Why settle for less?

As most of you already know, I am a non-traditional student at a local two-year business college, at least until the end of April. As part of my daily routine, I usually run to the golden arches (3 blocks from school) for lunch, to keep my energy level up for the remainder of the day, since I often don't get out of class until 6 or 8pm most nights because of my work-study job at achool. My order, for 6 weeks or more hadn't changed: 2 hamburgers and a sweet tea- total=3.36 cents. Reasonable enough meal. Well, this past monday, I was sitting at the drive-thru waiting to place my order, and happened to glance at the dollar menu (nice little thing that for an inexpensive lunch, right?) and saw "double hamburger- $1". This got me to thinking, so I reached into the pocket area in my car door and pulled out a receipt from the previous week. "2 hamburgers- $1.98" (that's 99c for 1 regular hamburger!!) It came my turn to order, and I decided if I'm getting more meat for 1c more, why not go for it? So I changed my order (much to the surprise of the girl who usually takes my order, and thought she had me pegged) "Two DOUBLE hamburgers and a sweet tea" I told the girl, and drove through paid and got my order. Needless to say, it was much more filling than two regular hamburgers. Now, where am I going with this? This illustration (and it is a true story- stop at McDs at 12th and Sassafrass Streets in Erie, if you don't believe me) applies to our lives as Christians as well. We are God's children, and therefore are blessed daily by his gifts and his love. Why should we settle for less (what the world offers us) when God's blessings, gifts, and the overall eternal rewards are much greater? Just food for thought there. I'm now off to McDs for my lunch. Double Hamburgers... here I come!!! (Maybe I'll try something different, and ask for a slice of tomato between each patty :D)

Farewell, my friend.

Well, tonight was Eternity Matters Third Anniversary party. We ditched the normal raid schedule (will pick up on Naxx again tomorrow night) and gathered in the secret troll village in northern darkshore. We had a few contests, like who can take down the tank in a duel the quickest (Therigwin stood still while various guildies took their potshots at him in duels- Damelza won that contest, taking him down in 12 seconds). There was also some WoW trivia as well as some EM trivia. Then after all the fun and games was over, my dear friend, Jon (aka Bozwick), announced that tonight was his last night playing WoW for quite a while. He and Callie (Lehlani) have accepted the call to the missions field and will be departing shortly after their wedding for the mission field in Asia to bring God's message to those there. For now they are dedicating their time to study the language and prepare for the trip. God knows I'll miss Jon, especially after he provided so much support and prayer during the hard time I went through last year. I owe a lot to him, and will miss his encouraging words in the game. Heck, I felt the void shortly after he logged off and just logged off the game myself to reflect on it. But Jon, you and Callie will have my prayers as well as those of the rest of the guild. May God keep you safe, and bring you back after three years so we can help you level up to 100 with the rest of us. Love ya Bro.

Three Years!!!

Well, it's been three years for Eternity Matters and the guild continues to grow both in size, and spiritually. I'm sure this post is going to be reflected in some form or another over at Tank for the Light, Daughter of Ravenholdt Manor, The Tank Hunter, and Emerald Paradise in some form or another today, but I'm going to reflect on my experiences and growth since I joined EM in August of 2006.

I started playing WoW shortly after Christmas of 2005 (after much persuasion from my dear friend Shaloria). I hopped around from server to server before settling back on the one I started out on, Eldre'Thalas. I tried forming my own guild with with my then main character,Rhowynne, my friend Arystina (who was playing on another character at the time- dunno if Trillee still exists), and a few other people. That guild folded in a matter of weeks, because people only joined to get a tabard. I then joined a guild called The Unconquered and remained in that guild until August, when someone was restructuring to get rid of 'inactive' players, and removed Rhowynne and my other characters from the guild (note: I had only been gone a week to visit friends in Ann Arbor, MI). So, I returned home to find myself guildless, and set about looking for another guild. I didn't have to look long, because about ten minutes into the game, I saw someone named ,Eleste, plugging a 'fledgeling' guild that promoted Christianity and family values in the Guild Recruitment channel. I immediately sent him a message, and he had one of the other officers send me an invitation to join. I was amazed at the welcome I received, and immediately convinced ,Arystina to join on his characters. I immediately felt a sense of belonging, and made instant friends with a few (Lehlani, her sister Hesta, Firager- who I spent countless late nights running around the game with, Bryanbg-Firager's younger brother, and the "Guild Mom" Daraia. I eventually got to know many more people, including some that regretfully left the guild or quit playing over time. After much convincing, I eventually got Shaloria to switch guilds and join as well.

The last 2.5 years with EM have been a real learning and growing experience for me. There have been some rocky periods where I left the guild in a huff, or been removed due to incidents that I let get out of control, but through it all, my guild family was there for me to help me through the rough times. I love them all, and wouldn't trade them for the world (God knows how much I missed them when I wasn't with them.) EM IS my extended family.

Also, through the guild, I was able to meet Schaikera and Enok, and along with Shaloria we've formed the "Fearsome Foursome" (pictured below) who you really don't want to be around when we're all together in person- "WE'Z QUAZEE!!!"

But yea, EM Has grown a lot over the last three years, from the small casual guild it was at its conception to the regular raiding guild it is today. Here's to another Three Years, and many more to come.

The "Fearsome Foursome" at the fountain in Dalaran: (l-r) Llaihr, Schaikera, Shaloria (in kitty form), and Enok

Too much time on my hands?

Today was another day in Graphic Design class, and since I was ahead of most of the rest of the class, I had some extra time to piddle around with the photoshop program. So I decided to mess around with my previously saved logo to see what I could do with it. The final version is shown here and will go on a T-shirt. I may still do more with it, if Therigwin still wants me to add character pics to it. Also designed a letterhead, envelope, and business cards for Eternity Matters" for the final part of the project. Ms. Smolko (my teacher) was impressed as usual, and asked more about the what the logo was for. I explained to her about the game, the guild, etc, and although she's not a gamer, she was still impressed with the concept. Maybe by next week, I'll have those T-shirts :D

Honor among thieves (or raid members)

One of the biggest reasons people participate in the big raids like Naxxramas, etc. is to get better gear for their toons, in order to better survive said raids in the future. To ensure proper fairness among all party members most guilds have established set loot rules. Eternity Matters is no exemption, and the set loot rules are as follows:

1) Main spec roll gets first priority- if it's an upgrade for your main spec. roll need on it or pass.
2) One epic per player unless all others that can roll on said item for main spec have gotten something, then said item is opened up for a secondary main spec roll.
3) If no one needs item after subsequent rolls for main spec, item is opened for off-spec roll (this does not count as your first epic item)
It is permissible to pass on a main spec item if you want to hold out for something better (like a tier piece) that drops later on in the run.

Now the major point of contention comes when someone passes on a main spec item because they want the chance to get that better loot, but then roll on the item as an off-spec (and later winning a roll for a tier piece). I have discussed this with a few other guild members, some who are officers, and it was agreed by all in the discussion that it is an abuse of the loot rules to do such. If a person passes on a main spec item, the item should be closed to them just for that reason. Main spec is main spec, and off-spec is off-spec. If item roll is closed to main specs and opened up for the off-specs to roll on it, then one who would use said item on their main spec should not be permitted to re-roll on the item. When people do this, it reduces the chance of someone who has not gotten any upgrades in the run to get something later on.

Also, should someone be allowed to roll on a main spec (let's for this example use a tanking item) one week, and then come in the next week using his off-spec (we'll use healer for this example) and be allowed to roll on a healer item as his main spec? This has happened at least a couple of times that others and I have observed, and again we feel that this is an abuse of the loot rules. If someone is playing as off-spec, they should not be permitted to roll on their off-spec as a main-spec. Again, as stated above, main spec is main spec, and off-spec is off-spec. There should be no cloudiness in the distinction between the two.

Another thing that was discussed was the PUGs. At the moment, the PUGs are something we cannot avoid as we don't have enough guild members of high enough level to run the raids with us, or the right makeup, or people that can do raids on a regular schedule due to school, job or family commitments. However, each time we run, there are different people in the group, and a lot of these people need their upgrades as well, and we are continuously losing our rolls to said pugs. There are guild members who have been running consistantly, who are still in need of gear upgrades that are not getting them because of this. Is there a way around this? Possible, but it needs to be implemented by those who set the loot rules. Some feel that guild members should get first priority, so that our own members get their needed upgrades, and then if no guild member needs the said upgrade, as main spec, then the roll should be opened to the PUG raid members for their main spec, and then go on from there. After all, the purpose of running the raid is not to gear up other people over our own, is it? Again, this is something that needs to be discussed among the ruling Guild Council.

From the Druid's Lair Into the Dragon's Lair

Well, today was a very eventful day. For starters, it was nice to have Enok and Schaikera in Erie to visit and spend time with Shaloria and myself this weekend. We all convened at Shaloria's around 1pm, and went to Eat'n'Park for lunch while we were waiting for my tires to get changed at Sam's Club. We had a very nice time of fellowship, and they all got to meet Arystina who was working this afternoon. After lunch, we retrieved my car, and took Shaloria around to various places like WalMart, KMart, and such to look around, and then back to her place for more fellowship and pizza before we all left to prepare for the raid.

After last night's success in Naxx, Eternity Matters ventured back to face Sapphiron again. However, Sapph wasn't the major antagonist that we had to contend with. Apparently, server issues, high latency, and frequent disconnects were the biggest problem tonight. I was disconnected at least 4 times (once before I even got into the raid) and Enok and Schaikera had problems staying connected, as did one of our ranged DPSers, Fightre. I think Enok and Schaikera gave up after a while or else the server wouldn't let them log back in (someone else got DCed and said in Vent that it was freezing at the authentication stage.) So, they missed out on the eventual victory whenwe finally took Sapphiron down. Once we did that, we made one attempt on Kel'Thuzad, and got him down to about 54% before we wiped. We might have made another attempt, but we lost one of our offtanks Squeatus, and another DPS, so we called it a night and decided to try again tomorrow. In reflection, I'd like to say that everyone did a fantastic job tonight, despite the obstacles we had to face, and look forward to our next encounter.

(UPDATE: WoW Insider has confirmed the Authentication server issue here. I'm willing to bet that there were more issues with the servers than that tonight.)

We have met the enemy, and he is OURS!!!

Well, we did it. Tonight, Eternity Matters ventured bravely into Naxxramas with a few others from selected other guilds and faced our biggest obstacle to date: Thaddeus. We were all hyped up and ready to go, and faced our fear of wiping, and went for the kill. The first couple of times we got him down to between 4-10% before wiping, and then on the last time, Therigwin had me swap out my tanking gear for my DPS gear, and we went in one more time- And defeated Thaddeus. That was a great adrenaline rush for me, because I was so hoping we would do it, and even on the last attempt, I wasn't sure we'd do it. From Thaddeus, we went on to clear the plague wing, (I survived he entire "Heigen Dance" encounter for the second time), and on to attempt Sapphiron. We made four attempts on him before calling it a night. Considering it was the first time for a lot of people, we didn't do too badly, even getting him down to 13% on one attempt before wiping. One of the biggest problems was lack of frost resist gear for a lot of people, coupled with a short supply of people who could decurse. The latter was the one reason we wiped on our best attempt, as Therigwin had gotten cursed, and wasn't decursed in time, and went down, shortly followed by our primary off-tank, Squeatus. I had tried to pick him up, but since I was in my DPS gear at the time, I didn't have my DEF cap and was an easy third course for the monstrosity. However, despite the inability to defeat Sapphiron tonight, it was a learning experience for everyone, and we all had fun. Tomorrow night, we will attempt it again, and hopefully finish Naxxramas.

"Daisemi'in rhhaensuriuu, meillunsiateve, rh'e Mnhei'sahe yie ahr'en. Mnahe afw'ein qiuu; rh'e hweithnaef, mrht Heis'he ehl'ein qiuu."

I have been asked many times where I got the quote used in my Forum tags on the Eternity Matters forums, and what it means. so here is a brief(?) synopsis. I found the quote a while back while reading My Enemy, My Ally by Diane Duane. The quote, from the original Rihannsu (or Romulan, for those of you who are less "Trek Savvy") is translated as follows:

"Of the chief parts of the Ruling Passion, only this can be truly said: Hate has a reason for everything. But love is unreasonable. (V. Raiuhes Ahaefvthe)" .

Now, this brings me to the main point of this post: Just what is the Ruling Passion (or Mnhei'sahe), and what does it mean? Mnhei'Sahe is a quite complicated concept to discribe, but is described (probably in the best terms) in the aformentioned book as such: "...not quite honor-- not quite loyalty-- and not quite anger or hatred or about fifty other things. It can be a form of hatred that requires you to give your last drop of water to a thirsty enemy-- or an act of love that requires you to kill a friend." (Duane, Diane. My Enemy, My Ally (Star Trek: The Original Series, No. 18). New York: Star Trek, 1984.)
Simply put, it's a personal code of honor which is further defined in The Romulan Way, also by Diane Duane, as follows: "a concept or concept-complex which rules most of Rihannsu life in terms of honor. Mnhei'sahe is primarily occupied with courtesy to people around one: this courtesy, depending on circumstances, may require killing a person to do him honor, or severely disadvantaging one's self on his behalf. There are ramifications too involved to go into, but generally, mnhei'sahe is satisfied if all the parties to an agreement or situation feel that their "face" or honor is intact after a social (or other) transaction. NB: the concept has been occasionally mistranslated as implying that a given action is done "for a person's good." This is incorrect: such a concept literally does not exist in Rihannsu. One does things for one's own good-- or rather, the good of one's honor-- and if properly carried out, the actions in question will have benefitted the other parties in the transaction as well." (Duane, Diane. The Romulan Way (Star Trek: The Original Series, No. 35). New York: Star Trek, 1987.)

Now, how does this apply to us in-game (and perhaps in real life)? In game, it means that we should play honorably at all times, no matter the situation. In raids (especially in the case of PUGs), we should make sure that we act honorably in dealing with the other players so that when we're finished, all honor is left intact, and our relationship with the other players in the group remains intact as well. In cases where it involves loot rolls, if you roll against another player for a loot item, roll fairly. If it's a "Need" roll, need accordingly. Sometimes this requires some careful debate on your part. "Do I really need this item?", "How much of an upgrade is it?" and most importantly, "Does the other player need it more than I do?". I've given up winning rolls on items to players who needed it than I have before, and I've noticed it happening more and more in our raids on Naxx. On the flip side of the coin, it also means not throwing tantrums when things don't go your way in the raid, or making hurtful comments to or about others in the group when they win the roll for that piece of tier gear that you so desire. By doing this, it strengthens the group, and helps to build good relationships with the other players and the guilds that we PUG with.
Now, with all that said, I'm off my soapbox. Now, let's all have some FUN!

Some photoshopped logo work

Note: This is going to be a rather short post (will post more later from home)
As some of you already know, I am currently an IT student at a local college. Recently in my Graphic Design class, we were given an assignment to design a logo that reflects a personal interest, and since our guild, Eternity Matters, is soon to celebrate 3 years on the Eldre'Thalas server, I chose to "redesign" our logo.

Whether or not it gets used as an official logo doesn't matter. It was for a class project, and it was something I enjoyed doing. Above are both versions (note, the second version is backlit)

Out of retirement?

Ok, so I said it was never going to happen, but last night, I took one of my old toons out of dry-dock, dusted it off, and played it for a good two hours before going to bed. After being so long away from said toon, I wasn't sure how much I'd remember playing it, but I picked up on it right away. I wasn't great at it by any means, and was just a bit rusty, but I picked up on it fairly quickly. I can't say exactly why I decided to bring her (yes, it's one of my female toons) out of mothballs for a test-run, except that I didn't feel particularly "druid-like" and my little mage had outlevelled my housemate's warrior a bit too much- so I didn't want to get too far ahead, lest she bite my head off; but I found myself kind of enjoying it a bit. I ran her around Borean Tundra a bit, and completed a few quests to gain 1/2 a level before I decided to call it a night. Trying not to die was a real challenge, as most of her extra stuff (food, bandages, healing pots, etc) was sacrificed to the cause of levelling my Death Knight, but I think I did fairly well (dying only twice). Now the question remains: "Do I keep her out of retirement to play on my 'off-times', or was last night just nothing more than a test-drive?" Only time will tell.

Ninja'd!

I'm sure we've all encountered them before, in one form of another, in either normal group quests, instance runs, or raid groups. They come in all shapes and sizes, and strike when you least expect it. They'll roll Need on any Bind on Pickup Items regardless of whether or not they can use it, or even worse on ANY rare (blue) or epic (purple) item that drops, when everyone else rolls greed to be fair, then they mysteriously vanish. While annoying and frustrating at the lower levels, it gets even worse at the higher levels (60+). Recently, a guild member related his experiences with a ninja during a heroic Vault of Archevon raid. The ninja in question was the raid leader, and looted the main boss at the end of the run, and then left the group. This is probably one of the biggest breaches of trust in any group: when the group/raid leader designates his or her self as master looter, and abuses that privilege for self-gain.
Another example was recently mentioned in my friend, The Tank Hunter's blog- when one ninjas a rare spawn in the game for the sake of the loot, or just to be nasty. He had been camping the rare Loque'nahak (or "Spirit Beast") in Sholazar basin for two plus months, and when he finally found him, and was in the middle of taming him, a druid by the name of Scratchh swooped out of the sky and proceeded to attack and kill the animal, causing my friend to scream at him in utter frustration. What causes people to do this? Greed would be the most logical reason. No sense of honor, or fair play? Most likely. Following are the classic definitions of a Ninja:
A person who:
A) If loot is set on free for all. Person runs up and loots corpse, regardless of what group/raid is talking about.
B) Loot is on master loot. Something of value is looted by ML, to be rolled on later, and ML just keeps it and bails.
C) Loot is on group loot. Someone rolling "Need" on everything, including BoPs they can't even use. (I would kick this person from group after 2nd offense, after warning from 1st offense)

As in the case of A and C above, most of these are new players or "Noobs" who don't understand the need vs greed concept, and once it's explained to them, they usually don't do it again. However, there are those who will continue to do it just because they have an utter disregard for fair play.

The type listed in B above are probably the most despicable of the ninja types. These are the ones trusted by the rest of the group or raid to make sure that loot is distributed fairly and evenly among the players and, as stated above, abuse the power for self-gain.

What happens to ninjas? Well, not much can be done but have a report sent to the Game Masters reporting their activity, and what is done beyond that is beyond me. Some have suggested that they have their accounts suspended for repeat offenses, or complete bans from the game. If nothing else, they get a bad reputation for themselves which spreads quickly throughout the server, like Pestilence spreads disease. This may cause said player's guild to gain a bad reputation as well (depending on how the GM decides to handle the situation). Also as news of the act or acts spread, said player is blacklisted from any reputable guild, raid group, etc. So, is being a ninja worth it? You decide. As for myself, I prefer to play fair.

I have the plague.

Well, not really, but it sure does feel like it. I felt it slowly coming on over the weekend with constant sneezing, itchy eyes, and the occasional cough, and brushed it off as allergies, as my allergies usually start to go haywire around this time of year. Of course, standing outside in the rain on Saturday night trying to change a broken wiper blade so I could finish driving home probably didn't help. It was slightly worse yesterday while I was at school, and I probably should have stayed home then, but didn't- and I came home, took a cold tablet or two, ate an orange, drank half of a bottle of peach/mango juice, and fell asleep- at 5:30pm. I slept until about 9, made dinner, and decided to play WoW. I didn't even get into the game too much, and even logged after only 2 hours to go back to bed. Now, I feel like death warmed over, called school to tell my teachers that I have the plague and wouldn't be in, and am going back to bed. Curse you, Arthas!

What's in Store for Death Knights in Patch 3.1.0

As the Tank Hunter posted in his recent post, Patch 3.1.0 is on the PTR and will likely be released in April barring any major obstacles. I decided to look into it to see what's in store for DeathKnights, and myself in general:

General
All Ground Mounts may now swim without dismounting the rider. Flying Mounts still may NOT, and will dismount the rider upon entering water. (Like I want to swim on my dragon mount- it doesn't go in water anyway, it just "skims" the surface.)
Ulduar is now available for limited testing. Please visit the Public Test Realms for more details. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/board.html?forumId=11572
Players at maximum level will now be able to visit their trainer to pay a one-time fee and access the dual talent spec feature. (not too sure how this will effect a DK. we shall see though)
A new Gear Manager feature has been added. Players will now be able to save gear sets for easy gear switching. (Sounds good, but from what I hear, we'll still have to carry it in our bags)
New high-resolution player textures for Northrend armor sets have been added. Players can enable this feature by setting Player Textures to High in the Effects Panel of the Video Options. (more cause for lag?)
Players can now return items purchased with an alternate currency back to the original vendor within 2 hours of the purchase time for the original cost of the item. Stackable items (such as Frozen Orbs and gems) and charged items that can be purchased with an alternate currency are not eligible.
Confirmation boxes have been added to purchases over 150 gold.
The achievement Brew of the Year has been removed from the Brewmaster meta-achievement. The achievement Brew of the Month has been added in its place.
Noblegarden has been redesigned into a week-long holiday with new items, quests, and more. Various achievements have been added, including the meta-achievement Noble Gardener, which is now required for the meta-achievement What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been. (Happy Easter? What was it previously? 2 days?)
Copied Test Realm characters will no longer be copied with their achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy process.
PvP

Now for General DK stuff:
Death Knight
Blood Boil's damage increased to make up for Pestilence no longer doing damage. (Did they fix it where the DnD doesn't work half the time?)
Blood Boil now does some damage to undiseased targets and extra damage to diseased targets. Its radius has been decreased. (Works for me, but the decrease in radius is a downer, esp when trying to hold aggro on a large group)
Blood Plague: Now lasts 15 seconds untalented.
Death Pact: This heal cannot be a critical. (drat. another nerf- this was my emergency backup heal)
Frost Fever: Now lasts 15 seconds untalented.
Frost Presence: Magic damage reduction is now 10%, down from 15%.
Howling Blast: Base damage and scaling doubled. This ability no longer deals bonus damage to targets with Frost Fever. Cooldown increased to 10 sec.
Pestilence does no damage and has only one rank. (eh?- so all it does now is just spread the disease? can we say nerf???)
Plague Strike and Blood Plague no longer remove hots. Plague Strike's damage increased quite a bit to compensate.
Raise Ally has a >15 min cooldown to keep it out of Arena. (looks like only one ghoul raised per boss now, guys? sorry)
Raise Dead: Duration lowered to 60 sec. and cooldown lowered to 3 min. The cooldown on this ability now begins when the pet dies rather than when it is summoned. (dang. Nerf the time, but lower the cooldown by one minute? Looks Like I'm going to do a respec to include Master of Ghouls as well)
Rune of Cinderglacier now procs per minute instead of a 5% chance.
Rune of the Fallen Crusader: This weapon enchant now provides only 15% strength, but its chance to proc is doubled.
Rune of Razorice now affects Frost damage done by the DK only, but stacks up to 10%.
Strangulate no longer does damage and has been reduced to 1 rank.
Talents

Blood
Abomination's Might: This effect can now also be caused by Death Strike.
Blade Barrier: Now grants 1/2/3/4/5% damage reduction instead of 2/4/6/8/10% parry.
Blood Aura: Replaced with Improved Blood Presence. This allows the deathknight to keep the healing from damage done bonus of Blood Presence in any presence, and increases healing received while in Blood Presence.
Blood Gorged now grants armor penetration instead of expertise.
Bloody Strikes now increases Blood Boil damage instead of Pestilence.
Bloodworms now heal more.
Dancing Rune Weapon: Damage done by this pet reduced by 50%, but duration doubled.
New talent: Improved Death Strike. Increases Death Strike damage by 10/20.
Hysteria: This ability now causes the target to lose health rather than take damage.
Might of Mograine: No longer increases critical strike damage bonus and instead increases damage on its listed abilities by 3/7/10%.
Dancing Rune Weapon: Fixed a bug making it trigger an unusual number of effects from the weapon equipped by the Death Knight. In addition, it will now only echo Death Knight spells whose primary purpose is dealing damage. Also corrected a bug making the effect last 8 seconds longer than intended.
Scent of Blood will now proc on a dodge, parry or taking damage, and internal cooldown lowered to 10 from 20 sec.
Sudden Doom now procs a free Death Coil instead of requiring you to push the button. Ranks reduced from 5 to 3.
Vampiric Blood: Cooldown increased to 2 minutes from 1 minute.
Will of the Necropolis: This ability now has a 15 second cooldown on how often it can occur.
Frost
The following talents have moved in the Frost tree: Runic Power Mastery, Glacier Rot, Killing Machine, Chilblains, and Endless Winter.
Black Ice now grants 2/4/6/8/10% Shadow damage in addition to the Frost damage.
Black Ice: Frost Damage bonus lowered to 4/8/12/16/20%
Blood of the North is 3 ranks instead of 5 for the same effect.
Chilblains: Now a 15/30/50% movement speed debuff (up from 30%). Moved to position currently occupied by Glacier Rot.
Endless Winter: Moved to position currently occupied by Chilblains.
Frost Aura: Replaced with Improved Frost Presence. Allows the deathknight to keep the health bonus of Frost Presence in any presence, and decreases magic damage taken while in Frost Presence.
Glacier Rot: Third rank added, and damage bonus increased to 7/13/20. Moved to position currently occupied by Endless Winter.
Glacier Rot: Third rank added, and damage bonus increased to 7/13/20%.
Guile of Gorefiend: No longer increases critical strike damage bonus and instead increases damage on its listed abilities by 5/10/15%.
Howling Blast: Swapped positions with Hungering Cold in the talent tree, and damage bonus to targets afflicted by Frost Fever reduced from 100% to 50%.
Icy Talons - This talent how has a new icon.
Lichborne: No longer improves your chance to be missed.
Runic Power Mastery down to 2 ranks.
Unbreakable Armor: Cooldown increased to 2 minutes from 1 minute.

Unholy
Blood-Caked Blade: Now has a 3 second cooldown on the effect.
Bone Shield: Cooldown increased to 2 minutes from 1 minute.
Desecration: This talent now has a 100% chance to be triggered. Additional points in the talent increase the damage bonus and snare magnitude instead of increasing the chance.
Magic Suppression: Now has 3 ranks (down from 5) for 2/4/6% magic damage reduction.
Epidemic: Epidemic now has 3 ranks (adding an additional 3 sec of disease duration). Magic Suppression is 3 ranks (down from 5) for 2/4/6% magic damage reduction.
Master of Ghouls: Now also reduces the cooldown on Raise Dead by 60 sec.
Necrosis: Can now only be triggered by main hand attacks.
New talent: Improved Death Strike. Increases Death Strike damage by 10/20.
Night of the Dead: Redesigned to grant a flat reduction on cooldown to Raise Dead and Army of the Dead instead of a reduction from using abilities. (something for me to add :D)
Outbreak: Increases the damage of Plague Strike by 10/20/30% and Scourge Strike by 7/13/20%.
Scourge Strike: Damage increased.
Outbreak: Increases the damage of Plague Strike by 15/30/45% and Scourge Strike by 10/20/30%. Scourge Strike: Damage increased.
Outbreak bonus for Scourge Strike lowered to 10/20/30%.
Scourge Strike: Damage increased.
Unholy Aura: Replaced with Improved Unholy Presence. Allows the Deathknight to keep the movement speed bonus of Unholy Presence in any presence, and increases rune regeneration rate while in Unholy Presence.
Unholy Blight and Summon Gargoyle have swapped places in the Unholy tree. Gargoyle is the new Unholy 51 talent.
Glyphs
Death Knight
Glyph of Blood Boil: Now only applies a snare to diseased targets.
Glyph of Dancing Rune Weapon: Increases the duration of Dancing Rune Weapon by 10 sec.
Glyph of Dark Death: Increases the damage done by Death Coil by 15%.
Glyph of Death Coil: Reduces the cost of Death Coil by 8 runic power.
Glyph of Disease: Your Pestilence ability now refreshes disease durations on your primary target back to their maximum duration.
Glyph of Howling Blast: Your Howling Blast ability now infects your targets with Frost Fever.
Glyph of Hungering Cold: Reduces the cost of Hungering Cold by 10 runic power.
Glyph of Plague Strike: Bonus lowered to 20%.
Glyph of Strangulate: This glyph has been changed to reduce the cooldown by 20 sec.
Glyph of Unholy Blight: Increases the duration of Unholy Blight by 10 sec.

Other
Hearthstone: Cooldown has been reduced to 30 min. down from 60 min.
Darkmoon Cards of the North will now take three seconds per card to create.
Divine Hymn will now trigger Illustration of the Dragon Soul.
Frozen Scepter of Necromancy now sounds like other maces.
Heavy Junkboxes will no longer have deprecated poison materials.
Magic Dust now has a 10 second PvP duration.
Old Naxxramas Shoulder Enchants will now soulbind items.
Outrider's Lammellar Legguards and Sentinel's Mail Leggings have had their costs reduced to the correct value.
Pack of Endless Pockets can now be mailed.
Paladin Healer PvP Set Bonus: The bonus for Holy Shock healing has been reduced to 10%.
Patroller's Pack now sounds like a bag.
PvP Trinkets will now break Shackle Undead.
Several beverages missing from the "Beverages Consumed" statistic have been added.
Several foods missing from the Food Eaten statistic have been added.
Sigil of the Frozen Conscience: The bonus to Icy Touch from this relic has been reduced to a value appropriate to the item’s level.
Sprite Darter Eggs: May now (very rarely) drop from Sprite Darters in Feralas. Note that only Horde characters can attack and kill Sprite Darters.
Thunder Capacitor again requires four charges.
Thunder Capacitor's cooldown functions.
Tiny Emerald Whelplings: May now (very rarely) drop from Adolescent Whelps in the Swamp of Sorrows.
White Tickbird Hatchling is now classified as a Pet. (It wasn't already?)

Bug Fixes
Dancing Rune Weapon: Fixed a bug making it trigger an unusual number of effects from the weapon equipped by the Death Knight. In addition, it will now only echo Death Knight spells whose primary purpose is dealing damage. Also corrected a bug making the effect last 8 seconds longer than intended.

"T" is for "Teamwork" (aka, there is no "I" in "Team")

Ok, this post I am going to reflect on teamwork within a raid, instance, or any guild-related event. Tonight we made an attempt at the Construct wing again in 25-man Naxx, and we failed miserably- well, maybe not so miserably, but we could have done better. Why did we fail? there were a number of factors:

• DPS was low. a lot of our DPS were undergeared, and thus the damage output was not what it should have been (our main tank ranked #4 on the over-all damage meter)
• DPS was unbalanced. We had a high concentration of melee DPS and very little ranged DPS in the raid group. Because this is a high-energy fight, which requires a lot of kiting, an even balance of ranged and melee DPS is needed, and (if I'm not mistaken) we had only one -maybe two) ranged DPSers in the group.
• Inexperience. This was the first time that many of the people had done the fight in either normal or heroic mode, and thus some people didn't know where to look for the "poo-clouds" that he dropped, or where to run to drop it when injected. The idea is to run to the nearest point on the outer perimeter of the room to drop it, and a lot of the new people were running to the middle. This caused the cloud to affect a greater area.
• The ever famous Disconnect bug. During the fight and in each attempt, at least one key person disconnected, which caused a lot of problems.

Throughout the whole thing, which I like to view as more of a learning experience than a "failure", everyone worked as a team. One or two people were calling out those who were injected, so they could run out of combat until it dispelled, and the healing was paramount. The DPS, albeit imbalanced, was great, as those who were working to get the slimes down worked together to do so. All-in-all, we learned from each experience [what did we do wrong? how can we improve? etc.] Also, there were marked improvements each time. So yes, it was a learning experience. At least it was for most people.

One person in the raid, who plays mainly on another (PvP) realm tried to tell the raid leader how to do things, and kept verbally yelling in vent telling them that they were doing it all wrong. He tried to run things, and when things didn't go his way, he left the raid (and the guild) in a huff, "never to return". Even when confronted with his behavior, he still refused to accept the fact that he was wrong, and blamed everyone else for his actions. As one who has known this person for quite a long time, I was familiar with his tendency to try to control things, called him on it and tried to explain to him what happened, but he refused to listen. Needless to say, I realized that my attempts were futile, and gave up.

Anyway, the point of this whole post is that to succeed at anything, everyone in the party (or guild) has to work together as a whole, or be doomed to failure. If even one person doesn't work with the rest of the group, it could lead to failure. Would we have done better if said person had dedicated more time to paying attention to what was going on instead of telling the raid leader how to do things and providing a distraction to the rest of the group? Maybe. Nobody really knows, but it would have gone a lot smoother than it had.

As far as clearing Naxx goes, tonight was not our night. I do know, however, that it is but one obstacle we have to overcome. Did we fail? no. Did we give up? not by a long shot. We will continue to work at it until we clear that hurdle, and we WILL complete the entire raid- eventually. What is most important is the fact that we were a team and acted (for the most part) as such, and also that each one of us learned from it, and despite the fact that we didn't reach our goal, we had fun trying.

All but one...

Well, last night's Naxx run went quite well, IMHO. We had very few wipes (I think we only wiped twice on Instructor Razuvious and once on Gothik the Harvester.) We had a fairly good group last night, and did quite well considering a lot of those in the group had never done certain bosses before. The Plague Quarter and the Military Quarter were cleared last night, and we made one attempt at the Construct Quarter, but after a near wipe at Patchwerk, it was decided that we didn't have adequate DPS to successfully complete it, and called it a night.

Highlights (for me anyway):

• I finally survived the ENTIRE battle with Heigen the Unclean (I was so hyped about it, that I started singing "I am the Lord of the Dance"). I think Blizzard should add an achievement for that considering the fact that it is such a hard fight to survive until you master it, and call it "Lord of The Dance".
• I also got the Helm of Vital Protection (or as I call it "the Cyclops Helm") ,which from what I see on wowhead.com may even be slightly better than the T7.5 tanking helm (Valorous Scourgeborne Faceguard) except for the T7.5 piece has added parry rating, so if that token ever drops for me, it will be a toss-up (unless I get a T8 piece to replace it first :gryn: )
  

Congratulations to those who won the T7.5 tokens as well. It was a good run everyone :D

Anyway, that's about it for my take on last night's run. I'm looking forward to hopefully finishing up the Construct Quarter tonight.

Nice warm day off to do some research- Deathknightbuilds.com

Woke up this morning to a nice 60F temperature outside. A pleasant change from the 20s and 30s we've been experiencing, and it looks like it might hang around for a few days. Anyway, I decided to do some research and came across Deathknightbuilds.com, which is a fairly good resource site for DKs like myself. For the most part, the information is updated, though I haven't had a chance to test any of the DK mods listed on the site. This site contains various helpful resources, such as different builds, spell rotations, stat caps, mods, and more. I also found some nice macros that I may just have to try out as well like this one (/cast [target=mouseover] Strangulate) which is supposed to let you cast strangulate any casting mob without changing your current target. There are a few more, but mostly geared toward soloing, or healing your ghoul, which I don't really do much I'm more likely to raise a ghoul as backup health pool to sacrifice it using Death Pact as a last ditch effort if the healer is running low on mana or dead or otherwise unable to heal me in a timely manner. This useful trick has come in handy on numerous occasions in both Heroics (in Violet Hold vs. Zuramat the Obliterator and in Utgard Keep vs. Ingvar the Plunderer, as well as a couple of the bosses in Naxxramas when I was either the last one standing or one of the few left to try to take it down.) Usually, I wait until the boss is down below 10% health, and Raise Dead, followed by Death Pact, and then as a very last resort, or if it's "quick burn" time, Army of the Dead, which tends to cause a few moments of quick anxiety for some. I agree, it may be somewhat unorthodox, but it works, despite the doubts of some. Anyway back to deathknightbuilds.com:
Some of the builds listed are very interesting. I saw a couple in there that I would like to try as my DPS offspec once patch 3.1 is released, provided the talent trees don't change too drastically. In summation, I would recommend this site to anyone playing a DK, as it's choc full of information.

Another Valiant Attempt at Naxx

Well, tonight was yet another valiant attempt at Naxx. We first tried to do the military wing, but ran into a few snags at Instructor Razuvious. I was experiencing more than the usual number of lag spikes, as were a few others, and a couple of the priests were having trouble maintaining mind control on the adds, and thus we wiped about 4 times before we gave up our attempts and moved on to the insect wing. Normally, we don't have so much trouble at Instructor Razuvious, but tonight was one of those nights. Anyway, we got through the insect wing with few problems, and quite a few people got upgrades. I myself got The Jawbone, which will work nicely with my DPS set that I'm trying to build up for my offspec set. It was nice to have members from Order of Time and Department of Correction along with us, as it's fun getting to know other guilds and interact with them. Also it was nice to see Arystina back after his two week hiatus due to computer problems. Looking forward to another attempt at Naxx tomorrow night with hopefully less problems than we had tonight.

Meandering in.

Well, I'm here. After reading the blogs of my fellow guildies, I decided to meander on over here as well. First, a bit about myself:

My name is David, and I am a 41 year old returning student persuing a Associates of Computer Science degree at Erie Business Center, here in Erie PA, and due to graduate in April. I am a Star Trek fanatic (just a matter of opinion, I'm a Trekker and not a Trekkie -yes there IS a difference) as well as a Gamer that enjoys his free time playing World of Warcraft with his gamer kitty, Dalamar (aka- Mr Poopins, the AoD kitty) lending a paw from time to time. My main toon is Llaihr, a level 80 Night Elf Death Knight on the Eldre'Thalas server. My guild, Eternity Matters is the best online family I have had the privilege of being accepted into. It is a Christian social-raiding guild, and we have great fun and fellowship together. I do have other Toons that I play from time to time, but Llaihr is my main (I may post about my others from time to time as they achieve certain milestones.

Now, for those confused about the pronunciation of the name, it is pronounced "YAH'Ear" with the emphasis on the first syllable, and Enok, is right, it is a Rihannsu (or Romulan) name meaning "Death". I chose the name because I wanted a unique name that nobody else had (and Therigwin still claims he doesn't know why I chose it, but is getting better at not butchering it ::gryn::.

Llaihr is the first tank that I've played in a while, the first one being a little pigtailed gnome named Blossums, who I retired a while ago because I could never get anywhere with her. So, tanking the big raids is a new experience for me, and I'm finding it rather exhilarating as well as challenging. I haven't graduated to the point where I'm main tanking any raids yet, but I'm working at it. I think one of my favorite spells (and the frequent reason for Enok's armor to become soiled) is Army of The Dead.I don't use it often during raids or anything, but when I do, some people get scared (well, after Mr Poopin's helpful paw during a 10-man OS run a couple of weeks ago, I don't really blame them), but I enjoy teasing Enok about it in guld chat with my rallying cry of "Fear the AoD!!!" which, coincidentally, is the title of this blog :) .

Anyway, that's about the long and short of the intro. I'm not too sure how often I'll post forthe next six weeks due to school, but I'll try to keep you updated with my thoughts and experiences in game on at least a semi-regular basis.

Other EM Guild members' blogs are listed below if you'd like to check them out as well:
Daraia: Daughter of Ravenholdt Manor
Enok: The Tankhunter
Lunas: The Emerald Paradise
Therigwin: Tank For The Light