I don't get Alter Time

There is such a terrible downside to Alter Time that I find it hard to use in my rotation. The downside is this: I end up being moved back to where I was a few seconds ago. I can certainly see why it's great for fire and frost mages, who can use it to double-proc, and I can see it has some great uses in PvP (for instance with blink), but as an arcane mage trying to raid, I usually don't want to be moved back to where I was standing a few seconds ago, because the only reason I would have moved in the first place is because there's burning oil or acid or something similarly nasty where I was previously standing. Raiding in this tier has required a fair bit of mobility, something arcane mages are not great at. When we do move it's because we are absolutely forced to by the void zone under us. Here's what happens to me every time I use Alter Time:

"Hey, I've got 4 stacks of Arcane Charge up! My next Arcane Blast will use up a lot of mana. Let's use Alter Time to have my cake and eat it."
- Cast Alter Time
- Start Casting Arcane Blast
Then a void zone opens up under my feet, my robes start to singe! Ouch! Get out of here fast! Run! Don't wait to complete that cast!
- Run away, little girl, run away
- Restart casting Arcane Blast from the comfort of solid fire-free ground
Alter Time resets
Doh! Back in the fire again!
- Run away, little girl, run away

So Alter Time usually ends up costing me time in most raid encounters, especially mobile ones. Arcane raiding mages, how do you benefit from Alter Time?

Looks like I picked a bad week to quit Arcane

I'm a regular PuG invitee to another guild's raiding team.  I'll only keep my place as long as their guild is short of raiders, and as long as I'm doing great damage to our enemies, so of course I'm keen to make every improvement I can. Last Wednesday I was looking on wowprogress.com to see what mages were ahead of me, when I noticed something I should have noticed a long time ago. The top mages are all fire spec.

When I was levelling, I was levelling as a frost mage. It's great for solo levelling, because you have so many defensive moves. But one day, in the Borean Tundra, I grouped with an arcane mage to down a particularly truculent elite, and I was blown away by his damage output. I went arcane the very next day, and saw my own damage output increase by about a fifth. After that, I just couldn't get enough arcane magic. All through the Wrath of the Lich King, I raided as arcane and was always high on the damage meters. I loved the arcane spec. Then came the Cataclysm.

In Cata, I had a hard time reaching competitive DPS levels, and got replaced in my raid. This was about the same time that Larísa's performance was called into question by her raid leader. I tried out the fire spec, and it was certainly an improvement in DPS at the target dummies. On the strength of showing our raid leader what my numbers were on the target dummies, I was invited back. But I wasn't really happy in fire, and switched back to arcane once my stats rose enough for it to become more competitive again.

So last Wednesday after noticing that all the top mages on my realm were fire mages again, I tried out a fire spec once more, and was blown away by the awesome amount of damage I was able to do to the target dummies. At the weekend, I tried it out in earnest against moving targets, and well ... it was a severe disappointment. I just couldn't reproduce the damage I'd been doing  to the target dummies. I checked that my bombs were up, I checked my rotation, I checked my glyphs, I reforged my gear, but nothing helped.

And then I discovered that between my time on the target dummies and the weekend, Blizzard managed to fit in a massive nerf to the fire spec. Oh, well. Back to Arcane.

Gear Plan revisited

I listed my gear plan, just over a week ago. I want to keep track of how that's going.

I started out unable to get into heroic dungeons, as my ilvl was too low. A few JP purchases fixed that, and I got some nice heroic drops, despite very little activity on my part over the last week.

Head:
I'd planned to make myself the 
Contender's Silk Cowl (ilvl 450).  But as it turned out, I got 
Fallout-Filtering Hood (ilvl 463) from a boss in heroic Gates of the Setting Sun, instead. I got a cheap common gem for the blue socket, but I had to go the whole hog on the meta, and buy the Fleet Primal Diamond, which cost more than I wanted to spend on a non-epic hood.

Neck:
Skymage Circle (ilvl 450), bought from the Auction House, as planned.

Shoulders:
I made the the 
Contender's Silk Amice (ilvl 450). I really should get a Crane Wing Inscription for it, as they're so cheap.

Chest
Contender's Silk Raiment  (ilvl 450) As I'm a tailor, I made this for myself immediately.
Still waiting to get to Honored with the Golden Lotus, to buy the pattern for
Robes of Creation (ilvl 476) .

Cloak:
Cloak of Ancient Curses (ilvl 458) was my first JP purchase, as planned.
Cloak of Snow Blossoms (ilvl 489) when I get the Valor Points.

Wrists:
I unaccountably still the Mindbender Cuffs (ilvl 434), and haven't yet made myself the 
Contender's Silk Cuffs (ilvl 450) . Other than that, I need to hope for random drops, and save my Valor Points for
Minh's Beaten Bracers (ilvl 489)

Hands:
That heroic Gates of the Setting Sun dungeon run was great. As well as the Fallout-Filtering Hood, I also won 
Bomber's Precision Gloves (ilvl463). Still waiting on
Spelltwister's Gloves (ilvl 476) which I can craft for myself when I'm honored with the Golden Lotus (I'm not honoured by anybody yet!)

Legs:
I made myself some
Contender's Silk Pants (ilvl 450). Otherwise
Leggings of the Poisoned Soul (ilvl 489) cost 2250VP. I've put that purchase on the long finger.

Feet:
Everyone should easily get the ilvl 476 boots that are a guaranteed reward from your first Sha of Anger Kill. I have, anyway. Nothing more to get here right now.

Fingers:
Lionsfall Ring (ilvl 450), crafted by jewellers, was so cheap, I bought it.
The Horseman's Ring (ilvl 470)  dropped for me from the Headless Horseman. When I have the Valor Points,
Simple Harmonius Ring (ilvl 483) will be a good buy.

Trinkets:
Coren Direbrew provided me with a
Mithril Stopwatch (ilvl 470) which is pretty good. The account-bound Archeology item
Quilen Statuette (ilvl 463) is also mine. I have not yet bought either the
Relic of Yu'lon (ilvl 476) made by scribes at the Darkmoon Faire, or
Relic of Chi Ji (ilvl 476) also made by scribes at the Darkmoon Faire.


Staff:
I went out to track down the
Dissector's Staff of Mutation (ilvl 450) waiting to be found in the Dead Wastes. It turns out that that's quite a job. It's usually not there, spawning only rarely. Instead I got lucky and won the 
Staff of Trembling Will in a heroic Temple of the Jade Serpent run.
Scribes will want to make themselves the Inscribed Serpent Staff(ilvl 476).


Main Hand + Off hand:
For main hand, go into the world and if you're patient, you'll find
Blade of the poisoned Mind (ilvl 450) in the Dread Wastes. Meantime get yourself to elite with the Klaxxi, so you can buy:
Amber Saber of Klaxxi'vess (ilvl 463).
For off-hand, only this will do:
Inscribed Jade Fan (ilvl 476) made by scribes.
However, as I won a reasonable staff, I'll skip Main+Off until an ilvl 463 main drops for me.

[Edit: Gear Plan in 5.2]

Our Housekeeping

I hope it goes without saying that after you have killed the enemy, their mangled corpses should be subjected to the indignity of a strip-search while their blood still gushes hotly, and that you should loot everything you can carry.

What have you been doing with all that linen and woollen cloth that you've found on them? Chances are, you've been selling them to a vendor. Well, stop that, right now! There are at least two things you can do with them that are better than that.

Firstly, various professions can use these scraps of cloth. For instance, if you are a tailor, you already know that they can be turned into the most beautiful costumes; if you have the first aid profession, you can turn them into bandages.

Secondly, if you don't have a use for the cloth, sell it to an adventurer who does. Your fellow adventurers pay a lot more than vendors for it. But how do you sell it to somebody else? The Auction House is how. Go to the auction house, select an auctioneer, and search for the cloth you want to sell. You'll find loads of it, at various prices. Decide on the price you want to sell your cloth for (make sure the price you set is above the price a vendor would give you for it), and post it! If you select a low enough price, you'll find it will sell easily, and often within a few minutes. You'll get paid by a letter in your mailbox an hour after the sale.

And it's not just cloth that sells well. Every green item that you loot and that you can't use youself can be sold in the auction house. The secret here is that people will usually buy these item not to wear, but to disenchant into various magical powders, crystals, essences and so on, needed by enchanters. This gives even the lamest green item a value much higher than the vendor puts on it.

As well as green items, many white items also sell well at auction: consumables (like cloth) that are used in other professions or for quests. For instance those small eggs that you get from the birds in Westfall are worth quite a bit to chefs.

Also, while you're at the auction house, don't forget to buy some bags. You can get some from vendors. You can get bigger bags from tailors who sell their wares at the Auction House. Obviously, the bigger your bags, the more loot you can carry.

I don't want to turn this into a guide to using the auction house here; that's been done very well already in loads of places, including Just My Two Copper (http://justmytwocopper.blogspot.com/). I just want to draw your attention to its importance. Don't be poor. Sell your loot in the Auction House. At the very least, the AH is a great way to turn your unwanted loot into gold. The trading game can also be fun in its own right; I love trawling though the auctions looking for bargains that I can resell for profit later.

By the way, if you want to get the most out of the Auction House, you'll really want to get the AuctioneerAddon. This improves your pricing by tracking historical prices and letting you see when items are cheap or overpriced. If you never get any other World of Warcraft addon, get this one. And check out Marcko's guide to using it: http://justmytwocopper.blogspot.com/2009/02/22-steps-to-using-auctioneer-correctly.html

I enlarge my Circle of Acquaintance

What should you look for when choosing a guild? That depends on your motives. I have been in a number of guilds for different reasons, and I foresee that as I progress I may find reason to change guilds again.


First, you may choose not to join a guild. Many people find solo adventuring very satisfactory and feel no desire to join a club - for that´s all a guild is. There´s nothing you can´t accomplish as a solo adventurer. That said, there are many ways in which a guild can make things easier for you, which I´ll talk about below.


The first guild I joined, I joined for money. As simple as that. I had 5s54c in my pocket when I met a level 60 warrior who was yelling out that he would give 1g to anybody who would sign his guild charter. Let me tell you that was the easiest 1g I ever earned, and the most useful. By all means I advise you to take this offer yourself, if you're not yet in a guild. You need the money, he needs the signature. Both parties profit.


What's that all about, by the way? Why would a level 60 warrior be down in the market square in Stormwind offering gold to all and sundry to sign his charter. Surely he's more selective about who he wants in his guild? Surely the last person he wants in his guild is somebody who's just joining for the money? What's the catch? There is no catch. Or rather, the catch is, he doesn't want you in his guild - but the offer of 1g is genuine. The player who is offering money for your signature is not planning to steal anything from you (what have you got that might interest a level 60 warrior, after all). He's wanting to set up a 'banking' guild. This is a guild that will eventually only have 1 member, and that member will be his banker. Once the guild is up and running, it's probable that you and all the other signatories will be kicked out of the guild, 1g richer than when you joined it. What the guild master really wants is to be able to create a guild bank where he can store more items than he could store in his private bank account. Don't worry. Be happy. Take his 1g payment, leave when he finally has his guild up and running, and take the next guy's 1g. All parties will be happy.


Eventually you may want to join a proper guild. Maybe you just want to see what being in a guild is like. I encourage you to try a few before you settle down. Sow your wild oats. Different guilds have different flavours. Try a few out, and then decide what you like.


You'll see various advertisements in the trade and general channels from guilds who are looking for new members. These advertisements often contain a number of code words that will help you identify the kind of guild that's being advertised:


Guilds that advertise "we have our own tabard and bank tab" are generally new guilds - it's a big deal for them that they have their own tabard and bank tab because the guild master and officers have just spent a bucketload of money getting them. New guilds often die out. Try not to join a new guild until you have had experience of an established guild. I don't mean that you should never join a new guild. In fact, I think that eventually you should. Just not until you know what an experienced guild has to offer.


Guilds that use the words "progression" or "raiding" should be of no interest to you until you are level 80. You will certainly be of no interest to them.


Guilds that are "friendly" or "social" are certainly worth experiencing. Sometimes this is code for "not interested in joining the rat-race to level 80 and beyond. Just interested in having a good time, sharing some jokes, hanging out and having fun". There's nothing wrong with that, and it's worth trying out.


Guilds that are "levelling" guilds can be both friendly and social, but what their members have in common is this: they are very interested in joining the rat-race, and reaching level 80 and beyond. There's nothing wrong with that, and it's worth trying out. Very often, these are new guilds who have got beyond the "have tabard and bank tab" stage, but have no members at level 80 yet.


In my opinion, you should try out several guilds before choosing a long-term partner. You'll quickly realise what style suits you - social or levelling (of course most guilds are on a continuum between these two extremes). Once you are level 80, if you are considering raiding you'll perhaps look at the serious raiding/progression guilds. By then you won't need any advice from me.


Before joining a guild, I recommend you look at their member profile on the armoury. The EU armoury is at http://eu.wowarmory.com/ and the US armory is at http://www.wowarmory.com/


A levelling guild with less than 50 members will either die, or will require a lot of hard work from its members to get it up to a critical mass. On the other hand, a guild with more than 200 members might seem a bit impersonal. One of the most important things to know about guilds is that they're usually set up by a group of people who know each other well, perhaps having been together in other guilds, or perhaps grouping together often as they levelled up. Sometimes such a group can make you feel a little like an outsider. I left such a guild some time back, after a guild photo-shoot. The location chosen was the surface of the lake in Darnassus. If you couldn't walk on water? Too bad, noob. You weren't in the photo. I left the very next day.


I mentioned earlier that there are many ways in which a guild can make things easier for you. I´ve more or less covered these already: they can provide you with pals (for the crack), they can provide a ready-made pool of players around the same level as you with whom you can group and level and PvP, and after you´ve reached max level, it provides team-mates with which you can raid.



I also mentioned earlier that I think you should eventually join a new guild. Actually, the more I think about it, what I really mean is that I joined a new guild and liked it enough to want to stay. Why? Because in a new guild, you make a difference. You level up with the other new members of the guild, you get to know them, they get to know you. You make friends. Of course, this can happen in any guild, new or old. It can happen outside of a guild. All I can tell you is this. I like being in a new guild whose members are known to me. I wish it was a bigger guild, since we could more easily plan guild dungeons. I know that whatever happens to the guild (it's at the grow-or-die stage right now), I've enjoyed it.


If you ever want to start your own guild, I have one piece of advice: don't.
Just don't. It's a lot of work, and the rewards are uncertain (unless you're just creating a bank guild). Maybe it'll turn out like the guild you hoped for, maybe it won't. More than likely, there is already a guild out there that is a good match to what you want. It's probably a better match than the guild you build will eventually be! But if you insist in ignoring my advice, at least take Matticus' advice: http://www.worldofmatticus.com/guides/build-your-own-guild/


By the way, whatever guild you join, don't accept a boost. You'll regret it. More on boosting later.

I am Sent Away

There comes a time in the life of every child of Elwynn Forest when we have to spread our wings and fly away. Of course, we've all been to Stormwind already, and met the high-level Jenkins and heroes, and beggars and bankers; but really this is still home. No, usually our first trip abroad is to Westfall, and what a difference there is between Westfall and Stormwind. While Elwynn forest has a magical fantasy mediaeval touch to it, Westfall has a different
atmosphere: dustbowl America - a formerly rich but now rundown farming community, now almost derelict and overrun by weeds and other undesirables.

The story of Westfall is the story of that shadowy organization, the Defias Brotherhood, and it's a great story, though this isn't obvious when you first arrive. In fact the initial quests in Westfall are a little tedious - kill twenty of this, collect 8 of that - and the magic mechanical scarecrows, while they add to the not-in-Kansas atmosphere, do not fit into the world - no attempt is made to explain what they are, where they came from, how they came to life. They are just there, as out of place as a laser-gun-toting murloc. But never mind that, follow the yellow-brick road to Sentinel Hill and Gryan Stoutmantle. That's where the real story starts.

And it's also where you get to fly! When you were fighting the great Hogger, you noticed high-level characters passing overhead on flying steeds, and thought "wow, it must be wonderful to be able to fly! I'll bet you have to get to level 80 before you can do that"! When you get to Sentinel Hill, however, you discover you can join that elite group. You don't even have to own or train the mighty beasts that will soon be transporting you to Stormwind, for they are a taxi service. And what a great service! The journey from Stormwind to Sentinel Hill probably took you a week or two. The return journey, high above the scene of your recent epic deeds, takes a minute or two. I'll never get tired of flying!

Anyway, back to Gryan Stoutmantle. At first, the quests he gives you just feel like more of the same "Kill Ten Rats": kill 15 Defias trappers, kill 15 Defias smugglers, kill 15 defias pillagers and looters, and so on. But gradually, the story begins to come into focus with the Defias Brotherhood quests starting with a trip to Lakeshire to learn more about this shadowy organization.

This excellent slow-burning quest chain leads you, via Stormwind city, deep into the Deadmines in Moonbrook village, the first instance dungeon that most players, where you hunt down the leader of the Brotherhood, and then leads to the next instance, the Stockades in Stormwind, to interview his deputy, finally leading to the higher echelons of Stormwind society and your first audience with the King. Great stories like this are what make me want to play more. The stories, not the loot. Make more great stories like this, Blizzard, and you will be loved forever.

I Fall into Disgrace

I suppose the first experience most people have of the benefits of grouping together is when taking on Hogger. The first thing I noticed is that people using the 10-day trial account are at a significant disadvantage here - they can't invite anybody to join their group. Instead they have to rely on somebody else to invite them. I joined such a pick-up group recently. We were a warrior, a priest and me. I was the highest level character, at level nine. The people were nice, but once it came to fighting Hogger, I made a huge mistake: as a mage, I'm only wearing cloth, and when (after one particularly fiery strike from my fireball spell) Hogger decided he was going to ignore the warrior in our group and swing his axe at me, well, I panicked.

What I should have done was coolly cast a Frost Nova spell at point blank range as he swung at me, then stepped back and let the warrior take his attention, and let the priest heal me. What I actually did was - I ran! I ran blindly away from Hogger. Hogger ran after me, and the warrior ran after Hogger. The priest couldn't target me to heal me, because I was moving so fast and both Hogger and the warrior were interfering with his target selection. You know what happened next. I got too close to a nearby gnoll camp and four stout gnoll warriors came out and gave Hogger a hand! They made mincemeat of the warrior and me, then Hogger returned to give the poor priest his full attention. We were wiped out.

However we learned from our mistakes. I learned the value of standing my ground and being prepared to die if it meant the group would succeed. I also learnt the value of making sure Frost Nova was available on my action bar. And the group leader learned the value of kicking a poor player out of his group!

What a pleasure it was, then, to meet a friendly Paladin who seemed to know what he was doing, and who invited me and three others to join him. We hung around, killing gnolls, until Hogger made his re-appearance, and were able to make fairly short work of him (because we'd been diligently killing gnolls beforehand, there were none around to intrude on our battle).

The pick-up group is one of the things that makes online gaming so interesting. You meet with some strangers, you work together on a task for a short time, you have some fun, some banter, then you go your separate ways. After a while you notice that you see the same characters again and again, because - guess what - they're levelling their characters at about the same rate as you are, and are often on the same quests. You avoid the people you don't get on with, you team up again with the people who are on your wavelength. Pretty soon you're becoming friends.

I have a change

The first thing I did on leaving Northshire was to head down to Goldshire, and got Innkeeper Farley to set my hearthstone to the Lion's Pride Inn.

What a fun place Goldshire is! Loads of exotica - my first sighting of elves and draenei and high-level characters mounted on all sorts of beasts - and my first duel. Of course I was rubbish and got killed immediately. Didn't know what I was doing. Anyway playing about dueling is a fun way to practice Player vs. Player fighting (PvP), and eventually I managed to win a duel and gain the "Duel-icious" achievement.

Goldshire is a great place to be based in, since so many of the Elwynn forest quests either involve you starting or ending there, or returning there to empty your bags (by selling the contents to Tharynn Bouden). I love the stories behind the quest chains!

I Am Born

As a new human mage, I came into the realm of Azuremyst a few months ago at Northshire Abbey, a complete novice to World of Warcraft. I knew nothing. Not even how to walk (funnily enough, we learnt to run before we could walk). Well, I've forgotten so much about how I learned those very basic things a few months ago, that I thought I'd jot down what I do remember before that, too, fades from memory!

I was tickled pink when I learned how to dance! (simply type /dance (and hit the enter key), or click on the emote button for a list of emotions you can display). Simple things amuse the innocent. I danced, I flexed my muscles, I waved, cried, begged, laughed. Man, I must have spent a half an hour just messing about like that.

One big mistake I made was to leave Northshire Abbey before I reached level 5. This just got me killed a lot! Inside the training grounds of the Abbey, I was fairly safe, but outside, I couldn't safely leave the path or I'd get stiffed by a Defias thief, or a spider. Lesson learned. I went back to the Abbey and kept up my training there until there were no more quests for me to do there.