Where's the Mana at?

Three Faces of Merinna: Hardcore, Hardcorer, Hardcorest

Well, gentle readers, we are but three weeks away from The Cataclysm. And I have been confused about mana. Like, "Why am I not running out of it?"

Individual heals still seem slower and somewhat weaker, but those "mana problems" I've been writing about did not materialize in 4.0.1. I played like I will on day one of Cataclysm and was healing more conservatively than was necessary and, ahem, not getting the job done.

But really, I've been reading Elitist Jerks and other blogs about these problems and I'm not the only one who has come to see our Healing Surge as too expensive to use on anything less than an emergency. Nevertheless, one can spam it for all it's worth in heroic ICC fights today and still come up smelling like roses. Telluric Currents is fooling people into thinking it's useful because it actually returns mana. Why? How is this happening?

It's the Little Things... (part 4)

Surf's up for Orlanna and Thrall in the Maelstrom

Beware The Maelstrom
Actually, don't beware. It's actually one of the all time coolest scenes I have ever seen in this game to date. Thing is, you can only go there once.  Teleportation to this spot where you can meet Thrall and his new squeeze is only available via a quest giver. Once you finish that quest, you cannot get another port back. Nor is there any other transportation method to reach it. So, my advice is, when you stop by on the way to Deepholme, take some snapshots and spend a few minutes looking around.

World of Warcraft: How to Win at Guilds

Machinima break!  I just sat here for about 10 minutes thinking about how I should introduce this, and then it dawned on me that it's probably really not necessary. Wowcrendor is always fun. And the "Go!Go!Go!Go!" guy returns.

Flame On!! Maging it Up, Post-Patch 4.0

One day soon, my mage will kill this guy. In the meantime, we
just take pictures while sitting in his lap. Take that, Arthas!!

My main alt, Eridar has been busy the past few weeks. Her little 10-man Raid that Could has been working on the Lich King fight. We've had the same lockout for about three weeks and it's all getting better and better. I think we might kill him before Dec. 7.

But in the midst of all this is trying to hit hard as a mage and not pull aggro. Easy, right?

Hmm, it depends.

I specced up in fire, right off, because I have been and remain fairly excited about that talent tree. Living Bomb, mana-free Scorching on the run, Impact and Cauterize... What's not to like about those?

The fire tree is pretty heavy on DoTs. The super-new version of Combustion is the mark of that. But what I hadn't entirely picked up is how AoE-rampant the fire specc is.

The first week put of the gate, I start pounding Arthas with fireballs and the lucky pyroblast too. I renew Living Bomb, get an impact procc, and...

... half the ghouls and a Shambling Horror come over, knock me on my head, and I fall down. Ouch. The OT said he fumbled the taunt when that happened, so we tried it all a few more times, but basically, it had the same effect: a lot of adds, angry at me.

The History of the World Part 1

"What a Wonderful World..."
Back in the days when the rivers and seas of Azeroth ran vanilla, all was not well.

There were blustery fire elementals fighting with black dragons over real estate. There were no-good, two-bit trolls trying to bring their death god out to play. The formerly greatest of kingdoms, Lordaeron, lay in shambles, being fought over by rival gangs of undead. And deep in the south, some gnarly old evil tried taking on the world with his ... insects.

Many of the old heroes of the world, Malfurion Stormrage or King Varian Wrynn for example, were "indisposed." Jaina Proudmoore and Thrall were busy nation-building. King Magni Bronzebeard of the dwarves was throwing a conniption fit over how his daughter ran off with some guy, and Sylvanas of the Forsaken was playing with her chemistry set.

Most of the "big" dangers of Azeroth were relatively local in scale. I don't recall that Tyrande Whisperwind ever made any big concern over whatever they were up to in Blackwing Lair. Similarly, you could have probably quizzed Magni Bronzebeard about the A'quir and he would have given you a blank look.

Perhaps as a result of this lack of focus, the evils were put down but not really destroyed. The fact that we have Netharion, Ragnaros, Cho'gall and others returning after the Cataclysm only proves this. "Vanilla WoW was just a setback!!"

Lessons for the Elemental Invasion that We Should Have Learned from the Undead Invasion

Panic on the streets of Stormwind, Panic on the streets of Ironforge.
And I wonder to myself, will anything be sane again?

The Elements of Azeroth are getting frisky! Doomsday cults are running through the cities! Dogs and cats lying together! Mass hysteria! This can only mean one thing: It's time for the world event! Woo Woo!

I can't think about all this starting up without thinking about the last time it happened: two years ago, when the Lich King pulled his "Plague-the-Grain-and-Turn-Everybody-to-Zombies" routine. And for a few days it was utterly super-fun madness with two scoops of awesome on top.

But, the event wasn't entirely smooth and a lot of this was due to player reaction to the events, a few small glitches with the implementation, and some clashes between how players were "playing" with the event.

I know I learned a few thing from that, and I'm pretty sure Blizzard did too. So, following are some lessons learned from the Zombie Invasion that will probably help us weather the Elemental Invasion.

The Taurajo Affair

If you ask me, Tauarajo doesn't look that different from what it did before it was sacked.

WARNING: Mild spoilers and serious Horde-bashing within

The Southern Barrens has turned into one of the most war-torn places in Azeroth. Unlike in Ashenvale, where the Horde is running rampant over Night Elf forces for the most part, The Alliance in the Barrens is fighting back.

(Ostensibly, this zone is an Alliance offensive. So I guess you could say the Horde is fighting back. But you get the point)

There is one key event in the Southern Barrens that supposedly shows the moral murkiness of war, that the Alliance is not purely "good" nor that the Horde is all "bad." The story is different, depending on which side of the conflict you are listening to, since we don't get to view the event itself.

But now I have played through both sides of this conflict, and I find the moral positions of the Alliance and the Horde much more solid than I was originally led to believe.

The event of course, is the sacking of the Taurajo.