Totems Done

Got a lot of maintenance done on the Shaman today. They were all 33 but still didnt have mounts or their Air Totems so was time for a visit home. Had my banker send 450g for deposit into their guild. After grabbing each a Gray Elephant, I spent time individually to get rid of some flotsam from their inventory then level their First Aid to 150. Going from 80 to 150 seemed to take around seven stacks so I exhausted the bank supply on the final shaman. Had to switch over to another pack rat alt to find the last few stacks.

The shaman have leveled so fast that they've completely outgrown their gear. I'm a horrible twinker so I'm always thinking I should gather this or make that. I'd really like to make them a full set of Big Voodoo gear for novelty's sake. Yet now that it's for FOUR characters, I'm not so eager. I refuse to pay the AH prices for 112 Thick Leather and 64 Flasks of Mojo. Farming them would take forever. Definitely not worth the five or six days they'd wear them. I did take the time to put together Golden Ring of Powerx4 since rings tend to last a while and they were still skill-ups.

Revised my keyboard layout a little. I've move the assist with the primary actions buttons to the Bottom Left button bar where I have everything bound on Shift keys. Most of my characters use that bar in the same way, so it's going to take a little retraining of my brain. Thinking it will be best to keep keys 1-6 un-broadcasted for whatever the main needs.

The Shaman on my Main account had to sit out today while made some SM Library runs. Thought about using the Mage as I've seen suggested yet Decimate really isn't that well geared. Aenara isn't that much better but she's done very well tanking in the past. With the 3.0.2 change to Swipe, she's now godly.

In Bear she has over 13k Life so I decided to see what my maximum pulls was. Turns out that casters will leash if you take them around more than two or three turns. So I would stealth all the way up to Doan, aggro the two monks in front of the library, then hoof of on back to the entry. I would swing into the alcoves along the way so I would end up using Frenzied Regeneration by the time I hit the Huntsman Cloister. The flurry of death is always so satisfying.

Doan was very cooperative. After six runs, I had a Robe of Doan, a Mantle of Doan, and an Illusionary Rod for all three shaman. Only happened to get two Hypnotic Blades but I'm sure I'll pick up more while using the Ehancement Shaman to run the Shaman on the Main account through.

Was kinda funny too. Finally have Chain Lightning so I threw down a few while clearing—going to be so deadly. These greedy Shaman have been stealing lots of gold from my Mains so I made sure one each run one of them would fill their bags from the piles'o'corpses. There was enough crap to sell that they'll hopefully keep up with their spell training costs. Thankfully I was being thorough because on the way out of my final clear I noticed an unlooted corpse that was holding a nice blue Cobalt Crusher.

The RAF program continues to be amazing. Have the Druid boost the three slaves through means the fourth Shaman isn't getting any experience. So I'll be using a number of the Level gifts to let her keep pace effortlessly. Wish the Character Transfer was going to I could do some strategic character relocation. Oh well. The experience is still wonderful. Doing the totem turn-in alone was 8700xp (+5800raf). I'm currently using the summon to my great advantage. My Main is summoning each character to the various Inns in Outland for the seasonal Candy Bucket quests and all Flight Paths. *snicker* Those little 34 Shaman are sure getting around.

After the Novelty

On Dual-Boxing.com's wiki entry on Boosting I noticed a link to their forums entitled: 1-60 in 1 day 10 hours. Basically it was commentary around a message on the WoW forums that began with

Gundude < Grizzly > Destromath

This hunter at lvl 61 - 1 bar from 62 has 2 days / played. Normally I get to 70 just under 4 days slash played. If really trying I'm sure it would be possible to hit 60 in 20 hours and 70 in 2 days 20 hours slash played.

The secret?

Simple.

Make your way to lvl 8 then go to RFC or Deadmines. Invite a full group (for full xp bonus) then have your lvl 70 mage friend AoE it. Enjoy lvling every 10-15 mins.

At 20.... go to SM Cath/Arm (switch between them and reset) Continue this process until lvl 40. Enjoy lvls every 30-45mins. (Use a mage with mana absorbtion to AoE it, keep a full group for full xp bonus)

At 40....go to ZF. You need to learn the pulls if using a 70 mage to AoE. LoS big groups then AoE. Make sure you have healers to in your party to heal the mage - lvling past 40 requires healers to be in the group. ALSO IMPORTANT - Bring a class such as a Druid to moonfire healing totems the trolls drop, this must be done or you will die. Enjoy lvling every 40-55mins.

At 50...go to LBRS. Now use a WARRIOR*** Warrior smashes the instance with a 2 hand and flexes. Bring a full group with healers. I perfer to bring a feral druid to say in feral form so the warrior gets 5% extra crit and heals himself. Shamans for heals and WF totem will increase your speed at clearing the instance as well. I do a set route and skip much of the instance but maintain a very fast lvl pace. Enjoy lvls every 50-60mins.

At 55....go to Ramparts. Still using a warrior - aim for the same group setup (leader of pack/WF totem/heals). Rampart runs should be 20-25 mins long and at 120k+ a hour xp is wonderfull. Enjoy lvls every 50-70 mins.

60+ I stop power lvling and enjoy questing in the outlands. Your call. Ramparts will still give 110k+ xp an hour up until lvl 64.

I don't really see the warrior happening in LBRS. The Feral druid in the group is an interesting idea. Still, there's no knowing what classes you're leveling; it's totally possible to not have a healer at all. That hole aside, his post generated eleven pages of feedback that was mostly “I want to do this!” or “the real question here is have you ever touched a snatch in your life” yet there was one handy expansion by Felsik of Drenden:

Frost shield up, rank 1 arcane explosion keeps them on you. Use mage armor instead of ice armor, you don't want frostbite procing all over the place and freezing those lowbie mobs behind you.

The easy dungeons, like RFC through to about SM armory you can do massive pulls with this style, just make sure the lowbies being powerleveled stay close, since you'll be moving very far through the instance with alot of mobs on you.

Usually there will be caster types, so when you want to 'stop' to perform the mass AOE kill, you LOS the group just around a wall so casters are forced to chase. Thats when you frost nova, cone of cold, and start spamming max rank arcane explosions for the kill.

While I'm having a lot of fun running the pack around on my own right now, I could see doing this for a second team. Since my main account is full I could use Decimate to run instances for four new ones on the other accounts. Will probably want a stronger machine to handle that level of pulling.

There were also suggestions that a Prot Pally could pull the whole armory. Favor doesn't have the gear but it might be fun to look into. Even just once it might be fun to see that level of destruction. At level 80 I'm sure it would be trivial.

Level 15 Wasn't Progress

Guild raided BT so I wasn't able to spend much time with the Shaman. Had the pouch with the torch and transport orb all ready when I did switch over. Went over to the island in the extreme South West of Azuremyst then used the orbs to pop back to the turn-in elemental. Wasn't too bad getting Fire Totems done.

Got the guild formed. I ran the charter down to the Mages in Elwynn forest yet when they tried to sign the charter, it said they had already signed. Guess that signatures are account based. *sigh* Ended up sitting on the Stormwind Bank steps and begging in trade with 5g a signature as incentive. Took about twenty minutes.

Still staying pretty hung up on gear. I've always been bad about twinking so I waste time making things. Like I had the Druid farm 150 pieces of light leather along with hides so I could make Moonglow tunics and four other pieces of leather. That was time better spend questing and killing, so I'm going to stay focused going forward.

Decided to try a different resolution. The wide screen is nice yet I figured I could do a higher resolution if I did the standard 4:3 ratio. Settled on 1152x864. Was still able to run the four clients without much difficulty. Also, I didn't bother to drag the slaves onto the other screen. I kept all four stacked on top of each other. Used the mouse and the task bar to switch between clients and it worked really well.

Despite less time I still managed to get all but the last slave up to Wool bandages (80)—damn that took a lot of linen cloth to do. Did the Kessel Run just because. *snicker* I took screen shots of them all on elephants yet something about having the clients stacked or the new resolution was unhappy. The screenshots I got were of characters other than the one that had focus. Annoying but an interesting quirk.

Been reading more and I'm going to want to try a mixed group eventually. Spec'n my Druid as Balance would be really great for the aura. Also thinking I could use the Pally to tank while the shaman throw down the damage. I would really like to work out a mixed group though. Priest and Druid for buffs along with the Pally to AoE tank. Only two DPS at that point but I but a Mage and Shaman would round it out perfectly. We'd have all the major buffs, too. Something I will think on.

Tomorrow I do think I will try five clients. I have a Hunter at 18 that I'd like to get a few levels on. Hoping that the RAF bonus extends to all party members.

The Hand of Argus has a pretty convincing Blood Elf costume going. Hell, one is even Male now!

Level 14 Already

Didn't really get a lot of play time in yet finished up with all four shaman at fourteen. The RAF bonus is incredible with quests. I did play around with focus some even though all I used a the blast-n-assist keys. I keep the assist and focus macros on the bottom right bar so I can click on whatever I want, letting me use 1-5 for blasting or healing.

The most complicated macro I came up with was:

/cast [target=focus, nodead, harm, exists] Lightning Bolt; [target=focus, nodead, help, exists, combat] Healing Wave; [target=focus, nodead, help, exists] Healing Wave

Really didn't use it at all but had fun testing it. One they hit Level 20 I'll substitute the first Healing Wave for Lesser Healing Wave. Basically it throws a Lightning Bolt on the focus target if it's a live enemy. Otherwise it will heal a friendly target quickly if in combat or huge if out-of-combat. Figure it will work well for watching a tank or multiple targets.

One huge problem is losing a slave. There have been many a time when I get to my destination only to notice one of them has been left way behind. I noticed the 3.0.2 interface does have a “Fade if Out of Range” option for unit frames, but apparently it only works on the pull-out raid frames. Stupid. I think I'm going to use Grid on the Master since I'm used to ranging people on it.

Had to work in a Lightning Shield key. Though Water Shield will be more effective, it's very fun to see four cast at the same time. I'm sure the Innkeeper appreciated it.

“Mom” dropping in to check on the recruits.

Flapping across the river to the snake totem. Was really fun watching four pair of wings working in unison.

Playing With Myself

On our guild forum one of the members posted about their experience dual-boxing. They went into some of the details about how they configured the machine, the broadcasting software they use, what macros they created, screen layout, and add ons. I remember hearing about someone defending an AV GY with five Elemental Shaman over a year ago but never thought much about it. With the game in gradual decline I thought about it now. It's always hell finding a tank or a healer if no one in the guild is around. So why not group with myself?

Headed off to the Wiki to review their multiboxing page. Gave a good review of Blizzard's official take on the practice along with some of the general theories. I then continued on to the hardware recommendations which was sorta scary. The author goes over boxes, custom KVMs, and mice then throws out a $5k sticker. Having built PCs for a number of years it sounded a little unreasonable. The software overview had a number of recommendations but make no mention of Octopus.

After about three hours of research I finally threw my hands up and wanted to try it. My primary machine does okay:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775
2x 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
GeForce 8600 GT 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16
Western Digital Caviar 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s

I copied my current WoW folder then configured it to be windowed with lower video options. Having two accounts already, I used the Recruit-A-Friend program to get three trial accounts. It will be handy to have extra XP/abilities plus some Zhevra mounts. *snicker* After reading Lightning Overload I wanted to create Alliance Shaman but trial accounts don't have Burning Crusade. Opted to start out with Mages.

The 3.0.2 patch ended up working against me. Since a lot more is stored on the server, I couldn't copy layout, config, and macros around the various WTF subfolders. I also was getting hung up on creating focus macros so after two hours I finally stopped and settled with a fairly simple assist-n-blast setup. My main shaman is already 51 so I'll only need four accounts running for a while.

I was a little nervous launching four instances of the WoW client yet everything worked rather well. I kept my master account on the big screen in front of me then moved the three slaves to my side monitor. The primary Octopus setup guide was a little too terse so I ended up following Dual-boxing.com's guide instead. Somewhere around 6am I was giggling with glee as four synchronized Rank 1 Fireballs would hurl towards unsespecting Kobold vermin. Even got my first nub asking, “How are you doing that?”

So now I need to go grab three more World of Warcraft Battlechests. Mages have tons of potential with incredible burst damage and it would be fun to figure out focus macros for CC'ing. Yet Shaman would just own. Mail-wearing, Lightning throwing, Chain Healing bitches that will rotate Heroism and drop five Fire Elementals at once. Wild times ahead!

There's More Than One of Them

That's different.



That's just creepy.

3.0.2, Joyous Woe Unto Me

Overall I haven't been thrilled with the patch's impact to my characters, but it brought along a ton of great improvements.

My biggest complaint is Spell Power. With a caster main it blured all my lines. Two days after the patch I still hadn't decided what pieces of my “healing” set are now DPS and what I could disenchant as redunant. Still feels weird wearing a Ring of Calming Waves for DPS and I'm annoyed that things like my Nethervoid Cloak went down to 43 Spell Power from 53 Shadow Damage. It's crazy that my Light's Justice is nearly as mean as my Hammer (with the Healing enchant being higher than the Spell Power enchant).

So I'm down to base 1209 Spell Power from over 1350 Shadow Damage. Was eager to hit BT last night to see how things would work. Unfortunately nearly 35 people showed up and I rolled the lowest sit-out roll since I joined the guild. *sigh* Instead of getting four or five bosses down, they cleared the whole thing without me. Was sorta pissed since I've been there pretty solid and was looking forward to seeing our first Illidan kill.

I got into a pug for the Shattered Halls Heroic Daily. My &ldqup;OMFG! Heroic PUG!” dread quickly vanished as we mowed through it without CC'ing. Seems like warriors are fixed as a little gnome half in blues only died once. *snicker* Without any consumables I was seeing raid-level crits, so I guess the patch notes about evquivlency were fair. I wonder if it's the same for the healers after the stated “all healing spells have been modified to receive more benefit from spellpower than they received from bonus healing, with a net effect of no change to the amount healed by their spells.”

My problem was running out of mana. Running the talent calculator a few weeks ago the Vampric Touch change is the nerf it appeared to be. While the Misery and Shadow Weaving nerfs were disappointing, the VT nerf has me concerned over Shadow Priest utility in raids. The days of stacking four SPs are definitely over. Yet it seems like DPS may step up to compensate. For instance, on the last boss in SH I was actually top on DPS… above a decently geared Warlock and Mage. Will be able to tell more in at the next raid where some of my addons are working again. There's a new cast sequence to establish and maybe Mind Flay crits will just rock.

The impact of Spellpower consolidation on gear deserves some more jawing. For the Priest it's going to free up a lot of space as there's little point in a Shadow or Disc set with regards to PvP gear. Though I haven't had to the addons to analyze things completely, I'm pretty sure my PvE DPS set will be damn close to my healing set. But extra bag space don't help with loot distribution. Merging damage and healing now places all those classes at odds with each other, meaning upgrades will take longer to acquire and creating potential loot whore bad blood.

Though I'd heard about the removal of priest-specific talents I was still sad to see them really gone. Got used to using Feedback occasionally and Desperate Prayer was so godly in PvP, though Dwarf, Dranei, and Forsaken priests were certainly hit harder. It was pretty shitty how the patch notes made zero mention of this. As a Human I do like the new “Every Man for Himself” racial though the way it's worded makes it sound like it will blow my trinket. If it does, that may mean freeing up that trinket slot for something else.

The down-ranking nerf really annoyed me. From a threat or cast-time stand point I'll still have some lower spells on my bar with all my casters, but it's still a mean-spirited nerf. Why even have mana at all if all the spells are going to be gutted like that? PC spells should have a mana percentage with no ranks where the effect numbers will level-scale.

Got a little time in with the Shaman. Definitely missing the flat DPS increase of Rockbiter but I'm dealing okay with the switch to Flametongue for Lava Lash. It's nice to have another DPS instant to go along with Stormstrike since the shock cooldowns now go to threat reduction. Do miss the proc sounds of Shamanistic Focus but the mana reduction is cool. Definitely liking the change to the Strength of Earth totem and can hardly wait for the Wolf Pet talent. Seems like Elemental and Healing all got solid boosts, too. The only solid nerf I've heard about so far was the Heroism debuff.

As for the other classes I just haven't had time. Did put every single point into Frost on my Mage but only did some exploring and herbing so far. Fairly certain I'm going to keep the druid Feral but there sure are some fun things in Balance now. Going to finish leveling the Pally as Ret but I have no idea about the damn Warlock.

Having Macros stored on the server is really nice. There are a number of channeling, targetting, and focus macros that I was sometimes lazy about keeping in sync. Adding real support to the “hidden” focus system was long overdue. Hopefully the threat system revamp was done well. It's certainly nice to see support built into the default interface. The red portrait outline is handy but the little “Threat Changed to You!” Scrolling Combat Texts are awesome!

The Calendar feature is one of those Blizzard niceities. There was really no reason to put something like that in but they did. And they did it well. It's very handy to see what's coming up from the in-game world perspective. Being able to have events from the guild makes it invaluable. The Complete Trade Skill link is another similar bonus as it wasn't really needed but it's sure damn handy. After a while, these two features will be seen as integral.

While the Spellpower thing freed up a lot of bag space from redudant gear, it was nothing compared to the Vanity Pet and Mount interface. It's so fun to have all those stupid pets available whenever instead of picking three or four to take with me. Class-colored overhead panes is very convenient plus the combat log changes will make meters a lot more accurate.

PvP Flag Timer... about fucking time!! I got so tired of being on pins and needles while flagged in random places. Never fails but when I'm on a cloth class with a PvP flag up, I fucking attract rogues from miles away. It's like a fucking beacon shooting up into the sky that writes on the clouds, “ZOMG! COME GANK ME PLZ!” On the Priest it's usually okay with stealth detection. As soon as I hear the stealth sound, I fear, bubble, and DoT while running. The mage typically has Ice Block ready but the Warlock is usually toast.

While I spent significant time on Spellpower I close my diatribe with Achievements. Have to hand it to Blizzard… they really know their subscriber base. There are SO MANY THINGS in there to do. Then you can compare yourself to those sitting next to you. It's an ePeen extravaganza. *sigh* Stupid game. I can hardly wait until my Wrath Deluxe Edition gets shipped to me next-day air. *rolls eyes*

WoW 3.0.2

That bastard Tim snuck out of work early to get patched and get online. I'm still reading through the massive patch notes. Had to get them off Curse since Blizzard is slammed…


Heh. Tim was able to log in for about five minutes before his world server crashed. I doubt I'm missing anything by being here at work. Going to take forever to figure out how to respec all my characters…