Become a Better Raider: Learn Your Own Bad Habits

image by zoomar

If you've been raiding for any serious length of time you know that eventually, everyone makes mistakes. Whether you're the tank who forgot to face that nasty mob away from the group, the DPSer who broke CC, or the healer that was too concerned with watching the MT's health to notice his own, we've all been there. In most cases, a single mistake here and there isn't raid-breaking, but there are plenty of encounters in WoW where errors can compound and spiral out of control towards a wipe.

For me, there's nothing worse than the knowledge that my own mistake, small or large, was the catalyst that led to my entire raid dead on the floor. It's easy to talk about bringing your A-game to a raid, but as anyone whose ever wiped on a "farm status" boss is aware, knowing and doing are two different things.

If there's a secret to successful raiding, it is this: every player in the raid must know they're not screwing up. This doesn't mean mistakes won't happen, but it does mean that your entire raid is actively working to avoid potential pitfalls and screw-ups.

So how do you avoid screwing up? Know your own bad habits. If you make a mistake, raid wiping or not, own up to it, no matter how embarrassed you may feel. Once you've informed your raid, stop and analyze the root of your error. Were you unfamiliar with the boss strategy? Not paying enough attention to voice chat? Failing to watch your threat meter, your tank's health, or your surroundings? Falling asleep at your computer?

Once you've identified the source of the problem, it's time to ask yourself if this is a one-time error, or part of a pattern. If it's the latter, you must take steps to fix it. A quick example: for a long time on Firkin, I would get distracted keeping up with the dps target and not keep a close enough eye on my sheeps. While a single sheep running around for three seconds before it gets re-polyed is usually not a big deal, no one wants to be The Mage Whose Sheep Always Breaks And Eats the Healers' Faces... especially not me.

After a particularly egregious night of loose sheep in Serpentshrine Cavern last summer, I decided it was well past time to solve the polymorph issue, so I pulled up the trusty Wowwiki and started researching focus macros. In my mage macros post, you can see the macro I use to sheep now, which lets me re-sheep my polymorph focus without ever losing my dps target. The five minutes I spent researching and setting up that macro has paid off tenfold in game, and I am a better player because of it.

Of course, sometimes you'll be able to identify the root of a problem, but you won't have a solution. If the root of your error is boss mechanics you didn't know about, the solution is to read more strategies before you fight an encounter, but what if you were a protection warrior struggling to kill your demon on Leotheras, or a mage having trouble resheeping quickly enough who didn't know about the /focus command?

If you can't find an answer by simple research, or don't know what you're looking for, the solution's simple: ask your fellow raiders. In the case of the protection warrior, a fellow tank could inform him that a prot warrior's best bet is to save spell reflect for the demon's shadow bolts. Similarly, a veteran mage could point a struggling raider to /focus macros and sheep timers. Even if you're not a newbie, it's always better to be inquisitive than to not ask questions and cause a wipe, so don't be afraid to ask!

Everyone has a few weaknesses as a raider, but if you learn your own bad habits, you can work to combat them. You don't have to spend all your out-of-WoW downtime theorycrafting and reading boss strategies to be a good endgame raider, but you do have to be proactive about improving yourself. Just remember: those other 24 people lying dead on the floor aren't all that interested in "I'm sorry." The most beautiful words to a wiped raid's ears are "it won't happen again."

Vashj Phase 2 Tips (From a DPS Perspective)

Last night my raid went back to Serpentshrine Cavern to get Vashj's vial for a few more raiders. It took us one wipe to get back into the swing of things, which got me thinking about all the complexity involved in learning the Vashj fight. I thought I'd share a few tips and one handy map that helped convert SSC to farm status for my raid.

Vashj's second phase is really the worst, because you've got to have people handling enchanted elementals and tainted elemental spawns, tanks picking up elite naga, dpsers kiting coilfang striders, and healers healing everyone through all that chaos plus Vashj's forked lightning.

You can cut down on the initial chaos by making sure everyone in your raid doesn't just know strats (you have read the strategies on Bosskillers and MMO-Champion already, right?), but has also taken a look at a map or video of the fight and knows where they should be standing in phase 2.

Work out your positioning ahead of time, especially for the elemental dpsers. There are a lot of labeled maps for phase 2 out there, but most of them are pretty vague and just divide the elemental sides into four areas.

Our favorite map is the one below, by Starslayer of the guild Stack and Die. It not only labels the north, south, east and west sides of Vashj's platform, but it also shows every spawn point for the elementals. This lets you assign your elemental dps to specific spawn points (ie, South side, spawns B & C) instead of just a vague area. Be sure to assign less mana-dependent dpsers (hunters are great for this) to cover areas that have an additional elemental spawn.


Once you have your positioning worked out, it's also worthwhile to remind everyone that healing becomes even more complex than usual in the Vashj fight since the healers will also be the go-to people for tossing tainted cores to eliminate Vashj's four shield generators. This is one of those fights where it's critical that everyone make not dying their number one priority - it's a dps race, and it's unlikely you're going to have the druid mana for more than one or two rebirths.

Everyone needs to do their utmost not to die here: squishy folk should use pots, healthstones, and above all stay out of the way of striders and naga. Be aware that naga cleave and sometimes take a few seconds to get picked up, and avoid standing at the very edge of the outer ring where a newly-spawned naga could one-shot you into oblivion.

Once you've looted the fourth tainted core (and tossed it to the final receiver using your tainted core macro*), hold off on dropping the fourth generator for a second and assess your situation.

How are you looking on striders? One or more coilfang striders up at the start of phase three can really undermine your transition. If you can, finish off any remaining striders below half-health, switch your dps to any existing nagas, and use your timers to deactivate the final generator right before any more adds spawn. This way, you'll be spending most of your time in phase three killing Vashj, and not dealing leftover adds.

Of course, if you've got that kind of coordination going on at the very end of phase two, you're well on your way to beating Vashj anyway. Good luck!
___________________________________
*You do have a macro for tossing tainted cores, don't you? The usual one is:
/use tainted core /y <-------TAINTED CORE TO %T /ra <------ TAINTED CORE TO %T /script SendChatMessage("YOU HAVE THE CORE!!!", "WHISPER", "common", UnitName("target"));

OMG WTF Acronyms

To everyone searching for "WoW WTB" and finding my blog: it stands for "want to buy."

Also, WTS is "want to sell," and Blizzard has a whole list of common World of Warcraft terms and their meanings on their website. You might find it helpful.

As for everyone else, what can I say? It's noob season.

Re-Write Your Guild Note or GMOTD in Color

My guild has just discovered the joy of colored text.

Turns out the WoW client allows for the use of color codes, which means that with a little tweaking, you can paint your guild note, guild information text, or guild message of the day in any color of the rainbow.

This hack lets you change the color of any of these fields for everyone in your guild to see. It uses hexadecimal color codes ("hex codes") to replace the default gray/green colors in the WoW interface.

To change the color of your guild note:

Open up the guild list and select your character's name. Then type:
/run GuildRosterSetPublicNote(GetGuildRosterSelection(),"\124cffXXXXXXYOURNOTE")

replacing YOURNOTE with the actual text of your guild note, and XXXXXX with the hex code of your choice.

To change the color of the guild MOTD:

Type /run GuildSetMOTD"/124cffXXXXXXGMOTDHERE")

replacing GMOTDHERE with the actual text of your message, and XXXXXX with the hex code of your choice.

Note that you'll still need the correct guild permissions to edit colors. That is, if your character doesn't have the power to edit the GMOTD, you won't be able to change its color.


All that code too complicated for your taste? No problem.

Vlacula's Colorizator page can do the work for you. Simply input the words of your choice and select a color, and it will automatically generate your text for you.

From there, just follow the directions to copy and paste into WoW.

Enjoy!

5 Lessons from WoW

image by beigeinside










Over at The Bronze Kettle, Jon tagged me with the "5 (Gaming) Lessons in 5 Years" meme.

I know, I know -- WoW hasn't been out for five years, but that just means you get 40% more lessons in the same blog post! Right? Of course. Here we go then.

1. AOLSPEK SI DA SNGL3 MOST UESFUL INDICA2R OF SOMAON3 I DONT WANT 2 GROUP WIT. (Okay, just typing that hurts.)
   
2. When it comes to long distance relationships, Teamspeak is much cheaper than phone bills.
3. You can always spend more time theorycrafting. Always.
4. 40-man raids are less coordinated in real life.
5. Gamers are surprisingly superstitious.

Tag, you're it! I'd love to see five gaming lessons from:

• Ratshag of Need More Rage
• Matticus of World of Matticus
• Breana of Gun Lovin' Dwarf Chick
• Pike of Aspect of the Hare
• Lance of Saber Squadron

Even if I didn't tag you, feel free to respond with five of your own on your blog or in this post's comments section.

Akil'zon's Gauntlet, The Easy Way

I just got a great tip from a guildie about how to make the gauntlet right before the eagle boss in ZA trivial.

You will require: one rogue.

Background: At the start of Akil'zon's trash is an Amani'shi Lookout, who runs up to the top and begins triggering the waves of eagles and elites which come at your group.

The hax: Send your rogue to sneak up and sap the lookout. Then have your rogue spend the rest of his time keeping the lookout incapacitated, while the rest of your group just takes some nice easy two troll pulls up the hill. Keep him permanently stunlocked (a few freezing traps will also work wonders), and you should never have to worry about eagles or extra elites.

Replace a Bag Without Emptying It

"You can't put non-empty bags in other bags."

For three years, I've been treating this as a basic axiom of World of Warcraft (along with "don't stand in the fire" and "never start a land war in Stranglethorn Vale"), meaning that every time any of my characters wanted to replace an old bag with a larger one, I'd do the following:

1. Painstakingly determine which of the spaces in OneBag or All In One Bags corresponded to which bag slot
2. Empty out the bag I wished to replace (selling or banking items if I didn't have room otherwise)
3. Place the "old" bag inside another bag
4. Plunk the new bag in the now-empty bag slot

Having acquired a [Tattered Hexcloth Sack] from Zul'Aman, my mage had another bag to replace yesterday.

If you've been following the above procedure like I have, you can guess that swapping out an 18-slot bag for a 20-slot bag when your bags are mostly full is no fun.

So you can imagine my surprise and amazement when one of my guildies told me that you don't actually have to empty a bag before replacing it at all! Just take your new bag and drag it over top of the bag you wish to replace. Voila, you're done!

Do I feel silly? Well, yes.

Am I hopeful this will help some other nub out there like me? Absolutely.

Patch Day To-Do List: Addendum

Quick note: it looks like patch 2.3 is also restoring all our video settings to the defaults. So as you're checking and re-checking your patch day to-do list, you might start preparing to re-tweak your video settings accordingly.

Fighting Nalorakk: You Got Your Troll in My Bear! No, You Got Your Bear in My Troll!

Ok, neither bears nor trolls are great tastes, but when it comes to the Amani lord of bears, they go together whether you like it or not. My 10 man raid spent Friday night fighting the good fight against finnicky PTR instance servers and the first boss of Zul'Aman, and here's what I've got to report.

Nalorakk isn't a pushover, but he's not an especially complicated boss either. Best of all, you only have to clear about six pulls to get to him: one AOE pull after you talk to Harrison Jones (it'll have two elites, too), a double troll pat, a couple of angry bears, and then some packs of trolls and trolls riding bears that Nalorakk sends at you as you get closer to him. Quick tip on the bear-riding trolls: their bears' growl debuff stacks, so be sure to space your tanks far enough away from each other.

Once you get through that trash, you'll need two tanks for the bear boss himself; one for each phase. Nalorakk will start as a troll, and alternate between troll and bear form. In troll form he casts mangle, which increases bleed effects. Then in bear form he hits whoever's tanking him with a lacerate and rend. (You can remove his mangle with stoneform, but if you've got it, save it for that emergency missed taunt.) Put your better geared tank on bear form, and have your tanks swap each time Nalorakk shifts to bear or troll. Finally, you want your tanks to stand on top of each other so that when he uses his 14k brutal swipe attack, its damage will be split between both of them.

Aside from the tanking, it's pretty straightforward. In troll form he'll charge at random and can cleave anyone around his target, so spread out. In bear form his deafening roar will damage everyone for ~1.3k and silence the raid for two seconds. Other than that, he's a tank and spank with 1.7 million health, so pile on the damage. The best kind of bear-troll-thing is a dead bear-troll-thing, after all.

Stopcasting in 2.3: A Return to Button-Mashing

New readers, please note! This post was based on theorycrafting from an old build of the patch 2.3 PTR. Button mashing is not viable in WoW 2.3. Instead, remove /stopcasting from your old macros, keep Quartz, and continue to try to start your next cast as soon as you enter latency phase. If you hit your button too early, it will not cause your current cast to fail (as it did in 2.2), but it may cause you to incur a global cooldown penalty.

GMW readers know I've talked about using /stopcasting macros with Quartz before, but with the PTRs up, it's time to take a look forward at how spell casts will be changing in patch 2.3. Here's the relevant portion of the patch notes:

"Client spell cast requests are now sent to the server even if your player is already casting another spell. This eliminates the need for /stopcasting in macros to compensate for latency."

How is this different from how casts in WoW work now?
Right now, casters who aren't using /stopcast macros lose cast time to lag on any spell which takes longer than the global cooldown to cast. Quartz is a cast bar mod with a built-in latency indicator which can currently be used to time when to hit a macro so that the client (your end) will let you force-stop your old spell and begin casting a spell before it heard back from the server saying that the spell was complete. Timed correctly, spell #1 would complete and spell #2 would start with minimal time lost due to your own lag or server latency. This requires a caster to carefully watch her cast bar and then hit her macro one time once the cast reaches the safe zone.

What does this mean for casters after the patch?
The change in 2.3 means that your client won't have to wait for a “go ahead” from the server in order for you to be able to start casting a new spell. The client will no longer lock you out of starting a new cast, which means that you'll be able to repeatedly hit your cast button until the server knows your last cast has finished. The first attempted cast which reaches the server after it registers your last cast as completed will go through. In essence, the effect will be like having v2.2 /stopcasts already macroed into all your spells. In practice, it means that we'll all get to go back to mashing our buttons instead of perfectly timing a single tap of our macros.

In spite of this change, Quartz will remain a useful tool, because it gives you a visual readout of when your spell should be finished. You can use the Quartz cast bar to spam your cast button just before the cast bar reaches the “safe zone.” Here's a look at the difference in the two approaches:

Summary
In 2.3, /stopcast macros will only be useful for interrupting spells (i.e., stopping your fireball cast to counterspell your target), and not for decreasing cast lag. Old macros which served the second function may now cancel your casts if used, so you should delete or alter them accordingly to remove /stopcast. To maximize your spell casts in 2.3 and beyond, get a cast bar with a latency indicator, and spam the button for your next spell when your cast bar approaches the latency phase.

How to Call the Headless Horseman

A former knight of the Silver Hand, the Headless Horseman is a cursed paladin who lurks within the Scarlet Monastery graveyard during Hallow's End (October 18th-November 1st). He's a fun fight with a small loot table of Heroic-level purples, plus fun things like temporary BOE broom mounts and a noncombat pumpkin pet. Sure, you may still be hungover from Brewfest or punch-drunk off the PTRs, but Halloween is on the way! Here's the Girl Meets WoW guide to summoning and defeating WoW's first five-man holiday boss.

First, find a group of level 70 players and take a field trip to the Scarlet Monastery. The graveyard is the first instance portal on the left, and you'll need to lazily clear through two hallways and a room to get to the horseman. On the right side of the SM GY grounds is a Pumpkin Shrine, which gives the daily quest [70] Call the Headless Horseman. Someone in your party must accept this quest, and then click on the Loosely Turned Soil behind the shrine to place a Dreary Candle.

The Horseman will then aggro on whoever placed the candle, starting the fight. Here's how the fight works:

Phase One
Allow your tank to pick up aggro on the Horseman, and dps him down (watch out for cleaves). At 1% he will toss his head in the air and then wander around disoriented (and immune to your attacks), and the Head of the Horseman will become active. It has ~27k health, and you'll need to take a third of that off to start the next phase.

Phase Two
The Head and the Horseman will recombine at the start of Phase Two. During this phase, the Horseman can Conflagrate, so ranged and healers need to keep their distance. As before, dps him to 1%, he'll separate, and then you need take off another third of the head's health. Note that after he separates, the Horseman will also whirlwind this time, so spread out and drop the head as fast as you can.

Phase Three
Head and Horseman will recombine again, and will toss out four Pulsing Pumpkins, which grow into adds which can crit for about 1k on cloth. They have about 10k health apiece, so while you could AOE them, you might just want to have your tank pick them up and keep dpsing - they'll go away when he dies. Drop the Horseman back down to 1%, and he'll toss his head again - kill it, and you win.

How Many Times a Day Can You Summon the Horseman?
In theory, you could farm him indefinitely within the constraints of the four instances per hour limit, but keep in mind that he's summoned by a daily quest, so once everyone in your party has summoned him, you'll have to either bring someone new in, or wait 24 hours to be able to get the Call the Headless Horseman quest again.

What Does the Horseman Drop?
The Horseman's Helm - A dps plate helm.
The Horseman's Signet Ring - A dps caster ring.
Ring of Ghoulish Delight - A melee dps ring.
Witching Band - A healing ring.
Hallowed Helm - This has no stats; it's a pumpkin you can wear on your head.
Magic Broom - A temporary level 40 ground mount. The most likely to drop.
Swift Magic Broom - A temporary epic ground mount.
Flying Broom - A temporary regular flying mount.
Swift Flying Broom - A temporary epic flying mount. The rarest broom.
Sinister Squashling (BOP noncombat pet) - An evil-looking walking pumpkin pet. When idle, he folds up into himself and "sits down" as a jack-o-lantern.
Tricky Treat - Candy that increases your movement speed for 30 seconds.

Sound complicated? It's really not that bad, but if my walkthrough has you curious or if you just can't wait until the 18th, you can always go watch a video of the fight (warning: very odd music selection).

Are You Forgetting Your Free Gems?

I've got to admit it; when it comes to WoW, I can be incredibly forgetful. When you're trying to remember whether you've done a certain quest or still have that stack of terocone, having three characters in Outlands can make things awful confusing. (Instant mail between alts has been a godsend in this regard.) Just today, however, I remembered something really basic that I've forgotten to do on any of my characters lately -- going out to Nagrand every month to pick up my salary of free Consortium gems.

Didn't know you you'd been missing out? It's true. If you're friendly or higher with the Consortium, you can pick up a new set of gems from Gehze in Nagrand at the start of every month. The higher your reputation, the better your chances of getting good-quality gems. Even if you're only friendly, it's a nice little gift you can use to pay the repair bills or help level up your alt's jewelcrafting. But be forewarned: if you don't pick up your gems by the end of the month, they won't roll over to next month. So don't forget!

The Zen of Mage Macros

My class leader has long advocated the use of macros "to simplify your life and give you inner peace." While inner peace isn't usually a concept I associate with WoW, I do consider macros one of the basic tools every mage should have in his arsenal. The farther you progress on your mage, the more complex you may find your job -- in a high end raid, you could be chain sheeping one target, dpsing another, and casting detect magic on a third. The combination of spells, targets, and buttons to click can get rather complicated, which is where macros come in.

A good macro can combine several separate actions into one, allowing you to automatically cast trinkets when their cooldown wears off, polymorph your sheep target without losing your dps target, or cast all of your buffs on yourself with a single button. This post is focused on some of my favorite macros as a primarily PvE mage, and is greatly indebted to Zarakaar's Mage Macro Guide on the WoW forums, as well as Cogwheel's Complete Macro Guide. Oh, and if you've totally new to macros and looking for a basic introduction, check out the official World of Warcraft Macro Guide for some basic pointers.

Toggleable Rank 1/Rank 14 Frostbolt
Rank 1 Frostbolt is a handy kiting tool in PvP or PvE, since it takes 1.5 seconds to cast, only costs 25 mana, and creates the same 40% movement slowdown as higher rank Frostbolts (albeit for 5 seconds instead of 9). This macro will cast your highest rank Frostbolt unless you're holding down the alt key, in which case it'll cast rank 1.

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast [modifier:alt] Frostbolt(Rank 1); Frostbolt

Here, "#showtooltip" allows your button to gray out if you're out of range, and "/stopcasting" gives you built-in functionality for use with the Quartz add-on. (Note: the need for /stopcasting is supposed to be fixed in Patch 2.3, and macros may have to be updated accordingly.)

Stop Everything and Counterspell!
Interrupts usually need to happen fast. This macro will interrupt your current cast and immediately CS your target. You can add an optional line like "/s %t Counterspelled!" if you need to coordinate your interrupts with other raiders.

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast Counterspell

Someone Has to Keep Up Scorch
But why should it take up a button slot? Use this macro to cast Fireball, or hold down alt to cast Scorch.

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast [modifier:alt] Scorch; Fireball

Arcane Missile Spam
If you're a button masher, this macro lets you spam your AM button without breaking your Arcane Missles before they finish.

/cast [noChanneling:Arcane Missiles] Arcane Missiles

One-Button Thermostat
Toggleable Frost or Fire Ward.

/cast [modifier:alt] Frost Ward; Fire Ward

Eat and Drink
Since you have an unlimited supply of food and water, why not combine eating and drinking into a single button?

/use [nomodifier] Conjured Glacier Water
/use [nomodifier] Conjured Croissant

Self Buff in a Can
This macro creates a single button you can hit to apply all of your self buffs. Note that Molten Armor can be replaced with Ice Armor, according to your preferences.

/castsequence [target=player] reset=60 Dampen Magic, Arcane Intellect, Molten Armor;

Mana Gems in a Can
Hit this macro repeatedly to conjure all five mana gems. (If you don't carry around all five -- and I didn't until I got my Serpent-Coil Braid -- you can delete the ones you don't want. I recommend carrying three for most people.)

/castsequence reset=60 Conjure Mana Emerald, Conjure Mana Ruby, Conjure Mana Citrine, Conjure Mana Jade, Conjure Mana Agate

Ready, Focus, Polymorph
This is a one-button sheeping macro which sets your current target as your focus if you don't already have a focus. Clicking it again will resheep your focus without changing your target. To manually change poly targets before your old focus is dead, hold down alt while hitting the macro button.

#show Polymorph
/clearfocus [modifier:alt]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]; [target=focus,dead]
/clearfocus [target=focus,help]
/stopcasting
/cast [target=focus,exists,harm] Polymorph; Polymorph

Hoverable Decursing
When used with a raid frames set up to display curses, you can hover your mouse over a cursed player and hit this macro to decurse them. I was able to drop Decursive by using this with Grid.

/cast [target=mouseover,exists] Remove Lesser Curse

Use My Trinket Whenever It's Up
This macro will try to use whatever trinket you have in your bottom trinket slot every time you cast Fireball. To specify a specific trinket instead of a slot, just write out its name, like "/use Xi'ri's Gift".

#showtooltip Fireball
/use 14
/stopcasting
/cast Fireball

The PoM Pyro 'I Win' Macro
For arcane/fire mages, this is a one-button macro which pops Presence of Mind, Arcane Power, and whatever trinkets you have equipped, and then insta-Pyroblasts your target. A simple way to put your enemies in a world of pain.

#showtooltip Pyroblast
/cast Presence of Mind
/stopcasting
/cast Arcane Power
/stopcasting
/use 13
/stopcasting
/use 14
/stopcasting
/cast Pyroblast

More Macro Tips

• Macros are stored locally on your computer, so if you play on multiple computers, you'll need to copy them over from your account folder. (World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\Youraccountname\macros-cache.txt contains your general macros, and World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\Youraccountname\Yourrealmname\Yourcharactername\macros-cache.txt your character-specific macros.)
• If you want to cast a particular rank of a spell, you can either shift-click or drag it from your spell book, or include in in parentheses -- i.e., "Frost Nova(Rank 1)". Without a rank specified, your character will automatically cast the highest spell rank.
• I've used the Alt key as a modifier for all these, but you can replace that with other keys or with mouse buttons. For instance, "cast [button:2] Frostbolt; Fireball" would let you left click for Fireball and right click for Frostbolt.
• For a more comprehensive list of mage macros, including more trinket and cooldown macros and PvP-focused macros, try the list of useful mage macros at Wowwiki.

Have a question, suggestion, or another good macro to share? Leave a comment below!

DEing Auction House Greens for Fun and Profit

Kat of Liquid Silver has a fascinating post up about how to make money off the Auction House by min bidding on tBC greens and disenchanting them. Even tipping her enchanter, she's making a 40% profit by only bidding on any level 64-70 green under 3g50s and reselling the disenchanted mats.

My mage is an enchanter, but he's also a tailor (aren't we all?), so in my constant hording of arcane dust for imbued netherweave, I usually forget just how profitable selling stacks of enchanting mats can be. I'll have to give this strategy a shot.

How to Get to Level 70 in One Minute

I was checking through my search traffic last night, and I saw that someone had reached this blog searching for "how do I get to level 70 in one minute." Once I got done falling out of my chair laughing, I decided I should provide a helpful guide. So without further ado, here's Girl Meets Wow's three easy steps that will get YOU to level 70 in World of Warcraft... in one minute.

Step One: Buy the Burning Crusade expansion.
Step Two: Level your character to 99.9% of the way through level 69.
Step Three: Kill a wolf.

The Five Raiding Addons You Need

Karthis at Of Teeth and Claws has a nice post up about the four types of addons that every raider needs, with examples of each. I thought I'd share which mod I use for each of his categories, plus one bonus addon that I consider essential for casters.

Encounter Adviser - the mod that tells you when a boss will do what
I'm currently using Deadly Boss Mods on my mage, but some recent comparisons with my fellow guildies have me almost convinced to switch back to BigWigs.

Enhanced Raid Frames - the mod that shows the status of your fellow raiders
Since I'm a dps caster, I really like the condensed view of the raid that Grid provides - in the addon world, it's the raid frame mod with phenomenal cosmic power... and itty bitty little living space.

Statistics Gathering - the mod that lets you review your leet skillz after the fight
My raid leader uses WoWWebStats, which means I don't have to install an addon like Recount. More FPS for me!

Threat Meter - the mod that lets you - OMG I HAS AGGRO! *invis*
I use Omen for this, and highly recommend it over KLH Threatmeter.

Bonus Category for Casters:
Modular Cast Bar - the mod that helps you reduce the effects of casting delay caused by lag
So far, Quartz is the only worthwhile mod in this category. Quartz provides a new cast bar that will show you how much of your cast is longer than necessary due to latency issues, allowing you to shave off some of this time with /stopcasting macros. Here's an example of a /stopcasting macro for fireball:

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast Fireball

If you hit your /stopcast macro in the red latency phase of the Quartz cast bar, it will allow you to begin casting your next spell immediately, but by the time the signal to stop casting gets from your computer to the server, your first cast will already have been completed. Thus, combining Quartz and /stopcasting can greatly increase heal speed and caster dps, especially on spells with long cast times.

More On Ram Racing

Now that WoW patch 2.2 is live, I've been getting a lot of traffic to my Brewfest Quest Guide, and fielding a number of questions about how the racing rams work for the quests This Is Ram Racing... Almost and There and Back Again. So for those of you looking for more info on the rams, here are some tips and tricks.

Using the Reins
The thing to remember about the reins is that if you stop using them, your ram will slow down. Click your reins at an even pace (ie, one click every couple seconds) to maintain a constant speed. At the higher speeds, the ram seems to take longer to slow down even if you're not clicking, but nonetheless, if you stop clicking the reins, he will shift into a lower gear. If you want to get him up to a gallop, just click at a faster pace.

Apple Barrels
Apples make rams forget about how tired they are. If you see an apple barrel, move your ram towards it to clear all your exhaustion debuffs. You have to be within about five yards of the barrel for your debuffs to clear (in the picture above, my wolpertinger is close enough to clear the debuffs, but any farther away would be too far). Finally, keep in mind that if your ram reaches 100 debuffs and slows to a crawl, the apple barrel will not cure his exhaustion, just the stacking debuffs, , so if your ram is getting close to 100 and you're still a ways away, slow down if you can.

Daily Keg Delivery Quest
Once you do There and Back Again, you can immediately do the daily quest after it, but there's no yellow exclamation point to tell you the quest exists. For Alliance, talk to Neill Ramstein to start it; he should have a prompt that says something like "Do you still need any help with the kegs?"

"Ram racing is easier than it seems, but it takes skill to master. Just use the reins, eat apples if you can, and avoid exhausting your ram."
- Pol Amberstill, Ram Riding Apprentice

Holiday Guide: Brewfest

New readers: Think your Brewfest quests may be bugged? This guide was made before Brewfest went live, but I've put up a new post with the latest updates on Brewfest bugs and hotfixes.

Brewfest is a new holiday event in World of Warcraft that will run October 2-16th. Based on the German Oktoberfest tradition, Brewfest quests can be completed for tickets, which may be exchanged for Bavarian-style costumes, collectible steins, and even a ram mount, which will be highly desirable to Horde players. This guide provides a quick breakdown of the Brewfest quests and repeatable dailies to help you get your new mount, non-combat pet, and eyesight-enhancing goggles. For more information and screenshots, you might want to check out MMO-Champion's Brewfest guide.

Where do I go?
Most of the quests are located in Durotar for Horde or Kharanos for Alliance. There are also Brewfest beer gardens located outside Silvermoon City, Darnassus, Undercity, Stormwind, Thunder Bluff, the Exodar, and Shattrath.

Brewfest Events
Dark Iron Dwarf Attacks
Dark Iron dwarves will try to steal the Brewfest Kegs every hour on the half hour. Pick up a Complimentary Brewfest Sampler by targeting target one of the Barkers from any brewery and /waving. He'll toss you a sampler, which you can then drink. Once it's empty, chuck the empty mug at a marauding dwarf. Each Dark Iron attacker you hit will earn you a stacking buff (up to 25). Talk to the Brewfest Rewards vendor to be rewarded with a ticket for each dwarfs you hit.

Brewfest Quests
Catch the Wild Wolpertinger
Wolpertingers are invisible jackalope-like creatures. Essentially we're talking a rabbit with antlers, wings, and a set of tiny fangs. This quest will reward you with your own Wolpertinger Tankard, which houses an adorable noncombat pet that is only visible to you or to characters who are drunk. To catch the wild wolpertingers, first drink enough to get your character totally wasted. You'll have several seconds of "completely smashed" to target the wolpertinger before you need to drink more to be able to see it. Then use the provided net to ensnare the wee beasties. Tip: to see the wolpertinger more clearly, you might want to go into your video settings and temporarily turn off the drunk effect by switching off full screen glow.

Now This is Ram Racing... Almost
Learn how to ram race with this quest. (Tip: if you drop the Ram Racing Reins, you can replace them by talking to the apprentice standing next to the quest dude.) Your ram steed has four speeds, but can get fatigued if you make him run too fast for too long. Keep an eye on your ram's Fatigue debuff -- if it gets to 100, you'll have to stop for 15 seconds. Keep clicking the reins to shift between speeds. You can also run your ram by an apple bucket to remove the debuffs. After you complete this quest, you can then do the quest There And Back Again, followed by the ram racing daily quest. Update: Wowinsider is reporting that these quests can actually be done once every 12 hours, so I guess that makes them "twice dailies?"

Did Someone Say, "Souvenir?"
Turn in your voucher and receive a Brewfest Stein from the festival greeter. You can refill your mug from the kegs throughout the grounds.

Pink Elekks on Parade
Pick this up at the main festival grounds, along with Catch the Wild Wolpertinger. For this quest, you'll have to travel to each of the three other festival beer gardens for Alliance or Horde, get drunk, and chase off the aforementioned Pink Elekks. This quest has now been fixed so that everyone can pick it up, and rewards you with 40 tickets.

Seek the Saboteurs
After a Dark Iron Dwarf attack, you may notice a set of Dark Iron Sabotage Plans on the ground. Loot them, and you'll get this quest to find Coren Direbrew in the Grim Guzzler in BRD. He's hiding in the bar behind the plans seller. Reward: Dark Iron Tankard (a level 54 off-hand which you can drink from).

Brewfest Daily Quests
There and Back Again
This is a delivery quest with a build-in time limit. Pick up the quest at the festival grounds, and you'll be given a racing ram. Head into the nearby town (Kharanos or Durotar) and grab a keg from the NPC standing next to the stack of barrels. Run your ram back to the festival and drop off the keg. The first time you do this quest, you have to deliver three kegs in four minutes, which will earn you 15 Brewfest prize tickets. After that, the quest will give you five tickets for each keg you deliver in the time allotted, with bonus time added every time you deliver a keg. You should be able to get 40-50 tickets a day this way, once you get the hang of the ram. If you're looking for some more help getting started with your ram, I've written some additional ram riding tips.

Bark for the Barleybrews!Thunderbrews/T'chali's Voodoo Brewery/Drohn's Distillery!
These repeatable quests require you to take a ram to the four Brewfest flags (the ones with the big mugs on them) in Ironforge or Orgrimmar and promote a given brew. Since these quests were bugged on the PTRs, it's unclear whether you can complete the quest for both of the rival brewers, or if you have to pick one. You can only bark for one faction each day, and the quest is on a four minute timer.

Brewfest Rewards
600 tickets - "Honorary Brewer" Hand Stamp
This stamp certifies you as an official Brewfest ram rider, allowing you to purchase both the normal level 40 Brewfest Ram (for 10g) or the Swift Brewfest Riding Ram (100g). The mounts are permanent, and are the same for both Horde and Alliance.
100 tickets - Eyesight Enhancing Romance Goggles ("Guaranteed to make EVERYONE look attractive!")
Equip these goggles, and you'll view every character or NPC you meet as either a gnome (Alliance) or orc (Horde). Sadly, the goggles have a 7 day duration.
Other, less awesome things to redeem your tickets for: Brewfest Pony Keg, Brewfest hats, Brewfest regalia, various food & drinks.

How to Stab Solarian in the Eye

Now that patch 2.2 has come out, the new Solarian mechanic makes her laughably easy. No more bouncing debuffs, no need for arcane resist gear. She's pretty much Baron Geddon if he spawned intermittent packs of adds. The new wrath debuff is incredibly easy to see: your character turns an evocation shade of blue with lightning bolts coming out of you, and then you have about 6 seconds to run away from everyone before you get "bombed" up into the air. Anyone within about 10 yards will also get knocked into the air, and unlike the person with the debuff, will take falling damage. We positioned ourselves in a close semicircle in front of her and went to town. As soon as you get your raiders to remember Running Away 101, this fight's a cakewalk.

How Do I Get My Wife or Girlfriend to Play World of Warcraft?

This is one of the most common questions girls who play WoW get asked (well, polite questions, at least). While some guys appreciate having Warcraft as a solo distraction, many seem to really wish they could convince their significant other to play, too. Thanks to Blizzard's 10-day free trial, it's incredibly easy to let your wife or girlfriend give WoW a try without any real commitment. But how can you ensure that she'll actually want to stick with the game? To a certain degree, that depends on your SO, but here's some helpful advice.

1. Encourage character creation
Even the staunchest non-gamer can get sucked in by the character creation window. Give her a chance to play around with it, and feel free to offer some basic advice on the difference between classes and how that affects playstyle. Admittedly, you know your SO best, but as a general rule, just remember that the hesitant newbie WoW player probably doesn't want a ten minute speech on the merits of different racial bonuses. If your wife really wants to play a troll rogue or a human priest, your role is to smile and be supportive of this choice.

2. Be patient!
Yes, you've killed wolves in Coldridge Valley half a dozen times. Remember though that she's just figuring out this crazy new thing called a "quest log," and might actually want to, well, read that wolf-killing quest before she goes off slaughtering every animal in the forest. Come to think of it, for a while my boyfriend had to comfort me whenever I killed wolves, on account of the terrible pained yelp they emit when they die.

3. Don't hover
A lot of times I'll actually be intimidated to pick up a new game around someone who's already good at it. Even if you're watching her thinking "yes, she's finally playing WoW, my life is complete!" she may be paranoid that you're quietly trying not to laugh as she dies to a flock of enraged moonkin. Make sure she's enjoying herself, but don't watch over her shoulder every second.

4. Do be helpful
"Lrn2thottbot" is for the random nub who whispers you in Un'goro asking where he can find pterrordaxes, not for your significant other. If she asks you where the nearest reagent vendor is, don't tell her to ask a city guard. Walk over to her monitor and give some directions if she asks you for help.

5. Don't power level her
Power levelling's nice when you're trying to blow through content you've already seen three times already. But when you're experiencing the game for the first time, it ruins the initial experience. If she wants to play with you, offer to roll a new alt instead of bringing your level 70 to the blood elf start zone.

6. Do save her from gankers
Nothing can be more frustrating than getting ganked repeatedly if you're trying to quest and not PvP, especially for someone new to WoW. Rolling a character on a PvE server is the obvious solution, but if your toons are already on a PvP server, be sure to explain how PvP flagging works, and be ready to come to the rescue if needed.