about Eviscerate is that its damage is reduced by armor, so while it can hit for theoretically high numbers, it won’t hit as hard without Sunder / Expose Armor and Armor Penetration.  Now for the math.

The enhanced tooltip with formulae looks like this:

Finishing move that causes damage per combo point:

1 point  : [497 + AP * 0.03]-[751 + AP * 0.07] damage
2 points: [8,67 + AP * 0.06]-[1,121 + AP * 0.14] damage
3 points: [1,237 + AP * 0.09]-[1,491 + AP * 0.21] damage
4 points: [1,607 + AP * 0.12]-[1,861 + AP * 0.28] damage
5 points: [1,977 + AP * 0.15]-[2,231 + AP * 0.35] damage

Assuming you have a flat 4000 AP, that would read like this:

Finishing move that causes damage per combo point:

1 point  : 617 – 1,031 damage
2 points: 1,107 – 1,681 damage
3 points: 1,597 – 2,331 damage
4 points: 2,087 – 2,981 damage
5 points: 2,577 – 3,631 damage

Those numbers are non critical hits, and assume that the target has 0 armor.  They also don’t take into account talents that can increase Eviscerate’s DPS.  We’ll look at those later.

Envenom

Envenom hasn’t been around as long as Eviscerate.  It was introduced in the Burning Crusade expansion and it’s tooltip is a bit lengthy (it  just got longer in 3.2.2).  Envenom can be used with any weaponry, but one of your weapons must have Deadly Poison applied to it for it to work.  Like Eviscerate, Envenom scales with Attack Power, but it is not mitigated by armor.  Here’s the wall ‘o text tooltip:

Finishing move that consumes your Deadly Poison doses on the target and deals instant poison damage.  Following the Envenom attack you have an additional 15% chance to apply Deadly Poison and a 75% increased frequency of applying Instant Poison for 1 sec plus an additional 1 sec per combo point.  One dose is consumed for each combo point:

1 dose:  [215 + AP * 0.09] damage
2 doses: [430 + AP * 0.18] damage
3 doses: [645 + AP * 0.27] damage
4 doses: [860 + AP * 0.36] damage
5 doses: [1,075 + AP * 0.45] damage

The Equivilent damage, again assuming 4,000 AP, for each:

1 dose:  575 damage
2 doses: 1,150 damage
3 doses: 1,725 damage
4 doses: 2,300 damage
5 doses: 2,875 damage

At first glance, this ability looks to be inferior to Eviscerate, but that’s not necessarily the case.  Depending on your Armor Penetration and the target’s armor, it’s entirely possible that the base damage you’re getting from envenom could be higher.  There’s a few things to consider though:

1. Does your spec look like X/51/Y?  If so, you’re likely better off using Wound Poison over using Instant Poison because of it’s proc rate.  This nullifies the 15% increase in Instant Poison, and you’re dropping your deadly stacks each time you use it.  Envenom almost always loses to Eviscerate in this situation.
2. If your spec looks like 51/X/Y, Envenom is almost always your best choice.  You’re using Instant Poison, so you’re going to get extra Instant procs after using Envenom.  Also, you probably picked up vile poisons, so your base damage on a five combo point Envenom is now 3,450.  In addition, with Master Poisoner, you won’t be consuming your Deadly Stacks, so there’s no real downside to using Envenom.

What does this mean for you?  Well, it depends on your Rogue’s gear and spec.  I see my Envenoms crit for 14k on a fairly consistent basis.  This is in a raid with buffs, but still, 14k is a nice number see flash on your screen often.  What will  you see?  I don’t know.  You can test on a Combat Dummy, but I’m fairly sure that dummies have no armor, so your Eviscerates would be inflated from the lack of damage mitigation via armor.  For your best results, get your rotations solid on a dummy and test DPS in a group with buffs.  That should give you a good idea of which finisher to use and when.

- Sam

]]> http://plaguedcandles.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/the-gladiator-the-specs/ Sun, 08 Nov 2009 04:48:13 +0000 Elnoriah http://plaguedcandles.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/the-gladiator-the-specs/

The Arena, a place of gore, death, but most of all, glory. One must take everything, ‘lest he wishes to lose everything he has worked hard for in this life.  Do you have what it takes, Death Knight?

PvP or Player verses Player is a hit or miss for most people, but as a Death Knight I have found it to be one of the most fun things I have done in WoW. The Gladiators will be a regularly updated mini-guide (much like The Death Knight Tank and You) to inform all of my PvP loving pupils on how to reach the top and kill many.

As with anything you will do in WoW a spec has to be chosen, but in PvP especially you must be very comfortable with this specific spec. You should know your build inside out, better than you would you own child. Why? The answer is very simple, PvP is INTENSE you are getting nuked by some Mage, then out pops his buddy, what buttons do you hit?

I don’t know, I just took the spec for teh Ghoul! *dies*

In PvE you have some sort of warning when to pop OH SHI- buttons, whether it be knowing the boss fight or some mod like DBM, you generally have a good idea on when to pop your buttons to help you live. Sadly, you generally will have little to no warning of when to smash those buttons in a PvP environment, you are playing against real people, they do not have a set amount of damage or an ability that only goes off every 30 seconds on the second.

As a Death Knight any of the specs are viable, although some are much more popular than others, they all work perfectly so long as you know how to play them correctly.  One important detail that you will be noticing when speccing for PvP is that you can be quite a bit more creative, there is no “best spec” per-say, merely some talents that you like and those that you do not. Of course there are essentials that would be down-right idiotic to not snag, but for the most part you can be pretty lenient with what you choose, so long as you know what you are doing.

Unholy 0/17/54

One of the leading PvP builds is currently the Unholy 0/17/54 build, this is designed to give you the best of two worlds, the burst of Unholy coupled with the very basics of mitigation in the early Frost Tree. This is the spec that I am fond of for a few reasons: you are VERY difficult to defeat, there’s the ghoul permanent pet (3 sec stun), gargoyle, diseases that are a pain in the ass, and of course ridiculous amounts of burst.

Let us take a quick look at the two pets you receive as Unholy, first is your perma ghoul. Think of him as a gimped Rogue, he can ninja jump onto your opponents from afar creating some bad ass distractions as well as a 3second stun every minute. Plus, he does some delicious amounts of damage so he is a great thing to keep alive, besides Pets are some of the most annoying things to have to ignore while PvPing, they can be deadly as sin because they just do not stop kickin’ your ass. The stun that I mentioned earlier should really be used only when needed, I like to hit my opponents up with it after they have used their trinket either on my Resto friend’s Roots/Cyclone or Aifel’s Sap/Frost Trap (3.5, seriously)/Kidney Shot/Gnaw (oh wait). Using your abilities at the correct time in the Arena or just BGs in general can make or break the fight, so just bind that pretty stun to a key and use it when it is necessary.

The Gargoyle is probably one of the worst things you can throw at your opponent, it ROCKS them like they were a baybeh. Basically all it does is fly around and throw “Wrath” spells at your opponent for 30 seconds. The only downside is the 60 RP lost in order to summon it and the 3min cool down, the Gargoyle should only be used when you need an extra 300-500 DPS thrown at your opponent when bursting them down.

The reason Unholy DK’s tend to stay alive for so long is the amount of burst that we can throw out, I mean honestly I am pretty damn squishy for a guy wearing Plate, but if I can get you to focus on your own self-preservation and not taking me down, you’re dead. We have 3 diseases, and the 3rd (Ebon Plague) from the talents increases Spell Damage used on the target by 17% and 30% more disease damage taken. Yes, it is ridiculous, and I like it that way.

To sum up the Unholy Build, “The best offense is your best defense”, it is so true in this case! All you have to do is out burst your opponent and keep yourself alive with your OH SHI- buttons, if you can do both of those at the same time, you win at playing 0/17/54.

So, Munch, the lettuce stalks are down! *cymbal crash*

I have seen a few variations of Blood, and the most successful one seems to be the 51/0/20 build. Blood is known for its heavy amounts of survivability in PvP, as well as some support it can offer to the player’s partners via some abilities. Do not fret, it does plenty of damage to hold its own in PvP, but the more memorable thoughts of your fight against the Blood DK will be how LONG the battle was.

A great chunk of their survivability comes from their self-preservation (healing) via Death Strike, Rune Tap, and of course Vampiric Blood (the blood-exclusive OH SHI- button focused on increasing HP and receiving more Healing for 10 seconds). Couple your Rune Tap with Glyph of Rune Tap and your friends get 10% of the amount healed as well, which takes a great chunk of stress off of your healer, or just allows you to function better without a Healer.

Comparatively to Retadins, Blood is also very strong in supporting their partners on the field of battle. While Retadins can bubble, hand of freedom, and heal their comrades to cheat death and live to fight another day, Death Knights merely cause more death and destruction. Abomination’s Might is a perfect example, the talent works off of Heart Strike/Blood Strike/Obliterate/Death Strike, and when it is procced via one (or more) of those abilities, every comrade within 45 yds of you is granted 10% more AP for 10 seconds. Not a bad burst, eh?

Hysteria is arguably the Blood Death Knight’s BEST use of support in terms of blowing stuff up. Basically you pop Hysteria on a comrade or yourself and get to do 20% more damage for 30 seconds, exceptional for a time when burst is needed, and needed FAST. However, with most things in life, there is always a price for doing so, that price is 1% HP every second for the duration.

But hey, when your team is taking a beating your Healer (or lack of one) can not fix, pop your Rune Tap for quick heals and maybe a Mark of Blood on an enemy. For 20 seconds, or 20 of his damaging strikes, the target of the abuse is healed for 4% of their total HP. Not a bad trade-off!

How does one summarize Blood? “The best defense is your best offense” Sure, the Unholy bastards have you beat in terms of burst, but your team will be a TON stronger than theirs thanks you. So if you’re a guy who enjoys getting in peoples faces while helping your team mates, pick blood!

Frost 0/53 /18 and 10/54/7

There are two ways to play Frost in PvP, you will either DW if you have really good 1H weapons, or you will rock the 2H. Either way, you are going to be a complete menace, and certainly a pain in the ass. In a basic perspective, Frost is sort of the “middle man” of the three Talent Trees (PvP wise of course), it has excellent burst, good survivability, and a heavy helping of CC. Comparatively speaking, the burst is amazing, but Unholy may actually have it beat by a little bit (depending on your weapons of course), the survivability out of Blood is probably a decent-amount better, but Frost is certainly nothing to scoff at.

CC however is very, VERY delicious, it really is the only Tree with any sort of “CC” on its own. The permanent ghoul gives a 3second stun, but as Frost you pop your Hungering Cold and freeze everyone around the Death Knight for 10 seconds. Now do remember, like a Hunter’s Frost Trap, any damage done to a frozen target will break the CC, so make sure your partners are not complete idiots.

As far as survivability goes, you have Lichborne to pop out and become immune to fear/charm/sleep effects. Remember that Warlock problem you used to have? Oh wait, you never had one because you were immune to all of their bullshit for 15 seconds with AMS up, oh yes, that red puddle WAS the Warlock “problem”! It does not even stop there, Fridgid Dreadplate gives the Frostie a 3% chance for attacks used on you to miss. Think of it as extra avoidance really. As an added bonus count Toughness as a Frost Talent and you are a frickin’ Tank, delicious Armor, plus the 30% reduced duration on movement slowing effects.

The burst, do I even need to explain it? Killing Machine + Rime = WIN, Frost Strike crits = WIN, Obliterate crit? = Where’d his health go?

Feel like being the middle-man? Think you have what it takes to control rediculous amounts of crit-age in your hands? Frost will be your friend!

And we are letting this fine piece of steak out of her bindings, why?

Conclusions

As I stated earlier, each of these specs can be catered to your needs, there is no set-in-stone way to spec for PvP, but it is generally best if you follow the spec’s outline. IE for the Unholy build go for 0 talents in Blood, 17 in Frost, and 54 in Unholy, but these can be in whatever place your little heart desires! So go out there and make me proud, team, or come back laying on your shield.

Note: It will take much time until you find your perfect build, so try a few out, and do not be afraid to tool around with a new Tree, sometimes the best way to learn PvP is starting from scratch.

“Death Knights… can’t use… shields, idiot…”

They best not fail then,

“Damn straight…”

Death to the living!
-Elno
P.S. The avatar on the top of the page is going to be posted on each of the posts that I write, Aifel will also have his coming in the near future. Now you can distiguish who is writing what instead of going on a wild goose hunt!

Hinenuitepo tagged me in their newly-formed DPS Meme based off of the most current Circle of Healers Meme to give some self reflection about yourself as a DPS. I was going to do it from a Mage perspective, but I do not think I can honestly do it yet. Seriously, he’s 63!

Do not worry though, I will force request my co-patriot and partner in crime, Aifel to go all Roguie on that Meme! So stay tuned for more Memes by the end of this week.

Gravity over at Pwnwear, however decided to let me in on some of the kickassery athat is the ‘How do I Tank’ meme. Death Knight Tanking is what I do. Hell I tried to DPS for a bit and just got too bored with it. Actually that pretty much sums up why I never touched Death Knights again until around 3.1, I just can not stand to play melee DPS. So, without further adieu, I present you my little piece of meme!

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary Tank?

Elnoriah the Death Knight Tank of Frost-like hell. Seriously, it is my favorite part of hell!

To let you all in on a little secret, Elnoriah was the name of this imaginary superhero friend I had when I was little. He kicked major ass and served justice to all of my enemies in my younger days, so it just seemed fitting for me to create a Death Knight under that name.  (Yes, I had a screwy childhood)

What is your usual tanking environment?

10 man Raids and some Heroics, I have Tanked VERY few 25m Raids. Although mostly this is because my computer would lag far to much for me to be a reliable Tank in a 25m, I still would prefer the tightly-knitness of the 10m Raids.

What is your favorite encounter to tank, and why?

I really love Tanking Twin Val’kyr! The whole encounter is a blast, but Tanking them just feels surreal to me. The mechanics have everyone enjoying the fight because there is always some sort of thing to collect, some damage going out, some aura to change, you have to be quick and focused!

What is your least favorite encounter to tank, and why?

Kael’Thuzad, he’s annoying to begin with but it is just a bland fight to Tank in my opinion. Although the first phase is hilarious to Death Grip the Abombs!

What do you think is the biggest strength of your class, and why?

The biggest strength of the class are our cool downs, we have quite a few of them and they are always up when we need them the most. Kora’s slamming you down with some lava fists? Pop that Icebound Fortitude and tell him to hit a little harder next time! Then you get to use it in 2min and laugh at him even more because he still has failed to kill you!

and weakness?

We have a weakness? You disarm us, we keep on hitting you with spells. Or try and silence us! We still hit you with our abilities. Even when we are dead we leave a preasent in the form of diseases for you to remember us by <3.

Nice try, but we still win!

What is your favorite thing about the class you chose for your primary Tank and why?

The creativity as a Tank, I have 3 specs to choose from that all are completely viable to use, and to top it off I can still be very flexible with where I put talents into my spec at that point.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel is the best tanking assignment for you?

Give me something that is interesting? Adds, the boss? Who cares, just give me the job that you do not want to do and I can Tank that like a pro.

What tanking class do you enjoy tanking with the most?

Bear, I have been thoroughly enjoying Tanking with a Bear buddy of mine. They are just so interesting and amusing to me. Besides, when whelps go amass I have his back, and when something big comes to chomp on me he can fight me to rip it off.

What? You didn’t think I would let him take it, it’s MINE DAMMIT!

and the least?

Other DK’s, you guys are either full of yourselves or down right idiots. There is room for only 1 idiot in this Raid, and it is certainly not going to be you.

What is your worst habit as a tank?

Some times I forget to switch Frost Pres on when switching specs or after being Mind Controlled. Seriously, do not toy with my Presence you damn Priests in H ToC 5m.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while tanking?

Idiots that either pull the boss before me, or unleash every nuke they have in their arsenal while I am positioning the boss. Let me do my job and I guarentee yours will be cake!

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other tanks for PvE tanking?

I can not complain to be honest, we are in a good spot right now. Sure we have some downsides, but doesn’t every Tanking class?

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a tank?

Omen and Recount, I want to see what spells are hitting the hardest and I want to be able to pull enough TPS that no DPS will even think of pulling off of me.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your tanking class?

That we can not Tank. Jesus christ, I figured you people had gone away, we CAN Tank, just because we do not have a shield or a Bear form does not make us not viable to be Tanks. Should I be telling you that Spriests can’t DPS because they are “meant” to be Healers?

What do you think is the toughest thing for new players of your class to learn about tanking?

What stats/caps should be your top priority. Honestly, when I used to heal I saw too many people just stacking STAM and not even thinking about the DCap. But what happens after you hit 540 and can successfully balance it?

No, if you keep stacking Drating because “it gives a bit to avoidance” you are doing it wrong. You need to know your caps and be able to balance them, not drown in them.

If someone were to evaluate your tanking ability via tools like fraps, recount, and World of Logs, what tendencies would they notice?

They would notice that I totally jump around too much like a pansy-elf. Generally I can’t think of any bad habits I have that would be noticeable and somewhat threatening.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your tanking stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?

Balance is key, I generally pray to the STAM gods, but everything is taken into account when changing a peice of gear or regemming/enchanting.

What Tanking class do you feel you understand least?

As silly as it sounds probably the Warriors. Bears are a close second, but I’ve never played a Prot Warrior and honestly have no intentions of doing so.

Addons for tanking?

Skinner (to give me a wide-screened view to see a bit more around me), Omen, Prat (organize chat), Dominos, Mik’s Scrolling Battle Text, Grid, Pitbull, and a few others that I will probably remember later.

Here’s the FUN part, who else gets tagged by me? Well, how about any one that reads this and has not gone through this ordeal, because I think every Tanking Blogger that I read regularly seems to have done this already. Go for it, you will learn a lot about yourself through this.

via specevents.com

SPEC-TRUM’s annual Fall Concert Features The Clipse, Big Sean, Mike Posner, and UPENN’s own, Hoodie Allen performing at Zellerbach Theatre November 19th!! Doors open at 6:30PM and the show kicks off at 7:00PM! Tickets are available through Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts as well as on Locust Walk! Tickets are $15 w/ PennID and $20 on day of show and General Admission.

Tickets available here.

***LONG BUT WORTH IT IF YOU JUST RREAD, NOT ALL MY POSTS WILL BE THIS LONG*** Ever since the game has been created it has been a debate over wich class is the best. it all depends on how you look at it, Tanks: DK,s Pallys, or wariorrs, Heals, preist,druid, etc. but personally i think it has to be between, Druids, DK’s, Hunters or Warlocks. Why? well because hunters and warlocks have pets that can go absorbe damage while you fight wich means less money spent to repair armor, but more mana is needed and if your a hunter you must feed the pet to make it happy, DK’s can have pets too but i think there one of the best because of armor and storyline and such. and last Druids because of there forms and heals, with there forms this means less money spent on mounts plus they have their bear for wich rasies armor by like 150% so that helps alot. but hey those are just my opinions, Comment and say what your favorite class Oh BTW i only made a DK cuz i was board, i know yes there cheap ass blah blah blah……

To look at all the WoW classes and info here is a link

Today we are going to talk about a talent found in the second tier of the Discipline tree: Silent Resolve. 

When fully talented (3 points), Silent Resolve reduces the threat generated by the Priest’s Holy and Discipline spells by 20%.  (We are going to ignore the dispel resistance mechanic for the time being, as it is mainly a PVP effect.)

In the days before WotLK, grabbing aggro off your tank was a much bigger issue for healers.  Most pulls, you had to let the tank build up threat for a while before healing them.  If you were good, the tank didn’t die before your heal went off, and you waited just long enough so that your heal did not cause the mobs to immediately turn and run your direction with bad intentions. 

Back then, Silent Resolve was a 5 point talent, and it was pretty much a necessity for every Priest.

When WotLK was released, tanks got a significant upgrade to their threat generation.  The new expansion also meant that most people were primarily running 5-man content again (normal and heroic), which had far fewer trash mobs and pats than we were used to. 

The combination of these two factors resulted in most Priests fully un-talenting Silent Resolve (which had been reduced from 5 points to 3) in favor of other talents. 

And for a while, this strategy was fairly successful.  As I mentioned, Northrend dungeons did not have anywhere near the mob density of Outlands dungeons, so even if the healer managed to pull aggro, the tank could normally use a single target taunt to get the situation back under control. 

Fast forward to today.  Most Priests are still running with zero points in Silent Resolve, but are no longer in low mob density 5-man content.  The 10/25-man raids we are currently running have numerous fights were there are either boatloads of adds for the raid to deal with, or a limited number of adds running into the raid on a somewhat regular basis. 

And do you know what is happening?  Priests are pulling aggro again.  It normally isn’t an issue of the tank not being able to taunt a mob off the healer, but instead that the tank just doesn’t have enough taunts, or just isn’t fast enough in picking up the new add before the Priest is face down in the heather.  (Being a cloth wearing healer certainly doesn’t help, but that is the hand we have been dealt.)

Whether it’s Constructs on Ignis, Warbringers on Thorim, Whelps on Ony, or Scarabs on Anub’arak that get loose, it’s almost always a Priest that ends up dead.

And do you know what virtually all these dead Priests have in common: NOT A SINGLE FUCKING POINT IN SILENT RESOLVE.

Seriously people, put three points into Silent Resolve, and save the raid from having to call a wipe because too many healers are dead. 

Your tanks have way too much to do as it is (don’t believe me, check the Activity section in Recount sometime) and the least you can do is shift a couple points into a talent which will uncomplicated their lives.

Vess

As a mage, I am always looking for new things to try, and new things to experiment with. This post had me highly curious.  I have foregone my usual Frost PvP Spec to give this a shot. I tried to test it out on a Warrior, but Whirlwind got the best of me. I will be testing it out in the BG’s more throughly tonight.  Though I don’t PvP alot, and I don’t have any PvP gear, which I hope to remedy soon.

The post reminded me of when I did PvP, in my 3 minute mage days of  (Trinket+AP+POM+Pyro) Days. Ever one shot a priest or Warlock? It was pure joy.  And when a Shammie grounded totem me it sucked huge…well you know what.

What I did.

I went 51/0/20

Got Icy Veins, and all the Arcane Goodies. Arcane Barrage being the biggie, and Slow.

I made a macro (POM+Frostfire Bolt)

Glyphs I am using, Glyph of Evocation, Glyph of Polymorph, Glyph of Icy Veins.

So hopefully tonight I’ll run it through its paces, and if it sucks I’ll go back to good ole Frost, if it’s pure awesome, I’ll shave my head, wear Monk Robes, and follow Euri around all day.

I often get asked what weapon speed is preferred for each hand, and while that option is pretty cut and dry for Combat, sometimes the results with Assassination will surprise you.  Before we get started, know that I spent an hour at the dummy last week when I did these tests, so I ran these tests multiple times and chose the results that best represented the average for each specific test.

Generally speaking, for PvE, a fast off hand weapon coupled with a heavier hitting slow main hand is the way to go.  Of course there are exceptions.  If you are Assassination spec and have a choice between an ilevel 200 and an ilevel 232 dagger, the 232 will probably be the better way to go regardless of weapon speed. For example, I was using two Dirk of the Night Watch , a 1.4 speed dagger.  I have a plethora of ilevel 200-219 daggers that are in my bank that I don’t really use, but I’m too much of a packrat to get rid of.  Many of those daggers are 1.7+ speed, but their damage range is very similar to that of my two Dirks, so the Dirk in the main hand essentially is as good at dealing damage as any other slow dagger I have, with the benefit of being a bit faster.  I recently replaced that Dirk with the other ToC 10 Dagger, the Icefall Blade, which is 1.8 speed.  You might think that that would be a guaranteed huge upgrade, but the results I have are different that you might expect.

Dagger Conundrum:

Why is the second setup not consistently outperforming the first?

These are 5 minute parses, with only my Flask of the North (90AP) as a buff.  I’ve included my stats, the DPS and the breakdown of what I used.

Test One:  Dirk of the Night Watch Dual Wield

Test Two:  Icefall Blade / Dirk of the Night Watch

So what gives?  Shouldn’t the slow / fast setup be noticeably better than the dual fast setup?  My answer: not necessarily.

When you look at the breakdown of both, all abilities used were within 12k damage of each other, and both setups mostly excelled in the areas you’d expect. What comes across as a bit off is that Mutilate did more damage with the double fast setup; with the two Dirks the Mutilates averaged 1,885 Damage, while the Blade / Dirk setup averaged 1,848.  This is of course in the margin of error, but Mutilate is the one area where you would expect a Slow main hand to clearly excel and in this case, it doesn’t.

None of the other abilities used are based on Weapon Damage, so what is the advantage for using a Slow / Fast setup?  It seems that there really isn’t a whole lot of difference between the two.  Is this the case for all weaponry, probably not; however,  these are the two most likely daggers for a rogue that’s doing current 10 man content, so it’s possible that this setup is used my a fair number of Rogues.  I figured I’d post my findings.

To be completely honest, I’m currently sporting the Blade / Dirk, and the only reason I initially did the test was to discover the DPS gain I’d get from using the that combo over my dual Dirk setup.  The results caught me off guard, but I’ve got some good ideas as to why I came to these results.  But hey, that’s another post.

- Sam

Okay you caught me!

“I demand a tux! If I am going to do this “news broadcasting” business, I am going to do it with some CLASS!”, exclaims a very fidgety elf.

Alight, this is not going to be completely focused on Death Knights, so I will come clean with that early. Honestly this is more of a preview of what is to come soon to a blog (this one) near you!

First off let me hand this to Crando, eccentric Mage of Fire and Brimstone!

If I was an ice cream, do you know what flavor I would be? Who cares!? Level 60 on the Mage is better than ice cream! Since I decided to pick the Mage back up again I have gotten quite a bit of help from Rozjin over at the Reputation Grind. Arcane is one of the top two current “best specs” for a Mage to be End-Game, and to me it seemed like a very fun kind of Spec. The rotation is very simple, but there is quite a bit going on regardless, there are many choices to be made even at Lvl. 60. “What is most Mana efficient?”, “This procced, what spell do unleash!?”, ect.

In a way it is just like Frost Tanking, you have a simplistic rotation, but there are quite a few key factors that you have to watch out for in terms of procs. Rime, for instance, a free Howling Blast is godly by itself, but you do have to time it correctly in order for it to be as useful as possible to you. Generally I either wait until my diseases are about to fad and/or will pair it with a Killing Machine proc for a free 5k crit without having to spend a rune.

Honestly, playing the Arcane Mage has been a blast (no pun intended), it is fresh and exciting. Although I still prefer the Death Knight Tank, the Mage will be an excellent way for me to escape Elnoriah for a few minutes and play something new for a change.

Yes, you will hear about my adventures as Crando Mage of Fire, Brimstone, Penguins, and Death in the future.

All I need is some Leather and we're in business!

All your arena points belong to ME!

Alright, so Aifel my buddy/co author has decided to spend some time in Azkaban for killing more Gnomes than Blizzard will allow in two hours. Sadly he will be incapacitated until late November-Early December, and no he was not banned!

How the hell am I supposed to do 2v2 without my Rogue!? Well, a Real-Life friend of his has a Druid and was interested in doing some PvP Resto to see what it is all about. I have never in my life played with a Healer before in Arena so THAT was an experience and a half. Luckily he is skilled and competent, I generally do not even need to ask for any CC, he just does it!

Although I still miss the DK/Rogue combo, the Druid/DK is strong and a good #2 until Aifel get’s his ass online again! 5-5 this week, which brought us to 1015 rating, yep enough to buy Furious Gladiator Chestpiece!

What does this mean!? What I have been hoping to do is to write-up some strategies that we use, and of course how to PvP as a Death Knight! We can only go up from here!

Is that all?

Yes…

Surely you can’t be serious!?

Yes, and stop calling me Sherly!

Snoop around here Thurs/Friday for a new Death Knight Tank and You addition, because once every other week is just not enough!

Happy WoWing
-Eld

Going frost for PvP is so Burning Crusade. The new hotness? Arcane, baby!

I prefer arcane over frost for general PvP, largely for the following reasons:

• Mobility
• Mobility
• Did I already say mobility
• Cause Seriously
• This spec is MOBILE
• Also stupidly powerful crits

Specifically, I use a specific kind of arcane spec, known as “arcane shatter”. It’s a kickass spec, full of ass kicking, though it’s honestly a rather cheap spec to use against the undergeared and underskilled. It’s possible to defeat most opponents by using only slow and arcane barrage. That poor ret paladin…

Anyway, the spec itself is rather simple. 51/0/20, picking up all the good stuff arcane power, icy veins, slow, ABarr. It detours from a “normal” arcane PvP spec in that it doesn’t use arcane blast or arcane missiles. The main nuke is, in fact, frostbolt.

Game play is a simple affair. General combat revolves around liberal use of slow, arcane barrage, and frostbolt spamming where possible. The primary power of the spec comes from using shatter combos, just like a deep frost spec, but using arcane barrage instead of ice lance.

And, of course, using PoM+FFB and AP to produce shatter numbers that edge dangerously close to “what the hell just hit me” territory.

To put it another way, I have killed prot pallies with 35k hitpoints and 900+ resilience in five spells.

Arcane shatter does not have PoM Pyro, though it might as well considering how hard PoM-FFB hits. I use a macro, bound to Q, which will blast my hand-mounted pyro rockets (Engineering: most overpowered profession ever? Discuss), activate PoM, then fire FFB. I almost always use this macro exclusively on rooted/frozen targets, in order to unleash the almighty shatter combo we all know and love.

Shatter, of course, provides an extra 50% crit. By activating PoM, I am granting that FFB an extra 30% crit. Factoring in my base crit rate, this gives that FFB a 102% chance to crit before resilience. Then, of course, stack ice shards and spellpower for 225% critical strikes.

Usually, this results in a wall of huge numbers, something like an 8k frostbolt crit, 9k FFB crit, 3k HMPR crit, which is almost always enough to end the fight right then and there. Keep in mind that all this takes a mere 4 seconds to pull off, even less if I don’t use frost nova and use a frostbite proc instead.

And that’s just one trick, if a pretty good one.

Mage Armor is the armor of choice; switch to ice armor when fighting warriors and rogues. The frostbite procs will help you more.

Glyph choices are a personal thing. Glyph of Evocate, obviously, but the other two are up to you. I use glyph of polymorph, as DKs, warriors and rogues are AoE happy fiends, and glyph of mana gem. The extra mana is astoundingly good, and combined with a 2 minute evocate it’s extremely hard to run yourself oom, even if you’re using mana shield a lot (which I do).

Glyph of IV is a good choice, even glyph of AP has its uses, and I can even see glyph of ABarr if you’re spending a lot of time slow dancing.

Oh, right, mayhaps you don’t know what that is.

Ignoring cooldowns, there are two very distinct forms of playing arcane shatter. The first involves spamming frostbolt, and throwing in ABarr whenever you need to move or whenever you get a frostbite proc.

The second is when you don’t frostbolt at all, but spend 100% of your time moving, essentially spamming ABarr and slow. I call this slow dancing, as that’s essentially what it is. You’re at maximum range for your arcane spells, keeping slow up on your target whilst hitting them with ABarr.

The idea is that this keeps you out of range of melee while stil hurting them, and is even ruthlessly effective against any caster that relies on casted spells, by “dancing” in and out of range of them.

In both cases this is merely a delay tactic. You can win fights this way, though most opponents will figure out how to counter this behaviour fairly quickly. Why delay? For a number of reasons.

Forcing cooldowns – case and point, ret paladins. By essentially spamming slow on them as fast as they can cleanse it, the vast majority of ret paladins will, sooner or later, say “screw this” and blow freedom to come pound your face into the dirt. Then freedom gets spellstolen, then you destroy them utterly.

Waiting for your own cooldowns – perhaps most importantly, frost nova. Keeping a melee class at bay until you’re ready to hurt them is a legit strategy, even if it drives them up the freakin’ wall.

Killing healers is also a simple task. Catch them in a cast (it’s surprisingly easy to do this, with the combined pressure of constant damage, slow, and spellsteal) counter them, then a single shatter combo is enough to either flat out kill them or put them in straights dire enough you’ll be able to finish them off in a couple more casts.

Personally, I find this spec, quote unquote, better than the 51/17 arcane/fire style specs. Gaining huge shatter crits and twin snares outweighs the advantages of burning determination and impact for me.

So far this expansion, arcane has generally been a brutal counter to other casters, whilst being kinda terrible against melee. Arcane shatter doesn’t change this too much, as you’re still powerful enough to be considered a hard counter to many casters, but you are better at fighting melee than any other arcane pvp build.

I’d say “go on, give it a try”, but after telling you I can deal nearly 20k damage in 2 GCDs you probably already did. Have fun!

O_o

We find our Elven Hero snickering like a 5yr old boy who managed to pull off a whoopie-cushion prank on his sister…

It really is interesting how people can get to 80 and still be able to Tank Raids when they have no clue what in the hell they are talking about. How about I paint you a picture, keep in mind this happened about two weeks ago and I am STILL questioning this Tank’s sanity!

A friend asks me to hop on Eldadres and play Healer for her Ony10 group, now I have never healed it before, but I have Tanked that bitch until she was hot (Trust me, it works)! So I say sure and hop on their Vent to talk and all of that goodness, and of course I get on right as the two Tanks were talking about which one should Tank Onyxia. There was a Warrior with 35k HP unbuffed, and a Death Knight with 30k HP unbuffed, and thus the madness begins!

My Friend: So which one of you wants to Tank her?
Warrior: Does not matter to me, do any of the Healers Mind?
Me: As long as they aren’t terribad, go!
Death Knight: Death Knights are not good with Physical threat, how about you Tank Onyxia?
Warrior: Physical Threat?
Death Knight: Yah, you know, Physical Attacks, we just use spells ‘n shit which isn’t good Threat
Warrior: Fair enough then…
Me: Oh, BRB, the Dog just fell off of the counter!
*Turns mic off and goes into a fit of laughter for 2 min straight* (Note I don’t have a Dog)
Me: Okay, back, what a dumb ass!
The Raid: Lmao I bet he is! *laughter*

This is a great example of someone who obviously never bothered to do their research before they rolled their class.  The reasoning for the Warrior to Tank Onyxia is, “Death Knights use spells, thus meaning that they will not get the amount of Threat needed to hold physical bosses”. This is wrong in so many ways, sure Death Knight Tanks are MUCH better at picking up multiple adds then Warriors or Druids, but our Tanking ability is not lesser to theirs because they can use only Physical Abilities and we tend to use a combination of Spells (bear with me there) and Physical Abilities.

Before we go any further in this discussion, how about I define Threat?
“Threat is the amount of “hate” a Mob shows towards a particular Player, the player with the most Threat will be attacked by the Boss/Trash. Every single role in a Raid will produce Threat, Healing produces Threat as well as Damaging Attacks. Special abilities and Talents can lessen/drop the amount of Threat you have on a particular mob.”
Healers generally should not have to worry about Threat, but DPS should always keep an eye on it using Omen or any other Threat Tracker. If you are not the Tank and your Threat is the #1 spot on the meter, just slow down your DPS for a few seconds, or pop a Threat reducing CD such as Fade or Soulshatter.

That's a PENGUIN not a BEAR...

Buffs, Abilities, Spells, Healing, everything produces Threat. The amount of Threat that is gained however, is based on two things, the first obviously being if the Ability’s Tooltip says that it “produces a high amount of threat”. Our other factor is how much damage each ability does, a 2k Scourge Strike will produce some Threat, but not as much as a 5K Howling Blast. Critical Hits count as more damage, thus increasing the amount of Threat you gain from said attack!

Is there a difference between Physical Attacks and a Spell in terms of Threat? If they did the exact same damage, and neither stated if it “produces a high amount of threat” then no, there is not a difference. In a flat-out test of Threat, there is no difference in Threat because of how an ability is caused, only how much damage is done or if the attack produces an exceptionally high amount of threat.

How Do Tanks Increase Their Threat!?: Good question, if you look at Death Knight Tanks the only thing that we do differently from our DPS cousins is merely more Rune Strikes. Grant it, these do produce a TON of Threat, but the main reason we will pull the amount of Threat that we do is our Frost Presence. Every single Tank in WoW has some sort of Form/Ability that is constantly up as they Tank to add additional Threat to their abilities. Warriors have Defensive Stance, Druids have Bear/Dire Bear Form, and Paladins have Righteous Fury.  Those abilities are the sole reason that we can pull more Threat than DPS in the same exact gear.

What if a DPS pulls off of me?: Hopefully this does not happen often, but in the worst case scenario of this you will have to use your class’ respective Taunts. Every Tank has at least one, but how do you KNOW if the ability is a “Taunt”? The Tooltip would say something along the lines of “Forces the target to attack you for 3 seconds”. What happens is you hit that button and your target switches off of the other Player and on to you immediately, on Omen it will show it as your Threat matching the previous #1 spot’s Threat. After that just keep on Tanking and hope to Christ that they popped a Threat reducing OH SHIT button!

Any other Tips?: As a Tank the only time you ever want to stop using your abilities is when you are dead, your target is dead, or when you are supposed to let the other Tank take the boss for a bit. When you stop using your abilities or doing your rotation, you lessen your Threat Lead. As a Tank we want to be #1 on the Threat Meters, but we also want to be #1 by as large a gap as possible from #2. Do not make space for the whatifs in a pull, just keep gaining Threat until something else needs to be done!

So, the moral of the story is that Death Knight was an incompetent bastard, Death Knights are not poor at Tanking Onyxia or any other boss for that matter due to them using some spell-like abilities. Coincidentally though, the use of those spell-like abilities make us delicious add Tanks, but this is merely due to most of them being AoE friendly moves.

Do not even make me bring in Blood Tanking to say how Death Knights use quite a few “Physical Abilities”…

Happy WoWing!
-Eld

Long have the Spec Alpha Bio-Graft Energy Sword and Spec Beta Bio-Graft Energy swords been respected for their incredible strength and sparkles. More recently however, it was learned that if you did a double-click stab attack and then immediately hit the space bar you would sore to unimaginable heights.

It took some practice for us to get used to doing it while stationary. Then we found out how much quicker you have to do it when running. If you left any delay in between the initiation of the stab attack and hitting the space bar you would end up just doing a regular jump and having your arm flail around uselessly. This was especially useful in evading other people’s attacks and made it possible for players with the swords to get to previously unreachable places.

This put a strain on when futuristic swords were allowed in-game so in most places you will find, if it allows swords, that it will specify that it has to be in the medieval category of weapons.

So you’ve written your script. What next? Get it out there of course and hopefully make a sale.The first rule you need to remember is to educate yourself so your efforts meet the market. Having said that don’t try to chase the market, but don’t ignore it either.

Do you know that 50% of movie goers are aged 16 – 24? Yep, for boys that means “Transformers”, for girls that means the “Ugly Truth” with a not so ugly lead male.

Then consider the 24 – 36 year old female audience who go to the movies without men. Think “Sex In The City” and “Mamma Mia”. Where are the men? Apparently we don’t go to the movies enough to warrant statistics.

Did you know that studios rely on about 60 – 70% of their box office from overseas markets?

You may have noticed the dire state of the spec script market lately. A few studios such as Universal and Sony have already used up their development funds for the entire year, or have had them removed to constrain their budgets. Some producers have purchased various projects for six figure amounts from their discretionary funds.

What genres have sold this year (2009) so far?

• Comedies (31%)
• Thriller (27%)
• Action (19%)
• Drama (11%)
• Sci-fi/ Fantasy (6%)

How many scripts did key buyers purchase this year (2009) to date?

• Sony (5)
• Universal (5)
• Warner Bros (5)
• Dreamworks (3)
• Paramount (3)

Who were the key sellers?

• CAA (12/ 32 – 38%)
• ICM (7/28 – 25%)
• UTA (10/28 – 36%)
• WMA – (8/17 – 47%)
• WME – (2/17 – 12%)

• Benderspink (3/10 – 33%) – Manager

These numbers are depressingly low. This means that Endeavour (prior to merging with William Morris) and Gersh sold less than 10 scripts each for the entire year. The other key agencies didn’t fare much better. However, know that through destruction comes reconstruction, so things will improve in 2010. Why so serious?

Of the 366 overall spec scripts that went out wide, 17 (5%) sold. February, March and May were particularly busy months with 10 scripts sold in each, to non-studio buyers. However, the desert that is the current spec script market has worsened in the second half of the year. Only 2 of the 140 scripts that went out wide sold, one in May and one in June. That’s a measly 1.4%. So, if your script goes out wide today, don’t expect a sale. Expect an introduction to create a buzz for yourself.

You know the drill…

Go forth and write my pretties… but don’t expect a sale in 2009.