Fanagler’s Magical Journey

Fanagler now knows that I am totally For Realz!

Well, just when I thought I had heard the end of Fanagler, an opportunity for a little payback arose this morning.   For the last few weeks, Fanagler has continued to whisper my Death Knight every time he logs on.  He thinks it’s quite funny that he can whisper me even though he has me on ignore and that I can’t whisper him back.  I have asked him why he does this (on my other alts that aren’t ignored) and he says it’s because “it’s fun”.  Well, I had my own bit of fun this morning.  As usual, my wife has posted in detail about the event, so head on over to this link to check out all the fun and screenshots!!

If you haven’t checked out the epic saga of Fanagler, please make sure you refer to my last post and read it, it’s fun for the whole family.

How to deal with WoW beggars. For realz…

First of all, let me apologize for not blogging in a while.  Real life has been incredibly busy lately and I have not had the time to commune with my fellow magic slingers as much as I would like.  For a quick update, my son is now walking, my guild has gotten to General Vezax in Ulduar and life, in general, is good.

Now, on to the subject of the day.  WoW beggars.   You know how it is.  You are standing in IF, armor pulsing and glittering like a redneck Christmas tree, when out of nowhere, BLAM,  a trade window is opened and you get the whisper.  “I can has gold plox? I r needing to get my flyin mount lolz”.  Normally I would just close trade window, tell them to get their own money like I had to and leave it at that.  This past week, however, I have met a special case.  Fanagler.  Fanagler is a special kind of beggar.  Not only is he greedy AND lazy, but incredibly stupid.  He’s the total package!!!

Will Work for Flying Mount KK?

I have now had THREE run-ins with this guy, and I have learned to deal with him in a special way.  I call it “playing the game” and my wife finds it incredibly funny and has written about it in her forum.  I don’t want to reinvent the wheel here, so I will link to her post and also to the screenshot gallery detailing the conversations I’ve had with this upstanding young gentleman.   Unfortunately I don’t have any pics from our first encounter where I used  the Death Grip bug to rip him into faraway places, but I think you will enjoy what I have. Enjoy and let me know what you think.  Also, if you have ever handled a beggar in a new and hilarious way, I would love to hear about it so please feel free to reply!!!

Click here for the Fanagler Story

Click here for the screenshot gallery

Noblegarden or No-Bull Garden?

Today’s post will be fairly short, but really not all that sweet.  I want to talk about the hair (not hare) brained idea that is Noblegarden.

I can admit it, I am an achievement whore.  I love it when I complete one and everyone around me AND my guild are forced to know that I just got my third Champion title over at the Argent Tourney!  I look back through my list of achievements and giggle maniacly like a twisted hunter looking back over his collection of stuffed racoons.  But I digress…  So, in my mania to complete the pokemon-like washboard of achievements, I ran across the latest world event that the masterminds over at Blizz, inc. released this past week.  Noblegarden.

Noblegarden, if you have been hiding under a rock like a carefully hidden egg is a weird adaptation of the non-religious side of the Easter celebration involving bunnies, chocolates and all things natural. So, “what’s not to love” you may be asking yourself.  Lots of things, says I.

Superbunny leaves a basket of eggs, how DOES he do it?

The main activity that you will engage in while participating in Noblegarden is the hunting of rainbow colored eggs. When you find an egg, you will open it and either have a piece of chocolate which can be turned in for items, or you will in rare cases get an item that is used in other Noblegarden achievements. Sounds simple enough, but there are several things that make Noblegarden a real pain in the cotten tail.

Firstly, the eggs can only be found in a few starter zones such as Goldshire near Stormwind or Dolanaar outside of Darnassus.  Luckily for us Mages we can teleport, but even then, getting there is NOT half the fun.

The second issue that you run into is actually procuring the aforementioned eggs.  They are hidden normally under bushes, beside rocks, inside water troughs and other various and sundry places.  This wouldn’t be so bad and would actually be kind of fun if it wasn’t for the sheer number of people that are also trying to hunt eggs!  A small number of eggs plus hundreds and thousands of players trying to find them at once equals fail.

The third hurdle is the amount of eggs you have to find to get your achievements.  Unless you get some lucky drops on some of the achievement items you will literally have to go through a couple hundred eggs or more to complete all of the Noblegarden achievements.

Lastly, one of the more annoying achievements involves finding level 18 or higher FEMALES of several classes and using an item on them (sort of reminds me of my first year at college).  I will tell you from personal experience, there are not as many female Orcs in the game as you think there are.

Where are the orc chicks, PST!

Like I said, I love achievements and I normally enjoy the World Events very much, but this one is just too much for me to hop past without saying my two chocolates worth.  But if you are like me, you will put your bunny whiskers to the grindstone and do it anyway.  After all, who wouldn’t wanna become Ultraking the Noble!!!

None may enter my secret garden!

A Mages Guide to Ulduar Boss XT-002

XT-002, not exactly like your little brother...

Do you have a little brother? Have you ever fought your little brother?  Piece of cake, right?  Just throw his shirt over his head and pummel him until he cries Uncle.  Well, XT-002 in Ulduar is exactly like that fight.  That is, if your little brother is the size of a 6 story building and can summon all of his toys to beat you down like Mike Tyson vs. your Grandma all the while turning people into Light Bombs and Gravity Wells.  Sounds like a typical Thanksgiving at my house, but that’s a story for another day. If you are lucky enough to make it to the Scrapyard in Ulduar or plan to in the near future, this write-up is for you.  Let’s take a look at the Giant Robot with the mentality of a little boy, XT-002, and how to take him out, Mage Style!

XT-002 Has Been Working Out!

When you first arrive at XT’s room, he is running around, busily doing Buns of Steel, Tai-Bo or whatever exercise nonsense is popular these days, just waiting for you to ready check and GO GO GO to start the encounter.  Once you begin, position yourself around the boss and begin DPS’ing.  The first thing that you need to remember when it comes to positioning for this fight is spacing.  XT-002 has some abilities such as Light Bomb and Gravity Bomb that will affect you and the people around you, so spacing here is very important.  Both of these abilities affect people up to 10 yards away from you, so if you have used it in the past, our good friend /distance 10 is your friend.  If you have never used this command, it will bring up a small box that shows the names of any raider that is within 10 yards of you.  Very helpful indeed!

Stay Away from the Gravity Bomb.

Light Bomb and Gravity Bomb are very similar.  Light Bomb is cast on a random player causing them to deal 3,000 damage per second to all friendly players within 10 yards of them.  Gravity Bomb causes 20,000 damage to the targeted player and will pull anyone within 9 yards towards the player.  On easy mode, this really isn’t a big deal as no damage is dealt, but on hard mode it leaves behind a large void zone that you don’t want to be caught in.  If you happen to be the lucky player inflicted with one of these abilities, make sure you are out of range of other players or blink out of range if you have to.  Just make sure that you stay within healing range to avoid being snuffed.

Every 45 seconds during this fight, XT-002 will get all pissed off with his new playthings (and by playthings, I mean you) and throw a Tympanic Tantrum (just like my 4 year old daughter). During this tantrum, you lose 10% of your maximum hit points every second for 12 seconds.  Now let’s do the math.  Lets see, x times 10, carry the one, divide by Pi, multiply by the size of your aunts underwear, and we get 120% of your health gone at the end of the tantrum.  Pay attention to your health and be prepared to use a HS, Health Potion or even iceblock if it comes down to it.

Tantrums are Fun!

Another aspect of the fight that we need to pay attention to is XT-002’s Heart.  Every time you knock off 25% of XT’s health, his heart will be exposed while he regens some energy.  You now have 30 seconds to target and DPS the heart.  During this time, XT will also summon several friends from the scrap piles to get all up in your grill, but we will deal with them in a minute.   Once the 30 second period is over, all damage done to the heart will be transferred to XT-002, but there is one thing to keep in mind, DO NOT KILL THE HEART UNLESS YOU WANT THE ENCOUNTER TO MOVE TO HARD MODE.  Thats right Mr. Over-Eager DPS’er, go crazy on the heart all you want, but unless you are prepared to fight this fight in hard mode, do not knock all the HP’s off the Heart.  You have been warned.

Now let’s talk about XT-002’s little friends that come out to play during the heart phase.  These are not your typical Wal-Mart clearance isle Brats dolls, these little beauties have game and need to be dealt with.  Here’s the scoop:

1) XM-024 Pummeller – Big mean and Nasty.  This will have to be tanked.  If you are squishy, stay away from it.

2) XS-013 Scrapbot – At least the way we do it, this is my primary concern once they come out.  These small robots will move towards XT-002 and need to be killed before they get there. Once they reach the Boss they will heal him for 1% of his health per Scrapbot that gets there.  These bots can be snared, so use your Frost Nova when it’s up.  I would recommend Arcane Explosion for these guys as they move very quickly and would be a difficult target to hit with Blizzard.

3) XE-321 Boombot – Easy to spot, it’s a big walking bomb.  This target deals about 15k damage to everything within 10 yards of it when it blows, friend and foe alike!  The Boombot only has about 50,000 hit points so its easily taken down while it casually waddles it’s way down to XT-002. These Bombs are also snareable, so it’s possible to snare him and DPS him down right about the time the scrapbots are within range of him to help take them out.

So what’s the bottom line here?  In a nutshell, DPS the boss, keep your spacing, beat the hell out of the heart (without killing it) while it’s up and neutralize all the bots during the heart phase, and pretty soon you will be taking screenies in front of the Biggest Little Brother you ever saw.  Bullying has never been so much fun.

CCT Vs. XT-002

The Argent Tournament and You

A Horse fit for a King

If you have looked at your map since last night, right above Sindragosa’s Fall, you may have noticed a new area peeking out at you from underneath the mist.  This my friend is the Argent Tournament.

Argent Tournament Grounds

This new event opens up several new dailies, events, challenges and a whole Steed-load of fun!  Today we are going to take a look at how to get started with the tournament and how to get on your way to being a Champion for the honor of your favorite city.

If you already have a flight path for the Shadow Vault, it’s a fairly quick hop from there to the tournament grounds at the northeastern corner of the Icecrown map. Once there, head over to the large tent with three flags (called the Argent Pavillion) at the southwest corner of the tourney grounds, just west of the Ring of Champions.  Once there, collect the starter quest and head over to your respective tents on the eastern side of the grounds, the Alliance tent is northeast and the hordies have one to the southeast.  After doing some initial starter quests for them, you will eventually be on your way to becoming a Valiant and will unlock several daily quests that can be completed every day (how convenient).  Several of these beginning quests will have you equip a lance, mount a steed and talk to the experts about fighting melee, ranged and charged targets.  The lance can be grabbed right inside the exit as you head out and there is a trusty steed waiting for you right outside of your tent. Mount up, head to the north side of the grounds in the middle, talk to the champions, then begin practicing your newly learned skills.

As I said, there are three types of target dummies to practice with, warlock, ret pally and death knight, no wait, my bad, I mean ranged, melee and charge.  When you mounted your argent steed, I’m sure you noticed that it is treated as a vehicle, and comes with several abilities that you will need to be successful in mounted combat.  Lets take a quick look at those:

1) The first is Thrust, its very simple.  A melee attack that does 3250 damage.

2) Shield-Breaker. Shield breaker does 2000 damage and removes a layer of defense from your opponent, more on that in a minute. Please note that shield breaker is a RANGED ability and can be done while moving.

3) Charge. Easy there soldier, I meant the ability called Charge!  Charge does a whopping 8500 damage and also removes a layer of defense from your opponent. Charge is also a ranged ability and can only be initiated while a certain distance from your opponent, much like a hunters shot.

4) Defend.  Defend reduces damage taken by 30% and can stack up to 3 times (for you non-math majors out there, thats 90% damage reduction.  This is the buff that is removed by the Shield-Breaker and Charge abilities.  Also note that Defend wears off after 1 minute, so its important to watch it and keep it up as much as possible.

5) Refresh Mount. Heals your mount back to 100%, but can only be used out of combat.

6) Duel.  If you cant figure this one out, un-equip your lance, take back your horse and get back to Warsong Gulch, you are not prepared.

Now that you know what the abilities are, lets look at how to use them to attack the various dummies.

1) For the Melee target, its pretty simple.  Make sure you have all three stacks of Defend up, then get close to the melee dummy and use Thrust!!  You will then successfully attack the dummy and take minimal damage.

2) The Charge target has a weak shield surrounding it, so before you can charge it, you should use the Shield-Breaker on it, then get to the appropriate range and CHARGE!!!  So easy even a Death Knight can do it.

3) The Ranged target is also very easy.  Keep spamming the shield Breaker target until you get credit for the kill.  Nothing to it!!

Once you have gotten the hang of it and turned in the quest, its time for the dailies!!  Here are some details that will help make getting them done a little easier.

A blade fit for a champion – This quest involves going down to Grizzly Hills and kissing frogs until you find the one that turns into the maiden.  Once she does, she will give you the item that you need to complete the quest.  The FIQ (Frogs in Question) are located in Grizzly Hills directly southwest from Camp Oneqwah.  One more thing, don’t forget to use your lip balm every time before you kiss the frogs or you are left with a wife-repelling case of warts!!

Kiss your Froggies Here

A Chip off the Ulduar block – This quest requires you to travel to Storm Peaks and find large blocks of stone that you need to reduce to small chunks of stone in order to collect and turn in.  Take your Bomb that you are given by the quest giver and place it next to the block and STAND BACK, this baby is gonna blow!!!  Once it does, collect items until you have 15 then turn in quest. Easy mode.

Come here to Blow up some Blocks

Learning the Reins – This quest takes what you learned from the Champions and makes you repeat it.  Simply return to the practice dummies and practice killing the ranged, melee and charge targets until it completes.

Jack me some Lumber – This one involves travelling down to Crystal Song forest to collect some wood.  Uh huh huh, I said wood…  The quick way to do this is to get to Dalaran and take the crystal that transports you down to the ground in Crystal song, which just happens to be right next to the great tree.  Once there, find the oaks that you need and chop away with the axe you were given.  Be warned, once you yell TIMBERRR and the tree falls, a single Treeant will come out and get all up in your grill.  Kill him and move on.  Once you have 12 pieces of lumber, you are ready to turn it in.

A nice place to jack your lumber

Training in the field – Simple.  Find some undead in Icecrown, kill them.  You need 8 kills.  I normally head down around Scourgeholme where there are lots of undead to pick from. Again, this one is a no-brainer.

Up to the Challenge – Also easy, although time consuming.  You need to collect 15 Aspirant’s Seals to complete this.  You get said Seals by completing, you guessed it, dailies from the Crusade!!  This will most likely take you 4-5 days I believe, but I will verify and post again if need be.  You need to complete this quest in order to move to the next stage of the Argent Tournament.

The Edge of Winter – This dailiy involves some travelling to complete.  First you must kill Lord Everblaze in Crystalsong and then you must use the Ember you loot from him to melt the ice and free the Maiden of Winter’s Breath Lake. Lord Everblaze is located in the hills above the pass leading from Crystal Song Forest to Dragonblight.  The Maiden is located in the center of Winter’s Breath lake just North of Skorn and south of Camp Winterhoof. Once you have freed the Maiden, she will give you the item to complete the quest.

The Lady is located here

Find Lord Everblaze here

Keep going on these dailies and you will soon be well on your way to being the studly champion your mate has always dreamed of!!!!  I am very excited about this Tournament and will offer more tips and updates as I progress through it.  I hope to see you all in the Ring of Champions very soon.

See YOU at the Tournament

Ulduar/ Patch 3.1? Yes please!

The children were perched in front of their screens, with visions of Ulduar clouding their dreams.  When from their computer they heard such a clatter, they ran to the keyboard and dropped food with a splatter.  And what from their surround sound speakers did they they hear?  The realms are all up, 3.1 is now here!!!

World of Warcraft...denied!

Well, not exactly. If you are like me, the background downloader has done it’s job like a happy little elf and the newest content patch is sitting happily in it’s folder waiting for you to log in and play.  “Come on, boot me up! You know you’ve been sitting there all day in a drooling ball of potential energy just waiting to inject me like a junkie on heroin” it screams, but alas, we get the same old tired message that us WoW vets have come to love and hate… “Maintenance is continuing on all realms. There is no time frame given as to when the realms will be back up, however there will be an additional announcement at blah blah blah PM.  Damn you Blizzard, damn you in the face!

The Download Elf hard at work!

While we wait, I thought I would talk just a little about what I am looking forward to in 3.1 and what I’m dissapointed about.

First and foremost, do I have to say it? Ulduar!!!  I pity the fool who doesn’t want to see Ulduar.  I agree that the raiding content in WOTLK was good, but short and really not all that difficult, with the exception being Sartharian with three drakes.  Haveing said that, I have been hungry for a good old fashioned epic dungeon that you really have to work to finish.  I believe that Ulduar will be fresh content that will take most guilds some time to finish, and even longer to finish on hard mode.  Please don’t prove me wrong Blizz old bean!

Secondly, the Argent Tournament.  Can I get a what what!!!  I have been looking forward to the Argent tourney since it was first announced.  The idea of strapping on my banner, mounting my warhorse and fighting for the Glory of Stormwind stirs the warrior in me like a nice hot bowl of chili.  Mmmmmm… Combatalicious!

Finally, dual-spec.  Who here actually LIKES to respec every time you wanna do something different?  You over there, ret pally, put your hand down Mr. I will Kill you in three seconds without blinking.  No one wants your opinion!  If you have been hiding in the attic, eating Cheetos and learning to role-play using dust bunnies under your bed, then you don’t know that dual spec allows you to have two totally different specs (and glyph configurations) that can be switched between as long as you are out of combat and are not in an arena (once you are out of the preperation phase).  This is SO long overdue and I can’t wait.  I will post a guide about possible mage dual-spec options in a later post.

And now, for the dissapointment.  In 3.1, there was also supposed to be an equipment manager built into the user interface that would let you switch between armor sets a-la Item Rack.  Sadly, the Blue Man group at Blizzard has decided to postpone it to a later date.  Bad form Blizz, bad form indeed!

No Equipment Manager for you, Mr. King.

All in all, when the realms finally come back up tonight (at least we hope it’s tonight) and the dust settles, hopefully we will be left with a warm fuzzy in our bellies and lots of exciting new content to chop, hack, and for us mages, PEW PEW our way through!  Can’t wait to see you there.

Ultraking gets Scrappy

“I’m somebody now, and they like me, they really REALLY like me”!! This was my thought when I checked my e-mail while away on my Honeymoon and discovered, much to my surprise that I had received an Honest Scrap award, or as I think of it in my deranged little head, A Scrappy!!

Ultraking accepts his very own Scrappy award!

I am not unfamiliar with the Honest Scrap award, as my newly enslaved married wife was also a recent recipient. This award is bestowed on a blog writer “whose blog content or design is, in the giver’s opinion, brilliant.” Brilliant… take that little miss 4th grade teacher who thought that my essay on “Why Darth Vader should be President” was uninspired and not entirely grounded in reality. I suppose I showed her! Writing blogs is fun, but lets face it, it’s much more fun when people actually READ and respond to them. Much thanks to Pixielated (pixielight.blogspot.com) for the nomination, I’m very happy that someone would take the time and effort to recognize my work.

Phase 1 – (When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to the said person so everyone knows she/he is real) Wow, I must have been psychic, I already did Phase 1!!  Lets move on…

Phase 2 – Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with an Honest Scrap Weblog.
In no particular order, here is my list of bloggers:

Armaggedon’s coming -  I love this blog, a lot. Witty, down to earth, just a little crazy and one of the coolest blog headers I have seen in a while. This guy has a lot to say and does so in a way that keeps me coming back for more!

Critical QQ – Another Mage blog that is put together very nicely and offers tons of content. A great read for all things Mage.

Wrath of the Boomkin -  Although I should probably subtract points for not being a Mage blog, what can I say, I dig BoomDaddy’s style! Good content and quite funny (Mage jokes not withstanding), he can stand up and trade punches with the best of them. In addition, what a nice guy, how can you lose?

WoWGrrl.com -  World of Warcraft from a female perspective. Lots of info. with an emphasis on the Horde side.

Out of Mana – This is another very entertaining blog written by a girl gamer. Who says they aren’t out there? Out of Mana is a very cool and very up-to-date blog.

Less QQ More Pew Pew – A very well put-together site.  I love the look and feel of this blog, and with that title, how can you lose?

The View From Down Here – World of warcraft from a Gnome tank’s perspective. This is a very nice looking site that is well-written and informative.

Which brings us to the end of Phase 2. Everyone get mana and food, renew your flask and take a well deserved bio-break, ’cause here comes Phase 3!!

Phase 3 – List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on!

1) In “real life”, I am a computer geek. *GASP*!! Yes, it’s true, I admit it. My day is spent repairing, reformatting, loading and downloading and sometimes kicking the living crap out of things that beep, blink, glow and make bizarre mewling sounds.

2) I married a Moonkin. Yeah, I know, what will the children look like?!? Bald headed geeks with beaks? Feathery little drooling half-man half-chick dopplegangers with wands? Heaven only knows…

3) I am a musician. Guitar, saxophone, drums, vocals… I’m a one man band over here! Not to mention I also do voice-overs and narrations on the side.

4) I like to watch Ghost Hunting shows. Yeah, it’s true. Ghost Hunters, Paranormal State, anything that goes bump in the night is pretty cool… As long as it’s confined to my TV that is. The only haunting I want in my house are the grisly flashbacks of all the corpses I’ve left in the battlegrounds.

5) I make a MEAN pot of Chili. I’m not normally much of a cook, but when it comes to Chili, I have got it down cold (er, I mean hot)! I recently won a Chili cookoff at the office where I work.

6) I am a certified SCUBA diver. I love to head down to about 50 feet and check out all the waterform druids hanging around down there. Feed a druid some fish and they are with you for life (just ask Battlechicken, my wife).

7) I am an extremely good shot. To heck with being a hunter in game, I’m practically a sniper in real life. I have been shooting for years now and consider an hour at the shooting range a blasting good time.

I have my own videography business. Not only do I love to use my camera and get creative in photoshop, I’m also a videographer/editor and love to do video when the chance arises.

9) I used to be a police dispatcher. In my past life, where I thought I wanted to be in law-enforcement, I used to send the cops out to take care of assaults, burglaries and all the other bad things that Ret Pallies are responsible for in this world. Besides, what other job lets you tell a Cop where to go and get away with it!

10) My favorite fast food is the Whopper at Burger King. If you read my April fools day blog then it’s not hard to see that one coming. I still want a Mana Whopper. As much money as I give BK, they should give in to my demands.

Suckers...

In closing, I want to say thanks again for my little 5 minutes of recognition. This blog is nothing without my loyal readers. I welcome you all to let me know if there is anything you would like me to cover in the future, and until then, have an extra shock treatment here in the Arcane Asylum.

Lies I Tell You, Lies!

Ok, ok, put away the thumbscrews and bamboo shoots for my fingernails, I surrender.  If you hadn’t already guessed, my post from yesterday entitled “A Tasty New Low” was a hoax, a fraud, a deception, an out and out (although very yummy) lie.  I admit I was taken over by the spirit of the April Fool and was manipulated, one blink at a time into posting the scam that appeared before you yesterday. Am I sorry? No.  Wait, hang on, let me check one more time… the answer is still no.

I swear I'll never lie again, honest!!

I hope at a minimum you got a little chuckle out of it, and at maximum were already salivating at the thought of buying Yumkins with extra Emerald Dream sauce by the cartload so you could be the first in your guild to cast “Gift of the Whopper”.  I really wanted to take it a little further and have something for every class, but there just wasn’t time to flesh out all the yumtastic possibilities and get them all out on the table.  Pun intended.  If you could have made your own addition to the Burger King tie-in, what sort of foods would you have suggested and what would the in-game reward be?  Put your creative caps on and give me your best shots.  I’m practically drooling with anticipation of participation.  Who knows, maybe the best idea will make it onto the menu at the Arcane Asylum,  Heaven knows the residents are just about tired of Strudel and Water.

A Tasty New Low

Well, now that the spasms have stopped and I am actually able to type again I can tell you that MMO’s and product-placement marketing have finally taken a flying bungie jump off of sanity cliff.  Our favorite blue poster GhostCrawler announced today that World of Warcraft had entered a partnership with none other than Burger King to try and combine our two favorite pastimes, eating and playing WoW. Here is the dealio…

Beginning with the release of patch 3.1, Burger King will introduce several new items to their menu that tie in to the various classes found in World of Warcraft. When you purchase these food items (more on this in a minute), you will have a chance to instant-win several in-game items or collect points that you will eventually be able to cash in for prizes through World of Warcraft vendors.  They are still somewhat tight-lipped about what the items will be, but they have mentioned a couple by name already, and let me tell you, it’s like a car wreck on the interstate with fatalities, I didn’t wanna look but I just couldn’t turn away.

The first item that was mentioned goes to our fine fellow transforming friends (they are, after all, more than meets the eye), the Druids.  The menu item that will be featured for this tie-in is a Chicken sandwich called the “Yumkin”. The Yumkin is basically a chicken sandwich with a special green colored sauce they are literally calling (wait for it…) the Emerald Dream.  Oh dear merciful God in Heaven, I wish I was making this up.  When you purchase your “yumkin” there will be a special game piece in the wrapper that will either let you instant win an item or collect 50 wrappers to turn in for an in-game item.  What is this item you may ask?  Its a scroll that teaches you a special buff that you can cast that is basically the same thing as Gift of the Wild, but with a saucy new name.  That’s right Druids, get ready to cast “Gift of the Whopper” and be the envy of all your fellow raiders. It even has a new buff icon that looks like a hamburger. I think I just soiled myself…

Gift of the Whopper????

Now, for the Mages. That’s right bretheren, I know you were jealous and wanted your own Burger King promotional item, well dispair no more, ’cause your prayers have been answered.  Our food item that can be purchased at Burger King when the tie-in begins is called, you guessed it, the “Mana Whopper”.  I’m now gripping the keyboard so tightly that I’m pretty sure my blood is soaking into the keys (I wonder if it will come to life and eat people like Christine the car in the Steven King novel”.  So, buy the Mana Whopper and get the chance to win your very own piece of in-game BK schwag.  What is it, you may ask?  The lucky winner or collector will be able to purchase a scroll that lets you conjure your very own Mana Whopper in game!  You heard me right, screw the mana strudel, I’m grilling burgers!  The new spell even conjures a small grill that others must click on in order to have it their way and get their stack of Mana Whoppers…

The Home of the Mana Whopper?

I really don’t know what else to say at this point.  This is marketing gone crazy and I hope that Blizz realises just what they are doing to my beloved game.  What do you all think about this, are you as disheartened as I am about the state of the game?  Your opinions are always welcome.  I think the marketing genius that came up with this one gets a free stay at the Arcane Asylum.

Running with Knives

Mom always said, “Ultra…. don’t run with a knife, you’ll fall down and decapitate yourself”.  Well, maybe not in those words, but you get the point.  I don’t really understand why people would say that, since, as we all know from playing first-person shooters, you always run faster with a knife!!!   Which brings me to todays subject, mobility and the mage.

Arcane mages, in my humble opinion, are the Kings of the run and gun fight.  I suppose that frost mages can claim a lot of mobility as well, especially in PVP with the oh-so-fun ice lance, but in a raiding situation, mages are the king of the drive by blasting!  But how do we keep our cool and stay frosty while we unleash arcane Armegeddon down upon our foes? Lets take Sartharion in the Obsidian Sanctum as an example.

Ah Sartharion, if Hell had an obstacle course, it would look something like the chaos that occurs in this encounter.  If you thought that you were the King of NOT standing in blue, red, hot, cold, spicy or refried stuff before, this fight takes it to a whole ‘nother level.  Dragon breath (much different than doggy breath), giant lava waves, easily aggroed whelpling and fire elemental adds and the infamous blue void zones all await the poor saps who step into this encounter with visions of purplez dancing in their heads.  Now you may ask yourself, how in the name of Ragnaros am I supposed to stand in my spot and dutifully cast ABx3, AM on missle barrage proc. or ABarr on no proc. with all this crap going on around me?  The answer is simple Mr. Couch Tater Mage, you can’t.  The run and gun is the only answer.

So, the tank has pulled, you have run to your favorite spot and started spamming /wave at your favorite mage buddy and you are waiting for all hell to break lose.  What should you do?  Luckilly, at least for the first few seconds, you can stand in your favorite spot and go nuts on Sarth if you chose to fight him with no drakes up, or begin pummeling the first drake to land with Arcane insanity if you are going for 1-3 drakes up.  Either way, take a deep breath, put on your favorite pair of enchanted Reeboks and get ready for the Mage-o-lympics.

The first obstacle that you will most likely have to deal with is a Lava Wave, or in other words, the big freaking tsunami of molten fire that is now crashing forward at breakneck speed with a whole truckload of raid knockback and mage killing sadness.  If you are lucky, you are positioned in such a way that you are facing the wave, see it coming and only have to adjust slightly to get in the middle of the two surfer’s nightmares and live to fight another day.  If you are like me and not so lucky, the wave is across the way and you have to MOVE MOVE MOVE to get there.  This is where it’s good to be a mage.  Simply aim for a spot that doesn’t contain a blue void zone or a gigantic red fire breathing dragon and blink.  Not your eyes, but the nifty little spell that makes us all love being a mage that much more.  If you have mad skills and timed it right, you are now in the middle of the two waves and good to keep fighting.  Luckilly, there are only two places that the waves can come from, the only twist is that they come from opposite sides, so make sure you are looking for the telltale  “The lava surrounding Sartharion churns!”  announcement and move accordingly.

Obstacle number two are the blue void zones.  Normally this wouldn’t be that much of a challenge, but in this particular fight you have two things that work against you, the deadliness of the zones and the small amount of space in which the fighting takes place.   If you are unlucky enough to have a blue void zone spawn on top of you, you literally have about a second to get out of it before you are toast. The only cure for this is to break out the Vizene (it gets the red out), stick some toothpics in your eyes and try not to blink (yes, this time not the spell but your eyes).   Paying attention to the void zones is of the utmost importance, so just keep moving and stay vigilant, the life you save will be your own.

Obstacle three are the happy little adds that pop out during the encounter.  I’m sure different guilds have different means of dealing with this, but these adds are normally either burned down or tanked depending on how many drakes you leave up.  If you are asked to AOE any of those adds down, you must use  caution at this point.  When we do Sarth with 3 drakes, after Vesperon is dead we then have to AOE down the whelplings that spawn in the area.   If you aren’t careful and start too soon, you can easily pull aggro off the add tank and end up taking  a dirt nap.  Game over mage boy, sit down and make some strudel.  You will also have to watch out for the flame elementals that run around.  If you somehow find yourself with aggro, run towards the add tank and pop an ice block if you have to.  The key is survival, and it unlocks lovely lovely lootz, so stay on your toes.

So we’ve covered the obstacles, now, how should we DPS this fight?  The honest answer is you have to adjust to the situation as it happens. As the military folk say, “Adapt, Improvise and Overcome”.  Can I get a Hooah?  I am normally a blinking, arcane barraging, missle slinging mage of doom during this fight.  I will stand my ground and try to stack some arcane blasts when I can, but when the inevitable call of “surf’s up” comes, it’s time to take this show on the road.  One final note, as crazy as it seems, you can still work in our old friend Mirror Image in this fight.   I normally wait until right after a lava wave has passed, then break out the Multi-mages to throw a little extra DPS into the pot.  If you are lucky they won’t instantly fall to a void zone and you will get 30 seconds of multimage goodness.

I hope this inspires some new ideas on how to play one of the toughest and most exciting fights in WOTLK thus far, and also on staying mobile in general.  As always, if you have some thoughts about this, want to call me out or just say hi, your comments are always welcome here.  Until the next time, keep playing it smart!  That’s how we roll here in the Arcane Asylum.

Rolling in Stormwind...