Since we’ve had a shift in the Egotistical Roster lately, there’s a possibility that some of you may be having a hard time telling who is writing the post you’re reading. There are a few methods to figure it out.

Day of the Week
Right now, we’ve got a pretty solid schedule for bloggers.

Monday - Aensu
Tuesday - Vonya
Wednesday - Zasp
Thursday - Vonya (double shot!)
Friday - Kwane

That will work 99% of the time. Sometimes there may be “Blogstuff” posts that I do, or maybe something blogworthy and otherwise interesting and fluffy will happen and you’ll get a Saturday post. Mostly though, we stick to the schedule.

As a side note, we have a friend who has never played Warcraft before that we’re trying to infect with the WoW Virus. He’s already promised that he’d write a “From the Noob” post for me on Saturdays if I get it working, which would be awesome. Great guy. Wish us luck!

Sidebar
Although not completely finished yet, the sidebar image on the page should give you a hint as to who wrote the most recent entry. We’re still refining this, and I was supposed to have an Aensu sidebar pic for this week, but..well, you don’t want the week I had.

Check the sidebar image if you’re on the site - it changes pretty much every time a new post goes up.

Author
This is actually the BEST way to figure it out, because it shows up on every post AND in your feed readers, and doesn’t require you to do the complex mental mathematics to figure out what day of the week it is.

Just under the title on every post is a little “by Someone” tag that tells you who the author was. It’s there in the feed readers and on every single post.

Other Stuff
Also, we’re tagging each post we write with a special tag for that purpose. So say you read something by Aensu and you want to find out what else he’s said about tanking, you can follow the ~Aensu tag on the right sidebar.

Sorry for no post on Tuesday. I’m going to do two small posts today, but that’s not going to make up for it.

Trust me, you don’t want the week I’ve had.

First post!

There have been some changes to Magister’s Terrace. Some of you may have already noticed them. Only one of them is important, but the other one’s hilarious, so I’ll keep it in too.

The Important One
That pretty purple bubble that gets tossed out from the trash mobs? The one I recently blogged about and said was pretty but otherwise useless?

Yeah, not so much anymore. Now there’s a distinct bugzapper feeling when you get stuck in it, and the debuffs DO apply to you. And they stick for a very short time after you leave the bubble too.

Since the trash mobs don’t do a lot of random magic, there’s no reason for you to stand in it. Also, there are a frillion reasons for your TANK to not stand in it, especially if you’ve got a caster dps in your group. And you probably do, because mage sheep or warlock banish/fear is vurra useful on the third boss.

BEWARE THE BUBBLE.

The Hilarious One
Now, when you kill Kael’Thas, he gets a death scene. A long one. Dude’s dead, right? You just killed him. He stands up and gives a touching speech about how you’ll all die and blah blah blah, grips his chest theatrically with one hand in the air, like a drowning man reaching for a liferaft, and collapses on the ground.

Kael’Thas, as portrayed by William Shatner.

It’s hilarious.

Go watch it.

Wait first post of the week is from Zasp? How can this be? Sorry for the cop out post last week, my brain just couldn’t hack it. But I shall break down why I hate eviscerate and why I rarely use it. This of course is in PvE not PvP. Though Eviscerate is only used as a “show-boat” move there, most people die in my stun lock if preformed correctly, and they’re not a Druid, Paladin or a Warrior. Yes I can still stun lock its just even more finesse worthy. Especially with the two minute trinkets. Anyways on the horrible eviscerate ability.

Stolen from EJ post by Vulajin Roguecraft 101:

“On Eviscerate: at nearly all reachable levels of gear, Rupture will be superior to Eviscerate on any target that isn’t immune to bleeds. At 5 CP, Rupture deals 1000 damage plus 24% of your AP for 25 energy, or 40 damage plus 0.96% of your AP per energy. At 5 CP and with T5 2pc, Eviscerate deals 1245 damage plus 15% of your AP for 35 energy, or roughly 35.57 damage plus 0.43% of your AP per energy. Applying 3/3 Improved Eviscerate and 3/3 Aggression (121% modifier), 40% crit and RED (142.4% modifier), and 30% armor reduction (assuming a typical debuffed raid boss), Eviscerate comes to 42.90 damage plus 0.52% of your AP per energy. Thus, Eviscerate holds an advantage of 2.90 base damage per energy, but Rupture gains an additional 0.44% of your AP. At this rate, it takes only 656 AP for Rupture to overcome Eviscerate’s base advantage. Simply, in any situation where you can Rupture, you should Rupture.”

Notice that does not factor in, Mangle which would increase Rupture’s damage by an additional 30%. You can thank your friendly neighborhood feral druid for that.

That breaks down the Raiding perspective better then any long winded post I can manage to come up with, simply because the math and everything factoring gets a bit complex and confusing.

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I once had a Hispanic friend who was a bit of a ladies’ man. They loved him - thought he was funny, charming, and debonair. Most of all, they always lauded over his hair. Oh how the women-folk would go on and on about his thick lustrous wavy black locks.

But had they known what I knew, I think they would have stayed away from him. You see, my friend Valdez had a secret. That fancy head of hair had been attained through preternatural means. At one time, he had almost no hair and it was obvious it bothered him greatly. He had tried all the “natural” remedies. Sought medical advice, tried every anti-balding solution on the market.

Eventually, he gave in and turned to the dark side. He visited a Voodoo priestess.

She gave him a precise list of ingredients to procure in order to cast the spell to restore his hair.

As these stories always go, shortcuts in the recipe were taken. My friend did not want to kill the yearling cockerel with his own hands and strip the meat from the bones. Instead, he stopped at the local fast food restaurant and picked up some fried chicken. He didn’t want to shear the wool from a newborn sheep, and instead chose to purchase a cashmere sweater. The list of unfortunate substitutions was long.

In the end, I suppose you could say he was lucky. He got what the spell promised - a full head of thick, gorgeous hair, if a little on the greasy side.

The Voodoo priestess, however, was covered from head to toe in a thick black goo that no amount of washings and soap could remove.

… (wait for iiiit) …

Tragically, it was a spill over from the hex on Valdez.

A VERY interesting post went up over at WoWInsider not too long ago*.

The gist of the post was that hunter pets can be massaged even further with family-abilities than they are now, to make them more flexible and raid-viable. I encourage you to go over and take a gander at it if you’re interested, the details of the various pet abilities are an interesting read even for non-hunters because you can dream about what kind of pet might synergize well with whatever class you play.

Normally I don’t like to dwell too much on entries that have “wouldn’t it be great if…” and “oooh, it’s possible we may get…” type topics. Not only does it accomplish little, it makes me weep to think of how badly I want my priest to have a Holy Form to counter the Shadow Form for shadow priests. It’s not a new idea, it’s not a unique and special snowflake of an idea, but by golly it would be SO FRACKIN COOL. You know it would! Don’t even bother to deny it!

Ahem. Back to the hunter pets.

The reason I decided to go ahead and make a post that is not only just a response to someone else’s post, but also has nothing to do with the reality of huntering at this moment is because I really like the idea, and it got me to thinking.

I love the hunter class. One of the things that MAKES the hunter class is how very customizable it is.

Druids (bless their heart) look exactly the same in bear form and decked out in the most fanTABulous gear available as a brand spanking new level 10 bear druid. I am convinced that this is an oversight that will be fixed in the expansion, but that’s not the point of this post.

(more…)

I keep talking about how much I hate Eviscerate but that post is going to involve a lot of math and it has not been the most productive week in terms of writing. With the group deciding to go back to our alliance toons and transfer to a new home on Drenden, my mind has been other places. Tuesday I stared at my screen for 3 hours trying to figure out what and how to say it… I accomplished nothing, so you get this cop out post.

Zasp is no longer a Blacksmith, due to his shiny new fist weapons. He’s now a 375 Leatherworker with some awesome Swiftstrike Shoulders, and Drums of Battle for everyone! I got impatient towards 340 and bought the last mats to hit 375 — it was not a cheap process. Also manged to hit exalted with Shattered Sun Offensive, which gave me access to the awesome neck (especially because I’m Aldor). The 200 attack power on the proc is down right awesome, not to mention I’ve seen it proc on Sap which just makes me giggle.

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Someone asked me for some tips on healing Magister’s Terrace, affectionately known as MrT. At the time, I hadn’t healed it yet, but I’ve done so on multiple times now and feel I can give some tips to those who’d like some help.

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It’s time for more random tips from your friendly neighborhood tank who is stalling for time while he tries to write a real article! I bet you’re excited, I know I am.

Take the Lead

If you PUG 5-mans, every now and then you’ll find yourself in a group with a non-tank that wants to do the marking, pulling, leading, and maybe even “off tanking”. There are any number of reasons why they act like this, none of them good or reasonable.

In any case, unless the tank is entirely unfamiliar with the instance, or just doesn’t know how to assign CC and pull properly (in which case they’re not a very good tank anyway), there’s no logical reason for anyone other than the tank to be leading. Any decent player should know this, which is why mister I’m-a-DPS-class-but-want-to-be-leader will typically fail in every role they’ve assigned themselves in the first 20 minutes.

So what to do about this person? The easiest solution is to just not PUG, or form your own group. But if you’re really determined to make it happen, you’re going to have to work with this person, especially if they’re getting the group wiped right out of the gate.

Sometimes simply asking “Hey, mind letting me do the pulling?” will do the trick. Sometimes you may have to browbeat the person into submission. Calmly whispering suggestions so that they can maintain the illusion of leadership while doing exactly what you tell them to is seldom a bad idea.

The absolute worst thing you can do though, is nothing, while hoping they figure out what the hell they’re doing before your gear turns red. Tanking and timidity don’t go well together. If you wont do it to save yourself, then do it to save the rest of the group, that’s what we’re there for.

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It has come to our attention that one of the members of Aetherial Circle, Kelektra has been bearnapped!

The onus for this crime has been laid upon the doorstep of EgoCorp, and we wish to set those allegations to rest.

Although EgoCorp did indeed embark upon a partnership with Kelektra (affectionately known as ‘Kel’) for mutual benefit in Magister’s Terrace, it is folly to assume that her current disappearance is in any way related to our business relationship.

We, here at EgoCorp, find the disappearance of Kelektra to be highly suspicious, possibly implemented in order to keep our organization from conducting further business with the highly skilled druid and other members of the Aetherial Circle Umbrella corporation. We have unconfirmed rumors that BRKWWA, when confronted with news of EgoCorp’s intent to conduct future business with Kelektra, grew wrathful and hotly denied any such possibility. “She is my precious!” he was quoted as saying.

Please remember, these rumors are not yet confirmed - we simply wish for our audience and stockholders to be as informed as possible in this time of flux and crisis.

(more…)

It has come to our attention, here at the Egotistical Priest Corporation, Unltd (henceforth known as EgoCorp), that the BRKWWA has hinted at allegations concerning the loyalties and alignment of EgoCorp, which has caused quite a bit of concern among our stockholders and employees.

At this time, EgoCorp can neither confirm nor deny these rumors, but we do wish to reassure all of those associated with us that there is no need for panic or alarm.

We wish to reiterate our company goals - to bring useful and timely information to the World of Warcraft Gaming Community - and to remind everyone that we shall remain firm to those goals.