BURNIN’ in the Jungle

6.2 is fun. I’ve started playing as Destruction with Charred Remains while flitting hither and thither around Tanaan, armed with numerous Chaos Bolts and a mouseover Havoc macro. Pull too many and the Voidlord dies? Flames of Xoroth and Soulshatter! Voidy dies before FoX is off cooldown? Mechanoshredder as the “OH SHIT” button. burn everything in sight, fly away if I really need to.

Thanks to the Baleful tokens, I’m finally getting towards the level of Critical Strike where Destruction starts to become more viable, and so I shall keep on using it. Charred Remains is really fun, guys. Tripling ember generation means you pump out more Chaos Bolts, and with Grimoire of Sacrifice, high Crit and high Mastery, those Chaos Bolts do a TON of damage.

Of course, Grimoire of Sacrifice is more the raiding talent, you wanna have your Voidlord with you actually in Tanaan Jungle. He takes the hits so you don’t have to!

Doesn’t Khadgar look grumpy today? Cheer up Khadgar, it’ll be the next expansion before you know it.

NEW LAPTOP

Thanks to where I work offering double staff discount, I ordered a new laptop that I can collect tomorrow. This means I’m gonna have to find some way of transferring my Elvui/WeakAura/etc settings over because no WAY am I configuring all that shit again.

Shall I get use the bf’s USB storage device, or throw it onto THE CLOUD and hope for the best? Not decided yet.

Clipart yay

8gb ram, AMD A8, 1tb hard drive… basically this new laptop is WAY better than this one I am using right now, and I’m getting it for way LESS than I paid for this one. Insanity.

Maybe, just maybe, it’ll also have a working cooling system. This current one heats up a LOT when I play anything more taxing on the CPU than Spider Solitaire.

MORE LEVELING

Both my Shaman and my Hunter are fannying around in Gorgrond at the moment, and my Death Knight, Paladin, Mage and Druid are sitting in Tanaan Jungle (the first time, where we’re breaking through) so MAYBE I’ll do some leveling when the new laptop arrives. Alternatively, I could spend my time actually getting more stuff done on the Warlock! Or even send my Monk into Tanaan, get her some Baleful tokens and whatnot.

In short there’s so much to do I can barely decide what to start with. I love it.

Maybe I won’t play Minesweeper though.

I’m sure there’s a lot of people who smashed through the content as fast as they can, though. People who did it all in the space of 3 days or something, and are now sat around twiddling their thumbs and saying “I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WAAH” as they usually do.

DID YOU NOT LISTEN TO THE PANDAS?

“WE SAID SLOW DOWN, DAMMIT.”

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Warlocks of Draenor: Hellbreach LFR

On Tuesday in NA realms, and Wednesday on EU realms, the first wing of LFR opened, the Hellbreach! This sees you tackle the first 3 bosses of Hellfire Citadel, and let’s have a little overview of the bosses.

Hellfire Assault

This is basically an add fight. You defend two cannons, while defeating enemies that try to destroy it. When the fight starts, your first priority is to get Siegemaster Mar’tak to 50% health, whereupon she leaves the fight. Try and cleave other adds down at the same time to not get overwhelmed.

The rest of the fight is then you avoiding ground crap, and DPSing the correct targets, according to a priority:

• Siege vehicles: When defeated, they drop Felfire Munitions, which a DPS or a healer should pick up and take up the ramp to one of the cannons. This is how you beat the encounter: feeding the cannons enough ammo!
• Gorebound Felcaster/Gorebound Terror: These are probably the most damaging of the adds. Try and interrupt as many casts of Felfire Volley as you can. At some point, the Felcaster will cast Metamorphosis and turn into the Terror, you NEED to focus these down ASAP before they get too many (or any!) casts of Felfire Volley off.
• Hulking Berserkers: These focus on the tanks, but need to be killed relatively quickly lest they smash them to bits.
• Contracted Engineers/Iron Dragoons: Just AoE and cleave these down, maybe as you’re DPSing the other, higher priority, adds.

Recommended spec: Destruction with Grimoire of Sacrifice and Charred Remains. This is your strongest AoE spec, and also has the strongest on-demand single target burst needed for the vehicles and Felcasters.

Iron Reaver

Big robot. Mostly single target. Takes to the skies when her energy is full. What to watch out for?

• Blitz: When she starts casting this, move the hell out her way! She faces a random member of the raid, moves towards them, and takes anyone in her path with her. This silences, pacifies and deals a lot of damage. She then repeats the attack back to her tank (usually). When charging, she pushes the fire patches left by Barrage out her way.
• Barrage: Hits in a rather wide cone in front of her. Again, move. Leaves little fire patches on the ground.
• Pounding: This one’s unavoidable. Use Unending Resolve, Sacrificial Pact, or other damage-reducing cooldowns to limit the work your healers have to do. This ability moves the fire patches from Barrage away from her, so be wary of moving fire.
• Unstable Orb: Plonks a DoT on random raid members. If it’s on you, don’t be within 8 yards of anyone.

Over time, her energy bar charges, and once it’s full, she flies into the sky (obviously got the Draenor Pathfinder achievement). She reduces any damage dealt to her by 95% while she’s in the sky, and you have new things to avoid/kill.

• Artillery: Targets 3 people. Move!
• Fuel Streak: She jets across the field, leaving a large streak of fuel that she then ignites a couple seconds later. Don’t be in it when it ignites, it HURTS. Sticks around a little bit.
• Firebomb: Targets random raid members. Plonks a circle around them, which you have to move out of before she blows you up. Leaves a bomb behind which you NEED to destroy. After 25 seconds, the bombs explode dealing a LOT of damage.
• Falling Slam: Another targeted AoE. Easily avoidable, and heralds the end of the air phase.

So it’s basically avoid fire and DPS bombs. Simple.

Recommended Spec: Any, really. They’re all passable on single target. I prefer Affliction at the moment, due to all the bloody Haste gear I keep getting.

Kormrok

Single target. Single phase. Boss leaps around into pools of crap that make him stronger. Don’t go in the pools yourself, they hurt!

• Pound: Spread out 4 yards apart.
• Explosive Energy: If he has this, he leapt into the orange pool. He’ll place Explosive Runes onto the ground, which someone needs to stand on. If someone DOESN’T, the whole raid takes damage. Use a personal cooldown to mitigate the damage if you’re the activator. When empowered by the orange pool, the runes spawn in a circle, then respawn when triggered, in front of who triggered it. You need make it so the runes respawn on top of each-other in 1 big rune, which you then trigger and it vanishes.
• Foul Energy: He’s leapt into the green pool, and it powers up his Grasping Hands. This attack normally summons little hands that grab everyone bar the tanks. Kill the hands to free yourselves and others before the hands crush you to death! When empowered, the hands not only grab you, but drag you to the nearest pool of hurty gunk. Kill them even quicker! It also summons a hand that grabs the player currently tanking Kormrok, which needs to be killed ASAP.
• Shadow Energy: The purple pool, which powers up Fel Outpouring. Ordinarily, this ability makes large blobs spawn from the purple pool, which move across the room then disappear. Avoid them, lest you suffer heavy damage. When empowered, he summons blobs from all 3 pools, which move in lots of directions. Avoid them, lest you suffer heavy damage again.

Recommended Spec: Having attempted this fight on Normal, I’d definitely take Destruction with Grimoire of Sacrifice and Charred Remains again. Being able to DPS the Grasping/Dragging hands down ASAP is very very important, and with AoE Chaos Bolt that becomes a lot easier. Demonology has very good burst AoE too, so it’s viable here.

The DANGER Zone: Surviving in Tanaan Jungle

Tanaan Jungle. Fraught with danger. Gul’dan’s sitting in his ugly, spiky, green castle, waiting for you to go and smack loot out of Archimonde and pals, and along the way you have to sink his battleship.

You lose, Gul’dan

Tanaan jungle is dark. Really dark. If they were going for a sense of foreboding, it’s harder to instill more foreboding than “TURN OFF ALL THE LIGHTS AND LET LOOSE THE POWERFUL MONSTERS”.

Thankfully, Warlocks have it easier than most classes, by virtue of this little guy:

Not the Dwarf. The Voidy.

Yes, it’s time to reacquaint yourself with your Voidlords, people, as this guy’s your best friend in Tanaan. Keeping him alive is a priority, because so long as he’s between you and your foes, you cannot die. So, it’s all about maximising his survivability to minimise your risk of death, and the best way of doing that? Well, I went Affliction for this, as you gain access to the Health Funnel spell, which is a significant factor in keeping Old Voidy alive, and I took these talents:

Dark Regeneration is the “OH SHIT” heal. Heals you AND your pet over 12 seconds. Shadowfury is best used as often as possible, or as a “OH SHIT” button for when things start hitting you. Stun, resummon your pet if needed, or just reposition yourself, get your pet to taunt off you, then resume. Soul Link heals your pet for 3% of damage you deal, thus directly increasing his survivability. The level 60 talents have no real benefit, though I suppose you can go Blood Horror, just in case something DOES target you, but be wary of it running into and pulling other mobs.

Supremacy makes the Voidwalker into a Voidlord, which is a no-brainer. Archimonde’s Darkness provides 2 charges of your DPS cooldown for when you NEED to pump extra damage on an enemy to finish it off quickly. Cataclysm is another great “OH SHIT” attack, as it hits like a truck in a large area, AND applies Agony and Unstable Affliction.

There’s useful glyphs too:

 

Demon Training increases the armor rating of your Voidlord by 10%. Fear turns the aforementioned spell into a better form of CC, rooting it in place for 20 seconds, as opposed to running around (and pulling extra mobs). Healthstone is more for YOUR survival, as it doubles the effectiveness of your stones, and turns it into a pretty powerful heal-over-time effect.

Health Funnel is an optional choice. It heals your demon for 15% instantly, as opposed to 36% over 6 seconds, but gives it a 10 second cooldown. You lose less health with the glyph too, 2% for the 1 GCD, instead of 12% over 6 GCDs. Thing is, it’s a bit less flexible than the non-glyphed version, thanks to the cooldown it places on it. It’s definitely good for if you can’t bear to sit and channel for ages instead of DPSing, though as Affliction, so long as your DoTs are rolling you’ll still do appreciable damage.

That glyph is, therefore, a matter of choice. Want a slightly bursty, quick heal, or a longer but more powerful heal?

Also! In moments of emergency, to resummon your demon if it dies, ALWAYS use Soulburn first, as it makes the summon instant! You really don’t want to be sat there casting for 5+ seconds while orcs and demons smack you in the face. Soulburn, Summon Voidlord, Soulshatter, Suffering. Make sure you have easy access to these!

 

Last piece of advice? Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Move slowly. Pull carefully. Good luck in Tanaan Jungle, my fel friends.

Suffer, Wither, Die! Affliction 101

Ah, Affliction. It’s apparently going to be the new hotness, the go-to Warlock spec in 6.2, and I’ve been promising to do another spec guide for a goddamn long time, so why not Affliction?

Talents

Tier 1: Self Healing

• Dark Regeneration: Restores 20% of maximum health over 12 sec to you and your pet, and increases all healing received by 25% for the duration (2 min cooldown)
• Soul Leech: Drain Soul and Haunt grant you and your pet shadowy shields that absorb 30% of the damage they dealt for 15 seconds
• Harvest Life: Drain Life deals 50% more damage and 100% more healing

Dark Regeneration is your default here. Soul Leech, unlike Destruction, doesn’t activate from a wide range of spells, and the Drain Soul damage it DOES activate from is merely the spell’s base damage, and NOT the damage from triggering the DoTs, which means any shield you make is going to be pitiful.

Harvest Life, when taken with the Glyph of Drain Soul, turns Drain Life into a VERY powerful heal, even able to heal through damage from soloing a Mists of Pandaria raid boss, but comes at the cost of DPS.

Tier 2: Crowd Control

• Howl of Terror: Your howl causes 5 enemies within 10 yds to flee in fear, disorienting them for 20 sec. Damage may cancel the effect. Being hit by a damaging attack reduces your cooldown on Howl of Terror by 1 sec. (40 second cooldown)
• Mortal Coil: Horrifies an enemy target into fleeing, incapacitating them for 3 sec, and restores 11% of the caster’s maximum health. (45 second cooldown)
• Shadowfury: Stuns all enemies within 8 yds for 3 sec. (30 second cooldown)

Now that Mortal Coil’s healing only activates when it successfully Horrifies, its usefulness is diminished in a boss fight, unless you have adds you can Horror. Shadowfury is therefore the default.

Tier 3: Damage Mitigation

• Soul Link: 20% of all damage taken is split with your demon pet, and 3% of damage you deal heals you and your demon.
• Sacrificial Pact: Sacrifices 20% of your demon’s current health to shield you for 400% of the sacrificed health for 20 sec. If you have no demon, your health is sacrificed instead. Usable while suffering from control impairing effects. (1 min cooldown)
• Dark Bargain: Prevents all damage for 8 sec, but when the effect ends, you take 50% of the damage prevented over 8 sec. Usable while suffering from control impairing effects. (3 min cooldown)

Your choice will fluctuate between Soul Link and Sacrificial Pact. Soul Link is best taken when there’s constant yet small damage. Sacrificial Pact is best with large, periodic spikes of damage.

Tier 4: Utility… At a Cost

• Blood Horror: While active, any time an enemy melee attack deals damage to the Warlock, the enemy will run in horror, incapacitated for up to 4 sec. 1 charge. Blood Horror lasts 60 sec. (1 min cooldown)
• Burning Rush: Increase your movement speed by 50%, but also deals damage to you equal to 4% of your maximum health per second. Movement-impairing effects may not reduce you below 100% of normal movement speed. Lasts until cancelled
• Unbound Will: Purges all Magic effects, movement impairing effects, and loss of control effects from yourself and your demon. (2 min cooldown)

I tend to stick with Burning Rush as a default. A speed boost is NEVER not useful, and the damage it inflicts can be mitigated through Sacrificial Pact and other shields. Unbound Will is good if there’s a debuff you KNOW you don’t want.

Tier 5: DEMONS

• Grimoire of Supremacy: You command stronger demons, replacing your normal minions. These demons deal 20% additional damage and have more powerful abilities
• Grimoire of Service: Instantly summon a second demon which fights for 25 sec. The demon will instantly use one of its special abilities when summoned. (2 min cooldown)
• Grimoire of Sacrifice: Sacrifice your demon to gain one of its abilities, and to increase the damage of your Drain Soul, Haunt, and Drain Life by 25%. Also causes you to regenerate 2% of maximum health every 8 sec. (30 second cooldown)

Currently, Grimoire of Sacrifice is not useful. Service is taken if you use Demonic Servitude, whereas Supremacy is taken if you use Cataclysm or Soulburn: Haunt.

Tier 6: Situational DPS Increases

• Archimonde’s Darkness: Dark Soul now has 2 charges
• Kil’jaeden’s Cunning: The cunning of Kil’jaeden allows you to move while casting Warlock spells for 8 sec. Castable while casting other spells. (35 second cooldown)
• Mannoroth’s Fury: Increases the area of effect by 500% and damage by 100% of Seed of Corruption, Hellfire, Immolation Aura, and Rain of Fire for 10 sec. (1 min cooldown)

Mannoroth’s Fury might as well not exist. Take Kil’jaeden’s Cunning if you need to move around a lot, otherwise Archimonde’s Darkness is your default.

Tier 7: Performance Enhancers

• Soulburn: Haunt: Grants the Soulburn empowerment to your Haunt spell. Your Haunt spell also increases the damage of your Damage Over Time effects to all targets by 20% for 30 seconds
• Cataclysm: Conjures a cataclysm at the target location, dealing [750% of Spell Power] Shadowflame damage to all enemies within 8 yards, and applying Agony and Unstable Affliction. (1 min cooldown)
• Demonic Servitude: You are now able to maintain your control over even greater demons indefinitely, allowing you to summon Doomguards and Infernals as permanent pets

All three talents are viable here. Demonic Servitude is best for single target or highly mobile fights, Cataclysm for burst cleave/AoE damage, and Soulburn: Haunt is best for sustained cleave damage.

Cataclysm is your default when there’s 3 or more targets to use it on.

Useful Glyphs

• Glyph of Eternal Resolve: Turns Unending Resolve into a passive effect that reduces all damage taken by 10%. Useful for fights where you’re constantly taking damage. You can’t use this glyph when using either Glyph of Strengthened Resolve (increases the cooldown of Unending Resolve by 60 seconds but increases the damage reduction by 20%, useful if you need stronger UR less often)  or Glyph of Unending Resolve (reduces the cooldown of Unending Resolve by 1 minute, but halves the damage reduction, useful if you need UR more often). Each of these glyphs has its uses, so swap them out depending on the fight requirements.
• Glyph of Demonic Circle: Reduces the cooldown of Demonic Circle: Teleport by 4 seconds. Use this glyph if you need to use your circle often.
• Glyph of Healthstone: Doubles the health restored by your Healthstone, but turns it into a 10 second heal-over-time. Double the healing is great, no matter what form you get it!
• Glyph of Siphon Life: Each tick of Corruption restores 0.35% of your health. It’s a small amount, sure, but if you have no other useful glyphs, more healing is always good.

Abilities and Rotation

The playstyle of Affliction has you cast and maintain 3 DoTS (damage over time spells) on your enemies. Your filler is a channeled spell, and you have a single target nuke that costs a Soul Shard. You start a fight with 4 Soul Shards, and regenerate them through ticks of Corruption. It has a chance (6%) to proc Nightfall on each tick, which restores a shard.

Key Spells

• Agony: Inflicts increasing agony on the target, causing [120 + 388.8% of Spell Power] Shadow damage over 24 seconds. Damage starts low and increases over the duration.
• Corruption: Corrupts the target, causing [210.6% of Spell Power] Shadow damage over 18 seconds. Your most recently applied Corruption has a 6% chance to generate a Soul Shard each time it deals damage.
• Unstable Affliction: Causes [7 + 210% of Spell Power] Shadow damage over 14 seconds. If dispelled, the dispeller suffers [8 + 240% of Spell Power] instant Shadow Damage and is silenced for 4 seconds. This damage is always a critical strike.
• Drain Soul: Drains the target’s soul, causing [4 + 83.6% of Spell Power] Shadow damage over 4 seconds. If the target dies and yields experience or honor, one Soul Shard is energized. When Drain Soul deals damage, it causes all your other damage over time spells on the target to instantly deal 40% of their normal damage. (courtesy of a Draenor Perk while levelling, it deals 100% additional damage on targets on 20% health or below)
• Haunt: A ghostly soul haunts the target, dealing [1 + 412.5% of Spell Power] Shadow damage and increasing damage over time you deal to the target by 30% for 8 seconds. (courtesy of a Draenor Perk while levelling, the damage over time increase lasts a further 2 seconds)
• Dark Soul: Misery: Infuses your soul with the misery of fallen foes, increasing Haste by 30% for 20 seconds.
• Seed of Corruption: Embeds a demon seed in the enemy target, causing [94.5% of Spell Power] Shadow damage over 18 sec.  Detonates for [68.25% of Spell Power] Shadow damage to all enemies within 10 yards after the target dies or takes [94.5% of Spell Power] damage from your spells.

Your basic single target rotation goes as thus:

• Cast Agony and ensure it stays on your target. It deals increasing damage for each stack of itself on your target, dealing maximum damage per tick at 10. Having Agony drop off means the stacks need to build up again.
• Cast Corruption and refresh before it runs out.
• Cast Unstable Affliction and refresh before it runs out.
• Cast Haunt if you are capped on Soul Shards, or if you have Dark Soul: Misery or powerful trinket/legendary ring procs active, or if the boss is at <20% health.
• Drain Soul as filler.

Haunt is best saved for when you have powerful buffs on you, like your legendary ring proc, Dark Soul, or trinkets, as it amplifies damage already amplified by these effects. If you have no shards when these effects trigger, it’s wasted potential damage. However, if you have 4 Soul Shards, you should cast Haunt, so that future procs of Nightfall are not wasted. Try to keep Haunt active for the whole duration of your Dark Soul buff (20 seconds, so 2 casts of Haunt).

If you choose Soulburn: Haunt as your level 100 talent, then you want to keep the Haunting Spirits buff active at all times, so recast Soulburn: Haunt when the buff has about 8-9 seconds remaining, but favor regular Haunt when previous conditions are met, and you have more than half the Haunting Spirits buff timer remaining.

Your multiple target rotation doesn’t change much when you have 2 or 3 targets. You keep DoTs rolling on all the enemies, and otherwise continue Haunt/Drain Soul-ing as normal on one of them. With 4+ targets, start using Seed of Corruption as a filler, and use Soulburn: Seed of Corruption to apply the Corruption DoT. Prioritize maintaining Agony over Unstable Affliction, as it does more damage. Use Cataclysm on cooldown, if chosen as your level 100 talent.

Always remember, Life Tap when you’re low on mana!

Demon

If using Demonic Servitude as your level 100 talent, then your demon of choice is obviously the Doomguard/Terrorguard. If Grimoire of Service is your level 75 talent as well, then use it to summon a second Doomguard on cooldown.

Otherwise, the other demons are tuned roughly the same in terms of DPS, bar the Voidwalker/Voidlord. If a fight features a lot of target switching across large distances, then the Imp/Fel Imp may well be the best choice, as it’s a ranged demon, and thus doesn’t need to move to switch target. The Felhunter/Observer demons have your interrupt, so choose them if that’s needed in a fight.

Stat Priority

Haste = Mastery >> Multistrike = Critical Strike > Versatility

Mastery increases the damage of your damage-over-time spells, and Haste reduces cast times and increases the number of times your damage-over-time spells tick over their durations.

Mastery pulls ahead slightly when facing more than 1 target, so generally it’s wise to gem/enchant full-on Mastery.

Bring Me Your PANDAS

I had such lofty goals at the start of this expansion. I wanted a garrison full of Pandaren. I wanted Panda guards, Panda followers, and my characters to be Pandas themselves.

(PANDA WARLOCKS PLEASE, BLIZZARD)

There’s only 1 guaranteed Pandaren follower, however. Fen Tao, over in the Ashran towns. The rest you have to acquire through the inn, and that’s sadly subject to RNG. Week in, week out, I barely get any Pandaren.

Disappointing.

Demonology Warlocks

The Warlords Q&A was last Saturday, and a Warlock-specific question was asked. It of course created a huge furore among the Warlock community.

Why are you nerfing Demonology warlocks to the ground?

Because we’d rather you not play demonology…  There is an ebb and flow, now it’s your turn to be not the best spec, Demo locks.

Of course, in their sheer RAGE, people neglect to notice this:

We saw Aff and Destro mostly drift over to Demonology. We weren’t happy that this was the spec people were forced to play…

And also this!

Demo is still viable but probably not the best spec.

In other words, if you still want to play Demonology you can. You’ll still do good damage. If you want to play Destruction, or even Affliction, then you also can, because they will also do good damage. Warlocks are in a good place in 6.2, believe it or not, and having all 3 specs be viable is amazing! I mean, Affliction is mostly awful now, and Demonology was terrible in 5.4. 5.2 and 5.0, Destruction was rubbish. To have a patch where all 3 specs are actually USABLE is foreign ground for us.

Demonology won’t be the best. They’ve made sure of it.

In the meantime, we want to make sure we’re alleviating the pressure to play Demonology over other specs, which means making sure that it isn’t the best warlock spec.

Now, can we get a fix on Rain of Fire?

Please?

Draenor Pathfinder: EARN Your Happy Ending!

Blizzard have, depending on your view, compromised or caved in to the overwhelming voices of the playerbase and implemented a new achievement in 6.2 that awards a flying mount. In a later small patch, 6.2.whatever, Blizzard will enable those with this achievement, called Draenor Pathfinder, the ability to fly! Even in Tanaan!

What does this achievement comprise?

• Explore Draenor which itself is a meta-achievement, comprising of Explore Frostfire Ridge, Explore Gorgrond, Explore Spires of Arak, Explore Shadowmoon Valley, Explore Talador and Explore Nagrand. Easy enough to do, most of the work may well have been done via levelling.
• Collecting 100 treasures of Draenor. There’s an addon called Handy Notes which can help with this, by putting the locations of these treasures on your map! There’s an achievement for collecting 200 treasures of Draenor, you can use this achievement to track your progress to 100!
• Loremaster of Draenor, another meta-achievement, this one comprising of the achievements for completing zone storylines, namely Nagrandeur, Between Arak and a Hard Place, Don’t Let the Tala-door Hit You on the Way Out, Putting the Gore in Gorgrond, and either You’ll Get Caught Up in the… Frostfire! OR As I Walk Through the Valley of the Shadow of Moon.
• Securing Draenor, which sees you complete all the Apexis daily quests. You don’t have to fully rely on luck here, as you can buy Scouting Missives in your garrison for 200 resources, and completing the Apexis daily through these counts towards the achievement. Sadly, you can’t purchase missives for the group quests, so you need to go to your table.
• Get your reputation to Revered (not even Exalted!) with 3 reputation groups, Saberstalkers, Order of the Awakened, Hand of the Prophet (if Alliance) or Vol’jin’s Headhunters (if Horde).

Saberstalkers

You gain rep through defeating elite mobs in an area of Tanaan Jungle called Fang’rila. Normal mobs reward 30 rep, and rare ones 600. There’s a weekly quest for 3,500 reputation, requiring you to defeat 3 bosses, and a daily quest for 1,000 reputation, which is a fetch quest. There’s also a garrison mission that rewards a 1000 rep item. This item (Medallion of the Legion) boosts reputation with ALL Draenor factions!

Order of the Awakened

As well as the aforementioned medallion, there’s a daily fetch quest for 1,500 reputation, as well as a one-time quest for another 1,500 rep. It’s a slower grind, requiring about 20-30 days, but the quest itself seems relatively quick if you’re lucky.

Hand of the Prophet/Vol’jin’s Headhunters

You get about 1,250 rep each day through 4 quests. 1 of these is a daily similar to the Apexis dailies in your garrison. You go to a table in Lion’s Watch/Vol’mar to pick 1 of the 2 quests.

The second quest is Pressing the Attack, where you have to complete 2 Tanaan bonus objectives. The third quest is a simple fetch quest, and the fourth, which isn’t guaranteed to be active, is a “kill 20/25 baddies” deal.

You also get reputation through the continuing Garrison Campaign, as well as building your base in Tanaan and an introductory exploration quest.

---

 

Lots to do! Luckily, for the non-rep achievements, you can make a start NOW! Get your ass out the garrison, and stop saying there’s nothing for you to do, ’cause now you have a GOAL! Something to WORK towards!

Do You HUNGER?

Do you crave news? Are you wishing for more?

Are you miffed that the Q&A got pushed back a week? Are you skeptical of the reasons why?

Do you see PTR build after PTR build of things that aren’t relevant to you? Ooh, some buffs and nerfs, boats got renamed, and here’s a new mace that’s item level 620, and therefore why even?

(though I suppose it looks nice)

We all want different things. I want story details and something to do with Destruction Warlocks. You might want something else, I don’t really know what. Not a mind reader.

I’m no fortune teller, but I do have this black ball.

None of the PTR builds we’ve seen thus far are release candidates, and we still (apparently) have rather a large number tuning pass to come. I’m not 100% sure what the legendary will involve in the next patch. Where’s the story?

People speculate the release date will coincide with the release of Final Fantasy XIV’s first expansion, Heavensward, released on June the 19th, which would put a new patch shortly after, on the 23rd/24th.

I think that’s unlikely.

Levelling a Rogue was insanely fun. Sneaking around, pickpocketing silly items to sell to a troll for bandanas, having teleporting Ambushes (which did cause me to clip through the ground a few times for some reason) and whooshing from target to target…

Rogue is up there with Monk as my favourite melee. Gladiator a very close third. Word of advice, though. Those teleporting Ambushes? Killing Spree? Shadowstep?

Don’t do them on Ultraxion or Madness of Deathwing.

You only get this view by Killing Spreeing him, and therefore being in his little pit with him. Bye bye die die.

I’m still here.

I’m still stabbing.

I’m still Chaos Bolting.

I’m still Shield Slamming, Storm Earth and Fire-ing, Penance-ing and more.

I’m happiest most on Thursdays, as I get to join up with some awesome Twitter/OpenRaid peoples and see content I otherwise wouldn’t be able to (7/7N Highmaul! With only 2 wipes on Imperator Mar’gok!) but aside from that day?

I’m milling around, with no sense of purpose. I have Legendary Quest progression to do on the Monk, Warrior, Priest and Rogue, but having done it on the Warlock, I can’t bear to do it again, unless it’s one-at-a-time. Currently, it’s Lunchi.

6.2 is looking to be a really packed patch. Plenty to see, plenty to do, plenty to Chaos Bolt until it stops moving. Here’s hoping it delivers on that promise.

Why Am I HERE?

I’m not playing WoW as much as I used to. Recently, I’ve been playing other games. If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed me playing Civilization V a lot recently.

Some days, I log in, do my garrison junk, then log out again. Other days, I may incorporate a bit of old raid soloing. Gotta get those mounts, after all! Thursdays appear to be my raid day now, and I genuinely look forward to that a massive amount, which is odd as I never really saw myself as a raider.

So… why am I giving the game a bit of space?

Flight

I’ve been rather neutral on the issue of flight. I made the point in my last post that I was fairly sick of hearing about it, and I kind of am, but it’s not an issue that’s going away, nor is it an issue I should just ignore.

When they announced that flight would be disabled temporarily, to be enabled in a future patch, I didn’t mind. I would have preferred what Mists of Pandaria did, where you can unlock flying at max level, but this was an interesting way to do it. I like being able to explore from the ground. It makes the zones feel larger to me. Of course, this is mainly artificial size; objects blocking your path, making you go around, and the fact you walk/ride a lot slower than you fly, but to me it still makes the zones FEEL bigger, even if they may not be larger than the zones in Mists (though do be aware I’ve not measured them!).

I KNOW there was nothing promised about flight. I KNOW that they said they were “looking to” introduce back flying in a future patch, and that statement is therefore not a guarantee. All the people who are whining about how “WE WERE PROMISED! WAAH” are wrong. Blizzard are VERY careful with their promises nowadays, and when they say that it was a direction they considered, but ultimately decided to go the other way, I believe them.

Just because I believe them doesn’t make me happy. I would have been fine with them enabling flight at max level in zones that aren’t “current patch content,” so not in Tanaan Jungle. I would have been fine with some sort of requirement like “find 90% of the treasures of Draenor” before you spend 5,000g on flight. To be told that there’s “no flight this expansion, no flight forever after” galls slightly, especially when they’re selling mounts with the ability TO fly for full price on their cash shop. When they initially ADVERTISE these flying mounts on a background that is plainly Shadowmoon Valley, a zone where you’ll never be able to fly.

They have since changed it. Too little too late?

Sometimes, I just feel like we, as players, aren’t being listened to. Quite a few Priests left the game recently, including the lady who runs HowToPriest.com, because they feel that there’s a large breakdown in communication between the developers and players. Whyso?

A number of people have made the connection between the developers shutting up shop, as it were, and the introduction of the Warcraft Devs Twitter account. Now, they can pick and choose the “right” questions, it feels like, and ignore anyone that doesn’t have “favour” or uses the right words.

A word of advice. This Q&A on Saturday? Don’t hold your breath on anything. They’ll not answer your hard-hitting questions. They’ll answer the fluff questions, the ones that don’t disagree with them too strongly.

Other Games

It stands to reason that when I play other games, it cuts into Warcraft time. I mentioned up top that I’ve been playing Civ V a lot recently, and now I have Fallout New Vegas working with mods, I’m going to put some time in that too. The announcement of Fallout 4 stirred up a bit of desire in me to revisit the wasteland, you see, and that’s what I’m gonna do before raid time today. I’ve also got Samurai Warriors 4 to play, Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires to play, Mortal Kombat X that the boyfriend and I play together, and all this means that I’m not in Warcraft as much.

Disclaimer

I have mentioned this twice on Twitter recently.

I criticize World of Warcraft, not from a place of “I HATE THIS GAME, IT SUCKS, YOU SUCK FOR LIKING IT” but from a place of “I love this game, but I see things I don’t like, and I want the game to do better.”

Because I DO love this game. I wouldn’t have sunk as much time into it if I didn’t. I derive a lot of enjoyment from the game, from wandering around and taking screenshots, to raids old and new.

In Other News

Demonology BUFF?!

This is taken from the official 6.2 patch notes, so that’s more set in stone than not. Still subject to change, however! Initial reports saying this reduces the OVERALL nerf from 25% to about 5%, which is actually kind of what people expected for a spec that was said to be overpowered.

And let’s face it, it was. It was strong single target, it was strong on burst AoE (possibly strongest in the game), it was strong on movement fights, basically it was strong on anything that wasn’t sustained AoE, which is where Destruction and Charred Remains really shines.

Now, let’s hope for something Destruction-based next?

 

The DEMONS of the Opera

Last post, I touched on the upgrades to the demon models, and showed the Voidlord, both old and new. This time around, I’m going to chat about the others!

Voidlord

But I’ll re-do the Voidlord again. You know, for completeness.

Here’s the old Voidlord. Mine’s called Metasik. Been with me through thick and thin, he has.

Here he is in 6.2 (Image courtest of MMO Champion, as you can probably tell), and damn that’s a shiny paint job! Really gives the impression that he’s OF THE VOID, as opposed to being VAGUELY VOIDISH.

Doomguard

Here’s Zekrithec, my Doomguard:

It’s cool that we can take a talent to summon one permanently. Cooler that we can take Grimoire of Service to have two of them barraging the enemy too, but I digress.

Here’s the new Doomguard! More fierce-looking, more clothed than before! There are other colours of Doomguard too, blue and yellow, but I’d wager they’re not player demons.

I’d like that blue one, personally.

Felguard

The amusing thing here is that they’ve made the Demonology-specific demons look FANTASTIC, but nerfed the spec to the point where nobody’ll use it without the 4pc tier bonus, the Archimonde trinket, and a super high item level. Well done, Blizz.

 

Here’s Arakzekeel. He likes collecting 2h weapons, going for long walks on the beach, and cooking. His specialty is curry.

Here’s his new look! No longer does he look like he’s wearing low-res Burning Crusade armor. He’s stepped into the 21st century! No idea what his axe looks like, but frankly do any of us use it anymore, when we have the Glyph of Felguard?

 

Also comes in banana and orange flavours.

Wrathguard

Az-barash is his name.
Killin’ is his game
He got two blades
He’s good in raids
And he’s huntin’ for his fame

 

And you better believe I went over to that Blingtron after I took this screenshot.

Now, honestly, I can’t figure out which of these we’ll get, because the colours don’t match the old one. Exciting, eh?

My guess’d be the top one, but the old armour doesn’t match colours and oh this is all too exciting.

Imp

Yes, the bog-standard imp, not the Fel Imp.

This is Lazmir, and I had to stand the little bastard on top of something to take a picture of him, ’cause he’s so damn small.

Here’s your new imp, with prettier fire, a cheeky smile, and just generally more awesome. And yes, he comes in different flavours too.

Blue raspberry.

Orange and lime.

Sharon fruit.

IN OTHER NEWS

She stabs you when you’re sleeping
She stabs when you’re awake
She knows if you’ve been bad or good
And she doesn’t really care

Vanlew hit 100 yesterday, and it’s time to do some legendary quest junk. Again.

 

Through with the F-WORD

So many people adding their voice to a debate raging on that doesn’t NEED more volume.

Nothing Blizzard can do will appease everyone.

Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

My stance on all this at the moment?

I’m just playing the game. I’m taking the game at face value, for what it is.

My rogue is level 97 and a bit. She’s just hit the Spires of Arak, got the Salvage Yard plans, which of course means more PROFIT. Gold makes Azeroth go round. Trouble is I’m hoarding it like a dragon and not spending it, because I don’t like to see the number go down.

I’m playing Civilization V again as well, because it’s immensely fun, involving, and requires you to put THOUGHT into how you play. I’m also planning on digging into Beyond Earth a bit more, maybe revive the Pan-Welsh Cooperative!

I’m attempting to play Fallout: New Vegas on my laptop, but every time I try and load the game with mods installed, it crashes on startup. I need to figure out what’s going on there.

In terms of World of Warcraft, I just wish people would stop bitching about flying. It’s getting tiresome. I agree with points both sides make, but frankly at this point we’re beating a dead horse. There’s 3 factions now. The vocal fliers, the vocal anti-fliers, and the rest of us who want to just fucking PLAY and talk about things without flying invading the discussion.

The decision is made. I doubt they’ll reverse it. Mourn it and get the fuck over it. People who keep going on about it, I’m actively gonna mute and block now.

IN OTHER NEWS

Datamined stuff for the 6.2 patch saw new models of Felguard, Wrathguard, Fel Imps and Voidlords, and guess what? Warlocks GET THEM TOO.

Here’s Metasik now. He looks cool, but there’s always issues. He clips though his armor when moving, and hopefully the new model will fix that.

 

Here’s the new Voidlord model we’ll be getting:

Now that’s shiny and new! LITERALLY shiny!

6.2 has finally made me happy.