Sanna Talks About Wowcraft

Gear List: HOTT Accessories

2011-11-11T14:23:00.003-06:00

Gear List: HOTT Accessories
Current Wowcraft build: 4.2.0.

HOTT Index

I STRONGLY RECOMMEND that you use this list only as a starting guide, but do your own poking around, check Wowhead, check Atlasloot, and build your own list. If I've missed a piece of gear you feel should be on this list, please don't hesitate to drop me a note about it. I'm just one person, I can't make a complete 10m raid's gear list on my own without a few holes.

ALSO: Excepting the occasional Sarth25 or Onyxia10 drop, I have avoided linking raid gear. So many of those pieces have a less than 50% drop rate so if you want to look those up and add them to your personal list, I encourage you to do so. This list is intended to be more of a cheat-sheet, the easiest ways to get the necessary ilvl. Priority is crafting, JP, and 5m dungeons.

Overall:
226 Necks are available for 405 JP. 226 Relics for 243 JP. 213 Cloaks and Rings for 347 JP. Some 200 Trinkets for 348 JP.

STRENGTH

NECK - Str
-- Shard of the Crystal Forest (226) dodge/hit - 405 JP
-- Spiked Battleguard Choker (226) hit/crit - 405 JP
-- Nexus War Champion Beads (226) dodge/parry - reward for completing the Maly25 'keying' quest
-- Painfully Sharp Choker (219) POSreg (Tyrannus)
-- The Warlord's Depravity (219) HTOC (BK)

CLOAK - Str
-- Eerie Runeblade Polisher (219) dodge/parry - HORreg (Falric)
-- Tapestry of the Frozen Throne (219) hit/crit - HORreg (chest)
-- Platinum Mesh Cloak (213) dodge/hit - 347 JP
-- Drape of the Undefeated (200) crit/haste - TOC5reg (BK)

RINGS - Str
-- Etched Ring of the Kirin Tor (226) crit/expt - Harold Winston
-- Mark of the Relentless (219) dodge/parry - HTOC (cache)
-- Purloined Wedding Ring (219) crit/haste - POSreg (Ick)
-- Signet of the Impregnable Fortress (213) dodge/hit/expt - 347 JP

AGILITY

NECK - agi
-- Broach of the Wailing Night (226) crit/haste - 405 JP
-- Favor of the Dragon Queen (226) crit/haste - reward for completing the Maly25 'keying' quest
-- Ancient Pendant of Arathor (219) crit/haste - HTOC

CLOAK - agi
-- Accursed Crawling Cape (219) FOSreg (Devourer)
-- Hammerhead Sharkskin Cloak (213) - 347 JP

RING - Agi
-- Etched Band of the Kirin Tor (226) crit/haste - Harold Winston
-- Ring of Carnelian and Bone (219) crit/haste - POSreg (Garfrost)
-- Ring of Invincibility (213) crit/haste - 347 JP

CASTING (by which I assume Int)

NECK - Int
-- Evoker's Charm (226) spirit/haste - 405JP
-- Frozen Tear of Elune (226) spirit/crit - 405JP
-- Wyrmrest Necklace of Power (226) hit/haste - reward for completing the Maly25 'keying' quest
-- Life-Binder's Locket (226) spirit/crit - reward for completing the Maly25 'keying' quest
-- Coil of Missing Gems (219) FOSreg (Devourer)
-- Symbol of Redemption (219) spirit/crit - HTOC (BK)

CLOAK - int
-- Pennant Cloak (226) crit/haste - Sarth25
-- Cloak of the Fallen Cardinal (219) spirit/crit - POSreg (Tyrannus)
-- Kurisu's Indecision (219) hit/crit - HTOC (Eadric)
-- Cloak of Kea Feathers (213) spirit/haste - 347 JP
-- Disguise of the Kumiho (213) less spirit/more haste - 347 JP

RING - int
-- Etched Loop of the Kirin Tor (226) spirit - Harold Winston
-- Etched Signet of the Kirin Tor (226) crit/haste - Harold Winston
-- Sinner's Confession (219) hit/crit - HTOC (Confessor)
-- Spiteful Signet (219) spirit/crit - FOSreg (Devourer)
-- Band of Channeled Magic (213) spirit/haste - 347 JP
-- Renewal of Life (213) spirit/crit - 347 JP
-- Wyrmrest Band (213) spirit/haste - Sarth25

TRINKETS
Unless I'm doing something crazy-wrong, it looks like every above-ilvl-200 trinket is acquired through raiding. Since I already split out the Int and Spirit trinkets, I'm going to leave that alone, but here is a link to ilvl-200-only trinkets. I will pull out some links of trinkets worth pursuing for non-int/spirit characters below.

TRINKET - int
-- Ancient Pickled Egg (200)
-- Darkmoon Card: Greatness (200)
-- Darkmoon Card: Illusion (200)
-- Tears of the Vanquished (200) TOC5reg (BK)
-- The Egg of Mortal Essence (200) - 348 JP
I must be doing something wrong with the search restrictions...

TRINKET - Spr
-- Darkmoon Card: Greatness (200)

TRINKET - non-int/spirit
-- Abyssal Rune (200) haste/harmspell - TOC5reg
-- Banner of Victory (200) crit/AP-chance - TOC5reg (Confessor)
-- Darkmoon Card: Death (200) crit/shadow dmg chance
-- Darkmoon Card: Greatness (200) the Strength one
-- Darkmoon Card: Greatness (200) the Agility one
-- Majestic Dragon Figurine (200) gain Spirit on spell cast - Sarth10
-- Mirror of Truth (200) crit/AP-chance - 348 JP
-- Sundial of the Exiled (200) crit/SP-chance - 348 JP
-- The Black Heart (200) STAM/armor-chance - TOC5reg (BK)
-- Valor Medal of the First War (200) dodge/use-dodge - 348 JP

RELICS
Since my main didn't use relics, I'm not sure how best to divvy this up.
Here are all relics 226 and below. It looks like all the 226 ones are purchasable for 243 JP. So I'm guessing that whatever you play, if you use a Relic, you can get one easily enough.

HOTT Index

Gear List: HOTT Weapons

2011-11-11T12:45:00.007-06:00

Gear List: HOTT Weapons
Current Wowcraft build: 4.2.0.

HOTT Index

I STRONGLY RECOMMEND that you use this list only as a starting guide, but do your own poking around, check Wowhead, check Atlasloot, and build your own list. If I've missed a piece of gear you feel should be on this list, please don't hesitate to drop me a note about it. I'm just one person, I can't make a complete 10m raid's gear list on my own without a few holes.

ALSO: While priority is still 5m dungeons, I have linked some of the quicker raids, mostly Onyxia10. I have also included some ilvl200 weapons that aren't hard to get, just in case you get to crunch time and the bosses just won't drop your weapon for you.

MELEE/MAIN-EQUIP WEAPONS

Main-hand/one-hand 1H A/M/S - Str gt 1 - primarily meant as a tank list
-- Falric's Wrist-Chopper (232) HHOR (Falric)
-- Rimefang's Claw (232) HPOS (Tyrannus)
-- Lucky Old Sun (219) FOSreg (Bronjahm)
-- Peacekeeper Blade (219) HTOC
-- Red Sword of Courage (200) H UP (Ymiron)
-- Teldrassil Protector (200) Tourney

Shields, Str gt 1
Your two non-raid options?
-- Splintered Door of the Citadel (219) HORreg (Marwyn)
-- Crygil's Discarded Plate Panel (200) 348JP

2H A/M/S/P - Str gr 1
-- Keen Obsidian Edged Blade (232) Onyxia10
-- Tyrannical Beheader (232) HPOS (Tyrannus)
-- Edge of Ruin (219) HTOC
-- Garfrost's Two-Ton Hammer (219) POSreg (Garfrost)
-- Mourning Malice (219) HORreg (chest)
-- Claymore of the Prophet (200) Tourney

1H A/M/S - Agi gt 1 - primarily meant as a dps list
-- Black Icicle (232) HHOR (chest)
-- Liar's Tongue (232) HHOR (chest)
-- Nighttime (232) HFOS (Bronjahm)
-- Tankard O' Terror (226) BOE
-- Aledar's Battlestar (219) HTOC (Eadric)
-- Ghoulslicer (219) HORreg (Falric)
-- Hate-Forged Cleaver (219) HORreg (chest)
-- Grasscutter (200) - 550 JP
-- Ironforge Smasher (200) Tourney

2H A/M/S/P/Staff - Agi gt 1
-- Orca-Hunter's Harpoon (232) HHOR (Marwyn)
-- Reclaimed Shadowstrike (232) Onyxia10
-- Reclaimed Thunderstrike (232) Onyxia10
-- Marrowstrike (219) HTOC
-- Tower of the Mouldering Corpse (219) FOSreg (Devourer)
-- Colossal Skull-Clad Cleaver (200) H HOL (Loken)
-- Silvery Sylvan Stave (200) Tourney

Daggers and Fist Weapons, Agi gt 1
-- Blood Weeper (232) HFOS (Devourer)
-- Black Knight's Rondel (219) HTOC (BK)
-- Heartshiver (219) FOSreg (Devourer)
-- Krick's Beetle Stabber (219) POSreg (Ick)
-- Greed (200) HCOS (chest)

Staves with Spell power
-- Engraved Gargoyle Femur (232) HPOS (Tyrannus)
-- Blood Boil Lancet (219) FOSreg (Devourer)
-- Unspeakable Secret (219) POSreg (Garfrost)
-- Staff of Restraint (213) Sarth25
-- Staff of Draconic Combat (200) HOc (cache of eregos)

Daggers, 1H M/S with Spell power
-- Glinting Azuresong Mageblade (232) Onyxia10
-- Sharpened Fang of the Mystics (232) Onyxia10
-- Seethe (232) HFOS (Devourer)
-- Surgeon's Needle (232) HPOS (Garfrost)
-- Bone Golem Scapula (219) HORreg (chest)
-- Chilled Heart of the Glacier (219) HORreg (chest)
-- Mariel's Sorrow (219) HTOC (Eadric)
-- Spectral Kris (219) HTOC (BK)
-- Splintered Icecrown Parapet (219) HORreg (Marwyn)
-- Dagger of Lunar Purity (200) Tourney
-- Gnomeregan Bonechopper (200) Tourney

Off-hand Frills
-- Antique Cornerstone Grimoire (232) Onyxia10
-- Shriveled Heart (232) HHOR (chest)
-- Handbook of Obscure Remedies (200) 290 JP
-- Ward of the Violet Citadel (200) 290 JP

Shields, Int gt 1
-- Protector of Frigid Souls (219) POSreg (Tyrannus)
-- Protective Barricade of the Light (200) 348 JP

RANGED WEAPONS

Bows/Xbow/Gun/Thrown
There are only 2 options here with any Strength, according to Wowhead
-- Felglacier Bolter (232) HPOS (Ick)
-- Papa's Brand New Knife (232) HFOS (Bronjahm)
-- Snub-Nose Blastershot Launcher (232) Onyxia10
-- Crypt Fiend Slayer (219) HORreg (chest)
-- Rimebane Rifle (219) POSreg (Tyrannus)
-- True-Aim Long Rifle (219) HTOC (BK)
-- Armor Plated Combat Shotgun (200) Engr - yay, a str gun.
-- Blunderbuss of Khaz Modan (200) Tourney

Wands
-- Soulsplinter (232) HHOR (Falric)
-- Coffin Nail (219) ICC5 regs (trash)
-- Wand of Ahn'kahet (200) H Ahnkahet (Volazj)
Everything else is raid-dropped. Poor wand-users.

HOTT Index

Gear List: HOTT Leather

2011-11-11T11:40:00.005-06:00

Gear List: HOTT Leather
Current Wowcraft build: 4.2.0.

HOTT Index

I STRONGLY RECOMMEND that you use this list only as a starting guide, but do your own poking around, check Wowhead, check Atlasloot, and build your own list. If I've missed a piece of gear you feel should be on this list, please don't hesitate to drop me a note about it. I'm just one person, I can't make a complete 10m raid's gear list on my own without a few holes.

ALSO: Excepting the occasional Sarth25 drop, I have avoided linking raid gear. So many of those pieces have a less than 50% drop rate so if you want to look those up and add them to your personal list, I encourage you to do so. This list is intended to be more of a cheat-sheet, the easiest ways to get the necessary ilvl. Priority is crafting, JP, and 5m dungeons.

REGARDING LEATHER: I have never played a leather wearer past, like, 20, so this list is going to be split up into 'casty' and 'agi'; I'm assuming you'll know which of those you'll need better than I would.

LEATHER

HELM
Leather Helm

226 set helmet tokens are 770JP (or drop from Thorim25).

AGI
-- Mask of Distant Memory (219) hit/crit - HTOC (BK)

CASTY
-- Headpiece of Reconciliation (226) spirit/haste - Sarth25
-- Fallen Sentry's Hood (219) crit/haste - HORreg (Falric)

SHOULDER
Leather Shoulder

The 226 set shoulders are boss-drop only, a token off Yogg-Saron 25m. The 219 set shoulders come from Thorim 10m.

AGI
-- Bewildering Shoulderpads (219) crit/haste - FOSreg (Bronjahm)

CASTY
-- Grim Lasher Shoulderguards (219) spirit/crit - HORreg (chest)

CHEST
Leather Chest

226 set token for 770 JP (or from Hodir25m).
I hope the way I set the Wowhead filter isn't excluding something somehow. My apologies if I messed this one up.

AGI
-- Blackened Geist Ribs (219) hit/haste - HORreg (chest)

CASTY
-- Robes of the Cheating Heart (219) spirit/haste - FOSreg (Bronjahm)

WRIST
Leather Wrist

The pittance of non-raid options is more than made up for in the fact that the easiest option is the 213 BOE 347JP, which your main can buy and mail to your HOTT char. 213 is not ideal for HOTT, but it's better than a 200 blue.

AGI
-- Armbands of the Wary Lookout (219) hit/crit - HTOC
-- Wristwraps of the Cutthroat (213) crit/haste - BOE 347JP

CASTY
-- Unless I did it wrong, there are no non-raid 219 Int bracers.
-- Bands of the Great Tree (213) spirit - BOE 347JP

GLOVES
Leather Gloves

226 non-tier gloves are available for 487JP. 226 set gloves are a rare drop (2-3%) from Emalon25, or the tokens are from Mimiron25 or Freya10 (219).

AGI
-- Gloves of the Blind Stalker (226) crit/haste - 487JP
-- Carpal Tunnelers (219) crit/haste - HORreg (Marwyn)

CASTY
-- Grips of the Secret Grove (226) spirit/crit - 487JP
-- Gloves of Dismal Fortune (219) crit/haste - HTOC

WAIST
Leather Waist

There are two good options, either a 226 crafted belt from a rare-ish-drop pattern from Ulduar bosses (10mHards and 25mReg), or a 226 belt for 487 JP.

AGI
-- Death-Warmed Belt (226) hit/crit - Ulduar pattern
-- Belt of the Twilight Assassin (226) hit/expt - 487 JP
-- Flayer's Black Belt (219) crit/expt - POSreg (Garfrost)

CASTY
-- Belt of Arctic Life (226) spirit/haste - Ulduar pattern
-- Belt of the Living Thicket (226) spirit/haste - 487 JP.
-- Does not seem to be a 219 casty belt.

LEGS
Leather Legs

226 non-set pants are vendor-bought for 770JP. The 226 set pants have a rare chance of dropping from Emalon25, or the token comes from Freya25reg. 219 set pants come from Emalon10 or a token from Hodir10.

AGI
-- Shaggy Wyrmleather Leggings (219) crit/haste) - POSreg (Tyrannus)

CASTY
-- Leggings of the Snowy Bramble (219) crit/haste - HTOC

FEET
Leather Feet

Again, a good option here is a 226 crafted boots from a rare-ish-drop pattern from Ulduar bosses (10mHards and 25mReg). There are also 213 boots for 417JP if you have to; again, not ideal to go into Algalon with 213 but it's better than 200.

AGI
-- Footpads of Silence (226) hit/crit - Ulduar pattern
-- Treads of Dismal Fortune (219) crit/expt - HTOC
-- Boots of Captain Ellis (213) crit/haste - 417JP

CASTY
-- Boots of Wintry Endurance (226) spirit/crit - Ulduar pattern
-- Barkhide Treads (219) hit/crit - HTOC (Eadric)
-- Rainey's Chewed Boots (213) spirit - 417JP

HOTT Index

Gear List: HOTT Cloth

2011-11-11T10:22:00.006-06:00

Gear List: HOTT Cloth
Current Wowcraft build: 4.2.0.

HOTT Index

I STRONGLY RECOMMEND that you use this list only as a starting guide, but do your own poking around, check Wowhead, check Atlasloot, and build your own list. If I've missed a piece of gear you feel should be on this list, please don't hesitate to drop me a note about it. I'm just one person, I can't make a complete 10m raid's gear list on my own without a few holes.

ALSO: Excepting the occasional Sarth25 drop, I have avoided linking raid gear. So many of those pieces have a less than 50% drop rate so if you want to look those up and add them to your personal list, I encourage you to do so. This list is intended to be more of a cheat-sheet, the easiest ways to get the necessary ilvl. Priority is crafting, JP, and 5m dungeons.

REGARDING CLOTH: since I am unfamiliar with the intricacies of cloth dps, this list is more or less going to link anything of the appropriate ilvl.

CLOTH

HELM
Cloth Helm

-- 226 set helmet tokens are 770JP (or drop from Thorim25).
-- Gaze of the Unknown (219) hit/crit from HTOC (BK)
-- Tattered Glacial-Woven Hood (219) spirit/haste from HORreg (chest)

SHOULDERS
Cloth Shoulders

The 226 set shoulders are boss-drop only, a token off Yogg-Saron 25m. The 219 set shoulders come from Thorim 10m.

-- Frayed Abomination Stitching Shoulders (219) crit/haste from HORreg (Marwyn)
-- Mantle of Tattered Feathers (219) spirit/crit from ICC5reg mobs
-- Mantle of Inconsolable Fear (200) crit/haste from TOC5reg.

CHEST
Cloth Chest

226 set token for 770 JP (or from Hodir25m).

-- Embrace of Madness (219) spirit/crit from HTOC (BK)
-- Palebone Robes (219) crit/haste from POSreg (Tyrannus)
-- The Sanctum's Flowing Vestments (213) spirit/haste from Sarth25

WRIST
Cloth Wrist

The pittance of non-raid options is made up for in the fact that the easiest option is the 213 BOE 347JP, which your main can buy and mail to your HOTT char. 213 is not ideal for HOTT, but it's better than a 200 blue.

-- Unsullied Cuffs (226) spirit/haste from Sarth25
-- Wristguards of Subterranean Moss (219) spirit/haste from POSreg (Ick)
-- Cuffs of the Shadow Ascendant (213) spirit/haste BOE 347JP
-- Wraps of the Astral Traveler (213) hit/crit BOE 347JP

Am I blind? I'm not seeing anything that has no spirit except the JP one.

GLOVES
Cloth Gloves

226 non-tier gloves are available for 487JP. 226 set gloves are a rare drop (2-3%) from Emalon25, or the tokens are from Mimiron25 or Freya10 (219).

-- Touch of the Occult (226) spirit/haste 487JP
-- Cold Sweat Grips (219) hit/crit FOSreg (Bronjam)
-- Marwyn's Macabre Fingertips (219) spirit/crit HORreg (but drops from Falric... Macabre indeed)

WAIST
Cloth Waist

There are two good options, either a 226 crafted belt from a rare-ish-drop pattern from Ulduar bosses (10mHards and 25mReg), or a 226 belt for 487 JP.

-- Cord of the White Dawn (226) spirit/crit - Ulduar pattern
-- Sash of Ancient Power (226) hit/haste - Ulduar pattern
-- Sash of Potent Incantations (226) spirit/crit for 487 JP
-- Essence of Anger (219) hit/haste - FOSreg (Devourer)

LEGS
Cloth Legs

226 non-set pants are vendor-bought for 770JP. The 226 set pants have a rare chance of dropping from Emalon25, or the token comes from Freya25reg. 219 set pants come from Emalon10 or a token from Hodir10.

-- Legwraps of the Master Conjurer (226) spirit/crit for 770JP
-- Rimewoven Silks (219) crit/haste from POSreg (Tyrannus)

I feel like I'm missing something obvious. Maybe cloth stats aren't as diverse as I remember then being?

FEET
Cloth Feet

Again, a good option here is a 226 crafted boots from a rare-ish-drop pattern from Ulduar bosses (10mHards and 25mReg). There are also 213 boots for 417JP if you have to; again, not idea to go into Algalon with 213 but it's better than 200.

-- Savior's Slippers (226) spirit/crit - Ulduar pattern
-- Spellslinger's Slippers (226) spirit/haste - Ulduar pattern
-- Boots of the Crackling Flame (219) hit/crit - HTOC
-- Ice-Steeped Sandals (219) spirit/haste - POSreg (Garfrost)
-- Slippers of the Holy Light (213) spirit/haste - 417JP
-- Xintor's Expeditionary Boots (213) hit/crit - 417JP

HOTT Index

Gear List: HOTT Mail

2011-11-10T10:57:00.007-06:00

Gear List: HOTT Mail
Current Wowcraft build: 4.2.0.

HOTT Index

I STRONGLY RECOMMEND that you use this list only as a starting guide, but do your own poking around, check Wowhead, check Atlasloot, and build your own list. If I've missed a piece of gear you feel should be on this list, please don't hesitate to drop me a note about it. I'm just one person, I can't make a complete 10m raid's gear list on my own without a few holes.

ALSO: Excepting Sarth25 and a couple stand-out pieces of gear, I have avoided linking raid gear. So many of those pieces have a less than 50% drop rate so if you want to look those up and add them to your personal list, I encourage you to do so. This list is intended to be more of a cheat-sheet, the easiest ways to get the necessary ilvl. Priority is crafting, JP, and 5m dungeons.

MAIL

HELM
Mail Helm

226 set helmet tokens are 770JP (or drop from Thorim25).

-- AGI: Horns of the Spurned Val'kyr (219) from POSreg Tyrannus (15%).
-- INT: Polished Mirror Helm (219) from POSreg Garfrost (12%).

SHOULDER
Mail Shoulder

The 226 set shoulders come from a token off Yogg-Saron 25m. The 219 set shoulders come from Thorim 10m.

-- AGILITY: Pauldrons of Concealed Loathing (219) from HTOC
-- INT/hit: Pauldrons of the Deafening Gale (219) from HTOC
-- INT/SPIRIT: Council Chamber Epaulets (213) from Sarth25

CHEST
Mail Chest

226 set token for 770 JP, or from Hodir25m.

-- AGI: Chestguard of the Ravenous Fiend (219) from HTOC
-- INT/SPIRIT: Shroud of Rime (21) from POSreg

WRIST
Mail Wrist

AGI
-- Gondria's Spectral Bracer (219) from POSreg
-- Armguard of the Tower Archer (213) BOE for 347JP

INT
-- INT/HIT: Seven Stormy Mornings (219) from FOSreg
-- INT/SPIRIT: Pigmented Clan Bindings (213) BOE for 347JP

HANDS
Mail Hands

the 226 set gloves: 2% drop rate from Emalon25, or a token from Mimiron25.

AGI
-- Gloves of Unerring Aim (226) non-set gloves for 487JP
-- Gloves of the Dark Exile (219) from HTOC

INT
-- INT/SPIRIT: Gloves of Augury (226) non-set gloves for 487JP
-- INT/hit: Mitts of Burning Hail (219) from HORreg Marwyn

WAIST
Mail Waist

AGI
-- Belt of Dragons (226) LWing, Ulduar pattern
-- Belt of the Ardent Marksman (226) for 487JP
-- Scabrous Zombie Leather Belt (219) from POSreg

INT
-- INT/SPIRIT: Blue Belt of Chaos (226) LWing, Ulduar pattern
-- INT/SPIRIT: Windchill Binding (226) for 487JP
-- INT/SPIRIT: Girdle of the Dauntless Conqueror (219) from HTOC

LEGS
Mail Legs

The 226 set pants have a rare chance of dropping from Emalon25, or the token comes from Freya25reg.

AGI
-- Leggings of the Tireless Sentry (226) non-set pants for 770JP
-- Frostsworn Bone Leggings (219) from HORreg (Marwyn)

INT
-- INT/SPIRIT: Leggings of the Weary Mystic (226) non-set pants for 770JP
-- INT/SPIRIT: Black Dragonskin Breeches (219) from POSreg (Ick)
-- INT/hit: Legguards of Untimely Demise (219) from HORreg (chest)

FEET
Mail Feet

AGI
-- Boots of Living Scale (226) LWing, Ulduar pattern
-- Muddied Boots of Brill (219) HORreg (Falric)
-- Pack-Ice Striders (213) for 417JP

INT
-- INT/SPIRIT: Lightning Grounded Boots (226) LWing, Ulduar pattern
-- INT/SPIRIT: Soul Screaming Boots (219) FOSreg
-- INT/SPIRIT: Treads of Coastal Wandering (213) for 417JP

HOTT Index

Gear List: HOTT Plate DPS

2011-11-09T15:18:00.004-06:00

HOTT Index

I reformatted this list and folded it into one list. Please go to the index to chose it.

Gear List: HOTT Plate Healer

2011-11-09T12:45:00.005-06:00

HOTT Index

I reformatted this list and folded it into one list. Please go to the index to chose it.

Gear List: HOTT Plate

2011-11-09T09:16:00.009-06:00

Gear List: HOTT Plate
Current Wowcraft build: 4.2.0.

HOTT Index

I STRONGLY RECOMMEND that you use this list only as a starting guide, but do your own poking around, check Wowhead, check Atlasloot, and build your own list. If I've missed a piece of gear you feel should be on this list, please don't hesitate to drop me a note about it. I'm just one person, I can't make a complete 10m raid's gear list on my own without a few holes.

ALSO: Excepting the occasional Sarth25 drop, I have avoided linking raid gear. So many of those pieces have a less than 50% drop rate so if you want to look those up and add them to your personal list, I encourage you to do so. This list is intended to be more of a cheat-sheet, the easiest ways to get the necessary ilvl. Priority is crafting, JP, and 5m dungeons.

REGARDING DPS: since there are many plate dps classes and I'm no longer familiar with the intricacies of whether Arms/Fury/Ret/DK/theotherDKdpsspec wants hit/crit/haste/expt/stuff/doom/pants, this list is more or less going to link anything not-tanky of the appropriate ilvl.

PLATE

HELM
Plate Helm

226 set helmet tokens are 770JP (or drop from Thorim25).

TANKS
-- If for some reason you find yourself JP-strapped, you might be able to luck into a Helm of the Crestfallen Challenger (219) from 2nd-boss HTOC (14% drop)

DPS
-- Obsidian Greathelm (226) from Sarth25.
-- Skeleton Lord's Cranium (219) from POSreg

HEALS
-- Greathelm of the Silver Hand (219) HORreg, 11% drop

SHOULDER
Plate Shoulder

The 226 set shoulders are boss-drop only, a token off Yogg-Saron 25m. The 219 set shoulders come from Thorim 10m.

TANKS
-- Regal Aurous Shoulderplates (219) HTOC (Confessor, 12% drop).

DPS
-- Majestic Silversmith Shoulderplates (219) from HTOC (Eadric)

HEALS
-- Valonforth's Tarnished Pauldrons (219) HORreg (Falric 15%)

CHEST
Plate Chest

226 set token for 770 JP (or from Hodir25m).

TANKS
-- Scourgelord's Frigid Chestplate (219) POSreg (Tyrannus 15%)

DPS
-- Lost Reliquary Chestguard (219) from reg FOS (10% drop)

HEALS
-- There does not appear to be a 219 Int chest.
-- At least there is Chestplate of the Great Aspects (213) from Sarth25 (20%). But you should still go for the set chest.

WRIST
Plate Wrist

The pittance of non-raid options is more than made up for in the fact that the easiest option is the 213 BOE 347JP, which your main can buy and mail to your HOTT char. 213 is not ideal for HOTT, but it's better than a 200 blue.

TANKS
-- Mimiron's Inferno Couplings (226) from FL25reg (15%)
-- Flamewatch Armguards (219) from FL10reg (16%)
-- It is worth considering if you would rather farm the Unholy Command (see DPS list) and ... try to reforge them to be more tank-worthy. Good luck with that, IMO. Either way, you can't escape the fact that other than the BOE, the only two better actually-tanky wrists are from Flame Levi.
-- Bracers of Dalaran's Parapets (213) for 347JP

DPS
-- Vambraces of Unholy Command (219) from HTOC
-- Wristbands of the Sentinel Huntress (213) for 347JP

HEALS
-- Brace Guards of the Starless Night (219) FOSreg (15%)
-- Zartson's Jungle Vambraces (213) for 347JP
-- Bone Frame Bracers from Noth! Don't actually wear these for HOTT, I just had to mention them. It's kind of a personal in-joke I guess.

HANDS
Plate Hands

226 non-tier gloves are available for 487JP. 226 set gloves are a rare drop (2-3%) from Emalon25, or the tokens are from Mimiron25 or Freya10 (219).

TANKS
-- Gauntlets of the Royal Watch (226) (non-set) for 487JP
-- Crystalline Citadel Gauntlets (219) from HORreg chest (10%)
-- 213 set gloves come from 'Gauntlets of the Lost' token from Sarth25, an average of a 50% drop across the 4 tank classes (but strongly consider passing this up, you want either the CCG or the Royal Watch).

DPS
-- Bladebreaker Gauntlets (226) (non-set) for 487JP
-- Plated Grips of Korth'azz (219) a zone drop from the ICC5s.

HEALS
-- Gauntlets of Serene Blessing (226) (non-set) for 487JP
-- Gauntlets of Revelation (219) from HTOC
-- The 213 set gloves can come from a token from Sarth25 (Paladins share with Priests and Warlocks)

WAIST
Plate Waist

There are two good options for all roles, either a 226 crafted belt from a rare-ish-drop pattern from Ulduar bosses (10mHards and 25mReg), or a 226 belt for 487 JP.

TANKS
-- Indestructible Plate Girdle (226) Ulduar pattern.
-- Shieldwarder Girdle (226) 487 JP.
-- Titanium Links of Lore (219) - a ridiculously rare-drop-rate belt from (reg?) ICC5s.

DPS
-- Belt of the Titans (226) Ulduar pattern
-- Belt of the Singing Blade (226) 487JP
-- Bent Gold Belt (219) from POSreg (Ick)

HEALS
-- Plate Girdle of Righteousness (226) Ulduar pattern
-- Girdle of Unyielding Trust (226) 487JP
-- Trueheart Girdle (219) HTOC (Confessor)

LEGS
Plate Legs

226 non-set pants are vendor-bought for 770JP. The 226 set pants have a rare chance of dropping from Emalon25, or the token comes from Freya25reg. 219 set pants come from Emalon10 or a token from Hodir10.

TANKS
-- Gilded Steel Legplates (226) - really nice, really rare (5%) from Flame Levi 10.
-- Wyrmguard Legplates(226) for 770JP.
-- Legplates of Frozen Granite (219) from Devourer of Souls reg

DPS
-- Legplates of the Violet Champion (226) for 770JP
-- Legplates of Relentless Onslaught (219) from HTOC
-- Minister's Number One Legplates (219) from regFOS

HEALS
-- Legguards of the Peaceful Covenant (226) for 770JP
-- Legplates of the Argent Armistice (219) HTOC (Eadric 13%)

FEET
Plate Feet

Again, a good option here is a 226 crafted boots from a rare-ish-drop pattern from Ulduar bosses (10mHards and 25mReg). There are also 213 boots for 417JP if you have to; again, not idea to go into Algalon with 213 but it's better than 200.

TANKS
-- Spiked Deathdealers (226) Ulduar pattern
-- Sollerets of Suffering (219) from FOSreg (Devourer)
-- Kyzoc's Ground Stompers (213) for 417JP

DPS
-- Battlelord's Plate Boots (226) Ulduar pattern
-- Plated Greaves of Providence (219) HTOC
-- Bladed Steelboots (213) for 417 JP

HEALS
-- Treads of Destiny (226) Ulduar pattern
-- There do not appear to be 219 boots from HTOC, ICC5regs, or any non-raiding source. Please let me know if I'm missing something.
-- Sabatons of Rapid Recovery (213) for 417 JP

HOTT Index

Gear List: Herald of the Titans Index

2011-11-08T10:30:00.017-06:00

Gear List: Herald of the Titans Index
Current Wowcraft build: 4.2.0.

Yes, this blog has been inactive since February. Life upheaved and sometimes it just does that. I can't even remember anymore what posts I was wanting to write that I never did. So it goes.

My guild is doing a Herald of the Titans project; specifically, several people are leveling alts to 80 (or dusting off alts that are at 80), freezing the xp, and then gearing them up to take on Algalon. I am assisting this endeavor by compiling gear lists. Just to remind, the armor (including relics) must be ilvl 226 or less, and the weapons can be up to ilvl 232.

ON JUSTICE POINTS
Wowhead has a handy chart on where 80s can gain JP.
A level 80 character can access two Cata Regular dungeons through the RDF and, depending on equipped gear, many Wrath Heroics.
Doing one Wrath Heroic Random is worth 24 JP. Wrath Heroic Bosses are worth 16 JP each, for an average of 4 bosses per instance, which is 64 JP. (24+64)*7 = ~616 JP (subject to flux depending on what dungeons you actually get).
One Cata Reg Random is 140 JP, * 7 in a week = 980 JP. Plus the above = ~1600JP/week, just from randoms.
Wrath Raid bosses drop 24JP. The Wrath Weekly Raid Quest is worth 138, if it's easily-enough doable.

JP can be used to purchase lots of HOTT-quality gear.
226 set Helmets, set Chests, and non-set Legs can be bought for 770JP.
226 non-set Gloves and Belts can be bought for 487JP.
226 Relics are 243 JP. 226 Necks are 405 JP.
213 BOE Wrists can be bought for 347JP and mailed around.
213 Boots can be bought for 417JP but only as a last resort (attempt to acquire the 226 crafted ones instead). Also last resort, 213 Rings are 347 JP.

Thus, doing 7 Wrath H Randoms, 7 Cata Reg Randoms, 6 more days of HTOC (228 for the week) and all 3 H ICC5s (768 for the week), plus the occasional Wrath Raid boss and maybe a bonus Wrath Weekly Raid Quest, a HOTT 80 could easily snag 3,000 JP in a week and potentially 100-200 more.
Week one: buy 226 Helmet, Chest, Legs, and Gloves.
Week two: buy 226 Belt, Neck, and depending on class, Relic. Have JP left over.

This means you will be able to have your 2-piece set bonus for your 8.5 tier when you fight Algalon.

This post will serve as an index for the subsequent posts, so please check back here if you need to find a specific one.

-- Plate --
(NOTE, I reformatted the previously-Tank-only list into an all-Plate list.)

-- Mail --

-- Leather --

-- Cloth --

-- Weapons --
Yes, I managed to get everything into one fairly long list. Fear not, it's subdivided.

-- Necks, Cloaks, Rings, Trinkets, Relics --
One single, somewhat long, mostly divided up by Str Agi Int, Accessories list. I'm either awesome or going crazy right now.

How To: Edit Global Strings

2011-02-12T09:39:00.005-06:00

How To: Edit Global Strings
Current Wowcraft build: 4.0.6

You know what I don't like? Spam. You know what is spammy? All this crap:

Your share of the loot is 2 Silver, 14 Copper. (21 Copper deposited to guild bank)
Your share of the loot is 12 Silver, 27 Copper. (1 Silver, 23 Copper deposited to guild bank)
Your share of the loot is 12 Silver, 56 Copper. (1 Silver, 26 Copper deposited to guild bank)
Your share of the loot is 12 Silver, 22 Copper. (1 Silver, 22 Copper deposited to guild bank)
Your share of the loot is 9 Silver, 11 Copper. (91 Copper deposited to guild bank)
Your share of the loot is 13 Silver, 35 Copper. (1 Silver, 33 Copper deposited to guild bank)
Your share of the loot is 9 Silver, 27 Copper. (93 Copper deposited to guild bank)
Your share of the loot is 2 Silver, 92 Copper. (29 Copper deposited to guild bank)
Your share of the loot is 10 Silver, 25 Copper. (1 Silver, 2 Copper deposited to guild bank)
Your share of the loot is 13 Silver, 16 Copper. (1 Silver, 32 Copper deposited to guild bank)
Your share of the loot is 5 Silver, 12 Copper. (51 Copper deposited to guild bank)
Your share of the loot is 6 Silver, 51 Copper. (65 Copper deposited to guild bank)
Your share of the loot is 10 Silver, 92 Copper. (1 Silver, 9 Copper deposited to guild bank)
Your share of the loot is 12 Silver, 16 Copper. (1 Silver, 22 Copper deposited to guild bank)
Your share of the loot is 6 Silver, 93 Copper. (69 Copper deposited to guild bank)
Your share of the loot is 6 Silver, 24 Copper. (62 Copper deposited to guild bank)
Your share of the loot is 7 Silver, 38 Copper. (74 Copper deposited to guild bank)

You know what's not spammy?
Your share: 7 s, 38 c. (74 c to gbank)

Look how much less space that takes up. This is done by editing global strings. At first the task might seem daunting, but just remember you don't have to edit all the strings, only the one you want. Here is a quickie tutorial on editing global strings.

First, somewhere like maybe your desktop, or maybe a small storage folder next to your main Wow folder, make a New Text Document, then rename it to something like EditedGlobalStrings.lua (make sure it does not end in .txt). You will end up with 2 copies of this file, one in a 'safe' place like this where it won't get over-written, and the other will be your 'active' copy. Open up your file in Notepad or your favorite text editor.

Next, go to
http://wowprogramming.com/utils/xmlbrowser/test/FrameXML/GlobalStrings.lua
Do not be afraid of all those strings. You don't need to worry about most of them. Think of something you wish to alter, like "Your share of the loot". Use the find function (in MSIE you still need to use ctrl F, in Firefox you can just start typing /your share, and it will start the search) to look for the text you want to change. You may need to use F3, but you should pretty quickly find these lines:
LOOT_MONEY_SPLIT = "Your share of the loot is %s.";
LOOT_MONEY_SPLIT_GUILD = "Your share of the loot is %s. (%s deposited to guild bank)";

Copy that entire line into your EGS lua. Now, make the non-variable part (the %s part) say whatever you want. Mine look like
LOOT_MONEY_SPLIT = "Your share: %s.";
LOOT_MONEY_SPLIT_GUILD = "Your share: %s. (%s to gbank)";

This line is for when you are not grouped and loot money:
YOU_LOOT_MONEY_GUILD = "You loot %s. (%s to gbank)";

Save your EditedGlobalStrings.lua. Now we need to put it someplace where the game will know how to read it. You do not overwrite the base global strings in the core code of the game; those are always there. What you do is 'fool' the game into using your strings instead of the base strings. Sort of like having an apple on the counter every morning that you eat for breakfast, but one morning someone has put a banana right in front of the apple, and you take the banana instead. Mm, potassium.

The easiest way to do this is to choose an existing addon that you know you will run on every character that you want to be affected by your edited strings. I use Altoholic on every.character.ever. So I save my EGS.lua and close the Notepad, and open up my Interface/Addons/Altoholic folder and just drop it right in the main folder. Now we have to tell Altoholic to load that lua.

Open the Altoholic.toc (or the .toc file of whatever addon you are using). Go down to the very bottom and just add the name of your file, mine being EditedGlobalStrings.lua. Save the .toc, close the Notepad, and fire up Wowcraft. Now, all characters that have that addon enabled will use your banana-strings instead of the default apple-strings.

Just make sure to always edit your safe file and then drop it into the addon that you've told to use it. Whenever you update the addon that uses your active file, it will wipe out your lua and your edited toc, and you'll have to go put it back in and re-edit the toc. This is why you want a safe copy, one that is not in danger of being over-written.

As you play through the game, you can keep an eye out for things you wish would take up less space in the chat box, then search through the list up there, find the string, and play around with how you want it to look. Happy customizing!

Addons: GuildXP

2011-01-31T22:46:00.004-06:00

Addons: GuildXP
Current Wowcraft build: 4.0.3

Whoops! Almost-kinda-maybe breaking my NYR already... to make one post per week. Mayyybeee if I count it as 'per raid week' I'm still good? It's only Monday night. (*shifty eyes*)

I like tracking things. This is why I like Overachiever and Altoholic and Ara Broker Reputations (which I call FactionsFu in my head half the time) and QuestGuru's tracking box. I like the new guild xp system. I wanted a way to easily see how much guild xp has already been gotten and will be gotten and... you know. Stuff. The whole point of LDB is to easily see whatever you want.

GuildXP (Curse|~~Wowi~~)is a tiny little thing that shows you some pretty handy stuff.

What you see in the LDB display (actually a feature I requested on his Curse page) is the Daily percentage remaining, which counts down from 100%, and the current level and percentage of the guild as a whole, which counts up from 0%. At first this was a little backwards to me, and I guess if I knew how to edit lua stuff I might change that, but after a while you get used to it. When you mouse over, the display drops down and spells stuff out for you. With the default guild interface, yeah you see the blue bar and you can mouse over for a bit of information, but it's so... general. GuildXP feels much more precise.

I really love the 'days till next level' feature, but I should point out that it continually calculates that number throughout the day. So, if your guild is has 22% remaining for the day but it's only 4pm and you're pretty sure you're going to get daycapped, GuildXP doesn't take that into account. It treats the moment you look as assuming that the day is 'over'. So really, the only time you can 'trust' the 'days till next level' is if no xp has been gotten that day, or if your guild is daycapped. On the other hand, it will never be off by more than one day. And if you're that paranoid about knowing exactly when your guild is going to ding the next level, please check out Wowpedia.org/Guild_advancement for the very large chart about halfway down the page.

I've noticed that often, GuildXP doesn't update unless you throw your mouse over it to get the dropdown to pop up for a second. But you know, that's ok. I'm sure the servers don't mind yet another addon pinging every 5 seconds anyway.

If you like more accurate percentages than the default ui can offer you, or if you like to be able to predict when the next level will come, check out GuildXP.

(No, this addon does not tell you when you will be rep-capped for the week. If you want to know, go to Roster tab, Weekly XP dropdown, find your name. If the number says 1575002, you are capped for guild rep this week. The internet needs to stop freaking out, like it's hard to figure out when you're going to be rep-capped. It's not. L2read, internet.)

Addons: Minimal Archaeology

2011-01-21T11:46:00.003-06:00

Addons: Minimal Archaeology
Current Wowcraft build: 4.0.3

When I first ran into the Archaeology profession in the beta, I was very excited. You dug things up and put them together and got stuff! And there was lore! And it was fun! But when it went in on live, I realized there were a few... I might call them 'flaws' but I know they're really just design elements... that, in my opinion, seriously detract from the enjoyment.

First of all, you're going to spend the next couple of years of your life on griffons, flying between zones, just so you can go dig up three things and get back on a griffon and go to the next one. Wow. Can we say boring? At least there's old-world flying now, so you can just sit down where you need to go without fighting through loads of grey mobs.

Secondly, I will never ever do this on a character that does not have old-world flying, because I would spend all my time riding to the place, killing tons and tons of mobs just to get to one dig, then do that twice more, and then griff my little butt to an entirely different zone to do it all again. No thank you.

Thirdly, since there is no way to control or even really know what area will pop next for you, you constantly have a dilimma: do I fly next door to get that troll/fossil site that just popped up, just so I can clean it out and hopefully get a site I want to pop; or do I fly all the way across the continent for the dig site I want and hope that I didn't just spend ten minutes on a griffon for three digs?

Fourth, there is no way in-game (and there probably wouldn't be, it's not within the scope of the in-game tools to tell you things you don't know) to see a list of all available projects and compare them to the ones you've already done, to know if you should still bother digging up troll and fossil sites. Oh wait!

That's what addons are for.

Meet Minimal Archaeology (Curse | Wowi).

No, it's not Archy. I know everyone is all up in the Archy and I won't tell you to not use Archy, unless you just feel that Archy is the equivalent of the professional painter's 300-color oil paint set when all you want to do is draw a smiley face now and then.

Minimal Archaeology does two things.
1. Shows you in the main window how many fragments for each race you have (with the option of auto-including available keystones), and gives you a Solve button that lights up when ready, as displayed in the upper half of the screenshot.
2. Gives you a list of All Possible Artifacts and tells you what you have and haven't completed, as displayed in the second half of the screenshot.

There's a few more options such as 'play a sound when something is ready to be solved', but generally? Minimal Archaeology is really... minimal. And that's kinda nice.

It probably won't make me do archaeology any more often than I already don't... but I know that whenever I do get the bug to pop in a movie and watch it while flying around from zone to zone... to zone... to zone... that this handy-dandy polite little addon will be there, ready to tell me at a glance all the important stuff with no extra fluff.

Addons: Ara Broker Reputations

2011-01-11T09:52:00.002-06:00

Addons: Ara Broker Reputations
Current Wowcraft build: 4.0.3

Let us all observe a moment of silence for FactionsFu.

FactionsFu was introduced to me by my friend Greta. She was all, "You like grinding rep! You'll love this addon!" And I was all, "ehhh, more addons." (This was back in the day, you can tell.) We were in Nagrand, I recall, working on the Nesingwary quests, so my main was all of... 64, 65 or so. And Greta pressured me to get it, so I said 'ok'.

Greta, did I ever properly say thank you? Thank you. FactionsFu lasted me all throughout my vanilla, BC, and Wrath rep grinds. It was there with me while I went Insane. It doggedly survived the Cataclysm impact.

Now I can finally lay it to rest. Sleep well, dear FactionsFu. You might truly have been my favorite.

Fortunately, the legacy lives on. Aranarth has given us Ara Broker Reputations.

Ara Broker Reputations works 99% the same as FactionsFu. The only difference I've seen is that you can't link factions to zones. If that feature were available, I'd use it, but I barely miss it not being there.

Ara Broker Reputations is a native LDB plugin, so it works perfectly with your ChocolateBar! By default, it uses the Blizzard color scheme, where everything Honored and above is the same shade of green, but there's an option in the right-click menu to change that.

If you liked FactionsFu but find it doesn't work anymore, get Ara Broker Reputations. But drink a draught to its spiritual father, because ABR wouldn't be here had not FactionsFu been here first.

Gear List: Warrior Tank, 85 pre-raid

2011-01-11T09:47:00.003-06:00

Gear List: Warrior Tank, 85 Pre-raid
Current Wowcraft build: 4.0.3.

Pysche! This isn't even my list. The entire point of this post is to say go check out Kadomi's awesome Cata pre-raiding gear list for warrior tanks! At least 3 choices for every slot (except our poor neglected range slots, come on Blizz, not even a 325?), organized and prettified and everything!

Check it out! What are you waiting for? For me to post again? Well if you insist.

Addons: CompanionClone

2010-11-11T11:56:00.003-06:00

Addons: CompanionClone
Current Wowcraft build: 4.0.1

Are you in a raid and see someone has their Spring Rabbit out, and you want yours out too? Don't poke through ten pages of un-searchable non-combat pet icons; CompanionClone it!

Are you in an RDF and someone has their Stinker out? Don't waste valuable time searching for one of your Black Cats; CompanionClone will choose the purr-fect playmate!

See someone boasting that they have a SuperRarePet? Take their epeen down a notch by instantly pulling yours out for comparison. Your pet, I mean. CompanionClone works as fast as you can target a non-combat pet and click a macro or an LDB icon.

COMPANIONCLONE (Curse), now available at Curse-dot-com, for all your noncombat-pet-cloning needs!

CompanionClone has recently been upgraded to include MountClone support, and comes with a free LDB plugin to fit snugly into your ChocolateBar. Don't delay! Download today!

Warning: CompanionClone is only able to clone companions and mounts already owned by the cloner any attempt to clone an un-owned companion or mount will result in an unobtrusive error message only for use by licensed individuals do not attempt without the appropriate training the maker of CompanionClone LuaCayenne is not responsible for any cloned mount which lasts longer than four hours use as directed.

Addons: Long Live wMarker

2010-10-24T13:47:00.004-05:00

Addons: wMarker
Current Wowcraft build: 4.0.1

LuckyCharms2 is dead. Long live wMarker!

I am sad beyond words that I did not find this addon months ago (although to be fair, it appears to have been uploaded the first time on Aug 20, so... two months?).

Nearly a year ago, I made a post in the WowInterface forums, asking for recs for a good LDB raid-icon marking addon. I got six replies, but sadly, none of them worked out. One was flat-out broken, one was not a click-to-assign-icons at all, and 3 appeared to do exactly what LuckyCharms2 did, only less well. The sixth was an addon called OPie, the coolest-looking addon that does not fit my playstyle in any way I could think of. And I tried so hard to make myself find a reason to keep it, but for me, it was more of a hassle than a help.

I really just need to click a mob, and click a skull, and the mob will have a skull. Click a mob, click the x. And ideally, this dream addon would fit into my ChocoBar.

When 401 hit and LuckyCharms2 became Do Not Resuscitate, I wondered how long I could last without a raid icon marking addon. The answer: about three minutes of combat. So I dug up my old thread and prepared to edit/bump it with a new impassioned cry of "help!" But something in the back of my head said, 'go check out those old recs.' So I did.

They still didn't look like they were going to work for me. But then the little voice went, 'well, before you post, look through the Raid Mods category. maybe you'll get lucky."

I got lucky. Ecstatically lucky.

Meet wMarker (Wowi).

wMarker frame locked from moving.

wMarker frame unlocked and ready to move.

wMarker by itself doesn't plug into an LDB frame. In fact, I had to go into ChocoBar's settings and reassign it's strata to be 'Background' (or 'Low' or something like that). Once I did that, wMarker 'rides over' my ChocoBar, and kinda pretends it's an LDB addon. Kinda.

wMarker with no border, top and center of my screen, with ChocoBar strata set to Background.

If you DL wMarker from Wowi but you don't have 'load out of date addons' checked, you will need to toc-cheat it to make it work. Don't worry, it won't break anything. And wMarker does not appear in your Interface Addons list, you will need to use the '/wm options' command to open the options box.

I could break into all-caps right now and start exulting about how freakin' happy I am that this addon exists, and that I found it and it works and YAY. But you can just imagine me over here, squeeing over a simple raid marking addon. I'm happy ^__^.

Addons: Four Point Oh Point One

2010-10-16T14:37:00.018-05:00

Addons: Many!
Current Wowcraft build: 4.0.1!

Ohsnap! It's 4.0.1! All the addons are brokeded! So are my post-making skills, seeing as how I've lost the previous two drafts of this post. So! Since the InternetDeity seems to want me to dispense with the talkytalky, here's a list of the addons I lurve (or use anyway *looks at Pitbull4*), and links to their 401-ready builds. (Yes I will be editing this post frequently over the next few days. Bolded names just means I've gotten their links all done.)

ARL (StaW | Curse | Wowi) and Collectinator (~~StaW~~ | Curse | Wowi) - Collectinator is "ARL for pets/mounts". A.K.A.: yay!
Altoholic (StaW | Curse | Wowi) - delete your old folders and SV files (alto.lua and all datastore.lua) first
Atlas (~~StaW~~ | Curse | Wowi) and AtlasLoot (StaW | Curse | Wowi)
Auctioneer (As of this posting, it is only available at http://auctioneeraddon.com/dl/ - Select AuctioneerSuite if you want everything, and skip over the other 3.) - yes I know it's bloated. I suffer with it anyway b/c I don't want to lose my BeanCounter file : p
Bartender4 (~~StaW~~ | Curse | Wowi) - complete with funky new darker-edgier look.
Broker_Equipment (~~StaW~~ | ~~Curse~~ | Wowi) - Now that the Blizz EquipManager saves 'don't save this slot', I can use it now. It's not quite as shiny as ItemRack, but it does what I need, which is letting me change sets from my ChocolateBar. While this project has 'a' Curse page, it has not been updated for 401 there, last I looked.
Broker_repair (lovely edition) (~~StaW~~ | Curse | ~~Wowi~~) an LDB dura/repair mod. As of this posting, my overall dura-% will display in ChocoBar, but mousing over the addon throws an error.
Chatter (~~StaW~~ | Curse | ~~Wowi~~) - there is 'a' Wowi page, but it's not updated.
ChocolateBar (StaW | Curse | Wowi)
CurrencyTracker (~~StaW~~ | ~~Curse~~ | Wowi) - LDB replacement for CurrencyFu
DeadlyBossMods (~~StaW~~ | Curse | Wowi)
DropTheCheapestThing (~~StaW~~ | Curse | ~~Wowi~~) - LDB and memlite version of GarbageFu.
Elk's Buff Bars (StaW | Curse | ~~Wowi~~) man I forgot how much I hated default buffs. (exists on Wowi but out of date there)
GatherMate (StaW | Curse | Wowi)
GnomishVendorShrinker (StaW | Curse | Wowi) - Love this addon, but check the StaW page for directions on how to fix that fuglay number font
GuildBankList (StaW | ~~Curse~~ | Wowi)
Healbot (~~StaW~~ | Curse | Wowi) - because Grid and/or Clique never seemed to speak my language....
Heatsink (StaW | Curse | Wowi)
Lightheaded (~~StaW~~ | ~~Curse~~ | Wowi) - because the only thing better than Wowhead is not having to tab out of Wow to get there
Mapster (StaW | Curse | Wowi)
Mik Scrolling Battle Text (~~StaW~~ | Curse | Wowi)
Omen (StaW | Curse | Wowi)
OneBag (~~StaW~~ | Curse | Wowi) + OneBank (StaW | Curse | Wowi) + OneRing (StaW | Curse | Wowi)
PallyPower (~~StaW~~ | Curse | Wowi) - so technically I've reinstalled this, but I think the pally changes have rendered this almost unnecessary, except for maybe 25mans. Included here anyway.
PitBull4 (~~StaW~~ | Curse | ~~Wowi~~) - Love the way it looks, hate having to open the config. Much less... actually config.
Postal (~~StaW~~ | Curse | Wowi) - I underestimated how useful this is for my bankalt. I wish I'd gotten it a long time ago.
Quartz (~~StaW~~ | Curse | ~~Wowi~~)
QuestGuru (StaW | Curse | Wowi) - As of 10/16, the onscreen tracker is still somewhat buggy.
RaidBuffStatus (~~StaW~~ | Curse | ~~Wowi~~) - I think this addon guaranteed I will never be made Main Assist in a raid again >_>
Recount (~~StaW~~ | Curse | ~~Wowi~~)
TidyPlates (~~StaW~~ | Curse | Wowi) and ThreatPlates (StaW | Curse | Wowi)
TomTom (~~StaW~~ | Curse | Wowi)
TourGuide (~~StaW~~ | Curse | Wowi) - a Tekkub addon. Questhelper is dead, long live TourGuide!
Volumizer (~~StaW~~ | Curse | Wowi) - from the ARL guy; an LDB plugin to change your in-game volumes without getting into the big sound menu.

I will edit this post and add in updated-for-401 addons as they become available. Ones I'm still missing, personally: Overachiever, Livestock, ORA3, RatingsBuster, and Xparky or some other LDB xp display. But wow! This list is so much smaller than it was on Wednesday, haha.

Side note! I successfully toc-cheated Teksloot (StaW) and FactionsFu (StaW). Toc-cheating is when you go into an addon's Name.toc file (teksloot.toc or factionsfu.toc) and edit the first line to read Interface: 40000 instead of whatever other numbers might be there. WHY THIS IS DANGEROUS: toc-cheating makes the game think that the addon is up to date, which mostly just allows you to not check 'load out of date addons'. The game will try to load the addon and process its code according to current API specs. Some addons don't actually 'break' when a big patch goes through; all the code they use to do their stuff still works fine, and so toc-cheating doesn't really hurt anything. But if an addon really did break with the patch, toc-cheating can, at least, give you one or more (or thirty, or three hundred) Lua errors... and at worse can crash your game. I tried to toc-cheat Elk's Buff Bars and Overachiever and uh... it ended poorly. I'll just say that.

Use this information wisely, my friends, and be prepared to suffer the consequences of poor toc-cheating decisions : p. On the other hand, my lovely FactionsFu may you live forever is still functional. Now if I can just get Fubar2Broker to work, I'll be a very happy little Sanna. Well, that, and a raidicon marking addon. LuckyCharms2 is deader than a very dead thing.

(Edited in, a few days later: I went to edit this post and somehow it got... removed from the main post listing? I'm still learning the Blogger ropes, but if this looks like the second posting of this same post to you... it is! +1 Blogger xp for me : p)

Addon: Tidy-ThreatPlates

2010-09-15T09:24:00.005-05:00

Addons: Tidy and Threat Plates
Current Wowcraft build: 3.3.5.

Yes, I've been gone forever. There are durn good reasons why, though. One is the Kingslayer title, which I now have. The other is the Insane title, which I also now have. And even beyond the hours and hours of work spent getting those titles ( X DD ), I've known in the back of my head that my next addon post was going to be about Pitbull4. And I really don't want to write up a post about Pitbull4.

But also, I got into the beta, so I've been playing that some. And since 4.0.1 got pushed to the PTR, a couple of things occurred to me in quick succession.

1. Wrath is 'ending' soon, and my 'bucket list' is still pretty big. There's still so much to DO. How can anyone be bored with this game? I don't understand. For one, I'm very close to 2500 emblems looted, and since all that emblem-change stuff just got announced yesterday, my already-lit-fire just got another log thrown on it. Also, I Really Really Want That Sarth 3D Drake. I wouldn't be surprised if Blizz nerfs the drop rate, so I really need to make sure I put together a 3D run every week now. And there's tons and tons of raiding achieves I'd like to mop up, not to mention I'd like to do more ICC raiding.... HOW is anyone bored with this game? I could play 12 hours a day from now till the end of November and not get it all done X D.

2. Every freakin' addon is going to break and need patching when 4.0 hits. Every addon is going to break AGAIN when Cata itself drops. Some addons may become obsolete, and some may not be fixed by their authors. (I just know FactionsFu is going to die and then I will be a SAD SANNA. SAD FOREVER.) So why recommend an addon now, when it's going to break in a month or two?

Number two there (and my 'don't want to write about Pitbull4' dilemma) got answered for me by a guildie, who asked me one day over vent, "have you heard of an addon called um.... Threat Plates?" And I said "YES OMG I LOVE THREATPLATES." I think I said it exactly like that too. Caps and bold and everything. And I would also like to specify that when I say 'love' here, I really mean 'I cannot tank effectively without this addon.'

Threat Plates (Curse|Wowi) (which requires the addon Tidy Plates (Curse|Wowi) as a base) makes the healthbars over the mobs' heads look like this:

This was taken when I was on my tank, so I have 'full threat' on the Advisor, and I have 'half threat' on the Tactician. (I was either gaining threat on a low-threat mob or, more probable, losing threat on a high-threat mob.) Threat Plates can tell what spec I'm in (prot spec) and knows that having threat is good for me (since I'm the tank) and colors and sizes the health bars accordingly.

But this shot works equally well if I had been on my priest. Since Threat Plates would be able to tell "at no point should she ever have aggro," then when I do not have aggro, the bar is green, and if I am gaining dangerous amounts of aggro (perhaps I could be the priest in charge of shackling the Tactician), then the bar is yellow like that.

Bad aggro (either a tank without aggro, or a healer/dps with it) looks like this:

I know you can't really see them relative to each other, but red bars are much larger than yellow bars, which are a little larger than green ones.

This addon works wonderfully everywhere in the game except Culling of Strat where all the excess little zombies clutter up your screen. Also, there is currently not support for "I am one tank in a raid and there is another tank, so if he has aggro and I don't, that's ok, don't show me red bars." People have asked for it from the Threat Plates author so I know he's aware that it's a desired functionality, and personally I'd rather have this not break when Cata comes out, so he can keep working on that if he needs to ^_^.

If you're a tank, check out this addon. If you're a dps who doesn't know how to watch aggro, get this addon. If you're a dps who aoe's and has a tendency to pull aggro that way, get this addon. If you ever say to yourself, "I wish I could easily see if I have enough threat on this mob, and if there's another mob I really ought to be building threat on," get this addon.

Next post: Pitbull4.... maybe. If I feel like taking and cropping and uploading and inserting that many screenshots. : x.

Addons: GuildBankList

2010-06-23T16:04:00.004-05:00

Addons: GuildBankList
Current Wowcraft build: 3.3.5.

Ask, and ye sometimes actually shall receive.

I love the way that Gnomish Vendor Shrinker so neatly re-arranges and organizes the vendor window, and I thought, if only someone would do that to guild banks. I went looking and looking and it seemed nobody had made a gbank-reskin addon.

So I made a request in the WowInterface.com forums (seeing as how I know more Russian than I know LUA -- not an exaggeration, btw, as, in theory, I used to know the word for 'vacuum'), and Seerah liked my idea and a few days later, lo and behold, now we have GuildBankList.

Please visit GuildBankList at Wowinterface to see the big versions of those screenshots.

GuildBankList does not 'perform a function' upon the gbank (when I was looking around, I found a few 'organizers' that would re-sort the items in your gbank for you -- I guess some might find that useful but that really wasn't what I was hoping for). All GuildBankList does is alter the way you see the content of your gbank. It will show you:
* item name
* item quality
* item level
* required level to use
* item type (ex.Trade Goods)
* item sub-type (ex. Meat)
* vendor price

Not everyone's going to like this. After all, to some, the only thing worse than looking through 98 squares of icons is having to look through a list of 98 rows. But personally? I love it. SO THERE. And other 5-year-old comebacks : p.

Anyway, I'm totally stoked that someone (yay Seerah!) took my idea and made something actually useable, and I hope many many people get lots of great use out of it. So check it out!

Addons: QuestGuru

2010-06-15T14:53:00.003-05:00

Addons: QuestGuru
Current Wowcraft build: 3.3.3.

Sanna's not dead! I had a temp job that kind of ate my life for a bit. But sometimes you need a break, even from Wowcraft.

Today I'm going to make a brief little post about QuestGuru (Curse | Wowi).

Back like six months ago (or more, idrk), one of the big selling points I had for Overachiever was that it would allow you to track more than one achievement on your screen at once; also, it would let you move the achievement tracker around on your screen. Then Blizz changed the stuff about the in-game achievement/quest tracker, and allowed you to track multiple achievements, but then they shoved it in with the in-game quest tracker and then removed the ability to move it around.

Or so I thought.

QuestGuru takes your achievement tracking frame and your quest tracking frame and move them wherever you want on your screen, either independently of each other or as one unit, and in the quest frame, you can minimize one zone's worth of quests while you work on another. It also reskins your quest log to be a bit more... minimalistic? might be the right word. But I didn't screenshot that. (It has some pretty neat options tho, tracking completed quests and abandoned quests... and yes, it does work with Lightheaded.)

QuestGuru also has options for announcing certain steps of quest completion to party chat, which is, in my not-entirely-humble opinion, really freakin' necessary for doing Tourney dailies in a group. It keeps you from having to nag your groupmates about how close to done they are, "how many more scouts do you need? How many more berserkers?" Instead, it helpfully informs your groupmates, 'yes I'm done with commanders, let's get out of this miserable place.' ( You will probably want to edit this option as soon as you install QuestGuru, you'll want to head into QuestGuru options > QG Announcer, and make sure your preferred options are checked or unchecked. )

QuestGuru also communicates with other players who also use QuestGuru. I don't think it's anything as invasive as what Questhelper does, but it's useful stuff. Who's on a quest with you, and, I think, how much they've gotten done.

Also, what I've done to my quest tracker, with the colors there, that's in QuestGuru options > QG Tracker > Colorize objective progress. You can also choose the colors that signify "not done at all" to "done". It's pretty neat. Or you can just turn that off and have it be gray.

For a long time I resisted having an addon for my quest log, but now that I've found QuestGuru (ty pir!), it's on my Must-Have list.

Then again, nearly all my addons are on my Must-Have list. So make of that what you will.

\o/

Addons: Gnomish Vendor Shrinker

2010-04-06T10:54:00.003-05:00

Addons: Gnomish Vendor Shrinker
Current Wowcraft build: 3.3.3.

My last post was about a Tekkub addon and so is this one! Gnomish Vendor Shrinker (Curse|Wowinterface). How did I live before this addon, I don't know. Actually, I've always hated the default vendor display. The obsession with icon size, the truncated names, the part where I had to cull through page after page after page of stuff I didn't want to find the one piece of gear I did want... the terrifying fear that I would click the wrong item and waste badges (this was before the 'sell back to vendor for refund' function which is AMAZING, thank you Blizzard)....

If only I'd known more about addons then.

This particular screenshot is from my leetle shammy's view of one of the JC vendors. There's kind of a lot going on here.

First of all, most generically, observe how neat and organized GVS makes the vendor box. Gone are the screen-hogging icons that tell you so little. The emphasis is on the name of the item, and all items are arranged in a single, easily-scrollable column, with price displayed clearly on the right-hand side. For items you need to buy in bulk (reagents, water), you click the little right-arrow and it brings up the quantity box.

If I were looking at the Emblem of Triumph vendor while on my, say, priest who can only wear cloth, items she cannot wear would be highlighted in red. Similarly, items you cannot purchase or use for a level insufficient-skill or reputation reason are highlighted in red.

As you can see from this screenshot, my shaman can potentially learn all of these recipes, but the only one she knows is the Insightful. Thus, it is not blue, while all the ones she can still learn are blue. How handy!

I should point out that there is a itsy-bitsy code issue when you initially install GVS; Tekkub did something odd with the number code, I think he runs a font-replacement addon that makes the code as written look better for him. For everyone else, when you get this addon:

Open Interface/Addons/GnomishVendorShrinker/GnomishVendorShrinker.lua
Search for NumberFontNormalSmall
There are 2 copies of it
Change them both to GameFontNormalSmall
Save the lua and load Wowcraft. Your numbers will now appear normal.

To anyone who's been frustrated with the vendors for any reason that I listed above, give this addon a try. I really think it will make your gameplay just a little bit better. Enjoy!

Addons: Teksloot

2010-03-25T17:36:00.002-05:00

Addons: Teksloot
Current Wowcraft build: 3.3.3.

I love the Disenchant Roll function. I love it more than I want to spend time saying how much I love it. However. One thing I really wish Blizz would do is disallow Disenchant rolls on BOE Blues and Purples. Drives me NUTS when people DE the BOEs. If it's really that worthless, it's not that hard to find an enchanter to nuke it for you later, and especially in regards to BOE Purples... they're probably not that value-less yet, kthx.

If only there were a way to easily see what's a BOE without having to mouse over the item.

OH WAIT.

Teksloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot (Curse|Wowinterface). Look at that! Nice green letters that say DON'T ROLL DE ON ME, MKAY.

Also, the Teksloot screen footprint is something like 45% of the in-game roll box. You can use the /teksloot command to bring up the little move-me box, so you can put it anywhere you want on your screen. You see how in the picture, both roll boxes are purple? That's because I just happened to screenshot some epic items. Rare items have blue boxes, green items are, well, green.

Tekkub is the shiznit (yes I know that word is so 90s, but I'm in a 'z'-y mood today) and the addons of his I run, I absolutely love. For the record, those are GnomishVendorShrinker, VendorBait and TourGuide (it's up! it's down! it's back! I have no idea what's going on with TG but as of today, it's up on Wowi so get it while you can). I know people who love Cork, I personally haven't tried it yet. I'll make another post on GVS+VB later. I mostly just wanted to get this up here chopchop.

Addons: Raid Package: DBM Omen Recount HB ORA3 LC2

2010-03-23T11:04:00.004-05:00

Addons: The Raid Package
Current Wowcraft build: 3.3.3.

Ok, technically, 3.3.3 is patching while I type this. Close enough!

Some guilds require certain addons in order for you to raid with them. My guild doesn't really require anything, addon-wise... but there are some that are just far too useful to have. It should be noted that none of these are bar mods or unit frame mods, also, that most of these are useful even in 5-mans or soloing.

Deadly Boss Mods - deadlybossmods.com - some people use something else but I have never found DBM to be insufficient in any way (except that I wish it still had information for old BC/vanilla fights (TWIN EMPS ;_;) ). You can set or de-select for announcements for anything the boss can do; you can have boss frames on your screen (Stalag/Feugen, or the 4 Horsemen, or Gluth if you're on zombies... sorry that all my examples come from Naxx, I'm a tank and usually have the boss targeted on single-boss fights X D); it will tell you when to run from Flame Wall on Sarth; it will tell you how many stacks of The Debuff your other tank has, so you know when to taunt. It's just so handy. And necessary. Git it. Luff it. Keep it updated ^_^.

Omen Threat Meter (Curse|Wowinterface) - yes, the game has API for threat, including the little red-shadow-coloration thing. But this will show you just how much threat the tank has over the next dps. If you tank or dps, you need this. If you heal, maybe not so much.

Recount (Curse|Wowinterface) - if you want to raid, you need to know what your DPS is. Protip: your DPS is not equivalent to the damage you deal on a crit. Just because you can crit for 4k does not mean you do 4k dps. To get a good idea of what DPS you can do, get Recount and go through 5 different heroics with as much different group makeup as possible. Reset the data between each run, and average the 5 numbers you get. Add about 400 to get your projected 10-man dps number, and add ~800 to get a projected 25-man dps number.
ALL FIGHTS ARE DIFFERENT. THE PLAYER IS NOT EQUIVALENT TO HIS DPS NUMBER ON ANY SINGLE FIGHT. Recount is a tool. I'm assuming you're not a tool yourself, and can use this tool wisely.
Recount also tells you a lot of other handy info (hps, overheals, and more).

As you can see, hunters should be nerfed. (J/k... I clearly didn't screenshot the VOA-25 pug where the 3 rogues from my guild were all top dps.)

Healbot - (Curse|Wowinterface) - Some people live and die (and rez) by Grid, or Clique, or other addons. I could never get used to Grid on my priest. Also, I don't play my healy alts enough to have all the uncommon mouse-click-keybinds memorized; I need that reminder tooltip. Healbot has come a long way over the past 6-8 months in adding useful and necessary functionality. If you tried it before then and didn't like it, give it another shot.

ORA3 (Curse|Wowinterface) - not compatible with ORA2, but does stuff better. This one will show you CDs of things like warlock soulstones, druid battle rezzes, paladin DIs, warrior shield walls, things that are good to know when you're leading a 10- or 25-man raid and need to call out brezzes or whatnot. But, the other people that you're getting the info from also need to run ORA3. So even if you don't want to see all this yourself, run it in the background while you raid. Never know when it will come in handy. Especially if you're a druid.

(I'll try to get a better screenshot later; we're doing a 25-man tonight, so I'll see if we end up using brezzes and things.)
Also I think it does other handy things, but I haven't played around with them enough just yet. Still, if you raid, ask your raid leader if they want to use this... chances are they will like it enough that they'll say "sweet, yeah, let's do this."

LuckyCharms2 - ok! I just spent 2 hours Googling the internet, trying to find where this addon has disappeared off to! The other tanks in my guild keybind Raid Icons to F-keys... but all my F-keys are spoken for. The non-tanks who bother to raid mark do it with the slow slow slow way of "right click target name, mouse to raid icons, mouse to icon and click." The Curse links are gone, Wowinterface returns no results on search... I don't know what happened to it. I'm really surprised such a great addon has gone MIA. Technically, I'm also surprised there aren't more good raid-icon-marking addons in the first place. How do people mark without a clicky addon?

Seriously. Comment and let me know how you mark icons on targets. I really actually want to know.

Update, Aug 2, 2010: Like me, Tankadin.com wants to know where LC2 went. Fortunately, he's hosting build 2.8.2 at that link right there, so hopefully one-click raid-marking is back in business. Snag this quick before the internet hiccups again X D.

Next post will probably be about bar mods and unitframe mods. Which means lots of screenshots. So it might be a bit. Plus servers should be going up soon. So.... it might be a bit ^__^.

I'm 77 Now What? Hodir

2010-03-21T00:42:00.002-05:00

I'm 77 Now What? Hodir
Current Wowcraft build: 3.3.2.

This is a continuation of a previous post, titled I'm 77 Now What? Tourney, in which I discussed the importance of Cold Flying (well, briefly), Tabards (slightly less briefly), and the Argent Tournament (significantly less briefly).

What else can you do as soon as you hit 77 and get your shiny CWF?

Hodir rep. Or, as I call them, Sons of Frostybutt. The main draw of this reputation are: awesome shoulder enchants (that are now bind-on-account!) and the 8k Mammoth-with-seats mount. This rep used to be a horrific grind, but when I leveled my priest and sent her through the Hodir chain, she did it all in a day. And got to... I think 1/3 Revered? And I had quite a few Relics of Ulduar stored up that I just turned in. So I really did the whole thing in a day. Which is almost really frustrating, for those of us who ground and ground and did dailies for days on end. But you know. It's nice, it really is.

To start the really long but totally neat Hodir intro quest chain, go to Storm Peaks, to K3, and find a little girl goblin that gives you a quest called They Took Our Men! That's the Wowhead link, and I recommend that you follow the quest chain there, it's very well documented. Did I mention the chain is long? It's a long quest chain. But it's GREAT. Don't rush through it. Discover it, especially if this is your first character through this content. The only thing I would add is a note on how to do: Thrusting Hodir's Spear.

Many people hate this quest. It really isn't terrible to do. If you've played FF12, you'll know what I mean when I say, "Set up gambits in your head. If [these conditions apply] Do [this action]. If [other conditions] Do [other action]."

HOW TO WIN AT HODIR'S SPEAR:

Get the wyrm.

Phase 1: Alternate 1 and 3 to keep your grip up.
When the wyrm Swipes (yellow text on your screen), then and ONLY then should you 2 (Dodge).
If you see DODGED, then and ONLY then should you 4 (Mighty Thrust).
If you 2 and 4 is still on CD, don't worry, just 1-3 1-3.

Phase 2, get at least 10 stacks of 1 before going for the kill. If you miss, get 3 more and try again.
Good luck!

Or, in gambit/sql form:
If DODGED, Do 4.
If Swipes at you, Do 2.
Else, do 1-3.

(Humans will read that list backwards, as such: "do 1-3 repeat until Swipe = do 2, if Dodged = do 4.")

It might take you a pass or two to learn the fight. But I did this every honkin' day on my warrior, and I know I died less than 5 times to it. This was back when grinding Hodir took forever. You might only have to do it once. I guess technically you could even skip it. But why? It's fun! You get to ride around on a giant drake and stab it to death in midair! This is the stuff they write old Greek tragedies about! And/or comedies. And/or epic poems.

Moving on.

The Hodir quest chain has, hands-down, THE BEST, the most fun, quest in the entire game. You fly to the really tall mountain in SP and duel big blue chicks on moving drakes and shove their corpses into the clouds below. Then jump to another drake and do it again. Yeah, it sounds pretty gory when I say it like, but honestly? Best. Quest. Ever. When people say "Blizz really made awesome quests for Wrath," this is the quest they're talking about.

DO IT.

Also the xp is pretty sweet. And sure it'll take you a while to save 8k for that mammoth, but! Seatsmammoth. Seatsmammoth. Everyone will love you for carting them around. You might even be able to sell rides to take people's alts around to flight points. Or maybe you'll just do it for your friends and guildies, out of the goodness of your heart.

Ok it's pretty late here, so I'll just wrap up by saying: remember to do at least one Random Dungeon every day, for your Emblems of Triumph, do your Tourney dailies every day for the phat xp and sweet cash, and if you keep chugging through quests (or if you just grind dungeons), you will find yourself 80 in no time. And then it's a whole bigger ballgame.

I'm 77 Now What? Tourney

2010-03-20T11:50:00.019-05:00

I'm 77, Now What? Tourney
Current Wowcraft build: 3.3.2.

Much of the 'end game' actually starts to open up to you when you ding 77, especially if this is your first character to that level. You get Cold Flying for the first time. You can start Hodir dailies. You can start Tourney dailies. You can do Storm Peaks and Icecrown quests (which, aside from the irritating zoning-affected group quests in IC, are really a lot of fun). You can queue in the Random Dungeon Finder for the high-end T7 (launch) dungeons, and you can wear one of the 4 dungeon-rep tabards while you do so.

Regarding the Tabards, being Tabard of the Kirin Tor, Tabard of the Argent Crusade, Tabard of the Wyrmrest Accord, Tabard of the Ebon Blade : you can pick up any of those as soon as you hit Friendly with the appropriate faction. (Those are all Wowhead links, you can find the location of the Quartermaster for each faction there. Protip: the Argent Crusade guy is hiding under a little tent near Tirion.) So even if you're not 77 yet, I'd recommend getting each tabard as soon as you can. Also recommended: get Kirin Tor first and wear it first; they're the main rep in Dalaran, so having them exalted sooner means saving money on repairs, reagents, waters, and anything else you buy there.

The first thing you should do when you hit 77 is buy Cold Weather Flying! Go to the flight area in Dalaran and look for the big blue dragonhawk. Fork over a thousand gold (it's a lot but totes worth it; take loans from your friends if you have to, you can pay them back really quickly) and fire up your shiny shiny flying mount.

I would recommend starting with Argent Tournament, or Tourney, first. Get on your shiny shiny flying mount and head north out of Dalaran, up to the north-east corner of Icecrown. You'll come to the Tourney area. Grab the flight point, then go to the left and find Justicar Mariel Trueheart. She's on the horse in the doorway of the rectangular tent that's on the west end of the Tourney grounds. She will send* you to the circular tent on the east end of the Tourney; north side for Alliance, south side for Horde. Talk to the NPCs there, and become an Aspirant. They will give you some "learn how to" quests on jousting.

(* - This Wowhead link contains a comment laying out all the tourney stuff in order. It's a very handy comment, for people who like lists. I will briefly go over points of note, but I will not be linking individual quests like they do.)

Sanna's Tip: If your mouse supports this, I would highly recommend re-keying one of your thumb keys to 'move backwards'. This is not so critical on the stationary targets, but it will make jousting actual NPCs not suck. In fact, keyboard-primary movement is generally a really bad idea, if you can avoid it at all.

After jousting some stationary targets, you will get a quest to 'collect Aspirant seals', as well as access to 3 quests that give you Aspirant seals. But you need 15 seals and doing all three quests only gives you 5. You will need to come back for the next 2 days to get 5 more Aspirant seals.

Quick breakdown of the Aspirant quests:
You will always get the "kill 8 Scourge" one, which you can do right south of the tourney grounds.
You will also always get the "joust all the stationary targets" daily.
However, you will get one of the following randomly-changing Weapon quests: A Blade Fit For A Champion or A Worthy Weapon or The Edge of Winter. They break down as follows:

Edge of Winter requires you to go to Crystalsong, kill a fiery guy (he has 12khp), take the drop off of him, go all the way to the lake in the north part of HF, and click the item on the dryad frozen in the block of ice. She gives you a sword to take all the way back to the Tourney.
Worthy Weapon requires you to go to the big Wall between IC and Crystalsong and collect 4 flowers, then go to the lake where DB, Grizzly, and ZD meet. There's a circle of lillies in the water; drop into the middle of that, 'use' the flowers to summon the Maiden. She gives you a sword to take all the way back to the Tourney.
Champion blade is a huge pita. Go to the lake in the middle of Grizzly. Use this macro:
/cleartarget
/tar Lake Frog
/use Warts-B-Gone Lip Balm
/kiss
Jab that sucker repeatedly until one of the frogs becomes a human woman. Talk to her; she gives you a sword to take all the way back to the Tourney. This one mostly sucks because sometimes you get the girl on the 3rd kiss, and sometimes it takes you 20 minutes.

After you're done being an Aspirant, you get to become a Valiant! Being a Valiant is... an awful lot like being an Aspirant. Except for the Weapon quests, the quest are all different, but the concept of "collect seals over time" is still there. Now you become a 'champion' for your home city, and you need to do 5 days worth of dailies to finish that.

Quick breakdown of the Valiant quests. In addition to the random-cyclical nature of the Weapon quests discussed above, you will always get these quests, every day:
-- Joust 3 NPCs right outside your circle tent.
-- Kill 10 Converted Heroes. Your map will show you where they are.
-- Kill the Lieuts and Gargoyles and Footmen waaaay down on the south end of the zone. This one is sort of like jousting... but with more enemies coming at you. At least Lieuts are soloable now.

After the 5th day, you will be asked to go to the little circular jousting area that's just north of the square tent (way to the west) and fight... the Argent Valiant.

Sanna's Tip: All those NPCs you get to joust every day? Turns out if you group with a friend (or technically even if you don't group), they can attack your jousting target. You should equip the lance, get the mount, shield up, and 'awaken' the NPC; your friend does not equip the lance, stays off the mount, and just... dpses the dude. The primary job of the mounted person is to get the shields off the NPC being jousted; let your friend take care of the doing-dmg part. This works for both the 3-npc jousting dailies from the round tent, and also for the 4-npc jousting dailies you get later from the square tent.

HOWEVER. This does NOT work for the fight against the Argent Valiant. In fact, if anyone other than you, grouped with you or not, does even 1 point of damage to your Argent Valiant, he will despawn and you will have to start all over. Fortunately, you only fight him 5 or 6 times, when you're done with each of the cities' dailies. Unfortunately, if you get too accustomed to having someone DPS your jousting npcs for you, this fight could be really difficult.

When you're done with that, grats, you've championed your first city. Now pick another city and start all over. Whee. Also, go talk to Trueheart again (there's a quest to talk to her), and she gives you an Argent Squire. The Squire is a little non-combat pet, a human or an orc boy, whose sole purpose in life is to follow you around any time you want, displaying a city pennant for you. On foot. In the cold. While you're on one of your shiny mounts. His parents were probably killed by the Scourge, and he probably thinks you're the most awesome dude since sliced bread. Either that or he's plotting to kill you while you're logged out.

... Moving on.

Trueheart also gave you some Champion Seals! And now you have access to more dailies that also give you Seals. Seals are, more or less, the main reason why anyone deals with Tourney. (The other one being, it's a great way to gain home city rep without having to turn in skidrillions of stacks of runecloth or do lvl 10 oldworld quests.) Seals buy a variety of things: a smattering of ilvl 200 gear; a small but potent array of ilvl 200 epic weapons; non-combat (and droppable) pets; and pricey, soulbound, coveted mounts. Most mounts are land mounts, but there are 2 hippogryphs. If you place any value in having many mounts, start saving your seals now. The pets, being droppable, are usually available on the AH, or you can get them later. Either way, these dailies are great xp and great money.

A couple of things to buy with seals that are pretty awesome, but only available for purchase after you finish all the cities:
Argent Crusader's Tabard - a 30-minute-CD port to the Tourney grounds, which does not share CD with your hearthstone.
Argent Pony Bridle - Give your squire a horse! Also, once every 4 hours, he will turn into a vendor or give you access to your bank or mailbox, for 3 minutes. 150 seals is a lot, but if you really want it, plan ahead and it won't be too bad to save for it.

At this point, the new Seals quests that have opened up to you are, briefly, as follows:
-- 4-jousting, aka, jousting the cheating Champions in the big rectangular area on the south side of the tourney grounds. It is STRONGLY recommended that you have a friend for this, unless you're just uber and crap. I hate 4-jousting, and I'm good at it. But I still hate it.
-- Killing 3 Commanders in that same area where you kill the Lieuts. Also highly recommendable to group for this.
-- Killing 15 Cultists; this can be done to the north-west of the tourney grounds.

At some point around here, you will be offered the quest chain starting with The Black Knight of Westfall? I believe one of the NPCs in the square tent gives you this. Yes you have to run to Moonbrooke. Yes, in Westfall. Do it anyway; it eventually allows you access to the Chillmaw daily, which is 2 seals. You do have to joust the Black Knight but he's such a pansy.

The nice thing about the Chillmaw and Commanders quests is, you can often find people in /1 who are looking to group for them too. /1 LFG TFA/COMM is something you will see fairly often, especially during more peaky-playing times.

So, repeat the 5-days-5-dailies and keep doing all the Seals quests available to you. After you finish all the cities, you'll get a couple new Seals dailies available. Also, you are COMPLETELY done with Weapon quests! Yay! (They have been replaced by cycling quests that occasionally take you to Storm Peaks. Still not as far away as that freaking ice weapon quest.) So, just keep doing Seals dailies and rake in the cash (by now you're probably long since 80).

But that's kind of a long way into the future. What else can you do as soon as you hit 77 and get your shiny CWF?

I will cover that... in the next post! I'm 77 Now What? Hodir.

Addons: FactionsFu

2010-03-16T19:12:00.003-05:00

Addons: FactionsFu
Current Wowcraft build: 3.3.2.

I like to grind factions (at least on my main). I like to link factions to zones, so any time I'm in Dalaran, I can see my Kirin Tor rep (back in Shattrath, it was Aldor). In Stormwind, I can see my SW city rep. I like to easily see what my faction standing is, displayed clearly and with colors in my ChocolateBar. I like to link my current standing with any given faction into my chatbox with shift-click.

I like FactionsFu.

(A glimpse of my shaman's faction list... as you can see, she is my alllllllllt.)

"But Sanna," you ask, "why are you recommending a Fubar addon when you've already expounded on how dead Fubar is?"

Because I can't freakin' live without this addon. I use Fubar2Broker to make it display on my CB. Elkano, who wrote FactionsFu (Curse has the far more recently updated file), is, in theory, working on an LDB version. But the last timestamp on that was a year ago, and it's in 'alpha' anyway. FactionsFu still works for me. I love it. I'll let you know if it breaks irreparably and what I've found to replace it. But darnit... this addon is just too awesome.

Gear List: Warrior Tank, New 80

2010-03-13T22:43:00.011-06:00

Gear List: Warrior Tank, New 80
Current Wowcraft build: 3.3.2.

[If you see this message in brackets here, it means I do not consider this post complete. This will take a while to finish.]

Some people believe that gear lists put blinders on players, leading them to believe that ONLY this gear is the right gear and you need to have all of it in order to be a good insert-class-spec-here. If you put blinders on yourself because of this list, it's your own fault. I'm going to assume you're intelligent enough to make good gear decisions; the purpose of this (and any other) gear list is to give you an idea of where to go to get what you need.

Gear List: Warrior Tank, recently 80. Primary goal: obtain defense plate.

Preface note: do what you can while leveling to get your Argent Crusade rep to at least Honored and your Wyrmrest rep to at least Revered and if possible (though perhaps difficult unless you're planning ahead) Ebon Blade to Honored. If you plan from at least level 74, you can accomplish this before you ding 80. If you do not, you should at least guarantee yourself to have Friendly standing so you can purchase the appropriate tabard and run lvl 80 regular or Heroic dungeons until you gain the appropriate rep.

Quest Rewards - to be acquired and retained while leveling
[to be added soon; accepting suggestions (with wowhead links) in the comments!]

Reputations
Argent Crusade (Wowhead link)
Need Honored for Pants: Special Issue Legplates - 14 defense

Wyrmrest Accord (Wowhead link)
Need Honored for Cloak: Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions - nearly 9 defense
Need Revered for Chest: Breastplate of the Solemn Council - 15 and a half defense
Need Revered for Feet: Sabatons of Draconic Vigor - nearly 12 defense

Knights of the Ebon Blade (Wowhead link)
Need Honored for Feet: Toxin-Tempered Sabatons - 7 defense

Tourney gear - bought with Champion Seals
Al of the faction vendors in the tent on the east side of the Tourney grounds have the same basic gear list; only the faction-specific items like mounts and pets and tabards vary.
Feet: Stanchions of Unseatable Furor - nearly 7 defense, 10 seals
Shield: Teldrassil Protector - [defense], 25 seals

BOE Items - likely to be found cheap on your AH
[to be added soon; accepting suggestions (with wowhead links) in the comments!]

Crafted Items - find a guildie to make it, or be prepared to shell on the AH
Tempered Saronite gear is an attractive starting point for plate with Stam, Str, and Defense, especially if you find yourself nearing 80 and haven't done much other preparation for setting up a tank set.
Tempered Saronite Legplates, Tempered Saronite Belt, Tempered Saronite Breastplate, Tempered Saronite Boots, Tempered Saronite Shoulders, Tempered Saronite Helm, Tempered Saronite Bracers, Tempered Saronite Gauntlets.
The Saronite Bulwark
[to be added soon; accepting suggestions (with wowhead links) in the comments!]

Regular Original Dungeons (needless to say, if you see any of this drop while leveling, even if you're leveling as dps, try to get it, and then keeeeeep it.)

Old Kingdom -
Jedoga, Chest: Battlechest of the Twilight Cult - 12 defense

Azjol-Nerub -
Anub'arak, Ring: Signet of Arachnathid Command - 3 and a half defense

Drak'Tharon Keep - nothing tanky here.

Violet Hold -
Erekem, Cloak: Screeching Cape - 7 defense
Xevozz, Shield: Riot Shield - 4 and a half defense
Zuramat, Pants: Void Sentry Legplates - 11 defense

Culling of Strat -
Meathook, Feet: Slaughterhouse Sabatons - 7 defense
Salramm, Cloak: Flowing Cloak of Command - 5 defense
Mal'Ganis, Shield: Leeka's Shield - 8 defense

Gundrak -
Gal'darah, Ring: Gal'darah's Signet - 7 defense

Halls of Stone - nothing tanky-with-defense here.

Halls of Lightning -
Volkhan, Sword: Eternally Folded Blade - 4 and a half defense
Loken, Trinket: Seal of the Pantheon - 13 defense. Bolded because this is the trinket you will be running regHOL a million times over to obtain.

Utgarde Pinnacle -
Svala, Bracers: Svala's Bloodied Shackles - 5 and a half defense
Gortok, Chest: Reanimated Armor - 9 defense
Skadi, Neck: Amulet of Deflected Blows - 5 defense

Oculus -
Mage-Lord, Belt: Girdle of Obscuring - 6 defense
Eregos, Helm: Helm of the Ley-Guardian - nearly 14 defense
Eregos, Ring: Dragonflight Great-Ring - nearly 8 defense

Heroic T7 Dungeons - The Heroic versions of the dungeons that shipped with Wrath, organized roughly in increasing difficulty as my memory supports.

Heroic Nexus -
General, Cloak: Cloak of the Enemy - 8 and a half defense
Telestra, Helm: Arcane-Shielded Helm - 7 defense
Keristraza, Shield: Bulwark of the Noble Protector - 6 defense

Heroic Utgarde Keep -
Keleseth, Sword: Infantry Assault Blade - 6 and a half defense
Ingvar, Ring: Unsmashable Heavy Band - 6 defense

Heroic Violet Hold -
Ichoron, Gloves: Gauntlets of the Water Revenant - 11 and a half defense
Cyanigosa, Pants: Bolstered Legplates - 16 and a half defense

Heroic Drak'Tharon Keep -
Trollgore, Feet: Terrace Defence Boots - 8 defense
Tharon'ja, Chest: Ziggurat Imprinted Chestguard - 10 defense

Heroic Gundrak -
Drakkari Elemental, Shoulders: Pauldrons of the Colossus - 6 defense
Moorabi, Helm: Ground Tremor Helm - 12 and a half defense
Gal'darah, Gloves: Horn-Tipped Gauntlets - 10 defense

Heroic Culling of Strat -
Salramm, Bracers: Bindings of Dark Will - 5 and a half defense
Chrono-Lord, Pants: Legplates of the Infinite Drakonid - 9 defense
Mal'Ganis, Neck: Pendant of the Nathrezim - 5 defense
Mal'Ganis, Shield: Royal Crest of Lordaeron - 10 defense

Heroic Halls of Stone -
Maiden, Ring: Woeful Band - 5 defense
Sjonnir, Chest: Sun-Emblazoned Chestplate - 12 defense

Heroic Halls of Lightning -
Bjarngrim, Shoulders: Iron Dwarf Smith Pauldrons - 7 defense

Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle -
Skadi, Belt: Skadi's Iron Belt - 8 defense
King, Sword: Red Sword of Courage - nearly 8 defense. THE sword you want to farm for. Hit up HUP every day until this drops, and put Mongoose on this baby. This will be what you start raiding with.

Heroic Old Kingdom -
Nadox, Ring: Nerubian Shield Ring - 4 defense
Jedoga, Neck: Shadowseeker's Pendant - 6 and a half defense
Volazj, Bracers: Bracers of the Herald - 6 and a half defense

Heroic Azjol-Nerub -
Hadronox, Trinket: Essence of Gossamer - 111 stamina. Technically no defense. Pick it up anyway if it drops. Stam is yummy!
Anub'arak, Belt: Ancient Aligned Girdle - 9 and a half defense

Heroic Oculus -
Drakos, Ring: Band of Torture - 5 and a half defense
Varos, Axe: Cloudstrider's Waraxe - 6 defense
Eregos, Pants: Ley-Guardian's Legguards - nearly 16 defense

Why I'm not including TOC, HTOC, and the T10 dungeons on this list:
This list is aimed at new 80s. Yes I have the harder heroics on here, and no you probably won't be tanking those right off the bat. But this is, almost entirely, a list containing ilvl 200 gear with defense on it. The primary purpose of this list is to show you that there is TONS of defense gear available to new 80s, and that you should probably use AtlasLoot's wishlist function to make your own, smaller, in-game list of gear you desire to pursue.

Tanking is, in my opinion, the best job in the game. But you HAVE to have 535 defense to tank Heroics and 540 to tank raids. Hopefully this list will point you in many good directions of where to go to get what you need to do what you want to do.

Addons: Elkano's Buff Bars

2010-03-10T13:14:00.003-06:00

Addons: Elkano's Buff Bars
Current Wowcraft build: 3.3.2.

Some people really don't like countdown-style bar timers on their screen. Personally, I hate not being able to see the buff name and I hate not knowing how much longer is left on it. Thus, I love Elkano's Buff Bars. By... Elkano!

When you first install Elkano's Buff Bars (Curse|Wowinterface), the bars will be HUGE on your screen. Honkin' huge. Right click on one of the anchors and choose 'Scale', and set to like 75%, or 65%. Or you can manually edit every little option, if you're super OCD. (Hey, some of us are X D.) It comes automatically with Buffs&Tracking, Debuffs, and TEnch (temporary enchants, stuff like fishing lures or shammy weapon buffs). Personally, I usually move tracking over to TEnch, just because I like it that way. Leaves more room in the Buffs bar for the important things.

But! The real power comes in the fact that you can make your own bar for just about anything.

I made a bar for 'pets/vehicles'. In the right-click options, I choose Target > Pet, and Filter > Type > Buff and Debuff. Now, any pet I have (especially good for hunters and locks) can see what's affecting your pet. And anyone who is ever in a vehicle can see the good and the bad. It's great for that Wyrmrest daily in Coldarra so you can keep up with how many stacks of the Rejuv you have on yourself. Also good for the Maly fight if you're a healer.

When I'm tanking raids, I 'steal' this bar and make it my FocusDebuff bar.
Target > Focus
Filter > Type > Debuff only
For fights like Gluth in Naxx and Gormok in TOC10/25, I can focus the other tank and see their debuffs, and taunt appropriately.

I also have an un-scaled down bar (not pictured above) into which I filter "buffs that are more important than other buffs", like Battle Shout, Comm Shout, Replenishment, those two arms 'buffs' that let me use overpower and execute, things like that.
Filter > Whitelist > Buff > choose your buffs.
I believe the buff will need to have been applied to you once this session before you can choose it the first time; once checked, EBB won't forget between sessions.
Usually short term buffs that I would need to know when they've been applied to me (the 2 arms buffs) or when they've fallen off (the shouts). Since you can hide the anchor if you desire (top option in the right click menu), it really doesn't get in the way at all.

I also made an bar for Target > Target and Filter > Type > Debuff and then select things like Rend and Mortal Strike. I shrunk it down way small and put it over my Target Unitframes. It's rare that I'm in a situation where there's another arms warrior applying Rend or MS, so often I can tell "need to reapply Rend!"

I recommend you check out EBB, especially if you're the kind of person that identifies buffs (or missing buffs) better by name than icon. Also it's such a versatile little addon, you can probably modify it to show you all kinds of useful things, depending on what all your class does. Try it out!

Addons: Overachiever, Achieved

2010-03-09T12:44:00.002-06:00

Addons: Overachiever
Current Wowcraft build: 3.3.2.

Here's an addon that is on the list of Addons that Might Not Fit Your Playstyle. If you're not a person who puts a lot of stock in getting achievements, you might not find this one useful. However, if you're like me and like to chase achievements, this is definitely an addon for the List of Addons You Should Love Too: Overachiever by Tuhljin.

I originally found Overachiever (Curse|Wowinterface) way back before Blizzard locked the Achievements Display frame into their Objectives thing. I was looking for an addon that would allow me to display 2 achievements on the screen at the same time (now you can track multiple achievements in the Objectives Tracker, but you couldn't then), and I downloaded Overachiever at first based solely on the ability to move my tracking-progress achievements to another point on the screen. Turns out Overachiever is about a skidrillion times more awesome than that.

Where to start?

Overacheiver makes the Achievement box (Y or Shift-Y, depending on your keybindings) moveable.

Overachiever has a Suggestions tab (suggestions for uncompleted acheivements based on your current zone) and a user-generated Watch tab (currently this tab is not split per character; if you Watch an achievement on one character, it will be viewable by all chars on your account).

Overachiever will add certain things to the mousover-tooltips of certain in-game characters, npcs, and world items. Need to feather a dwarf rogue? Mousing over a dwarf rogue will display a red line in your tooltip. Already put snow on a drae priest? The tooltip line is green. Haven't loved a squirrel yet? Red line. Already killed a spider? (Good for you.) Green line. Need to read this book for Well Read or Higher Learning? Red line. Already done it? Green. (The holiday ones are toggle-able in the options, so un-feathered dwarf rogues aren't telling you HEY I NEED FEATHERS in like July X D.) I believe it will allow you to attach a sound (from a pre-set list of game noises) to the situations where you find a red line, so if you're in Dalaran looking for a freakin' Undead Warrior, mousing over one would play that sound. I don't play with that particular option, but maybe you would find it interesting.

This image is from the Wowinterface download page for Overachiever, and clicking the link will take you to that page, which also has other great screenshots of Overachiever in action:

Overachiever will also tell if you if you have or haven't eaten a food yet, but it does not query the server for this information, so when you first install it, it will tell you that you haven't consumed a food or a water that you know you've drunk a hundred times already.

Overachiver will tell you what comes next in chain-achievements. (That is also a link to the Wowinterface image.)

Tuhljin also wrote an addon called Achieved! (Curse|Wowinterface) Achieved! is a small addon who's sole purpose is to allow you to move the just-completed-an-achievement frames around on the screen, and also increase the duration that they are on the screen. It also works on the Random Dungeon Completion frames.

I love having Overachiever, and if you like achievements, I really feel you will find this addon a wonderful help.

How to: Install Addons

2010-03-08T23:31:00.005-06:00

How to: Install Addons.
Current Wowcraft Build: 3.3.2.

I debated if i should title this "how to: installing addons" or "how to: install addons." I'm too tired to go into the grammatical differences, but yes I'm aware that either way, it just doesn't sound quite right. So I opted for the title that would make the shorter URL.

I thought about writing up a post on how to download and install addons. Then I went, wait, NoStockUI already did it just fine.

The single addition I would make to their post is that I would say: I have a certain folder on my HD into which I save all the .zip files when I download them. That way, a) they are timestamped so if an addon has been updated, I can tell by comparing the dates so I don't waste bandwidth by DLing a file I already have, and b) if I ever have to do that horrible thing where I have to delete my whole ui and start over, I don't have to re-DL everything, it's already there.

So if my Wowcraft folder is
d:/games/Wowcraft
I might have a folder like
d:/games/Wowcraft-addons
So I always know where to save the .zips and where to find them.

Other than that, the NoStock UI post did a bangup job. Check 'em out. b^_^b

Addons: GarbageFu

2010-03-08T17:43:00.004-06:00

Addons: GarbageFu (For Broker)
Current Wowcraft build: 3.3.2

Granted, I admit I'm addicted to my addons. Some addons, like Altoholic, do so many things that being without them feels like a punch to the gut. GarbageFu is an addon that, when I'm without it, feels like a paper-cut... small, perhaps, but a complete and un-ignorable pain.

GarbageFu manages your garbage for you. It does this in two small but wonderful ways.

First: when you visit a vendor, it gives you a button at the top that looks like the Windows Recycling Bin icon, and if it's not greyed out, that means you have grey crap you can sell. Click that Bin and all your grey stuff is vendored without you having to think about it.

Second: if you have an LDB display addon, GarbageFu will display your free bag slot count over your total bag slot count (mine above is 29/104), and color code it slightly according to "green = lots of space, yellow = medium space, red = not much space at all." Mousing over GarbageFu will bring up a popup window like you see there. If I were out in the field and I had no bag space and I needed to loot something, I could easily see what the cheapest grey in my bag was; GarbageFu will organize top to bottom from cheapest to more expensive (according to how much you could get by selling to the vendor). I can shift-leftclick whatever item I want to delete and GarbageFu will make it disappear out of my bags.

You can add things to the list of "what comes up to be shift-deleted;" for example, I added Normal Food (any non-buff, non-conjured food, ie Salted Venison), so if I have that in my bags, I can elect to shift-delete it. I have not yet found a way for Normal Food to be included in the sell-everything-with-a-click list yet, but even still.

Never having to poke through my bags when I'm at a vendor and go "keep keep keep sell sell keep keep sell"? Awesome. Being able to quickly and easily delete the cheapest item in my bags? Awesome beyond awesome.

Now....... to confuse you.

Technically what I have is Fubar-GarbageFu (Curse|Wowinterface). I got my copy from the Curse link.... the Wowinterface link is horrifically out of date, and I'm mostly just including it because I'm kind of OCD. As was mentioned previously, the Fubar language is going out of style like whoa. However, since some Fubar addons still work, I also run Fubar2Broker (linked at the bottom there), GarbageFu shows up on my ChocolateBar. Best of both worlds! \o/

There is also GarbageFu for Broker (Curse|Wowinterface) that apparently does the same thing as Fubar GarbageFu, without the need to run F2B. If you believe the comments on the Curse page, it may or may not be broken right now... or perhaps just broken for a few people? There is also Broker Garbage (Curse|Wowinterface) that appears to serve the same function with slightly different form. I have not played around with either of those specific addons.

But there's 3 things for you to play with. Short post for a small but osm addon!

Addons: AtlasLoot

2010-03-04T23:30:00.006-06:00

Addons: AtlasLoot
Current Wowcraft build: 3.3.2

Usually I write up posts and go over them a bit to polish them before I post. For example, I have at least four posts in the polishing stage, because I feel like I can't get them quite like I want them ^_^. This one is coming a bit off the cuff. (Ooh, livin' wild.)

It was mentioned in our guild forum today that people should not forget about the awesomeness that is (barely) contained in the websites Wowhead and Wowwiki. These sites are both database-style information sites about Wowcraft, similar to Thottbott (sp?) but more... user-friendly, in our opinions. If you're looking up specific information about something -- an item, a crafted item, an npc, a quest, especially if you know something about it already, usually a name or even a part of the name -- then Wowhead will quickly tell you what you need. If you want more qualitative information about general concepts -- what's the spell hit cap? what's a good JC leveling guide? I'm just now rolling a pally for the first time, what are the differences in the specs and how should I gear? -- Wowwiki, being a wiki, has a lot of user-generated and -edited and -polished content. They both have their uses, and each site has things that it does better than the other; you can't really completely value one over the other. But the post reminded me...

To remind you about AtlasLoot!

AtlasLoot (Curse|Wowinterface) is a loot browser. Have a level 30 rogue and want to know which Scarlet Monastery bosses drop upgrades? Look up each of the SM wings and get a list of drops. Tooltips allow you to easily compare to your currently equipped gear. Just hit 80 and want to know what dungeons you should run for upgrades while you're saving EOT for your T9? You can look all that up.

But geez, you say, all those upgrades from all those different dungeons. I'll never remember all this.

Here's the awesome part I just discovered: AtlasLoot allows you to make Wishlists. Yeah yeah, I'm sure I'm months* behind a bunch of people in knowing this. But this is seriously cool.

(* - ok, my guildies say "at least like a year." shrup. I was tanking. >_>)

Install AtlasLoot (note to self, make a how-to on how to install addons). Open the game. At first, it should prompt you to 'customize your AtlasLoot experience', which you should do. I usually click 'Make Loot Table Opaque' and 'Show Comparison Tooltips.' (There's a small chance that there will be an icon with a little brown chest hanging around your minimap. But wait, you installed Chocolate Bar, you don't want stuff clinging to your minimap! In the options, click 'Hide Fubar Plugin' and I think that makes it go away.)

Click the AtlasLoot icon in your Chocolate Bar to open AL. In the lower left-hand corner, you'll see the Wishlist button.

Click that Options to be taken to the game's Interface options. Expand the AtlasLoot options and choose Wishlist.

(The above image is significantly wider than my current layout; you may want to open this link in a new tab with Ctrl-Leftclick so you can see the whole thing.)
I just now realized that so far, I've been talking about my addons in alphabetical order. Heh. Anyway. Click that "Add Wishlist", choose an icon, name it, then click the "Add Wishlist" that's next to "show more icons". Voilia, a wishlist.

Now, browse to anything you want to 'bookmark'. I chose the ilvl 245 non-set hit cloth pieces, as well as some other random stuff to just shove into a wishlist to show you want it looks like. When you get to the piece you want to save, Alt-Leftclick and it will give you a little drop-down menu similar to the first picture up there. Mouse over 'Own Wishlists', choose your list, click, and poof. Added.

To access your lists, do like the first picture but choose Own Wishlists and then your list. AtlasLoot divides the gear by acquisition, like such:

To remove an item from the wishlist, Alt-Leftclick the item and it will be gone immediately.

Now tell me: how freakin' handy is this! Why did I not know about this when I was gearing my warrior and my priest?? Augh! I'll just try to not think about it. I know about it now, and now you do too.

This addon was super-handy to begin with, and it became even MOAR handy right now. Get it, use it, love it, and tell your guildies. Too. Freakin. Awesome.

Addons: LDB, ChocolateBar

2010-02-28T21:12:00.005-06:00

Addons: Lib Data Broker intro, Chocolate Bar

As I understand the story, it went like this: first there was Titanpanel, and it was written in a certain coding language, and many people used it, so many addon authors made addons that worked with Titan. Then there was Fubar, and it had a different coding language that was apparently less memory-intensive. Some people left Titan and went to Fubar, and some people picked up Fubar who hadn't used Titan. And some addon authors wrote addons that plugged into Fubar. Then Titan broke, and there was much QQing, and many more people went to Fubar, and the number of Fubar addons exploded. And for a while, Fubar was a golden child. Then, for a reason I'm unclear on, Fubar died a sudden, heavily-lamented death... for a new coding language had come to town, and that coding language's name was Lib Data Broker.

Titanpanel was resurrected in its new and improved form, built on LDB. Fubar, despite its beloved status, continued to wither away, as the Fubar author decided he was not going to attempt to make Fubar work with LDB. Many Fubar plugins were allowed to languish, although some continued to be updated.

LDB is not an addon itself. LDB is a language that addon authors can use to make addons. The power of LDB is that an addon author is not required to devote an entire section of code to displaying their addon; they can rely on the fact that you, the user, is going to have a display addon, such as TitanPanel, Fortress (Curse/Wowi), or Chocolate Bar (Curse/Wowinterface).

Personally, I like Chocolate Bar the best. Why? I can make it look like Fubar used to look; small black bars on the top and bottom of my screen that hold my other addons.

Rather than perform any actual functions themselves, these bars 'hold' and display other addons that do the stuff you want them to do. Maybe you would find Chocolate Bar useful simply so you can get all those buttons that crowd your minimap /off/ your minimap; as you can see, all my Altoholic, DBM, AtlasLoot, AutoBar, EBB, Omen, ORA2, etc, all these icons are no longer cluttering up my screen, but are displayed properly for easy viewing and easier access.

(And for those of you who have Fubar addons you can't live without -- I totally do, and I'll post more on them later -- there's Fubar2Broker (Curse/Wowi), which will allow your Fubar addons to work through whichever LDB display you choose. LDB is a solid coding language, but its new, and there isn't yet the spread of addons to choose from like there was for Fubar.)

Even the LDB displays I mentioned above aren't the only ones out there. Try a few, see if you like one more than the other. It's a great way to keep the information and addons you need at your fingertips without sacrificing screen space.

Addons: Altoholic, ARL

2010-02-26T16:23:00.008-06:00

Addons: Altoholic, ARL
Current Wowcraft build: 3.3.2

I'm a bit of an addon junkie. On a scale of zero to a hundred, where a hundred is "more addons than 99% of the population could possibly expect to have running on their machine without totally bogging down into a solid brick," I'd put myself somewhere around the 50-60 mark. There are people out there with more addons than myself, I'm sure; but so many of them are just so darn handy. I'm constantly trying to prune down my addon list... and failing X D because I use nearly all of them all the time.

Some of my addons are somewhat specific to my personal tastes, so I'll leave those for later. But most of my addons are just so freakin' awesome that I cannot fathom in the slightest why you wouldn't want to run them yourself.

Of the two I will talk about today, ARL is shorter to explain. Ackis Recipe List (Curse | Wowinterface) was written by Ackis. I guess technically that should make it "Ackis' Recipe List" but you know. ARL will put a small red SCAN button in the upper right hand corner of any profession box, primary or secondary, and when you click it, it reads your box and opens a new window with a list of the recipes you do not know, and where to get them.

World drop? Trainer in Dalaran? That annoying roaming vendor in Desolace? Only sold by a vendor that isn't your faction? It will give you names, zones, and usually locs, so that you can go hunt down those last two cooking recipes. Or JC patterns. Or whatever. This has been more than invaluable while leveling scribing, as it has a list of which ones are the minor glyphs that I have to discover with research. It also color-codes the unknown recipes in relation to your current skill. If a guildie or a friend links you one of their profession boxes, you can even scan theirs for them.

What's not to love?

Altoholic (Curse | Wowinterface) is written by Thaoky. I have often said that if I were, for some reason, restricted to playing Wowcraft with only one addon, this would be the addon I would run. I'm not sure I can quickly explain to you why this addon is so awesome... primarily because it does so many things! Each of which is a supremely awesome thing.

Control-leftclick the image or this text to open the larger image in a new tab.

It keeps a searchable record of what you have on what alt. If someone links "linen cloth" and you mouseover the link, it will tell you which characters have linen cloth, how much they have, and if it's in their bags, bank, mail, or on the AH.

If you don't deselect the option, you can see how much of it is in the guild bank. Have your own bank-alt guild? Yeah, that's in the tooltip too. You can also manually look through a visual display of your alts' bags and banks. And gear. And professions. And achievements. And factions. And list of mounts/pets. And other stuff I'm sure I've missed.

If you mouse over a link to a pet, a mount, or a recipe (cooking, jc, alchemy, tailoring, LW, anything), it will tell you if the character you are currently on already knows it, and if another character can learn it, it will tell you which character and provide the current skill for comparison.

So let's say a few people in your guild run Altoholic, and you want to know which JCer can cut Puissant Dreadstone. You could ask repeatedly in guildchat during peak playing times in hopes of catching a JCer who can cut it.... oooooor, you can look yourself. In the Summary tab, click "Guild Skills," and you can sneak ninja-peeks at the profession boxes of your guildmates. Any character on their account that is in your same guild will have their profession box stored in Altoholic in this manner. (If a guildie has another character that's in another guild, Altoholic will not store profession information on that other character. However, if the guildie is online, you can ask them to link their alt's profession box -- which they can do with Altoholic, even without being on that character!)

How to link a profession box of one of your alts:
-- Characters tab
-- Choose the character from the drop down menu on the left
-- The bottom row of icons on the left are for skills; professions are usually the last two on the right. Click the one you want to link.
-- On the top part of Altoholic, there will be what looks like a little yellow chain [image forthcoming, it's Tuesday morning as I write this].
-- Open the chat box where you want to post the link; /g, /p, /2, a whisper, etc.
-- Shift-click that chain just like it were an item. Volia, a link to your alt's profession!

Notice that your friend's alt's cooking skill is low? Peek in their cooking box and mail them that jaggal clam meat you have sitting around. (Seriously, are our banks refrigerated or something?) Peek in their JC box and say, "oh, that ring that's orange to you, I want one for my alt, I'll mail you mats."

Inspecting that guy with the cool-looking shoulders and want to know where they drop? Altoholic adds a line of text that tells you what boss from what instance dropped that phat lewt. Worried you have mail on an alt that's about to expire? Altoholic gives you a notice when you log in if any of your alts have mail under 5 days (there's an option to edit the day limit... or at least there used to be, now I can't find it o_0). Can't ever remember when your Moonshroud CD is up? (Or Glacial Bag CD after 3.3.3.) Or if your Oracles Egg is going to hatch tomorrow or the next day? Pretty much everything with a cooldown timer -- alchemy transmutes, cloth creation, scribing research, etc -- you can look on the Calendar and see when that's up... without having to log to that character.

If you have more than one character in Wowcraft, you need to at least try this addon. It is amazing, and it will save your sanity more than I can describe in mere words.

Here are some more links to screenshots of Altoholic in action. These are the same links found at the bottom of the Curse page. I'm linking them in here in case you need more impetus to go get this awesome addon!
-- Skills summary + leveling suggestions.
-- Search bags & known recipes (linkable).
-- List of crafts + materials.
-- Achievements UI.

How to: RSS

2010-02-26T00:00:00.003-06:00

What is this RSS stuff and why/how should I use it?

This RSS stuff is awesome, that's why. And the how is much simpler than you might expect (or fear). Let me dissertate on the why for a moment more.

If there is ANY content on the internet that updates on anything resembling a periodic basis that you follow, be it a webcomic, a news site, or a Wowcraft blog, chances are it has an RSS feed. (Unless it's Dominic Deegan. I think Mookie avoids RSS just to annoy people : p.) Any individual post on a site will be an individual post in that feed.

You, the reader, can use an 'aggregator' to collect all these feeds from various sites and organize them for your consumption. It's like designing your own personalized internet newspaper. Some aggregators allow you to share posts from the feeds you read with other users of that aggregator, so if your friends find something funny or interesting, they can share it with you. Also, the aggregator will remember what you have and have not read, so if you go on vacation for a week and come back, you don't have to paw through a ton of sites trying to figure out what you've missed; the aggregator says "here's what's been posted since you were last here!" How handy.

Are you sold yet? If not, give this a whirl anyway. You just might find yourself hooked.

There are many aggregators available. Since I have my Gmails open all the time, I'm most familiar with Google Reader. If you're not a Gmail user, poke your email provider of choice and see if they have an aggregator available (I'm fairly certain Yahoo has something that will do the job); if not, consider searching for a plugin for your browser (Firefox has many such plugins). All my screenshots, however, are based out of my Gmail and Google Reader tabs.

In the upper lefthand corner of Gmail, there is a link to Reader.

Open this in a new tab, and you will see (a slightly larger version of) this.

No subscriptions in there just yet! Next, go to your favorite webcomic or Wowcraft blog, and look around for one of two things. Usually, what you should keep your eyes peeled for is the orange RSS icon, like this:

Most websites will have their RSS feed link somewhere within the top screen's worth of their site, and it shouldn't be hard to find. However, Blogger.com blogs (of which this is one) and Blogspot.com blogs are slightly different; you will want to scroll to the absolute very bottom of the main page (make sure you're not looking at a single post within a Blogger blog) and look for
"Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)".
(If you're looking at a single post, you will see "Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)". You very specifically do NOT want this! You will be subscribing to a feed of comment-replies to that post only, and while that could be educational, it's not really what you want.)

In either case, right click the RSS icon or the Posts Atom link, and choose "copy link location" or the equivalent command.

Then go back to your Reader or aggregator of choice.

Click the blue "Add Subscription" button and paste in your copied feed address.

Reader will query the server and import the last little chunk of posts for you to read and enjoy. Repeat for each site you read, and say goodbye to clunky, chunky bookmark lists and the hassle of trying to remember when your favorite webcomic or blog posts their updates.

You can also sort feeds into folders. In Google Reader, in the very lower left corner, click 'Manage Subscriptions', then click Add to a Folder, type in the folder name you want, and voila:

Any further Wowcraft blogs you add, you can simply drag them into that folder without going through Settings. If you have non-Wowcraft blogs, click 'Manage subscriptions' again and make a new folder for one, then go back to the main page and drag the others into the desired folder.

A nice thing that Reader does (others may or may not do this) is, if you had 5 blogs in your 'Wowcraft Blogs' folder and they each had 1 new post, you could simply click the folder itself to read all the new posts in that whole folder. Or, if a single blog has many new posts since the last time you read it, maybe you want to read each blog one at a time by clicking its name.

You can add dozens, even hundreds (if you're /really/ nuts and have nothing better to do than read RSS feeds alllll day) of feeds. Mmo-champion.com has an amazingly-difficult-to-find-a-link-for feed (general Wowcraft news, ie patch notes and commentary), and I also read TankingTips.com (a warrior-centered-but-not-entirely-exclusive blog that talks about tanking in Wowcraft). Some feeds put the entirety of their post right into the RSS post; some feeds only provide a teaser amount of information and you must control-leftclick the link to open the post's individual page in a new tab in order to read the content.

Livejournal communities also have built-in RSS feeds, with the following format:
http://community.livejournal.com/communityname/data/rss
Replace 'communityname' with the name of your comm, copy that into your Add Subscription, and away you go. Warning: while it's not technically true that "only open posts are viewable in this fashion", this post in LJ FAQs kind of went over my head.

Even a casually-used aggregator can save you lots of time and lots of brainspace. No longer do you need to try to recall how long it's been since you checked a certain blog for an update. No longer do you need to comb through three weeks of webcomic backlog, searching for the last strip you read, and spoiling yourself in the process. No longer do you need to sit on someone's site, hitting refresh until you see their new post. The aggregator does the footwork for you. Just input the feeds, organize them into folders as desired, and let it do its thing.

Happy Reading!

First!

2010-02-25T22:00:00.000-06:00

It is my firm belief that all individuals who consider themselves 'creative' in any productive fashion also recognize, even if they do not verbally admit, that they are, in at least some very small sense, insane.

I do not consider myself an exception.

This is not my primary blog. That is, at the core, why I consider myself a little nuts for starting it. Historically, I do not 'do well' with more than one 'thing' that serves whatever purpose that 'thing' serves. Let's start with email; until I forced myself to install a second (third if you count MSIE which I don't) browser on my computer, I was horrible at checking my real-name Gmail account... but my Sanna-name Gmail account was always open. I live at my primary journal, but I half-suspect that this blog will not get updated as much as it... deserves? I could also mention the Facebook I never log into... but if I never log in, should I even mention?

Then again, that's what I said about the other one. Three thousand posts later >_> I think I can admit defeat there.

This blog will be where I talk about World of Warcraft. I don't know how many specifying details will be included, as what I plan on talking about won't require specific servername.charname combinations (altho we'll see what ends up happening). Right now I plan on having posts where I talk about my favorite addons and why you should use them, a handful of posts on "I'm 80, now what?", and my very next post is intended to be "What is this RSS stuff and why/how should I use it?".

My main character is a warrior tank (at which I am fairly awesome) who has an arms offspec (at which I am no longer totally fail), on whom I raid. My main alt is a healy priest (at which I feel I am tolerably decent... people don't die too often) who has a shadow offspec (at which I feel I am only not-fail because she has T9 healy gear that lets her do 2k dps), on whom I do not currently raid. I have a nearly-50 shammy (currently enh/healy but I want to switch the enh to ele eventually) who is only being leveled because I'm beginning to want a pocket JC. My professions are Alchemy/Herbing, Tailoring/Mining, and Scribing/Herbing that might be ditched for JC/Mining. I also have a tiny pally, a nameholding warlock, and a fairly-abandoned mage on that same server, and on another server I have a leetle drood, any of which I might level... someday, maybe, probably not. If none of the above things (plus the planned addon posts) interest you or pertain to your playing experience, this blog will probably fall outside your area of giving a crap.

To the rest of you: Welcome! I'll try to not be completely boring ^_^.

-- Sanna
(It is /so/ weird going by that name in relation to Wowcraft stuff... I'm so accustomed to people calling me by my characters' names, haha~)