Bobpally's World

I have really been neglecting my blog and alot of other things. Bobpally is now kinda my main guy. He's 80, has seen the inside of Naxx (a couple of fights from clearing it) and has quite a few nice little pieces of gear. His rep is on the way to exalted with a few factions and he's looking like the pally I always hoped he would be. Bobmage however isn't quite the mage he wants to be yet. He will be, but there's still alot or work to be done. He's 77 on his way to 78. With the new fire abilities it's become fun to kill stuff with him, just not as much fun as tanking with Bobpally. After I clear Naxx I'll make a nice long writeup on it, but for now I'll just leave you with this.....

Why can't I blog?

Ladies and Gentlemen of the not so popular wowbob blog. I'm pretty sure no one reads this blog, but if for some reason you do, please attempt to respond at some point to something I post. This will let me know what you'd like to read here in wowbob world. Today we'll be talking about several different things.....So let's get started.....

Bobpally is now level 74 and counting. I'm a little slow with his leveling, but with good reason. I'll give all of you new to Northrend some good advice: Borean Tundra has 150 quests, do them all before moving on, and run The Nexus at least once to get those quests done as well. If you do all of this you'll be almost 74 before you ever leave the first leveling area in Northrend. The next questing zone will put you where I am now, which is Dragon's Blight. I really like this area as it's fun, and has cool stuff to look at. Being that I spent so much time leveling in Borean Tundra the quests in DB are somewhat easy. I'm leveling Bobpally as protection spec. Why you ask? Because it's alot of fun, plus I like to tank the instances as I level up to run them. Bobpally does have a conundrum before him. Perhaps my one blog reader can help me out...

I don't know that this is that much of an issue right now, but eventually I want to run the endgame content and in my current guild (which I'm the second highest ranking member) we have only three members. I can do one of two things. 1. I can wait until I'm level 80, recruit other level 80s and basically play GM to a guild that really isn't mine. 2. I can find another guild now (I constantly get offers from people I run with) and level with them to eventually run the end game stuff. What I really want is to be raid leader to tank and run the raids. This would afford me the control that I like to use to keep down the drama. I'm very stringent when I run my dungeons as leader. I don't take crap and certainly don't give it. So each of my options has high points and low points.

If I am to recruit at level 80 to get other raiders, I'd have to provide a vent server more than likely and I'd also have to baby sit constantly. The best thing about recruiting is I'd get to control everything from start to finish. I would get to setup raid times, raid nights, and the players that were going. I'd also get to run the raids and make sure everything was fair to everyone that played. It would be my rules for my runs on my time. I like that idea quite a bit.

If I were to join another guild and be a tank for that guild, I'd have to adhear to someone else's rules and time constraints. This is not how I like to do things but it does have it's advantages.
I wouldn't have to provide a vent server, I wouldn't have to put up with any of the crying that fellow guildies did in the runs, or after the runs. I wouldn't have to take the time to setup raids and make sure people signed up for them. I wouldn't have to listen to anyone's problems about anything period.

So the big question becomes, what should I choose? If you are the lone person reading my blog, please respond and let me know what you think.....

A long time ago

I haven't posted in so long and so much has happened in my wow career. I've raided Kara and cleared it, I've done the first four bosses in ZA and didn't get a single drop. (damn it) Last night I did something that made me think of this blog and I decided I should put this up....

I was in my first 25 experience and it was fun!! My son has a hunter that's very well geared and is in a different guild on my server. His guild was doing Mag/Gruul's last night and I got an invite to go.

Mag's Lair was first and it really wasn't so hard. Of course I'm ranged DPS so I'm not sure how hard it is for other classes, and clicking the cubes is kind of a pain because of the timing thing but overall it was fun. My dps is getting up there a little. I did over 750 and didn't really go all out. The fight itself pretty much entails killing all the mobs holding magtheridon down with some sort of energy beam and then having a tank hold him while you down whatever's left after the timer, then switching to Mag himself. I know it's healer intensive during the first couple of minutes that Mag is free, after that it's just clicking cubes, staying alive, and doing as much dps on him as you can. My tier chest token dropped and I lost the roll...yay me, but I did get an epic wand.

Gruul's was up next. This was a little different, but still fun. There's a couple of things about this fight I didn't know, one is cave ins will kill you, the other is some kind of grounding thing that bounces you everywhere, and the last is a damaging effect that happens when you're too close to someone else (15yds). We actually wiped the first time and that wasn't fun, but I learned about caveins. The second I avoided the caveins but some hunter kept getting too close to me and another player and got us hit with that proximity damage thing. I got battle rezzed because of the damage output I had (over 830 dps). It was either going to be me or the hunter that got me killed, and I was out dpsing him by around 200 so they rezzed me and I gave it everything I had. The top dps was a stupid Lock (1100 dps), but his gear was far better than mine. I was 3rd down the list and that made me proud of my work. The second on the list was a frost mage btw. I'd really like to get to that 1000 dps mark, just gotta keep working at my gear. Tier token dropped, but I already had gear that was better, but since there was no one else that wanted the token, I took it to help complete my set. I'm now 3/5 tier 4 and only have one non-epic left (and it's a trinket). I'm clipping along as fast as I can. My guild doesn't do 25 man content, but my son's guild does, and they're about to start doing TK and SSC. I was told by the GM that me and my fellow guildies are welcome to come along on the progression nights because we play very well and he'd be happy to have us help the guild. (we also get to roll on gear because they don't have a DKP system yet) I'd like to go with them in future endevours, we'll see how it goes and I'll post up about it as it happens.

Bobpally is 53 almost 54, he's been on the sidelines a little lately because of the raiding and arenas I've been doing with bobmage, but I haven't forgotten about him. There's just not enough time to get all the stuff done that I want, but I'll keep trying to level my paladin and give updates when necessary....

Badge Gear

I'm starting to get to that 100 badge gear mark and it's time to make a decision about what I'm going to do. My pants are subpar blue item with two sockets and minimal spell damage. I was thinking I would replace them with the badge gear from Queldanas. My problem is there are two sets of pants from the badge vendor, one with a huge amount of crit and the other has spell hit rating. I've found in Kara I get resisted alot, but I never miss. I'm thinking I should go with the spell crit and gem for penetration so I can stop getting resisted and kick my spell crit up a little more. Right now my fire damage spells have a 30% crit chance. That's quite a bit, but it will be even more with the new pants. I've been researching spell hit, and it doesn't seem like I really need alot of it right this second, I'm sitting in the mid 80's for hit, but my penetration is very low. If you have any ideas about what I should do, please don't hesitate to leave me a comment....

Fellow Mages and Their Raid Specs

It's been bit since I posted anything here on the blog, but last night something happened and I just have to put it out there. I made the switch to my new guild, Dirty Hordes. I love my new guild, we raid on Tuesdays and Thursdays which works out really well for me since that's the only time I'm on. I also picked up my tier 4 gloves out of Kara last night (yay me!). Ok, on to the post about a fellow mage in the guild.

We were doing our Tuesday night raiding thing in Kara. I was informed that another mage would be coming along, and as it turns out, a firemage. I was thinking "cool, a little competition." So I zoned in to Kara, got a look at the mage's gear, which exceeds my own by quite a bit. She's over 100+ spell damage on me. I really didn't think it would be much of a competition, but about half way through the instance I realize that I'm out dpsing this fellow firemage by quite a bit, and I have no clue why....So I check her spec, and I begin to find my answers. Everything about her spec says she is trying to be a hybrid of some kind for pvp/pve. So I politely (and I mean politely) ask her if she pvps. She responds, and I quote "I only raid, I despise pvp". Huh? So I reply "I just noticed in your spec build that you have some pvp talents and thought maybe you were a hybrid build". Her "What, I don't have any pvp talents in my build". To which I pointed out that she had blast wave, blazing speed, impact, and of course to get blast wave you have to waste a talent point on pyro. She in turn tells me that she got her training from one of the best raiding mages on the server....I almost fell out of my chair. She says blast wave is her most potent aoe spell, to which I reply....not exactly, that would be dragon's breath. I'm trying hard to be nice to help a fellow guildie understand their character a little better, but it's just not sinking in. I point out the fact that I have less spell damage, yet I'm out dpsing her by such a wide margin it could only be her build that's holding her back. She doesn't like this, and we end the conversation on a good note, with me just conceding the fact that it's her mage and she can screw him up however she wants, I mean build him.... What do I do here? We need her to put out the damage, and if I had her gear I would be close to the top of the dps charts for raid night, but I can't get this person to listen at all.... I guess I just have to let it go and hope that we don't need her to really crank out the dps for any fights that she's ever in with us on raid night, because it will never come.

A Guild less traveled

Well, I've made a decision about the future of my guild.....I'm leaving. I just don't have the time to do the things that make a good gm. It's pretty much my job as #1 officer to keep the guild in shape and I can't put in the time to make that happen anymore. I've applied to a new guild that I've been running Kara with and I'm sure to be accepted and probably eventually promoted to officer. I only play twice a week right now and it's on the raiding nights for the guild I applied for. This benefits me in many ways. One way is I'll be there for Kara as well as progressions throughout the game with my new guild. I like that idea alot, as it's the reason I play the game. I don't do alot of pvp, I like raids and playing against big baddies that need a beating. Co-ordinating a team to down a big boss that no one could do alone is alot of fun for me, and if I stay with my guild It would be a year before we got there with our current memebers. So I have to give up on my own guild and join another that's already established. I enjoy playing with the memebers of the guild quite a bit, so I'll continue to do so. I'll continue to keep you posted on the happenings and progressions of bobpally and bobmage.....

A Mage's Guide to Instances and Raids

For those of you new to instances or raids I'm puting this together to give you an idea of what it is you should and shouldn't be trying to do in those dungeons.

First a bit of advice....Dungeons are for players that like the team concept and want to be a valued part of that team. Second, things will inevitably go bad at some point in your wow raiding career for your team, don't start blaming everyone around you. If you succeed in a raid or instance, your team succeeds, if you fail, your team fails. It's all or nothing. I personally never point the finger in a way that assigns blame to someone, instead I point out something they could do better and ask that they do the same. There's more than one way to let someone know they did something that was less than beneficial to the progress of the group.

Mage's are casters and high damage dealing killers with no survivability without the other members of their group. Their job first and foremost in a raid or instance is to deal the maximum amount of damage without getting the attention of the mob they're killing. A properly specced fire mage handing out the proper spell rotation will out dps just about any other similarly geared character in the game. I personally have a fire mage with just over 600 spell damage and in Kara I out dps both of the shadow priest in my raid group with well over 700 spell damage. Some of it might be that I understand very well how to play my mage, and some of it is that I'm supposed to out dps them.

When you're in a raid or instance, first recognize your cc assignment in any pull that's about to go down. Make sure you get that assignment done as soon as the pull is made so as not to effect any aoe that might take place. The further away the sheep is the better. Make sure throughout the pull you maintain that cc. A great addon for that is sheep watch. It broadcasts in chat the amount of time left on the cc, and gives you a bar at the top of your screen that lets you know how much time is left on the cc. After you've sheeped your target, switch to the first kill target. It's very important that you don't screw this up. If you start casting fireballs of fury at something no one else in your group is doing damage to you're going to die. If I was the tank in a group and someone hit a target out of order, I might taunt it once and ask them to please not do that again. If they did it twice, I'd let them figure out how to kill it. Something else you need to do as a mage is download a threat meter. Omen 2 is working pretty ok right now, as a mage you'll need it.

When you begin casting on the main target don't unleash your hardest hitting spell first. Throw something light, like a scorch and see what it does to the threat list. It's a quick spell and will give you a good idea of how far you can go on your next spell. I've played with tanks that just had a hard time building initial threat quickly. I don't blame anyone when this happens, I just scale back my attack for a little while. I hate people that pug a group and pull aggro every fight, then blame the tank out front because he can't "hold aggro". Don't be a jerk in group, you never know when you'll need someone in that group to help you out later. Also, you have to toe the line between pulling aggro and maxing out your damage. Pulling aggro is never a line you want to cross, but you also don't want to scale back your attack so far you're not doing enough damage. It's a fine line for a great mage between pulling aggro and doing enough damage.

Recognize the target and what he's vulnerable to. If you're getting resisted alot, change spells. One spell you have that almost never gets resisted is arcane missles. Yes it's a mana hog, but sometimes it's better to use them and do the damage, than cast a spell that gets resisted every other cast.

Another thing that's not only your job, but everyone else's in the group, is protecting your healers at all costs. If you see that your healer has pulled the aggro of whatever you're fighting, jump in there. You have immobilizing spells for a reason, use them. If you're a frost mage, slow the target down with frostbolts, and look for the MT to get that aggro back. If your MT is having a hard time getting back that aggro, frost nova will almost always stop them dead in their tracks and give your MT a chance to whack him a few times to get that aggro back. If that fails, you need to go all out on whatever it is that is going after your healer. Sacrificing yourself to save your healer is never a bad thing. If you save the wipe by giving your MT enough time to get the target back and kill the rest of the pull your healer can rez you and will be very greatful. You will also know that you did everything you could for the good of the group.

Spell rotation is going to be what seperates you from every other mage. Know what spells do what and why. Learn how to effectively use those spells on every single pull. If you're a level 70 firemage with the 10/48/3 raid spec and you're opening with fireblast, you need to stop playing the game. In a boss fight, your spell rotation is crucial to how much damage you're going to be able to put out. For the fire raid spec scorch spells make your target more vulerable to fire damage and it stacks five times. So start with a scorch, then cast a fireball, then another scorch, then fireball, toss in a fireblast every now and then as well. The reason I say every now and then is if you use fireblast every time the cooldown is up you'll run oom before then end of the boss fight, I promise. After you've stacked five scorches, stick with the fireballs and a fireblast from time to time. Watch the 30 second timer for the scorch stack and when it's close to being up throw that scorch to refresh it, then it's back to fireballs and blasts. Make sure you pay close attention to the fight at hand, doing your job also means staying alive with as little help from the healers as possible. They have enough to worry about without having to save a mage that doesn't know where to stand for a fight. Don't get angry if you get assigned to adds, part of being able to do hella damage is downing adds quickly. Do your job! I don't get mad in Kara when I get assigned to the adds for curator, i don't say "hey jackass, I can out dps everyone here I should be on Curator!" No, I do my job and kill the hell out of those bastards. It's your job to do the same. Mage's are elite killers in dungeons and raids, they are feared because of the powerful spells they wield, but they also have a responsibility to the other members of their group to be beneficial in every way possible, you represent mages everywhere...so do your best to be a great mage...learn from your mistakes as you are definately going to be in that situation again I promise. If someone asks that you do something in your group....don't hesitate or refuse. If you have issue with it, try it their way to the best of your ability and if it doesn't work then suggest something else. I know you know your character better than the guy asking you to do whatever, but he doesn't understand that so just do as you are asked. Then in the back of your mind you can say "I told you so" when it doesn't work. Anyhow, if you have any questions I'd love to hear them...so ask away. Hopefully this will make you a slightly better mage in those groups and make you more sought after to fill out the raids.....