Zupa can has wordle?

As Andrew says, all the cool kids are doing it!

So here's mine. I kinda like it. I might update it each week and keep it over there >>> on the right :) Click it to get a better looking version of the above.

One thing I like about this particular content cloud, aside from the totally matching colors, is the fact that this is 100% undeniably taken from a frost mage blog. No ifs, No buts.

At least I guess that means I keep it on-topic most of the time!

Zupa's Bazooka!

Occasionally I stumble across something that makes me think

"WOW THAT'S AWESOME!"

This doesn't happen as often as I'd like, but it happened today when I discovered this weapon generator.



Check it out, see what weapon your name(s) create. I got some swords, a halberd and something else, but naturally "Zupa's Bazooka" is the best.

Unfortunately I don't know who to thank for this. I have a habit of opening links in new tabs and leaving them to settle while I continue reading the original article...

... Then I start working my way through the linked pages, opening more links as I go....

...Then I get a bit aggro with google chrome because it seems to be almost but not quite there, lose half my links, and decide to hell with it im off to lunch....

... Only to discover on my return that I have this weapon generator page open. From where I know not, but if you're out there, o wonderful linker to this page of awesomeness, thank you.

I am now complete.

Zupa has his Bazooka, and all is right in the world.

Server first titles axed.

Thanks Aurdon for bringing this to my attention!

Post #107... Summary: Blue post regarding server first titles. They are being scrapped, so people won't have a reason to grind their way to the new level cap non stop with no sleep.

There are going to be some very very dissapointed people, but I think on the whole most of the WoW community wasn't really in the running for these titles and so their removal shouldn't cause too many cries of anguish.

There are still a truckload of other titles available, just not of the "first to blah blah" variety.

I still want conqueror. Approximately 300 winning games of wsg to go... ah bugger it.

My newest favourite shiney!

Ok so normally I don't provide a running update on which purples I managed to aquire recently.

Some blogs do it but I don't think anything I might come by is special enough to warrant a mention... It's just another set of bracers after all... who cares if its the haste one or the pvp one or the one with a yellow socket, the impact on my gameplay is minimal regardless of which one I wear for any given fight.

But the other day i got THIS. and THIS is really COOL.


This is one of those items that procs ALL THE TIME. like -all- the time. Sure the proc isnt massive, but I might have mentioned earlier, it happens ALL THE TIME!

And, as such, is win!

It is also somewhat hard to obtain, in that you need to get to exalted with Scale of the Sands. That means farming or wiping on Hyjal for a month or two. I use this ring all the time now, and rotate other rings through my other ring slot as the fight dictates. (I have a PvP ring, a crit ring, a spell hit ring and a mp5 ring)

On the subject of cool new shineys, This is my newest soon-to-be favourite shiney.

I think!

This one requires Exalted with the Ashtongue Deathsworn, which I am hopefully going to achieve in the next fortnight or so. Ashtongue Deathsworn rep is gained by killing stuff in Black Temple, and since Vision is focusing on BT, and Zupa is now a core raider, it shouldn't be long at all until this little baby is mine.

I hope it's as good as I'm imagining it to be, although some of my fellow mages are unconvinced. The lack of any +dmg or other stat is a bit of a drawback they say. Well personally I value spell haste quite highly, and it procs of 50% of spell crits! Yay! Combustion + bonus haste = yay!

Does anyone have first hand experience with this trinket? Should I be getting excited about it or will I get over it after a few days and keep it in my bank for all eternity?

While im waiting for someone to burst my bubble, lets do a little bit of theory crafting here, but don't panic, I promise to use an absolute minimum of mathematical symbols in this post.

So it procs of 50% of my crits. Say my crit rate is 30%, then it's going to proc on 15% of spell casts. Say im casting 3 second spells...

OK change of plan. I just did some maths, then researched some more maths, then decided this blog is no place for that kind of maths. Suffice to say this trinket is probably not that great after all, but perhaps for an AM spamming arcane mage it would be the business.

Damn.

Enter the Pyro!

It has been approximately 2 years since my last PoM Pyro. Patch 2.0 introduced new talent trees, I respecced frost, and left my beloved blastwave and pyro behind...

Plenty has happened since then, including various dabbling in various specs, deep fire, icy veins fire, deep frost, arena frost and the 'oops i spent too many points in frost and missed improved counterspell - lets see what I can do with this spec now'... spec. (very shortlived that one)

Despite all this tinkering, experimenting and excessive gold sinking, I still cannot settle on a single spec for more than a week.

The main issue here is I have one spec for staying alive when someone is trying to kill me (17/0/44) and another for doing massive damage to someone who isn't trying to kill me (2/44/11). The Fire + IV spec, along with all my haste gear and the Hyjal trash neck is simply the best thing to do for any kind of progression raid. I can keep up the same kind of DPS as deep frost most of the time, and certainly have less mana issues as a frost spec, but you really have to work for it as frost...

Doing huge DPS with fire is easy mode, especially if another mage has already volunteered for scorch duty! Its really a matter of spamming as much as possible, not being stupid when it comes to timing your cooldowns, spamming more fireballs, and trying not to go OOM on the third boss in Hyjal where going OOM is a painful experience.

On the other hand, to keep up with frost, you have 2 elementals and 2 icy veins to manage, and if you mis-manage these cooldowns there is no chance of keeping up with the fire mages in terms of damage. If your elemental goes splat shortly after casting or if you somehow waste an icy veins, thats a good chunk of the frost mage's DPS gone.

But what about arcane? I have been looking forward to trying out arcane just as soon as I get 2 pieces of Tier 5 loot. Any day now. Maybe.

Until Vision decided enough time had been wasted on Tier 5 instances, and from now on we would have one night farming Hyjal, and the rest of our raid nights will be dedicated to BT progression (which is going nicely, BloodBoil down this week, RoS next)

So it looks as though that day may never come. I am dealing with it, although I do cry myself to sleep at night.

The thing is, there's so much more to the arcane tree than just arcane spam. Take a read of this article by Krizzlybear, where he has taken advantage of the arcane mages mana regeneration abililtes, without actually using an Arcane blast rotation spec. How very interesting? Could a spec such as this actually be raid viable? Surely the points spent in arcane are going to cut into important DPS talents from either the frost or the fire tree, gimping the spec in terms of damage?

After all, between pots and mana gems, even the most inefficient fire mage can still pump out a ton of damage before going OOM. Give him a shadow priest or a shaman, and he will never look back.

So lets have a play with this. I want PoM Pyros. I want raid viability. I want PvP viability. I want it all in one spec.

I have a sneaking suspicion that it's not doable... I mean, surely everyone would be doing it if it was doable?

Time to play with the talent calculators!

This is what I've come up with: Starting with Krizzly's Arcane Frost tea total spec, purely for the required arcane talent, the key one being arcane meditation (bonus 30% mana regen while casting) You gotta take a few talents to get down to that as it's a fourth tier talent, but that's the important one. Is that all we need from this tree?

Hell No, we want PoM Pyros dang it!

This is what I've come up with. 39/22/0.

I dropped a point out of mind mastery to grab blastwave because I <3 blastwave.

I am sorry to be missing out on; playing with fire, critical mass, combustion, dragon's breath, molten fury, fire power and empowered fireball.

Actually thats possibly way way way too much to be missing out on. Perhaps I should drop mind mastery, spell power and Arcane Potency in order to pick up more fire talents? Can I really survive without molten fury?

I'll give it a go as it is to begin with, head straight to a battleground, and see how many people I can light up :)